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your Honor to refer the matter to the decision of the people, but that they desire to make regulations and to fix the price themselves without consulting the electors by means of a new and enlarged election.

Your Honor is aware that we only consented to hold office in the Executive Council during the present transitional state of affairs, in order to aid in carrying through the business of the present Session, and in hastening on the convention of a new and enlarged Council, which it is hoped may represent the real sentiments of the people, and devote itself not to carping garrulity and useless talking, but to actual business and the public good—a Council in which the public good may predominate over private interests.

Under all the circumstances of the case, we feel called upon to tender to your Honor our resignations as members of your Executive Council, and at the same time to express our firm conviction, that whoever may be your Honor’s advisers, you will never permit the rights of the settlers, and the interests of posterity, to be perilled by selfishness, or sacrificed to faction.—We have the honor to be, Sir, your Honor’s most obedient humble Servants,

JAMES MACANDREW.
WILLIAM H. REYNOLDS.

To the Provincial Council of Otago.

Gentlemen,—The Executive Council having tendered their resignation, and negotiations being in progress for the appointment of their successors, I am of course precluded from accepting the resignations until these negotiations are completed. Meanwhile, it is my desire to put you in possession of the steps that have been taken, and to satisfy you that no time is being lost.

Without adopting any of the expressions in the letter of resignation (herewith enclosed) that may be found to savour of irritation, I nevertheless think its statements on matters of public business so clear and concise, as to be important, not less to the public than to your own House.

Having considered the resolutions referred to in the resignation, I was much at a loss to comprehend their meaning, because most of the queries they present having been substantively answered in the shape of bills and other documents already on the table of your House. But on sending for Mr. Gillies as the mover of these Resolutions, he at once assured me that the policy and measures propounded in the opening address, and assented to in your reply, would be carried out, he believed, without a dissenting voice, provided only that Mr. Macandrew, who had been left in the principal charge of them, should be withdrawn from the Executive.

It is not my object to make any comment upon so frank an avowal of personal feeling having obtained so great an ascendency, and for which there may or may not be sufficient cause; my only desire is, so far as I can, to comply with the wishes of your House: and most happy was I to find that, on the condition proposed, the rights of the people were to be maintained and the public business proceeded with, whilst Mr. Gillies himself, at my request, undertook to find another member of your House to unite with him as a new Executive.

I was further assured by Mr. Gillies, notwithstanding a statement in the resolutions referred to, that the present Council had no intention to legis-

late upon the land question, and he fully concurred with me that this matter should be left for a Superintendent and enlarged Council to be elected by the people, in the full knowledge that such Superintendent and Council are to legislate upon this all-important subject in accordance with the wants and wishes of the community, as expressed by themselves in the parties voted for by the electors.

W. Cargill, Superintendent.

Superintendent’s Office,
Dunedin, 22nd November 1854.

To the Members of the Executive Council of the Province of Otago.

GENTLEMEN,—It has been my duty, in accordance with resolutions of the Otago Council, and with the wishes of the House, as explained to me by the mover of those resolutions, to use all diligence in selecting a new Executive; and having succeeded in this object, I hereby accept your resignations.

I have the honor to be,
Gentlemen,
Your most obedient servant,
W. CARGILL,
Superintendent.

Dunedin, 23rd November 1854.

To the Provincial Council.

GENTLEMEN,—With reference to my communication of 21st inst., I have now the satisfaction to inform you that Mr. Archibald Anderson and Mr. William Hunter Reynolds, have taken office in place of the late Executive Council, whose resignation was accepted.

It would be worse than unprofitable to make any allusion to what had led to the stoppage of business, including the extreme measure of withholding the public supplies—a state of things which I trust will have no recurrence. I would only observe, that it is ever my own wish, and doubt not it will be yours also, to have respect for the opinions and interests of that public with whose business we are entrusted, and to whom, under God, we are all strictly responsible, so that each in his place, and to the best of his ability, should now amicably proceed with the business as propounded and agreed to at the opening of the present Session.

W. CARGILL,
Superintendent.

Superintendent’s Office,
Dunedin, 23rd November 1854.

HEREBY NOTIFY that I have appointed the following Gentlemen to be Members of the Executive Council of the Province of Otago:—

ARCHIBALD ANDERSON, Esquire.
WILLIAM HUNTER REYNOLDS, Esquire.

W. CARGILL,
Superintendent.

Printed for the Provincial Government by DANIEL CAMPBELL, Dunedin.