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been overcome.—I do not think that any injurious effect is likely to follow the inability of the Council to continue Grants in Aid on the past scale. On the contrary, it will probably be admitted that the Province has, as a whole, been placed very firmly on its legs before being asked to run alone.

As there seems to be no immediate prospect of affording to Road Boards the assistance hitherto given, a proposal has been made by the Manawatu settlers which is well worthy of your consideration. The proposal is that the Government should be authorised to pay for the construction of roads and similar public works in lands instead of in money. Should this proposition be favorably entertained by you, I do not think there will be any difficulty in inducing the General Assembly to amend the Waste Land Regulations accordingly.

It was my intention to have proposed amendments in the Provincial Executive Act, which would have materially changed the constitution of the Executive; but in addition to the argument that may fairly be urged that it is scarcely becoming in the Superintendent and Provincial Council, whose term of office is on the point of expiring, to propose a grave change to meet a present, and may be only a temporary emergency, I found that the abolition of the offices I contemplated doing away with, would not only necessitate amendments in many of your acts, but would really for the time suspend the action of the Waste Land Board. While therefore the offices of Provincial Secretary and Treasurer, and of Provincial Solicitor, will be nominally retained, they will be substantially abolished and unpaid, for it is proposed that the members of the Executive Council shall be paid a fee for each attendance at the Executive Board; and I recommend that the same principle should be applied to members of the Land Board who are not paid officials of the Province. The whole business of the Secretary and Treasurer’s department will henceforth, as it has for some time been, be conducted by the Superintendent, with the assistance of an accountant and one clerk.

The question of the Manawatu purchase, after having been for the third time before the Native Land Court and after ample time and every possible assistance had been given to the dissentients to bring forward their claims, still remains in as unsatisfactory a state as ever. The Court after sitting nearly three weeks declined to go into the cases, and allowed the claimants to withdraw them, mainly on the ground that they were not prepared with evidence in support of them. A commission was proposed by Ministers, but this was soon found to be utterly impracticable, and I am glad to say that the Government have decided once more on finally referring this question to the Land Court over which two judges will preside in whom I believe the Natives have not only the fullest confidence, but who may be said to be virtually appointed by them. The dissentients are themselves so anxious to have this matter disposed of, that I feel assured that any decision of the Court so constituted will be very cheerfully acquiesced in, and thus this vexed question which has been made a rankling sore by interested parties, will be finally settled within the next few weeks.

The disappointment which was last year felt at the postponement by His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, of his intended visit to New Zealand, is to a great degree relieved by the visit which the colony is to enjoy at the end of the present month. Even last year the colony had no intention of vying in its welcome of His Royal Highness with those elaborate and costly receptions which had been accorded in the Australian Colonies. But circumstances have so much changed for the worse that our own local rejoicings, even on the scale originally intended, would now be out of place, suffering as we are from the effects of war which, although originating beyond our borders, has brought ruin on so many of our fellow colonists in this province, and is the principal cause of the depression which everywhere effects us. His Royal Highness, as I am informed, desires to move about in this Colony with much of the same freedom as a private gentleman as His Royal Highness is now enjoying in Australia. While therefore the necessary courtesies will only involve a small vote, I trust that we shall satisfactorily evince the warmth of our loyalty to Her Majesty’s throne and family by the hearty tone in which His Royal Highness will be greeted on landing on the shores of this the first colonised settlement of New Zealand.