PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXV, Issue 1673, 27 April 1866, Page 3

PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS.

The following dispatches from the Secretary of State for the Colonies, to Sir George Grey, are of principal importance among those which have not already been published in New Zealand. • No. 22. Downing street, October 26,1866. Sir,—l have received your dispatches of the dates and numbers noted in the margin. I learn with great satisfaction that the Wereroa pah, to the possession of which you have attached so much importance, has fallen into your hands without loss. Her Majesty's Government appreciate the skill and gallantry displayed on the occasion by the colonial foicesand the friendly natives, and observe with pleasure that you desire to call their attention to the assistance which you have received from Her Majesty's regular forces. I trust that all the important consequences which you have anticipated,as likely to result from the reduction of this rebel fortress may be fully realized. I have not failed to communicate to the Secretary of State for War your dispatches on the subject. I have also to transmit to you a letter and its enclosures, which I have received from the War Department, conveying the answer of General Cameron to the complaints against him, contained jr implied in your dispatches, and iu your speech to the Assembly. I must at the same time inform you that the course which you have pursued in assuming so large a share in the personal direction of military operations, in presence of the regular forces and of their officers, haß given rise to questions upon which I shall probably have to address you by the next mail. ■ I read with pleasure in the memorandum of pour Ministers the statement that they intend to remain in office, and am glad to learn that none of the embarrassments which you antijipated from their resignation are now likely to arise. I told you by the last mail that I ivas satisfied that some misunderstanding must have prevailed, and that I expected soon to hear that it had been dispelled. Your Ministers have rightly understood from my lispatoh of April 26, that their policy is recognised by the Home Government; a point ipon which I should have thought there :ould be no doubt after the explicit declaralion conveyed to you in my dispatch of February 27, and again in that of March 27, n both of which I told you that the resoluions of the Assembly embodying that policy iad been received by Her Majesty's Governnent with entire satisfaction. They are, wwever, mistaken in supposing that any dissretionary powers recently vested in the Lieutenant- General commanding had reverted ;oyou. It never was intended that any dissretion should be vested in you or your resxmsibie advisers with respect to that portion if Her Majesty's troops who under the correspondence between this department and the late Colonial Treasurer were not ;o be included in the contribution jxpected from the colony for the current year. In taking this portion of the force at five regiments, we made, I think, in estimate fair and liberal to the the colony; wd in my dispatch of February 27, I informed you " By the present mail the Secretary of State for War gives instructions to General Cameron which contemplate that he will make arrangements for sending home five regiments. Her Majesty's Government have arived at the conclusion that under present circumstances, these instructions may be safely given. I Understand that the colony does not propose to accept the guarantee of the Imperial Treasury under the Act of 1864; but the former arrangement under which the colony paid only £5 for each soldier has expired, and I shall expect to bear from you that arrangements have been made for thg new and increased contribution in respect of the troops who still remain. The orders given to General Cameron will enable your Ministers to diminish this contribution, if they shall think fit, by requesting the withdrawal of a larger portion of the force." The only discretion vested in General Cameron with respect to the five .regiments was intended to guard against undue haste in the execution of his orders, exposing the colonists to hazard under circumstances unforeseen by Her Majesty's Government. It was thus described to you by me in my dispatch of March 27: " The latitude given to General Cameron with respect to the time of the withdrawal of the troops is intended to prevent the hazard of attack upon the colonists, considering the distance and interval of time which render it impossible to foresee the circumstances under which the colony may be placed when the dispatches from home shall reach you. It is not intended to encourage the adoption of any policy which may tend to retard the ultimate withdrawal of the force." General Cameron appears to have understood correctly the meaning of the instructions he received from Lord de Grey, and but for your authoritative protest would have carried at once into effect the wishes of Her Majesty's | Government by sending home this portion of the force. Any misunderstanding, however, which has existed on this question will, I conclude, no longer be productive of evil consequences, since I learn from your present dispatches that the five regiments m question will be sent home, in pursuance of the instructions of Her Majesty's Government to that effect, and I have every reason to suppose that you and your Ministers now concur in the expediency of this course. It does, however, appear to be very necessary to establish a clear understanding with respect to the troops who will still remain in the colony, and towards the provision for which the colony is expected to contribute. With respect to these troops, no discretion whichever was