I must further add that while I believe no material reduction can be made in the expenses of the Provincial Government, yet when we find that the province is charged £6,381 for militias and volunteers, and £6,518 for the Telegraph Department, very considerable reductions may and ought to be made in that large portion of the amount with which you have nothing to do, but which you certainly ought not to submit to being charged; and I would urge you most earnestly to take the necessary steps to have the matter fully and fairly inquired into, and placing the province entirely at the mercy and under the control of the General Government.

Referring now to the great and comprehensive scheme of colonisation which has just been launched—a scheme fraught with incalculable blessing, or the greatest possible disasters, according to the manner and spirit in which it is carried out—I would ask—Are you prepared to relinquish all voice in, to abandon all control over its administration? Can you seriously contemplate surrendering all your functions at the very time when it is proposed to conduct colonisation on a grander scale than has ever yet been attempted in the colony? Do you deem it no part of the duty you owe to those whose representatives you are, to protect their interests, to see that in the carrying out of this policy justice is done to them—that they share equally with other provinces in its advantages?

Let me briefly call your attention to some of the more important provisions of the Public Works and Immigration Act of last session, and to the duties imposed by that act upon the Provincial Government.

1. The Governor is required from time to time to ascertain what railways, in the opinion of the Superintendents and Provincial Councils, ought to be constructed within their respective provinces.

2. The Superintendent may, with consent of the Provincial Council signified by act recommending such undertakings, request the Governor to depart in the price of railway contracts.

3. The Governor may from time to time purchase such lands from the natives as the Superintendent may require.

The Governor may also make arrangements for introducing immigrants at the request of the Superintendent, and for special settlements for settling them thereon.

It is thus quite clear that it is not at present competent for you to abdicate your functions or to shirk the performance of the duties which are thus devolved upon you. And when you consider their important bearing upon the province, I think you will pause before transferring or delegating them either to the General Government or to any other body.

Again, out of the loans authorised to be raised, a sum of £400,000 is appropriated to the construction of roads in the North Island at a rate not exceeding £100,000 a year, and a similar amount is given to the Middle Island for railways, both these amounts being charged colonially, not provincially. Under the Payment to Provinces Act, £50,000 a year for a term of seven years is appropriated to district road boards. But while the £400,000 for railways and the £50,000 for road boards are distributed among the provinces according to population, no such rule applies to the £400,000 for roads; the expenditure of the whole amount being at the discretion of the Ministers for the very good and valid reason that it is only to be expended on roads required for the purposes of defence and colonisation.

Unless, therefore, you are prepared to indicate the lines of road you deem best calculated to attain these objects, and to press their construction upon the Government, you will have no right to complain if they are not made, or if the province fails to secure its equitable share of this vote.

You will remember that out of the Three Million Loan authorised by the Act of 1858, some £250,000 was allotted to this province for public works and immigration; but of this you only received £14,000, the remainder having been diverted and spent by the Colonial Government on other objects.

In a memorandum which I at that time presented to the then Ministers, I pointed out that there were three trunk lines which it was extremely desirable both for the interests of the North Island generally and of this province in particular, should be regarded as soon as possible: the first extending from Wanganui to the Patea river, the northern boundary of the province; the second would lead from Masterton to the boundary line of the province in the Seventy Mile Bush, opposite the Manawatu Gorge, and would be continuous with a main line of road to be taken through the Napier portion of the same bush to the Ruataniwha plains; the third trunk line (being a continuation of the Wanganui-Rangitikei road) would commence at the Rangitikei river, and passing through the centre of the Manawatu district, would be carried to that part of the Tararua range, where it affords an easy passage to the Seventy Mile Bush, which it would intersect on the Wellington-Napier trunk line, and I recommend that all these roads should be laid off with a view to their being ultimately converted into railroads.

I am happy to say that the present Ministry seem inclined to adopt all these lines. They have, in fact, already made considerable progress with the road from Palmerston through the gorge to the Seventy Mile Bush—with the line from the Ruataniwha plains to the gorge and with the road from the Waitotara to the Patea. They have also agreed to employ the Norwegians in the construction of a tramway from Palmerston to Foxton, which will open up a most important agricultural district available for settlement, and cannot fail very largely to increase your territorial revenue. The total length of these lines of road in this province will be about 110 miles, and will involve a probable outlay of from £60,000 to £70,000, spread over a period of three or four years.

But I am bound to express my opinion that these roads cannot be constructed within any reasonable time, or except at an extravagant rate—that you will reap none of the advantages of the present scheme of colonisation, and that the money expended on the roads will be unproductive, if not entirely wasted, unless a very considerable and continuous stream of immigration is introduced. Public works and immigration must go hand in hand. Nay, I will go further, and say that the Government is not justified in undertaking the works I have indicated, unless the province is prepared to do its duty in regard to immigration. There is no use in preparing a country for settlement unless you are also prepared to bring to it population; and remember this, that capital invariably accompanies and follows immigration. Probably not a single emigrant ship would arrive in New Zealand under the present scheme without introducing capital to the extent of an average of £50 a head.

To my mind the Immigration part of the scheme is to the provinces the most tempting portion; for while half the cost is to be charged colonially, the other moiety is to be defrayed by the provinces at a rate not exceeding 30s per annum for every adult, until the provincial moiety is liquidated. On the other hand, the province will be entitled to the capitation allowance. For instance, suppose you had introduced one hundred adult immigrants during the past year, you would be entitled during the current year to a capitation allowance of £2 a head, and you would have had to pay at the outside 30s. Assume, further,