at Moorehouse's appointment to the Registry Office and I cannot congratulate you upon it. If he is at all like what he is said to be, the new Act will have a poor chance under his administration. Really it is a good job your Govt. started strong or you could not stand many such mistakes as this. Now let me see if I have any local news. The Daily paper is going on and will come out before long. Wood is fearfully jealous of it and very much afraid too. It will do him a great deal of harm as Sutton, Kennedy and others interested in the new Paper will of course give it their advertisements. The new paper is supposed to start with us but I scarcely expect two papers in so small a place as this can continue on the same side. Whitmore assured Wood that the whole thing was my contrivance to get rid of the Times and Whitmore's Articles and I am not quite sure Wood doesn't believe it. We are having a very wet spring and during the last week we have had very cold weather which has checked the growth of everything. My time has been fully taken up lately with native matters in connection with the seventy mile bush purchase. I am afraid Locke is not a good hand - he tries all he knows but he does not know how to work out his object. He is very good to quiet a case but when it comes to settling a difficult case or getting a result he is not up to it.