B.—No. 3.

them, and expressing your surprise that I should have expected a definite reply before the Ist ultimo. I have not overlooked your previous communications of 27th August, and 27th September. On referring to them again, you will observe that they refer mainly to temporary assistance given by the General Government to the Province. In my letter of 20th August, I requested that you would inform me whether you would approve of a Loan Bill of a character stated, which would make permanent provision for Provincial Liabilities, affording something beyond beyond merely temporary relief. It is to a reply to this proposal that the Provincial Government looks forward with interest. It still appears to the Provincial Government that the conrse indicated is the best way for making provision for those liabilities, and, in absence of any more eligible suggestions, I have the honor again to request that you will intimate what course the General Government will take with reference to this proposal, or whether it has any other to make in lieu of it. If some definite proposition had been agreed to before, or if the Provincial Government knew to what extent, and in what manner the General Government would have aided it to make such permanent provision, it might have been enable to avert a process which has jnst now occurred, namely the serving of a Writ for £20,000, at the instance of McKenzie & Co., whose claim has already been a subject of correspondence with you. I have, &c, J. A. K. Menzies, {superintendent. The Hon. the Colonial Secretary, Auckland.

No. 94 THE COLONIAL SECRETARY, TO THE SUPERINTENDENT, SOUTHLAND. Colonial Secretary's Office, Auckland, 17th November, 1864. Sir, — I have to acknowledge the receit of your Honor's letter. No. 236, of the Ist instant, in reply to my letter of the 17th ultimo, in which I expressed surprise that your Honor shoald have expected a definite reply on the subject of the financial embarrassments of Southland before the Ist ultimo. Your Honor states that you had not overlooked my previous letters of 27th August and 27th September last, and you inform me that on referring to them again I will observe that they refer mainly to temporary assistance given by the General Government to the Province of Southland. I have referred to my letter of the 27th August last, and I find that so far from referring mainly to " temporary assissance" it expressly states that after the arrival of the then next mail from England, the General Government " hope to be in a position to propose some comprehensive plan with a view to permanent relief of the financial embarrassments of Southland. My other letter (21t\\ Sept.,) to which your Honor refers, contains the definite answer promised, and could not of course have been before you when yon wrote your letter of the Ist of October, in which you express surprise at not having received a definite answer With rt'spect to the proposed additional Loan Bill for Southland, I have to refer your Honor to my letter of the 17th ultimo, in which I stated that the introduction of such a Bill into the Provincial Council must be altogether on your Honor's own responsibility. I have, &c, William Fox His Honor the Superintendent, Southland.

No. 95. THE SUPERINTENDENT, SOUTHLAND, TO THE COLONIAL SECRETARY. Superintendent's Office, Southland, 21st November, 1864. Sir, I have had the honor to inform you that Messrs McKenzie, & Co. had served the Provincial Government with a writ for the sura of £20,000. Since this circumstance has become known creditors of the Government have become more pressing in their demands and threaten extreme proceedings, one judgment was obtained to-day. Under these circumstances the Provincial Government has

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PROVINCIAL LOANS.