150

been paid on a portion of the Forty Mile Bush, so that nearly the whole, if not the whole, of the Forty Mile Bush within this Province is now under offer, though from the complicated nature of the title, the number of claimants, and the great extent of the boundary lines to be cut, some considerable time must necessarily elapse before the purchase can be completed. I am glad also to announce that an agreement for the sale of about 1600 acres—a portion of the land required for the site of the proposed principal town at Manawatu—has been duly executed.

I intimated to you in my opening address that I had accepted authority from Ministers to enrol some 300 military settlers whom I intended to locate in the country between the Waitotara and Patea Rivers; but having since been made aware that the greatest part of this territory is claimed, and I believe is justly claimed, by loyal natives—that it is now admitted by the warmest advocates of these military settlements that they will prove a source of weakness rather than of strength—that it is not expected that one-fourth of the men enrolled in the North will ever become bona fide settlers; and being, moreover, satisfied that to enrol military settlers at this season of the year would simply be to supply a certain number of diggers, passing through the settlement, with food and shelter until they found it convenient to return to the diggings, without the Province getting single day\'s work out of them, you will not be surprised at my having, for the present at least, abandoned the scheme. In the meantime, however, efforts are being made to engage a large body of men who will be employed on the trunk lines of road sanctioned by His Excellency\'s Government; and should, as I fully expect, a considerable number of these laborers be at once engaged by the settlers, their places will be supplied by the introduction of others as speedily as possible.

I gather from the Appropriation Act that your appropriations are some £13,000 in excess of the estimated Revenue; and you are aware that within the next few weeks I shall be called upon to pay to the natives from £14,000 to £15,000, for which no provision has been made except by a confirmation of a resolution passed in a former session, guaranteeing the repayment of any overdraft I may obtain from the Banks for land purchases to an amount not exceeding £20,000. Now, while my duty clearly is to carry out your votes as far as I possibly can, without involving the Province in financial difficulties, and while I hope, inasmuch as several of the amounts placed on the Estimates will scarcely during the current financial year be required, that no difficulty may be experienced in giving effect to your wishes, still some delay may possibly occur in commencing some of the works you have proposed.

As such an excess of appropriation over estimated revenue necessarily, however unwisely, clothes the Executive with a discretionary power; as to which appropriations they will carry out, and thus renders them liable to charges of partiality and favoritism, I think it right to state that I propose that this rule shall as a practicable be adhered to—the votes originally placed on the Estimates will be first carried out, and then those of supplementary appropriations which partake most of the character of grants in aid.

You will be glad to learn that in compliance with your wishes, instructions have by this mail been forwarded to Mr. Morrison, the agent of the Province, to engage at least one competent engineer, and to lose no time in the event of the Inter-Colonial Royal Mail Company any longer hesitating to sign the agreement for the construction of the Patent Slip, in entering into a contract with some one of the other firms, who had previously signified their readiness to undertake the work, and also after the necessary plans and specifications have been prepared to call for tenders for the construction and completion of the improvements to the Wharf, within the shortest practicable period.

I have also in virtue of the authority given me by the General Government informed Mr. Morrison of the terms and conditions upon which the immigration authorised by the Loan Appropriation Act is to be conducted to this Province, and have instructed him at once to organise a stream of immigration to the extent of at least from 200 to 300 statute adults each month. As soon as the conditions I have proposed—the principal of which are that in the event of the immigrant paying one half of his passage money within twelve months after arrival, and remaining two years in the Province, the other moiety will be remitted, and that in no case is the indebtedness of an immigrant to the Province to exceed £28—have been approved by His Excellency\'s Government, similar terms will be conceded to settlers desirous of bringing out their friends and relations.

It only remains for me on behalf of the Province to thank you for the desire you have ever evinced to promote its true interests, to congratulate you upon the success that has attended your past efforts, and to express my earnest hope that nothing may occur to mar or check the career of progress and prosperity upon which this Province is now fairly launched.

I now declare that this Council do stand prorogued.

I. E. FEATHERSTON,
Superintendent.

Superintendent\'s Office,
15th July, 1864.

Land Sale.

PROCLAMATION.

By His Honor ISAAC EARL FEATHERSTON, Esquire, Superintendent of the Province of Wellington, in the Colony of New Zealand.

I, ISAAC EARL FEATHERSTON, Superintendent of the Province of Wellington, do hereby, in pursuance of the Regulations in this behalf, Proclaim and Notify that the several allotments of land situate in the Rangitikei district, in the Province of Wellington, and specified in the Schedule hereto, except such as may be reserved under the provision hereafter mentioned, will be put up for sale by Public Auction, at the Crown Lands Office, in the Town of Wellington, on Monday, the 12th day of September, 1864, at one o\'clock in the afternoon.

If at any time during the sale it may appear to the Commissioner of Crown Lands beneficial or expedient for the public service to reserve from sale either of the sections specified in the said Schedule, or to vary the order in which