NEW ZEALAND

GOVERNMENT GAZETTE,

(PROVINCE OF WELLINGTON).

Published by Authority.

All Public Notifications which appear in this Gazette, with any Official Signature thereto annexed, are to be considered as Official Communications made to those persons to whom they relate, and are to be obeyed accordingly.

A. FOLLETT HALCOMBE,

PROVINCIAL SECRETARY.

VOL. XVIII. SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1871. No. 7.

Speech of His Honor the Superintendent on Opening the Twentieth Session of the Provincial Council.

Mr. SPEAKER AND GENTLEMEN OF THE PROVINCIAL COUNCIL.

In opening, in all probability for the last time, a session of the Provincial Council, I trust I may be permitted to thank you for the kind address you presented to me on the eve of my departure for England—to tender to you my acknowledgments for your acquiescence in my undertaking the mission entrusted by the General Government to Mr. Bell and myself—and especially to express my gratitude to you for allowing me without remonstrance, and at great inconvenience to yourselves, to absent myself for so much longer a period than was anticipated from my duties as Superintendent.

If I were expected to plead any justification, or if any excuse were deemed necessary by you for my prolonged absence, I would probably urge that the province has not suffered as far as the administration of its affairs is concerned—that the public business entrusted to us could not have been transacted in England in shorter time, and that Mr. Bell and myself could not possibly have taken our departure thence at an earlier period, without leaving many important matters, both general and provincial, in a state of incompleteness; and I would also probably further add that, if to have allayed those angry feelings which existed so many years between the Imperial and Colonial Governments—if to have put an end to those unseemly controversies which neither party defends, which both parties now deplore—if to have established the most friendly relations between the two Governments—if to have assisted, in however humble a degree, in obtaining a distinct repudiation of any desire on the part of the Imperial Government to sever their connection with the dependencies...

...if to have elicited distinct pledges, that in the event of England being dragged into war, she would to the utmost of her power defend her colonies as an integral portion of the Empire—if to have assisted in creating a material change in public opinion as to colonial policy—if to have in some measure anticipated the comprehensive scheme of colonisation propounded by the present Colonial Ministry, and passed by the General Assembly in its recent session, and to have paved the way by all necessary arrangements in Europe for the successful carrying out of that policy—if to have obtained the Imperial guarantee to a loan of a million for public works and immigration, and thereby to have enhanced the credit of the colony in the great money market of the world, thus enabling the colony to borrow on easy terms almost any amount required for such legitimate purposes—if, I say, these are objects in which the colony is deeply interested, then, I would submit, that the mission of Mr. Bell and myself has not only not been fruitless, but has resulted in very appreciable benefits to the whole colony.

And here allow me to point out a misapprehension which apparently exists, in regard to the effect of the Imperial guarantee to the million loan. It does not, as the Colonial Treasurer in his financial statement to the House of Representatives said, simply represent an annual saving to the colony in the shape of interest and sinking fund of some twenty thousand pounds; but it represents a saving of principal also of something like £250,000 or £300,000, for whereas a loan of four per cent guaranteed by the Imperial Government would realise a premium of from five to seven per cent, a non-guaranteed four