A.—No. Ib.

DESPATCHES EROM THE SECRETARY OE STATE

64

Being not a Confidential Despatch, but one of a series which conveys the history of the Colony during a critical period, it is right that it should be placed before Parliament and the country, and it will present the unusual appearance of a somewhat rhetorical denunciation, by Her Majesty's Representative, of what is uoav the avowed policy of Her Government, and of the conduct of the Admiralty in a matter of discipline upon Avhich it is their province to decide. Undesirable as it is that the correspondence between a Governor and the Government which he represents should assume the character which is thus forced upon it, I have no alternative but to notice your Despatch more fully than I could have wished. If, on grounds connected with the state of New Zealand, you consider Commodore Lambert and General Chute to have served the public interests in detaining the 2-18 th Regiment in New Zealand, and are desirous, as far as you properly can, to share the responsibility for acts Avhich you approve, I think you quite right in placing on record your opinion, and the grounds on which you have formed it. I think, also, that you are at liberty —or rather that it is your duty—to warn Her Majesty's Government of the state of public opinion in the Colony, and of the consequences which you yourself anticipate from any given line of policy, that on the one hand they may be fully possessed of your views, and, on the other, you may be discharged from all responsibility for a course of proceeding Avhich you disapprove. But I think that all this might have been done in a manner less open to observation. In the first place, I understand you, in reporting the opinions of the Colonists ) in this matter, to convey your own. I should have preferred that you had clone this directly, as it is important that there should be no confusion between the opinions which the Governor merely reports and those which he adopts and recommends. Next, I do not think that you clearly understand what has passed. Viewed as a matter of discipline, the question is one between the Lords of the Admiralty and the officer serving under them, and it was hardly within your province to examine the grounds of their Lordships' decision. You do so, however, and virtually apply to that decision the statement " that " the position of Imperial functionaries, whether Civil, Naval, or Military, placed " (as in New Zealand) at the distance of half the circumference of the globe from " England, will be rendered still more difficult than ever, if they are censured in- " stead of supported when they enforce on their subordinate officers obedience to the " orders of the Imperial departments under which they serve." Her Majesty's Government had determined to withdraw the 2-18 th Regiment from New Zealand, and had imposed on General Chute the responsibility of giving effect to their decision. The " Himalaya " being in Wellington, in pursuance of arrangements made by that officer, Commodore Lambert, who was fully cognizant of those arrangements, would not have been entitled to frustrate them with the object of enforcing obedience on the part of a subordinate to a telegram which, in General Chute's judgment, was not applicable to circumstances as they stood. I think, therefore, that your criticism is mistaken. If it had been correct I could have wished that it had been otherAAdse expressed. Treating the matter as one of general policy, you observe that it was useless for Commodore Lambert to consult the Governor or Military officers, because they could not tell him anything which he did not Iciioav already. But this, again, is to misapprehend the point of their Lordships' observation. In the absence of such consultation, it was not for Commodore Lambert to treat the question as one of general policy at all. If you or the Military officer in command had represented to him that, from recent circumstances, not within the knowledge of Her Majesty's Government or of General Chute, the removal of the troops would occasion great and immediate disaster to the Colony, it might have become his duty to take the responsibility of arresting their departure. Till he received such a representation, his duties Avere, in this respect, those of a senior Naval officer, having control over all the ships within his station, including troop-