invested in you and your Ministers has been withdrawn, and no discretion has ever been vested by Lord de Grey in General Cameron. But the acceptance by the colony of the obligation to contribute is an essential condition of your continuing to enjoy any such discretion. I observe with much pleasure that in your speech made by the advice of your Ministers to the Assembly, you congratulate that body on the partial establishment of peace, and in speaking of the intended return of five regiments to England, express your trust and belief that those five regiments may be quickly followed by the remainder of the Imperial troops; that you consider that the measures adopted by the Assembly have in a great measure relieved the financial embarrassment in which the colony had been placed; and that you trust that you will be enabled to provide for the financial exigencies ■ of the colony without encroaching materially on the provision heretofore made out of the general ordinary revenue for the service of the provinces. I share sincerely in the satisfaction with which you observe the steady advance of the colony in population and wealth ; and rejoice that you see no reason for anticipating any check to this onward progress; and that fail to cW the Colony through difficulties which you describe as temporary in them : selves and already beginning to disappear, notice, however, that you are silent on th. subject of contribution for the Impena forces serving in the colony; and in youi dispatch of 19th July, No. 62, you expressl; say that it will be difficult for you to indue the Colonists to pay for forces which are n times of di liculty practically useless. I havi also before me the memorandum of you Ministers dated llth July, in which the; assign their reasons for not recommending U the colonial parliament the expected appro priation, and although it appears to have beei written in some measure under the earn misapprehension as the memorandum of tli 12th July, announcing their intended resig nation,it has not yet been withdrawn. Id not, however, assume that your Ministers vn not propose, or that the Assembly wdlno

make, the expected appropriation ; but I feel that after the repeated declarations of your Advisers that they are anxious for the withdrawal of the troops, and the support almost unanimously given by the Assembly to yonr Ministers in this policy, the time has now arrived whenitisincumbenton Her Majesty's Government to take care that this question is brought to a point. I hare, therefore, on the part of Her Majesty's Government once more to remind you that in the estimates submitted to the Imperial Parliament, this contribution has been assumed as the condition on which alone Imperial troops would be permitted to remain in New Zealand; and to say that while Her Majesty's Government are quite satisfied with the policy of your Ministers as declared in the resolutions adopted by the Assembly, they can no longer delay to take such security as lies in their power for the fulfilment of the expectations held out to the Imperial Parliament, and for the accomplishment of the policy adopted by the Assembly of Kew Zealand, They require you, therefore, immediately upon the ceipt of this dispatch, to place at once at the disposal of the officer commanding Her Majesty's forces in the colony, with a view to their early removal from New Zealand, all the troops for whom no such appropriation shall have been made by the Assembly of New Zealand ns was contemplated in thecorrespondence between this department and the late Colonial Treasurer, laid before Parliament in June 1864. In order, however, that full opportunity may be afforded to your Ministers to take such steps as in their opinion may be required by the state of the colony, and that tiie due responsibility may rest upon them, I add the following qualification, viz., that if, when you receive this instruction, no such appropriation shall have been made, and you or your Ministers consider that the troops or any ..portion of them cannot safely be sent away, and are desirous forthwith to convene the Assembly, and to obtain the appropriation, you are at liberty to allow sufficient time for this purpose, and no more. The principal object of your dispatch of August 14th. No. 108, appears to be the vindication of yourself and your Ministers against the observations of General Cameron, I could have wished that with his departure from New Zealand it had been possible to have closed this painful chapter; and at any rate, since you inform me you have more to say by the next mail, I need not occupy this dispatch with any further reference to the subject. But among the enclosures to that dispatch are documents which cannot be passed by without remark, It appears that your Ministers, treating as a payment in cash the debentures for £500,000 sent home in March, arrive at the conclusion that the debt due from the colony to the Imperial Treasury has been reduced to an insignificant amount. As soon as this statement shall have passed under the examination of Her Majesty's Treasury I shall acquaint you with the result. In the meantime, however, I must observe that the Imperial Treasury have not accepted, and are not empowered by Parliament to accept, as a payment in cash, debentures which if sold at that time would have produced very much less than the sum they purport to represent. In order to avoid entailing upon the colopy the loss which such a sale would have occasioned, the Lords of Her Majesty's Treasury proposed the temporary arrangement communicated to you in my dispatch of 26th July, No. 54, and in that of August 23rd, No. 66, (to which I am awaiting your reply). Another enclosure bears upon the very important subject of the advances which you have obtained from the