TO THE GOVERNOR OF NEW ZEALAND.

29

A.—No. 1

at his request, with a copy of my Despatch to the Secretary of State of the 7th April, and His Excellency did not then think it necessary to animadvert on the evils which he now states resulted from not having received it before, and tho Secretary of State will have seen, as His Excellency himself must have seen, that there was nothing in that Despatch of the 7th April, of which His Excellency had not been previously in possession. The next time His Excellency wrote to me on the subject was in his private note of the 13th April, a copy of which was forwarded in my Despatch No. 167-66, of the 7th May, 1866. In my Despatch of the Bth June No. 213-66, transmitting copies of my applications to His Excellency for the withdrawal of the troops, in compliance with peremptory instructions from the Secretary of State for War, was enclosed a copy of His Excellency's next communication (10th May) to me with regard to my Head Quarters. On reference to these letters, as well as to my Despatch of the Ist instant (enclosing His Excellency's last letter), the Secretary of State will, I trust, consider that I have just cause for most respectfully protesting, as I now do, against the Governor's attributing to me the " raising of factious and needless questions," because I have unfortunately been compelled, in the exercise of a responsible command, to inform him that its usual and regular duties can be best conducted where the military departments and establishments are located. I can scarcely conceive that His Excellency can refer to my letters to him respecting the withdrawal of the troops ; they may certainly have appeared to him too importunate, but the often repeated instructions of tho Secretaries of State for War and the Colonies on this subject, together with the statements made by His Excellency in his Speech to the Assembly, and of the Ministers in tho debates of that house, rendered it necessary that I should clearly show I was not responsible for any delay in their departure. I have in every instance complied cheerfully with the Governor's requisitions to proceed to Wellington whenever he required me. I have gone there without receiving any such requisition, and am prepared, as I have already assured His Excellency, to go there again. But I must state, that although His Excellency is kind enough to attach so much importance to my presence, I have never been able to see, as mentioned in my Despatch of the Ist instant, No. 343-66, that my residence there was of the slightest assistance either to His Excellency or the Colonial Government. In illustration of this I may mention, that though it is, I believe, usual in these Colonies for the Officer Commanding the Forces to be a Member of the Executive Council, I have never been sworn, nor invited to be a member. I should not think of noticing this fact, except to illustrate, in answer to His Excellency's representations, the value really attached at present in New Zealand to the counsel of the General Officer Commanding Her Majesty's Forces. 6. The Home Government does not rightly 6. It is scarcely necessary to reply to this paraappreciate the position of the military staff in this graph. lam not aware what the causes are, country. They become, from many causes, liable which, in the Governor's opinion, render the toidentify themselves strongly with party questions, military staff liable to identify themselves with and the Secretary of State for War may, under party questions. Whatever they may be, I will Ihe system of correspondence pursued with him, simply and broadly deny that either myself or the entirely without his own knowledge, and in ignor- officers of tho staff by whom lam surrounded, anee of the merits of the case, be made the head have in any way identified themselves with party of a powerful party in this country acting in direct questions. There is not the slightest ground for opposition to the Governor, and defeating his views such an idea, on most vital points. 8