MESSAGE No. 5.
Superintendent’s Office,
Dunedin, 5th December, 1854.

To the Provincial Council of Otago.

GENTLEMEN,—I have the pleasure to inform you that the Ordinances passed in your first Session have all been allowed by the Officer Administering the Government. The Despatch to this effect will be laid before you, together with Despatch accompanying “Acts of the General Assembly,” and of which Acts copies will be handed in for the use of your House.

The Otago “Provincial Council Ordinance,” Session II, No. 1, has been acquiesced in by the Superintendent, and I doubt not will be approved and given effect to by the Governor with all the despatch which is called for by the circumstances of the Province.

The Superintendent has approved, on 4th Dec. 1854, of the “Board of Audit Ordinance,” Session II, No. 2.

It is my duty to request the reconsideration of the alterations made by your House upon the Immigration Ordinance. The only settlement in this Province is that of the Scotch Colony within the Otago Hundreds, and these colonists are anxiously looking forward under the present measure to an influx of their friends from the old country; not exclusively so, more than heretofore, but fairly and legitimately, in proportion to their own numbers. The substitution therefore of the words “Great Britain and Ireland,” for those in the original Bill “from Scotland and other places,” must be held as a sinking of the Otago Settlement, and depriving it of a name and place to which it is entitled, as having taken the lead in colonising this Province. When other Hundreds shall have been proclaimed in accordance with the wants of future parties, the wishes of these parties in regard to the selection of labour are fully provided for by the words “other places” in the original Bill, but this can be no reason for ignoring the fact of the Otago Settlement as it now stands alone in the Province, and whose money it is that is now to be applied. The same objection must also attach, and in greater force, to the introduction of a London agent. If it be meant that such agent is only to act as an integral part of the responsible agency constituted in Edinburgh, his services, owing to distance, must be unavailable. But if it be meant to institute a rival agency for selecting labour, then, besides that the two-fold machinery could not work, neither London, nor the object in establishing a rival agency there, would be such as to give satisfaction to the body of the Otago community.

The vote of your House to appropriate “£300 for the payment of salaries of officers in the service of Government and contingent accounts up to the 1st December next,” is found by the Provincial Solicitor to have been irregular and illegal. His opinion will be laid before you, and I would again respectfully urge upon you in my own name, and that of the public well-being, to proceed with the Supplies in the usual and regular course.

W. Cargill,
Superintendent.

DESPATCH transmitted with the Provincial Council Bill to His Excellency the Officer administering the Government, by His Honor the Superintendent.

Otago,
Superintendent’s Office,
Dunedin, 30th November, 1854.

SIR,—I have the honor to transmit for your approval “An Ordinance to increase the number of Members of the Provincial Council,” and also the number of Electoral Districts and Polling Places, and to provide for making up a new Electoral Roll,” for this Province.

The measure is much wanted because of the Council being altogether too small, so that, in the event of being divided in opinion on policy, or nearly so, the effect is, that the casual absence of even a single member is sufficient to paralyse and bring the public business to a stand; and this state of things is the rather induced by the fact, and the knowledge of it, that the Superintendent has no power to dissolve and throw the adjustment in such a case upon the Electors, whilst the power of dissolution is at the postal distance of several months. But the more immediate and urgent call for an enlargement of the Council is with a view to the sense of the people being unmistakably and immediately taken upon the land question, by means of a new Election, under the full knowledge that the Superintendent and Council so elected, are, upon that vital subject, to declare and act upon the expressed wants and wishes of the people.

I am therefore respectfully to request that if your Excellency should approve of the enclosed Bill, the present Council be forthwith dissolved, and writs issued for the new election at the earliest possible date; or, in the event of the Bill being disallowed, (which I do not however anticipate,) still that the present Council be dissolved, and a new one called.

I have the honor to be,
Your Excellency’s
Most obedient Servant,
W. Cargill,
Superintendent.

To His Excellency the Officer Administering the Government of New Zealand.

Superintendent’s Office,
Dunedin, 7th Dec. 1854.

I HEREBY NOTIFY that William Henry Cutten, Esquire, tendered to me, on the 6th November last, the resignation of his seat in the Executive Council, and his office of Provincial Secretary, which resignation was accepted.

W. Cargill,
Superintendent.

Colonial Secretary’s Office,
Auckland, 7th November, 1854.

SIR,—In forwarding to you the enclosed notice of the Registrar-General, issued in the Government Gazette of yesterday’s date, No. 35, I have the honor, by direction of His Excellency the Officer administering the Government, to request that, as it is of the utmost importance to the welfare of the Colonial public that the Marriage Act recently passed by the General Assembly should be properly initiated, your Honor will be good enough to cause this Notice to be published in the Provincial Gazette, and also in each of the newspapers published in the Province.

I have the honor to be,
SIR,
Your very obedient Servant,
ANDREW SINCLAIR,
Colonial Secretary.

His Honor the Superintendent,
Province of Otago.

MARRIAGE ACT.

OFFICIATING MINISTERS FOR 1855.

The attention of the persons or person within the Colony of New Zealand, in whom is vested Ecclesiastical authority over any of the...