OTAGO PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT GAZETTE.

PUBLISHED BY AUTHORITY.

All Public Notifications which appear in this Gazette, with any Official Signature thereunto annexed are to be considered as Official Communications made to those Persons to whom they may relate, and are to be obeyed accordingly.

JAMES MACANDREW, Superintendent.

VOL. IV.] THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1861. [No. 132.

INTER-COLONIAL STEAM SERVICE.

ARTICLES OF AGREEMENT, made the thirty-first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, BETWEEN SAMUEL CLARK, of Sydney, New South Wales, Gentleman, Attorney of and for the Inter-Colonial Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, limited, duly appointed by power of attorney, under the common Seal of the said Company, dated the seventeenth day of October, one thousand eight hundred and sixty, of the one part, and His Honor JAMES MACANDREW, Superintendent of the Province of Otago, New Zealand, of the other part : WHEREAS the said Samuel Clark, as the Attorney of the said Company, has offered to run a Monthly Mail Service, by means of first-class steamers, between Melbourne, in the colony of Victoria, and the Provinces of Canterbury, and Otago, in New Zealand, for the period of Two years, from the first day of January instant, for a joint annual subsidy of Three Thousand and Five Hundred Pounds. AND WHEREAS the said offer has been accepted by the said Provincial Governments respectively, and the said Provincial Government of Otago have agreed to pay to the said Company the annual sum of Two Thousand Pounds for the said period of two years as their quota of the said subsidy upon the terms and under and subject to the covenants, provisos, and agreements hereinafter contained. NOW THESE PRESENTS WITNESS, that in pursuance of the said agreement, and in consideration of the annual subsidy of Two Thousand Pounds to be paid in manner hereinafter mentioned, the said Samuel Clark, as attorney of and for the said Company, hereby covenants and agrees (subject to the sanction and approval of the General Board of Directors of the said Company in London) to and with the said James Macandrew, Superintendent as aforesaid, and the Provincial Government of Otago, as follows, namely—That the said Company shall and will establish and maintain a monthly mail service, by means of the first-class steamers Victory and Prince Alfred, or other first-class steamers of equal capacity, tonnage, and horse-power, between Melbourne, aforesaid, and the Port of Otago and the Port of Lyttleton in the said province of Canterbury, for the said period of two years, to be computed from the said first day of January, instant. And that the steamers performing the said service shall leave the Port of Melbourne every month within twenty-four hours after the arrival there of the mail from England; PROVIDED that such arrival shall take place before the sixteenth day of every month, beyond which time the said vessels shall not be bound to wait for the said mail; and shall make the Port of Otago the first principal port of arrival and the last of departure to Melbourne, aforesaid; and shall call on their way to and from Otago, at the Bluff Harbour, in the said Province of Otago, for the purpose of landing passengers and mails; PROVIDED that in case the Provincial Governments of