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on account of the New Zealand Company's debt £26,000. Of the balance of £54,617, remaining after these deductions, I would recommend the sum of £10,000, should be immediately expended equally between all the Provinces, in permanent works for facilitating communication overland between their respective chief towns, and that a sum of £3,000 should be voted towards the encourage-ment, as opportunity may occur, of steam commu-nication between their principal ports. In the ap-propriation of the remaining £36,617, for immigra-tion and public works, I shall be glad to be guid-ed by the recommendation of the General Assem-bly.

The exercise of a vigilant supervision over the legislative proceedings of the Provincial Councils will be one of the most important duties of the General Assembly, and will require their immedi-ate attention. The whole of the local Councils have already met for the despatch of business, and have passed a variety of useful and necessary laws, copies of which will be laid before you. Having regard to ultimate uniformity, certain of these enactments will require your especial attention. It will probably be found that the Ordinances enacted by some of the local councils for transferring the powers heretofore exercised by the Governor of the colony to the Superintendent of the Province, vest in that officer a wider extent of executive jurisdic-tion than is consistent with the establishment of ultimate unity, and of an efficient central authori-ty. Instead of exercising the power of disallowance vested in the Governor by the Constitution, I have preferred to leave for the present these local Acts to their operations, in the anticipation that the Assembly will substitute some general enactment for all the Provinces, giving to the head of each Pro-vince such executive power and authority as, after careful deliberation may be deemed necessary for securing the prompt and efficient conduct of Pro-vincial Government. It will probably be found that on other subjects also, as the appropriation of fees, fines, and penalties, several of the Provinces have simultaneously passed an enactment with the same object, and on the same subject, but each differing from another; it may in some instances be within the power of the Assembly by adopting and consolidating the provisions of the several lo-cal laws, at once to substitute one general law on the subject, and thus to secure uniformity without any undue interference from the freedom of Provin-cial legislation.

It will appear also, from an examination of their legislative proceedings, that by some of the Pro-vinces, the salary of officers (Registrars of the Supreme Court, &c.) whose appointment is vested exclusively in the Governor of the colony, have been provided for by a vote of the Provincial Council, that the power of appointing officers be-longing to the establishments under the exclusive legislative authority of the General Assembly, has been given to the local Councils, been given to the Superintendent of the Province; and that the salaries of these officers also, have been borne on the Provincial Estimates. It can scarcely be either sound in principle, or convenient in practice, that the Resident Magistrates, or any other public offi-cers, should be thus dependent on two distinct au-thorities.

The Registrars of the Supreme Court can be ap-pointed only by the Crown or by the Governor, provisionally in the name of the Crown; the Court of Judicature to which these officers belong is expressly excepted from the jurisdiction of Province cial Legislation; and it cannot be fitting that the due maintenance of an institution, established for the benefit of the community at large, should be left to depend upon the annual vote of the council of a province. I would suggest, therefore, for the consideration of the Assembly, whether the power of appointing a public officer, of determining the

amount of his salary, and for providing for its pay-ment, should not be exercised by the same author-ity; whether the power of appointing the offi-cers connected with the establishments, excepted from the jurisdiction of the Provincial Councils, should not, as a general rule, be exercised by the Governor alone, and whether the salaries of these officers should not be paid out of the general reve-nue of the colony, and that too, not by an annual vote, but under the authority of an act of the Gen-eral Assembly.

On certain of the subjects, within the common jurisdiction of the General and Provincial Legisla-tures, the initiative in Legislation will from time to time, be taken by a single Provincial Legisla-ture. In that case also, the Assembly, by a timely interposition, adopting, as far as may be, the pro-visions of the Provincial Ordinance, and passing a general law on the subject, may prevent a useless multiplicity and diversity of laws. Amongst other recent local acts, a law has been enacted by the Legislature of the Province of Auckland on the subject of Foreign Seamen; and by the Province of Wellington, an Act has been passed for autho-rising the formation of "Mixed Partnerships;" it would, no doubt, be competent for each of the other Provincial Councils to pass a law to prevent the desertion, and to punish the misconduct of Fo-reign Seamen, and also to regulate the law of Partnership, yet it would be more convenient that, instead of six different laws, there should, on such subjects, be one general law, known to be in force for the Islands of New Zealand. The enactment by the Assembly of a general law, based upon the suggestion and experience of the Province, which has already legislated on the subject, would secure future uniformity, and might, I think, be justly re-garded by the colonists at large, as a salutary and timely exercise by the Supreme Legislature of its controlling power.

The same observation applies, but with greater force, to an Act passed by the Council of this Pro-vince, providing for the execution of Deeds, and for other purposes relating to real property. There is scarcely any subject on which diversity, or uncer-tainty is more carefully to be guarded against than the law relating to real property. It would by no means tend to facilitate the transfer of lands if, in time to come, the title to such property shall be found to depend upon what was the particular law at a certain time in a particular district of New Zealand, as to the execution of a particular de-scription of legal instrument. Seeing the expense, uncertainty, and delay which has been experienced in England in the transfer of real property, arising from the existence in different parts of the country of a variety of laws, customs, and usages relating to this subject, it may be doubted whether the Provincial Councils of New Zealand ought not, not only to have been prohibited from making any law for "regulating the course of Inheritance," but also from making any alteration whatever in the law of real property, or in the transfer thereof; and it is matter for consideration whether such a prohibitory measure should not be enacted by a law of the General Assembly. The same Act also contains a provision which may not improbably suggest to the Assembly the expediency of making a still more extensive alteration in the law. The object of the enactment to which I refer is to sim-plify the mode of releasing a title to dower by mar-ried women. I believe it will be found that the right to dower, which by law attaches to lands and tenements, of which the husband may at any time have been seized during marriage, has ceased to be of practical benefit to the wife or widow of the owners; while it occasions considerable expense and delay in the alienation of real estate. I believe that a considerable modification of this ancient right may be effected, without injury to individual interests; and that the enactment of a law th...