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24. The petition was referred to the Public Works and Immigration Committee, who heard evidence upon it and made their report, dated 24th September, 1873. 25. The proceedings of the Committee, the evidence taken by them, and their report, are contained in the before-mentioned Parliamentary Paper (1873, 1.-5). The evidence of Mr. Carruthers, referred to in paragraph 11 of this memorial, is contained in that report, and it is fully confirmed as well by the evidence of Mr. Billing (given in answer to questions 102 to 106 of the minutes of the evidence taken by the Committee, and set forth in the same Parliamentary Paper) as by the statements of the Ministers referred to in paragraph 12 thereof. 26. The report itself was to the effect that the memorialists prayed to be relieved from the loss to which they alleged they had been subjected under their immigration contract with the Government; that the Committee, having taken all the evidence that was available to them on the subject of the claims put forward in the petition, were of opinion that " the statements in the said petition were not substantiated;" that, "so far as they were able to judge, there was no good ground for such claim, either in law or in equity;" and that the Committee were further of opinion that, "in the absence of proof," it would be a bad precedent to entertain claims founded upon vague allegations, and the admission of which would do away with all finality in a system of public contracts under written engagements. 27. The conclusions reported by the Committee being therefore based on the want of sufficient evidence, the memorialists renewed the subject in a letter, dated the 25th of March, 1874, addressed to the Agent-General (see Parliamentary Paper, 1874, D.-3a), recalling to his attention their letters of the 12th June and 10th July, 1873; again setting forth the state of accounts with respect to expenditure upon immigration; reiterating the history of the deed of June, 1872, and of the representations and assurances of the Agent-General which induced them to undertake it; renewing their former claim for relief; supporting it by urging the advantage the country derived from the introduction of above two thousand immigrants at a cost of £35,000 to the memorialists; and appealing to the honour of the Government to recoup them the outlay incurred in thus benefiting the country. 28. In the same letter of 25th March, 1874, the memorialists also quoted a memorandum of the Minister for Public Works to the Cabinet (No. 66, Ist April, 1873), which says, " The only thing which has kept the rates of labour from rising to rates ruinous to the various interests in the colony has been the shipment of so much labour by Messrs. Brogden." In ftict, as the same letter states, out of twelve hundred and ninety-nine able-bodied immigrants introduced by the memorialists there remained working for their firm at that date only seventy-six.' That number was afterwards reduced to thirtynine, and, ultimately, to none. Practically, therefore, the whole number imported by the memorialists violated their engagements to the memorialists under a sense of the disadvantage at which they were placed relatively to Government immigrants, and distributed themselves throughout the colony,, working for other employers, and producing that benefit to the colony, at the expense of the memorialists, which the Minister for Works has described in the above extract. 29. As an answer to this letter, the A gent-General afterwards communicated to the memorialists a letter addressed to himself by Sir Julius Vogel, then Prime Minister, dated the 3rd July, 1874 (see Parliamentary Paper, 1874, D.-la, pp. 17, 18), expressing the opinion of the Government that they were not entitled to the relief they asked, nor to any relief whatever. This letter entirely passes by, without answer or notice, all the untraversed assurances of the Agent-General, which induced the deed of June, 1872. It maintains the right of the colony to subsequently grant free passages (a right not denied by the memorialists, but the consequence of which to them was properly dwelt on). It represents free immigration as a boon to them, on account of their large contracts, not noticing how much greater boon it would have been if they had not been drawn so largely into contributing to it. It adverts to the granting of these contracts free from public competition as a reason why the memorialists should import labour, but ignores entirely not only the resolution of the Honourable the House of Eepresentatives of 24th October, 1871 (paragraph 7 hereof), but also the claim which the lapse of both the first contracts gave them, and the evidence of Mr. Carruthers ; but no allowance whatever was made in the contract prices for such an expenditure, but that the prices were fixed upon the supposition of Government importation of immigrants, and principally upon the rates paid for other works. It refers to heavy margins which it assumes to have been allowed to the memorialists for contingencies, and this in the face of the evidence of Mr. Carruthers that the allowance for these contingencies was the same as would have been allowed to any other contractor. In forgetfulness of the statements made to the House as well by the Hon. Mr. Ormond as by the Prime Minister himself (paragraph 12 hereof), and although no suggestion of the kind is contained in any of the evidence taken before the Committee, the letter asserts that results have shown that by submission to public tender the contracts could have been let at cheaper rates. And it quotes as a fact that some other English contractors for a railway in Tasmania spontaneously introduced labour to carry out their contracts, but it is silent as to the prices allowed to those contractors, and establishes no parallel between their case and that of the memorialists. 30. The memorialists feel it impossible to accept as final a decision based on ground so entirely at variance with the course of events set forth in this memorial as those enumerated in the last-quoted letter of the Prime Minister. They are suffering an enormous loss from their attempt to assist the Government scheme of immigration. Considering the indisputable facts that labour, to the intrinsic value to the colony of £260,000, has been imported, at their cost, without a fraction of provision for it in their prices for works ; that that cost would have clearly fallen on the Government if they had not been induced to undertake it; and that it has been cast upon the memorialists by the ex ojficio assurances of the Government A gent-General, which they could not but confide in, the memorialists humbly submit it to the sense of honour and justice which they are confident will always actuate the Government and Legislature of New Zealand, that the assurances of the Agent-General (acting under the most urgent pressure of the Government, as evidenced by the despatches of the Ministers above referred to) ought to be fulfilled to your memorialists, and that they ought to be indemnified by the Government from all loss in the matter of the immigration proceedings undertaken by them at Government instance and under the circumstances in this memorial stated.