ZEALAND TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE.

89

A.—No. 1

To this your Grace has been pleased to reply that it appears scarcely necessary to observe that the Colonial Regulations contain no clause prohibiting Commissariat officers from corresponding freely with the Secretary of the Treasury, or requiring those officers to show their correspondence to the Governor. I beg to observe that your Grace has, I believe, been misled by the information which led you to give this reply to my Despatch, for it has no real relation to the question which I raised ; and I am unwilling that any mistake should continue to exist which should lead you to persist in a course I cannot but believe to be contrary to your Grace's feelings and intentions. Even supposing that the view of the Regulations stated by your Grace was correct, it would not show that it was just to the Governor, to Her Majesty's other civil servants in the Colony, or to the people of New Zealand, to publish such a letter with the authority of the Secretary of State, and to use it to prejudice in the Imperial Legislature the same persons who had no means of defending themselves against accusations thus secretly made. But your Grace will, upon inquiry, find that the letter to which I referred was indeed a letter from the Deputy Commissary-General to the Secretary of the Treasury, dated the Bth November, 1866, but that on the same day a copy of it was forwarded to the Major-General commanding the Troops in New Zealand, for the information of the Secretary of State for War. The calumnies against the Governor, his Ministers, and the Colony were thus not only communicated to the Secretary of the Treasury, but were circulated among the Military Authorities, and were known to a number of persons. The letter I referred to thus not only fell within the terms of the ordinary Regulations, but was one of that class of letters which Her Majesty's Government had specially directed should, as an act of justice to the Governor and his Ministers, be communicated to him before it was transmitted to the Home Authorities. I have thus noticed the particular case referred to in the Despatches ; but I feel sure that your Grace, if you knew the whole truth, would take care that a stop was instantly put to the general system which appears to be in existence of Commissariat officers sending secretly letters such as that I have alluded to to the Secretary to the Treasury. 1 see from a Memorandum from the Minister of Colonial Defence, that the defamatory letter of the Deputy Commissary-General complained of was sent to the Secretary to the Treasury on the Bth of November, a few days after he had been refused a grant of land by the Colonial Government, which was not applied for through the Governor, as the Begulations required, and which was moreover, as I have reason to believe from what I have recently heard, made in so objectionable a manner that I trust, in justice to the public interests, the whole matter has been brought under your Grace's notice, that you may be able to prevent the possibility of the renirrence for the future of proceedings which must inevitably tend to create estrangement between the Home Government and the Colonial Authorities. I have, &c, His Grace the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos. G. Geet.

No. 59. Copy of a DESPATCH from Governor Sir G. E. Bowen, GkC.M.G-., to His Grace the Duke of Buckingham. (No. 93.) Government House, Wellington, My Loud Duke, — Bth September, 1868. 1. With reference to my Despatch No. 84, of the 28th August ultimo, I am now requested by my Responsible Advisers to transmit to your Grace a further letter, which has been forwarded to the Colonial Secretary for that purpose by Sir George Grey. 2. I beg leave to take this opportunity of reporting that Sir George Grey will leave Wellington for England by the Panama Mail Steamer on the afternoon of this day. He has already received numerous Addresses and other demonstrations of respect and esteem, on the expiration of his term of office. Before his embarkation to-day, he will be entertained at a public luncheon, at which Sir David Monro, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, will preside. I have been invited to be present on this occasion; and I shall feel much satisfaction in evincing my sense of the personal courtesy and consideration which I have received since my arrival in New Zealand from my able and accomplished predecessor, whose name will be inseparably connected with the history of this Colony. I have, &c, His Grace the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos. G. E. BOWEN. P.S. —The demonstration in honor of Sir George Grey on his departure from New Zealand was very successful.

Enclosure in No. 59. Sir Gteoege Geey, X.C.8., to the Secbetaey of State for the Colonies. My Lord Dttke, — 'Wellington, 3rd September, 1868. I have the honor to state that I have only recently seen, for the first time, the Eev. Mr. Weare's letters of the 19th of March, the 20th of August, and the 17th of October, 1866, to the 23