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.

HENRY BUNNY,
Provincial Secretary.

VOL. XXIII. SATURDAY, JUNE 17, 1876. No. 21.

Provincial Secretary’s Office,
Wellington, 15th June, 1876.

HIS Honor the Superintendent has directed the following statement to be published for general information.

HENRY BUNNY,
Provincial Secretary.

For the last twenty-three years it has been the custom for the Superintendent of Wellington annually to address the Provincial Council, and render up an account; placing before it a statement explanatory of the administration of the affairs of the Province for the past, and containing proposals for the ensuing year.

As the Provincial Council is prohibited, by authority of Parliament, from again meeting, it can serve no practical purpose to address to it a statement which it cannot discuss.

Although, therefore, the Superintendent considers himself precluded from having recourse to the usual mode of addressing the people of the Province through their representatives, yet, in view of the proposed changes in the Constitution, he regards it as a duty he owes to all those who, during the last twenty-three years, have successively been engaged in the conduct of provincial institutions, whether as members of the Provincial Executive or Provincial Council, to place on record, for the information of the public generally, a statement showing not only the present condition of the several departments of the provincial service, but also some of the results of the past administration, together with a comparative statement of the assets and liabilities of the Province as at the present date.

If the Colonial Parliament shall think fit to persevere with the proposal to abolish provincial institutions, such a statement ought, apart from any question of policy, such as the loss of political privileges, to assist in the formation of a practical estimate, so far as the Province of Wellington is concerned, as to what it really is which will be there abolished and taken over.

Three Commissioners, viz., Messrs. Gisborne, Seed, and Knowles, waited lately on the Superintendent, in accordance with a circular notice issued to Superintendents by the Colonial Government, with the object of obtaining information and making personal enquiries into the organisation and condition of the several provincial departments. The Superintendent informed the Commissioners that, although he disapproved of the policy of abolition, he considered it to be his duty to bow to the decision of Parliament, so far as then ascertained; and accordingly gave instructions to the different officers in charge to afford every assistance to the Commissioners in their investigation. The information thus obtained will no doubt be made public in due course, and will afford the means of judging of the present condition of the departments, as examined from an outside critical point of view.

The Superintendent has called for the usual annual reports from the following officers, viz.:—Commissioner of Crown Lands, Chief Surveyor, Provincial Engineer, Provincial Surgeon, Medical Officer Mount View, Inspector of Police, and the Warden of the Wellington Gaol. These reports he has directed to be published, together with a report furnished by the Principal of the Wellington College of the work of that institution during the year. They will be found to contain detailed information as to the work in the several departments; and, when compared with...