Napier July 12th. 1866. My dear McLean, I have received your note of the 2nd. inst. and was glad to find that you had reached Wellington in safety. I shall endeavour whilst you are away to keep you cognisant on all Provinical Matters, Finance especially. I am very sorry to have already to communicate to you on a subject which cannot give you more annoyance that it does me, as it has always been my endeavour to prevent blunders in monetary matters, which would in any way mislead you. I have as I am sure you must well know the interest of the Province at heart, and that it is my earnest wish to do my duty by the Government to the best of my ability. I discovered on the 30th. that the amount of Revenue I led you to expect we should receive from land was erroneous thro' some accidental and unforseen circumstances. They have arisen thro some misunderstanding by Mr. Webb of my requirement, when requesting him on the 14th. ult. (to enable me to know what money we might reckon on as coming in by the end of the month) to give me a memo of the from the Sales Book he had charge of, on the sales of Land at Wairoa and Turiroa; when he gave me the amount of the Balances due without having first deducted the amount of the Receipts passed on to Curling by him to those parties who had paid their Balances between the 30th. May and the above date, he having imagined that the whole amount of the Balances 9/10 intact of the sale of the 29th. May was all I required. Cetainly I must say in justice to him that my request might apply to both purposes, for I did not at the time inform him of the objects for which I desired the information. The consequence has been that from the figures he gave me £5231-9-6 I included £5230 (as Land Revenue coming in) in the Memorandum I gave you on the day 21st. June. I furnished you with the statement of our account with the Bankers for the Council. No money was paid into the Treasury by Curling between the 11th. and the 21st. I discovered on the 30th. that instead of £5231-9-6 being receivable on this account it was only £38145-11-7. £90 however of this was not paid reducing it to £3755-11-7 making a difference of £1385-17-11, which had already been paid to us by Curling up to the 11th. June, and thereby upsetting my anticipation of how our account at the Bank would stand on the 30th. June. Another thing also must be taken into consideration - if you recollect I gave you a memorandum showing expected receipts by the 30th. June to about £8000. Included however in this was £600 for austoms and £2000 for the leasing of the Plains. Until I gave you that memo. I was not aware that the Customs had been stopped and the leasing realized £242, short of £2000 so that this reduced the £8000 to about £7158 (irrespective of the error for Land Revenue.) Nowithstanding this however our account would have been clear, with between £300 or £400 to cerdit. Our Banking a/c stood on the 20th. June £6676-15-4. Added to this was expenditure up to the 30th. of £1002-18-4 making a total of £7679-14-8 expended. The receipts between the above dates amounted to £6529-5-6. It should have been £6833-3-6 (which would have covered the debt on the 20th. June) but £103-18 was not paid until after the 30th. and £90 Balance due on a Turiroa section remains unpaid. The result of all this is that our account stood thus on the 30th. - Land Purchase a/c £4202-1- Ordinary Current a/c £3088-3-4 leaving us in Debt in both accounts £1113-17-8. On the 2nd. I reduced the Land purchase by paying £1500 out of the Ordinary a/c to its credit, leaving £1588-3-4 to meet the current expenditure. Since this £113-18 for Publicans Fee etc. has been added, together with £463-7- from Curking for Land sold at Potutu and Prangahau. Also I have received £847-7-9 for customs for June - quite a godsend for the demands upon the Chest are pretty heavy. Weber took £810 for Public Works and £100 for surveys. I have impressed upon him the absolute necessity of reducing his expenditure as much as possible during the next three months. Potutu and Porangahau have sold below our expectations - Porangahau only realized the upset price £994-19 and Potutu £603-5- the latter was not all sold £895-9- for the former and £235-14- for the latter will be due on the 6th. proxo. I have advertised the suburban land at Havelock, the rural land at Waihua and the withdrawn section at Turiroa for sale on the 22nd. Augt. and I hope to get the Clive portion to advertize for the 28th. Augst. so as to bring in some rev. to make our accounts look better by the end of September. I should like to know your wishes respecting the Nuhaka Block (ready for sale) with your permission I would advertise it when necessary, for I hardly know how we shall manage to get on without bringing it into the market especially as we have £2700 add of Land Purchase a/c to clear off soon. I hope we shall be able to retain our 3/8 of the Customs without deduction. When is that incubus the Native Land Court going to sit here, as it will be advisable to get as much land as possible passed through it. There is some land on the road to Tarehias Bridge which would sell well, and Whangewehi would bring Mahia into request - also Moeangiangi - Waikari and Kohini inkau. There is a demand for Bush sections at Pohui, but we have no surveyors to subdivide it for sale. What about the Hawkes Bay Land Act of last session General Assembly. Has it received the Queens assent? We could devise some revenue worth having if we could lease the Runs in the North. I paid today £79 for Fees leviable on the lease for the Papakura and Hikatoto Blocks - 10 per cent on the £790, the rent we pay for the future. We have had plenty of rain for the last two nights, which will be saving of the Flocks and Herds of the Province The rain also will do our Roads good where metal has been recently spread. I have paid your salary to your credit with the Bank of Australia. M. Fitzgerald desires me to forward the enclosed to you. We tried to get a meeting of the Club last evening respecting a new Club House, but there were not a sufficient number of members to do anything - in fact the Building Committee were not in a position to propose any site for the adoption of the members. The Building Committee think the Govt. Reserve near the Athenaeum the best site, but keep that a secret, waiting until the time comes to obtain it. In the meantime we have secured a written proposal from McNalty to let us have the present house at the present rental for the year, or if taken for 3 years at £250 or £1000 for the entire interest. The wisest course will be to take it by the year, for should we have not been able to obtain the House, and the Members had to manage otherwise in the mean time of our getting the new building built I am certain many of the present members would not rejoin it. Circulars are being sent to each of the members to know if they will subscrive or take up Debentures of a value of £60 each, making equal in interest to their annual subscriptions. Could nothing be done to stop the payment of interest on the Wellington Debt, until adjustment? Believe me Yours very sincerely, J.C. Lambton Carter.