H.—25

6

The Governing Body believe that your Excellency will have at your command the means and knowledge to recommend fit and competent occupants for this position, and venture to hope for your valuable aid in this particular. Sir Somers Vine is also charged to inform your Excellency in respect to the proposed establishment and maintenance up to date, in the Institute, of sample museums of natural and industrial products, and to obtain such details as it may be possible to give him as to the prospects of cooperation in this work by the Colony of New Zealand. Sir Somers Vine may be expected to arrive at Wellington in the month of April next. I have, &c, F. A. Abel, Organizing Secretary. His Excellency the Governor of New Zealand, Wellington.

Enclosure 3 in No. 5. Sir F. A. Abel to the Hon. the Peemiee. Sic,— Imperial Institute. I have the honour, by direction of His Eoyal Highness the Prince of Wales, the President, and the Governing Body of the Institute, to forward for your information the enclosed printed paper, setting forth the objects of the Department of Commercial and Industrial Intelligence of the Imperial Institute, towards the establishment of which considerable progress has been made. With the view of supplying you and the members of your Government with full details of the proposals relating thereto, and of securing your valuable advice in connection with them, the Governing Body have instructed my principal assistant (Sir Somers Vine) to visit New Zealand, and have requested the Agent-General of your Government to furnish him with a letter of introduction for the purpose of enabling him to personally communicate with you, and with such officials and commercial representatives as you may think fit to refer him to. Sir Somers Vine is instructed to describe to you the system of correspondence with various centres 'of the Empire which the Governing Body has in contemplation, and to seek your opinion, and those of the various authorities and individuals to whom he may be referred, as to the value and expediency of establishing an agency at Wellington. Should you think well of the proposal, Sir Somers Vine is authorised to enter into preliminary negotiations with persons who are considered competent, and who would be willing to perform the duties of agent. Sir Somers Vine is also charged to confer with you respecting another branch of the work of the Institute, namely, the establishment and maintenance up to date, in the Institute, of sample museums of natural and industrial products, and to obtain such details as it may be possible to give him as to the prospects of co-operation in this work by the Colony of New Zealand. Sir Somers Vine may be expected to arrive at Wellington in the month of April next. I have, &c, F. A. Abel, Organizing Secretary. The Hon. the Premier, Wellington, New Zealand.

No. 6. The Agent-Geneeal to the Hon. the Peemieb. Sib, — 7, Westminster Chambers, S.W., 6th December, 1888. I have the honour to introduce to you Sir Somers Vine, Assistant Secretary of the Imperial Institute of the United Kingdom, the Colonies, and India, whom the Governing Body of the Institute, with the sanction of His Eoyal Highness the Prince of Wales, are sending to several colonies in order to take certain steps for the organization of an efficient Commercial Intelligence Department in connection with the Institute. I have assured Sir Somers Vine that he will receive from your Government all reasonable facilities to assist him in the task with which he has been charged. I am addressing you in another despatch upon the objects which His Eoyal Highness and the Governing Body of the Institute desire to attain by the formation of the proposed Intelligence Department. I have, &c, The Hon. the Premier, Wellington, New Zealand. F. D. Bell.

No. 7. The Agent-Geneeal to the Hon. the Peemiee. (No. 1758.) Westminster Chambers, 13, Victoria Street, London, S.W., Sib,— 29th November, 1890. I beg to enclose a copy of a letter I have received from the Prince of Wales, requesting me to move your Government to take steps for obtaining an instalment of the contribution which His Eoyal Highness and the Governing Body of the Imperial Institute were led to hope would be granted to the Institute by New Zealand. I need not'bring to your recollection the circumstances connected with the proposal made in 1887 by Sir Eobert Stout's Government for a grant of £10,000, extending over ten years, as nothing seems to have come of it since. But on the return of Sir Somers Vine from his mission to the Australasian Colonies, and after receiving his report of what had taken place at interviews with your Government, His Eoyal Highness and the Governing Body of the Institute felt assured that it