is every reason to believe that the line will be made perfectly practicable for drays before the next wool season. Contracts have been accepted for building the Wanganui and Waiohini bridges, for re-building the Wangaehu and Waiweta, which were swept away by the recent unprecedented floods. In reference to the Wangaehu bridge, which was carried away when it was all but completed, I have to make one or two remarks. The contract price was £1375, of which only £437 10s. had been paid. Its destruction, therefore, involved a loss to the Province of that amount; but upon the contractors, who were hardworking, industrious, honest mechanics, and who had executed their work most faithfully, it entailed a loss of £700 or £800,—a loss which (while it occurred from no fault of theirs) was well nigh utter ruin to them. Anxious to afford them as much relief as was consistent with my public duty; and, at the same time, to retrieve as quickly as possible so great a disaster to the district, I induced them, during my recent visit at Wanganui, to undertake to rebuild the bridge upon an improved plan proposed by the engineer, for the sum of £1800, upon the understanding that the Government would forego the £437 already paid, and would, on the completion of the bridge, recommend their claim to compensation to the favourable consideration of the Council. It is necessary that I should add, that previous to concluding this arrangement, a resolution had been unanimously adopted by a public meeting at Wanganui, to the effect that in the event of the Council refusing to make a fresh grant for re-building the Wangaehu and Turakina bridges, the requisite amount should be taken from the appropriation made for the Wanganui and Rangitiki trunk road, of which those two bridges were declared to be essentially a part.

You will find from the Engineer’s report that, during the last year, 18 miles of road have been formed, metalled, and finished; of roads previously formed, nearly five miles have been metalled, and eight additional miles have been formed. The average number of men employed has been 416; the number at present at work is 550—this being exclusive of those employed on contract works. Within the last three months, contracts have been accepted for the construction of between seven and eight miles of road.

I am of course well aware that complaints are made and will, I have no doubt, continue to be made against the Government; that works for which appropriations were voted last Session have, not only not been completed, but have in some instances not even been commenced. These complaints are natural enough, but they are scarcely fair; for in submitting to the Council last year a comprehensive scheme of internal improvements, I never pretended that it could be carried out in a single year; on the contrary, in order to guard against the very disappointments and reproaches to which I am referring, I declared that the execution of the works then proposed must, even under the most favourable circumstances, of necessity extend over a period of at least two years. It is true that I guaranteed the funding required for all of them (and how fully that pledge has been redeemed you already know) but I at the same time pointed out that our real difficulty would be, owing to the scarcity of labour, to profitably expend those funds within any reasonable time, and I therefore proposed as an essential part of the policy to expend a large sum in immigration. Had it not been for the rush, during a few months, to the Nelson diggings—for the abandonment of the Immigration Contract—and for other causes, over which the Government could not possibly exercise the slightest control, I need not say that more would have been accomplished. But I have already shown that in spite of these disturbing causes, more public works have been executed during the past than during the four previous years. Before dismissing this subject, I have peculiar pleasure in announcing that the Light-house for Pencarrow Head may be expected by the next vessel from England, and that as an engineer has been sent to superintend its erection, not many months will elapse before the light is in full operation, and thus the long promised boon conferred not only upon the shipping frequenting this port, but upon all vessels passing through the Straits.

To what extent the scarcity of labour which has ever constituted the great obstruction to the complete success of the scheme of policy steadily persevered in since the establishment of the present government has been supplied during the last year, the immigration and road returns will amply testify. The Immigration Returns show that there have been introduced from Great Britain 1218 souls, equal to 992 adults; that the total immigration for the year has been 3263 souls; the emigration, 1867—making an excess of the former over the latter of 1396. Admitting that these returns are, to a certain extent, owing to considerable numbers having gone to the Nelson diggings of whom no account could be kept, inaccurate, still they are most satisfactory, as showing that the emigration has been almost exclusively to those diggings, and has consisted of men who, having left their families behind, intend to return. I need scarcely say that, in consequence of the gold-fields not proving remunerative, the tide of immigration has, during the last few weeks, so completely turned in favour of this Province, that we shall ultimately (if we have not already done so), instead of losing population, receive considerable accession to it. In corroboration of this statement, you will find from the Road Returns, that while the number of men on the roads was, on the 1st of January, 1857, 250, on the first of last January it was 430, and that it has been steadily increasing ever since, being, as I have already stated, at this time 550.

In whatever light, then, you view the present position of the Province—whether you look to the large and rapid increase of its revenues, to the firm establishment of its public credit, to the influx of population, to the extent and productiveness of the public works already executed and in progress, to the settlement and occupation of its lands, or to the large funds now at your disposal, you have ample grounds for congratulating yourselves that you enter upon your legislative functions entirely freed from the difficulties and embarrassments with which the first Council had to contend.

I regret to say that I am not in a position to give you any definite information in reference to Native Land Purchases. The General Go...