vernment having forbidden any direct official
relations to be established—or any direct official
communication to take place—between the Pro-vincial Government and the Land Purchase
Department, I can only explain the steps I
have taken to assist the General Government
in extinguishing the Native title to lands, the
acquisition of which is essential to the future
advancement of the Province. In April last,
finding that Mr. Commissioner Cooper was so
tied down by his instructions that the ultimate
purchase of the North Porangahau block was
likely to be jeopardized, I placed at his disposal
the sum he deemed necessary in order to enable
him to complete the purchase. In September the
General Government having exhausted all the
funds at their command, applied to me to ad-vance a sum of £25,000 for the purpose of
enabling it to purchase the "South Porangahau,
the Forty Mile Bush, the Lower Manawatu,
and additional blocks in the Wairarapa"—a
personal negotiation ensued between the Colonial
Treasurer and myself, the notes of which
as well as some subsequent correspondence on
the subject will be laid before you—from which
you will perceive that I consented to make the
requisite advance, or even a larger sum if wished
on certain conditions—the principal of which
had reference to the right of the Province to
the repayment of such advance from the General
Revenue of the colony in case of the failure
of the General Government to negotiate its
proposed loan of £500,000. The Colonial
Treasurer not only declined to admit the right
of the Province to be reimbursed—but insisted
upon my waiving on behalf of the Province,
the right conferred upon it by the 62nd clause
of the Constitution Act, to have such advances
repaid (in the event of no other fund being
provided) out of the General Land Fund of the
colony—a right which as Superintendent I had
no power to waive—and it was solely and ex-clusively because I declined to waive that right
that the Colonial Treasurer refused to accept
the advance, and broke off the negotiation.

The General Government having since suc-ceeded in obtaining the guarantee of the Home
Government and raising the loan, now pos-sesses the funds appropriated by the General
Assembly to the extinction of the Native title,
and I am glad to be able to report that Mr.
M’Lean, the Chief Commissioner, and Mr.
Searanke, an Assistant Commissioner, have ar-rived in the Province for the purpose of en-deavouring to effect those purchases which I
intimated to the Colonial Treasurer it was, in
the opinion of the Provincial Government, the
most important to achieve.

From the correspondence in continuation of
that already published, relative to the untoward
affair of the Ava Wilson, you will perceive that
Captain Schomberg, the Immigration Officer at
Liverpool has forwarded a certificate to the
effect, that the vessel instead of having had on
board as alleged by the officer here, 56 adults
more, had in reality 17 fewer than she was entitled to carry—that the supplies were in excess
of the quantity required by the Passengers’
Act, and that in other respects the provisions
of the Act were duly complied with. Should
these statements be confirmed, they will un-doubtedly exonerate the charterers from the
charges made against them—will prove that
the deplorable condition in which the vessel
arrived here was attributable to the mismanage-ment of her officers, and will entitle the Agents
to call upon the Provincial Government to re-consider their refusal to pay for the Immigrants. As I have brought the matter under
the consideration of her Majesty’s Principal
Secretary of State for the Colonies, and as the
charterers have called upon the Emigration
Commissioners to institute a searching inquiry
into the whole circumstances of the case, I pro-pose that we should leave the matter in the hands
of the Home Authorities and abide by their de-cision.

I shall have to ask for your sanction to a subsidy
paid to the Steam Navigation Company, an ex-penditure which, considering that at almost
every Session of the Council grants for the estab-lishment of Steam Communication have been
made, has, I conceive been virtually authorized.
If however any justification be required, it will
I imagine be sufficient to state that had the
Government not consented to give a Bonus at
the rate of £2500 a year until the Council met,
the Company would not have been formed—the
Wonga Wonga would not have been purchased,
and the Province would have continued to be de-prived of Steam Communication—the advan-tages of which are so patent to all, that already
the general feeling is that one steamer is wholly
insufficient to do the work of the Province—
much less to keep up communication with the
others, and that such a subsidy should be
granted as would induce the Company to pur-chase and run another vessel.

In conformity with the Resolution passed
by the Council in Feb., 1857, I entered into a
contract with Captain Kreeft of the Marchioness
for bringing the English Mail from Melbourne.
Upon the admirable manner in which Captain
Kreeft has performed this service I need not
dwell, for from returns which will be laid before
you, it will be seen that had the Mail arrived
at Melbourne at the stipulated time, it would
have been delivered in Wellington within (on
the average) 65 days—It will be further seen
that Captain Kreeft has experienced, during the
last ten months, a detention of 129 days at
Melbourne. The loss which Captain Kreeft
has thus sustained, will I trust induce you to
sanction my proposal that an additional sum of
£300 should be given for the past year—and that
in future the subsidy should be at the rate of
£150 a month—I may mention that Capt. Kreeft
has agreed to extend the contract for a
period of three months, before which time
we shall in all probability know whether or not the
contemplated Steam Communication between
New Zealand and Melbourne and between
the different Provinces (a project in which
few have any faith) will be carried out. But
even if it were, I doubt unless Wellington
be made the port of arrival, whether the English
Mail would reach us as soon as it does
under the present arrangement.

His Excellency’s Government having, in a recent
dispatch, after representing the urgent neces-sity which, in their opinion, existed for the
immediate stationing of a body of troops at
Napier, declared they were not prepared to
meet the emergency, unless I would on behalf
of the Province provide funds for the erection
of Barracks—the cost of which was estimated