to provide a strict and general system of education,
allowed at this duty was by your during your last Session,
it afforded me peculiar gratification to lay before you the able and interesting Report of the Board of Commission-
ers. In that Report, the only questions—whether the State should educate, or assist in educating: whether it should adopt the centralized or decentralized agency,
whether religious instruction should be given in the Govern-
ment Schools, and if so, by what agency: whether inde-
pendent schools should receive pecuniary aid from the State, upon what terms, and to what extent? Whether these
and other questions have been so fully and so ably discussed as to preclude the necessity of my adding more than to express my cordial concurrence in the conclusions at which the Board have arrived, and to intimate that a Bill embodying their recommendations will be laid before you-

This consequence, since we last met, of certain epi-
demic diseases, attended with a very considerable mor-
tality, has brought home to the minds of all the impor-
tance of some more stringent regulations during a time con-
ducive to the spread especially of infectious miasmata. Accordingly by the 5th George and 3rd Victoria it is proposed to clothe the Board of Commissioners in this province with the necessary powers for making and enforcing such regulations as they may deem necessary for the preservation of the public health. I would fain hope that we may frame our local assessments under this Bill, in such a way as will leave the Provincial Revenue, at any rate for some years to come, untaxed by any general sanitary regulations must necessarily be-
come a large and permanent item in our expenditure.
Although the very centre of towns—as are those of Wellington and Wanganni, I would venture to recom-
mend that the subject of burying-grounds should re-
ceive early consideration. I think it probable that the nuisances or injuries arising from this source will be found susceptible of a remedy more simple and more effec-
tive than would at first sight appear.

The removal of the Slaughter-houses in Wellington, in accordance with the provision of the Act, is imperative;
and I shall feel glad to assure you that the Legislative Council of this Province have passed a resolution declaring their sense of the expediency of removing the Slaughter-houses to some less objectionable site than their present one.

The reasons that influenced the Council in passing this resolution will doubtless be laid before you in detail by your own body, and I feel sure that you will be prepared to give the subject your best attention. I trust that these and similar measures you will I trust also bring under the notice of the Provincial Government.

I think it right to place before you the necessity of making some provision for the final establishment of our Supreme Court and its officers. It is a subject which has been under your consideration at various times, and many of the institutions of that court have been left incomplete from the want of means to carry them out. I trust that this Session you will have no difficulty in completing the arrangements by which the court shall be put into efficient operation and its officers properly paid.

The Trustees of the Bishop’s High School have re-
ported that the amount placed by the Government under their control has been insufficient to meet the necessary ex-
penses of the institution. It is proposed to increase the amount of their advances on condition of the Trustees increasing the de-
posits exclusively in Provincial Securities. The effect of this “Amendment Bill” will be to establish here such an institution and to appoint a Board of Governors to ad-
minister it.

sanctioned by the General Assembly, and the conse-
quent cripling of the Provincial resources will have re-
quired very considerable retrenchment in our finan-
cial proposals for the current year but that I shrink
from otherwise I have been enabled to lay before you a
complete review of our being unclouded by serious trouble
owing to the threatening prosperity of the rapid
progress of the Province in all the acknowledged healthy
signs of its income with basetenancy fit for our most
pressing requirements.

Estimating our half of the net Customs receipt for the
financial year commencing on the 1st February next,
at £15,000—the incidental receipts at £5,100—one half
of the net balance of the Land Fund (after deducting the
£5000 for the Emigrant’s Fund and cost of management)
at £3000, making a total estimated Provincial revenue
£27,000, the total receipts may be taken as £29,000.
Should however the remaining portion of the Provincial
Valley and certain blocks to be disposed of in the valley
every reason to believe the aggregate of the Land
revenue will largely exceed the estimate.

I estimate the expenditure of the Provincial Govern-
ment at £13,000, and I propose to place of the estimated
balance for the following services £3,000 for the Rima-
taka road, £2,000 for the repair of the Hutt road, and
Wairarapa roads, £1,000 for the extension of Lambton
Quay, £7,000 for the Newtown Road, £3,000 for the
rails at Rangitikei and Wanganni, £3,000 for forti-
fication of the Rangitikei, £1,500 for immigration
for immigration from England, £1,500 for immigration
from Australia, £500 for a pilot station at Worser’s
Bay, £500 for the erection of slaughter-houses in Welling-
ton, £5,000 for the establishment of a steam communi-
cation—making a total estimated expenditure of
£39,000. The deficiency, or even a much greater amount,
will be readily met by the sale of the requisite number
of debentures, especially if the Government be autho-
rized to secure the interest thereon by deposit, if they
should deem it expedient to do so. I do not doubt but
we will have placed the whole of the steam communica-
tion between this island and the South Island on a basis
more fixed and self-dependent. But in the present
state of the labor market, it is doubtful whether any of
the proposed works can be executed during the ensuing
year. The present supply of British Revenue will be am-
bly sufficient to meet all the local demands without any
recourse to borrowing, unless the demands of a purely
optional and prospective nature be entertained.

Having thus far dealt with matters of immediate and
pressing concern, I trust I shall ever be permitted to bring before your repeated consideration the principles upon which the constitution of your government depends. I believe it is the earnestly expressed wish of the Con-
stitutional party that the arrangement of the financial
and ‘provincial’ departments should be left as little as
possible to your wisdom, and that the trust reposed in
you is such that no one doubts that you will not only ex-
ercise the powers vested in you, but not enlarge them.

I have been requested by the inhabitants of the Hutt to
represent to you the great necessity which has arisen for
the making of some provision to carry out a more effi-
cient and systematic administration of the laws. The
Borough Authorities at the Hutt are not in a position to
meet the expenses incidental to the administration of the
law without the aid of local taxation. The necessity of
the case is so pressing that I earnestly recommend the
subject to your serious attention.

I am aware that it may be said that the Imperial Par-
liament is the proper source to apply to for any local re-
sult. My only reply is that the colonists must be left to
solve which Burgh Indices shall be refinanced for the
ministers of the day that the solution was made by bring-
ing to any date of theirs—that they were not apprised
into their happy lot by the constraints of which that
splendid Government, but that through a wise and
salutary neglect, a generous name had been suffered to
take its own way to perfection—I say, my chief and
most earnest prayer is, that henceforth the Provincial
Council, the General Government towards the Provinces
may be a wise and salutary neglect.

I. E. FETHERSTON,
SUPERINTENDENT.