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effect, under the proper head in the Estimates—as the Bill will provide for the repayment of the Expenditure to the Provincial Treasury.

An advantageous offer having been made for the erection of an Electric Telegraph between Dunedin and Port Chalmers, with provision for extension to the Heads, if necessary, and, having considered the general wish expressed in your House that such a communication should be established when circumstances warranted, and further influenced by your resolution of last Session, and the desire of the commercial community, I have entered into an engagement for the immediate erection of a line of telegraph between the parts indicated.

I hoped, in anticipation of your wishes, to have made an arrangement by which the Mail for England would have reached Melbourne immediately before the departure of the mail steamer for Great Britain. The sum asked for the mail service necessary to carry out this arrangement was considerably beyond my expectation, and, in consequence, I reluctantly suspended all further negotiation. It will be for you to consider to what extent the revenues of the Province, on which there are such heavy demands, can be applied for obtaining the desired return mail service, remembering that in the absence of all competition, your appropriation, however desirable the object, may be out of all proportion to the value of the service performed.

You will be gratified to learn that the services of Dr. Hector for the Geological Examination of the country have been secured, and that he may daily be expected to arrive. I anticipate important results from his scientific investigations.

In the exercise of the general power with which you entrust me, and to avoid the resort to arbitration for compensation for losses represented to have been sustained in connection with the gold fields, as also to possess myself of two Runs necessary for the settlement of the mining population, I have, by a money payment, extinguished the titles to runs, Nos. 53 and 54. My correspondence with the General Government on this subject will be laid on your table. Townships have been laid off in the centre of the gold fields, and I hope ere long to see the miners settled on lands of their own, in the neighbourhood of their operations.

The Gaol Department is now in a very satisfactory position, but the large number of prisoners, amounting to 83, including several cases of a very grave character, demand unceasing vigilance and determination.

The conduct of the Police department in all its branches continues to afford me the highest satisfaction. Crime has barely had time to develop itself before it was detected, and its career arrested. It was therefore, with considerable regret that I learned it to be the intention of the General Government to introduce a Bill for the purpose of removing this department from Provincial control. Had I not seen the Bill, I could not believe that the introduction of a measure so seriously affecting the wellbeing of the province would have been resolved on without, at least, the formal intimation to me of such intention. It appears to be an unfortunate decision that a change such as this Bill proposes, should be designed at a time when the Chief Executive officer in the province should be entrusted with even larger powers than he possesses, and when from the want of a resident Judge the gaol is overcrowded, and demands especial attention.

By the bill, a copy of which I will endeavor to procure, and lay before you, it is proposed that the management of the Constabulary shall reside in certain officers appointed by His Excellency the Governor, the chief of whom may dismiss constables, reporting such dismissal to the Colonial Secretary, and by whom the sanction of Government must be obtained before the appointment of another constable, in the room of the one dismissed, takes place. The power of dismissal is conferred on the Governor, Superintendent, Inspector, and on any other officer in charge of a district station, on the recommendation of a Bench of Magistrates. The officer above referred to, termed an Inspector, is also to send in a weekly distribution return to the Colonial Secretary, and the whole constabulary force are to be informed that it will be their duty to obey all the lawful orders of the Governor, and of all Judges of whatever Court, Resident Magistrates, and Justices of the Peace, in the execution of the duties of their respective offices. There is no reference to any Provincial power to whom obedience is due. On the whole, I cannot regard this bill as otherwise than intended to withdraw the control of the police force from the Chief Executive Provincial authority residing on the spot, and to confide it to an Inspector, dependent on a Colonial Secretary, residing several hundred miles distant; and, if I am right in my construction of the bill, which, notwithstanding clause 11, which is carefully guarded by clauses 13, and modified and restricted in many points, I believe I am, I must characterize the intention as dishonouring to the Provincial authorities, and eminently calculated to destroy the efficiency of the police force, which in a considerable measure depends on the existence of a local power prompt to decide, and equally prompt to act.

There are many other considerations which will readily suggest themselves to your minds, which, united to the objections above noted, would only add to the many reasons which make the Government of this Province from Auckland an utter impossibility. If these evils are to continue, it behoves us to look around for the means of obtaining that form of government which is essential to the development of our prosperity, avoiding on the one hand that dead level tendency which, while making due allowance for the representation of the majority of the people, would fatally ignore the claims of capital, and, on the other, that centralising influence which paralyses the exertions, and withers the prospects of those portions of the country which are remote from the Seat of Government.

I invite an expression of your opinion on this subject, which appears to me to be one of paramount importance.

From the correspondence on the subject of Emigration, which I will cause to be laid before you, you will perceive that the instructions have been given to the home agents to encourage female emigration, and that subsequently the agents were empowered to extend the assistance thus afforded, by paying the whole of the passage money of eligible females, while at the same time an intimation was given that it was probable the Government would immediately and more actively resume its emigration operations. Before deciding on so important a point it will not be inexpedient to review our past proceedings, ascertain our present position, and mark the inevitable tendency of the existing system. When it was decided to introduce immigration from the Home Country, a special loan was appropriated for the purpose, which was intended to be re-employed as often as it was realised from the re-payment of advances made to immigrants. It had been ascertained that the out-goings considerably exceeded the incomings, and later experience confirms the impression that this will continue.