ZEALAND TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE.

117

A.—No. la.

No. 17. Copy of a DESPATCH from Governor Sir George Grey, K.C.8., to the Right Hon. the Duke of Buckingham. (No. 80.) Government House, Wellington, My Lord Duke, —• Bth August, 1867. I have the honor to request your Grace's attention to a practice which has sprung up in the Military Departments, which is contrary to the regulations which have prevailed in Her Majesty's service for a long series of years, and which appears to be of an inconvenient character. 2. Until recently, any officer in Her. Majesty's Imperial Forces desirous to receive any pecuniary reward from a Colonial Government, or a grant of land in recognition of his services in a Colony, made his first application for such a reward to the Senior Military Officer in the Colony, from whom it came on to the Governor, who reported the circumstances to Her Majesty's Government, with his decision upon it, for their approval. Thus, if the application was refused, the responsibility for such refusal lay upon the Governor. 3. From the Memorandum from my Responsible Advisers upon a letter from Deputy-Commissary General Strickland, C.8., to the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, which Memorandum I transmitted to your Grace in my Despatch (separate) of Bth June last, it will be found that Mr. Strickland had pressed on my Responsible Advisers a claim for a grant of a portion of the confiscated lands in this Colony, and they appear to think he may have been embittered against them by the rejection of his claim. 1. This is not the only instance that has incidentally come under my knowledge of Imperial officers applying direct to my Responsible Advisers for grants of confiscated lands. In one instance, serious difficulties might have arisen between myself and my Responsible Advisers in reference to such a claim. 5. It is very probable that officers making such claims on a Colonial Ministry may feel embittered at the rejection of their demands, and may hope that if other men were in power their wishes might be acceded to, and as the Military Departments have exercised here powers independently of the Governor, which enabled them greatly to aid or embarrass Ministries, they might, if disjjosed to do so, easily manifest their dislike in such a manner as to throw very serious difficulties in the way of a Colonial Ministry. 6. There is also, I think, a manifest impropriety in officers in the position of Mr. Strickland, who can make secretly reports to Her Majesty's Government, seriously damaging to the character and reputation of a Colonial Government and Ministers, being allowed, unknown to Her Majesty's Government, to apply for valuable gifts to the very men whom they at their pleasure secretly defame, in a manner most injurious to the public interests and to their reputation. 7. I therefore beg to recommend your Grace positively to insist upon the old established customs of the Empire being again resorted to by all Imperial officers serving in a Colony, who apply for rewards in money or lands from the Colonial Government, being obliged to make such applications through the Governor of the Colony. I have, &c, His Grace the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos. G. GREY.

No. 18. Copy of a DESPATCH from Governor Sir George Grey, K.C.8., to the Right Hon. the Duke of Buckingham. (No. 82.) Government House, Wellington, My Lord Duke, — 17th August, 1867. Since I wrote to your Grace my Despatch No. 77, of the 7th of July last, in which I alluded to the sale of certain military buildings at Patea, Tauranga, and on the Waikato River, I have received additional information upon the subject which 1 now beg to lay before your Grace. 2. When I wrote my Despatch of the 7th of July, I had examined the official records, from which I found that no official reference regarding the sale of these buildings had ever been made to the Government. 30