Treasury chest for the pay and rations of the colonial forces. But as the information which you have supplied to me is still as yet fragmentary, I await any further explanation which may be included in the answer to General Cameron's memorandum, which you acquaint me I shall rsceive by the next mail, I cannot, however, permit this post to pass without noticing observations put forward by you in your memorandum of the llth July, which has been communicated to me by the War Department, though not as yet by yourself. Those observations have been already to a certain extent answered by anticipation in my former dispatches, and in the letters from the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury which I have enclosed in those dispatches. lam not aware that you ever had any authority for supposing that any such advances as you speak of from the moneys of the United Kingdom for the payment of the Colonial troops would be approved by Her Majesty's Government. But in the memorandum now before me you appear altogether to overlook the position of Her Majesty's Government in respect to the expenditure on the advance of public moneys, You refer to the practice of European nations in guaranteeing loans for their allies, or finding subsidies, but you do not appear to remember that the moneys out of which loans and subsidies are provided are in every such case appropriated to those objects by the Imperial Parliament. Military expenditure, when it cannot be specifically appropriated, is the subject of votes of credit obtained from the Imperial Parliament, and it is wholly contrary to the very practice to which you appeal for fie Executive Government to apply moneys of the United Kingdom to those purposes without the previous | sanction of Parliament. I trust that the clear and positive instructions which I gave you as soon as I heard that these advances had been recommended will have attained their end, and thatthf colony will ere this have taken measures foi replacing to the Treasury Chest moneys whicl ought not to have been drawn from it. Neithei the Commissary General, nor the Lieut-Gene-ral, nor you, nor Her Majesty's Government at home have authority to issue moneys from the Treasury Chest in exchange for the de bentures of the colony; that power, i! exercised at all, belongs exclusively to the Im perial Parliament. These observations woulc have been, I think, unanswerable even if th< subject had been new to Parliament; but, in the present case, the subject has been brough before Parliament, aid has been conceded ti the colony, and the terms of that aid havi been rejected by the colony. I shall be most anxious to hear that thi engagements into which your Minister entered for the monthly repayment of thes advances have been redeemed, and that you explanation is such as may enable met justify the course which you have pursued. I have, &c, Edwakd Caedwixl. Governor Sir George Grey, K.C.B. &c. &c. Discovery op Mr. Rich's Bodt.—Th Hawk's Bay Times says:—"lnformation wa received in town on Thursday night last, 12t April, of the discovery of the body of Mr. Wil liam Rich, who, our readers will remembei had been missing for about three weeks. W have since received the following particulars —' It would appear that a man named Lee poldt, a German, and shepherd, in the en i ployment of the native chief Te Hapuki i happened on Thursday to be driving a floe . of sheep across a creek near the Te Aul i Bush, when an object on the bank startle them. He then went up and examined tl i object, which proved to be the remains of th unfortunate deceased, partly concealed b flax bushes. They were frightfully mut . lated, a great deal of flesh having been toi - from the upper part of the body, as if b 1 pigs, and the head being found som i dozen yards from the trunk. The pla< : where he wbb found was about a mile on t from Mr. Ellingham's, at Te Aute, and cloi , upon a side track very much used. Tl ■ body having having beenconveyed to TeAut I Dr. EDglish (the Coroner) was immediate! s sent for, and an inquest was held on Frida 1 the 13th, at which a verdict in accordant r with the facts of the case was returned 1 r the jury. The death of Mr. W. Rich hi e thrown a very painful gloom over' societ i more especially when the causes and circur s stances are taken into consideration whii r led to his untimely end. The discovery v the body will, however, we trust, give son 3 satisfaction to his sorrowing friends, of who - there are not a few, for he was universal a respected by all who had any acquaintan e with him. We understand that Miss Ric e sister to the deceased gentleman, was apa - senger by the Taranaki yesterday, fro o Auckland. We are sure she will receive t U sincere sympathy of the Hawke's Bay pub! it ju her deep affliction."

Noble Conduct of a Maori Chief.- A correspondent of the Soutkern Cross writes from Alexandra, Upper Waikato, on the 6th instant:•--"lntelligence reached camp this morning of a white man having been brought to the house of Mr. H. Turner, about four miles from this camp, and left there in a state of high fever. The facts of the case, which I have obtained from an authentic source, are these:—A few days ago, three white men left Taranaki to walk overland to this camp. Not far from the White Cliffs they were met by a party of Maoris. The white men were at the fee carrying a white flag, and were without arms. The Maoris met them with every expression of anger, and their lives were threatened; the Maoris seizing them by the hair of the head, and threatening to tomahawk them. At this juncture the Chief Weteri came forward, and, placing their hats on his head, said that if a hair of their heads were injured he would have to take up the fight, as they came peaceably and unarmed. The custody of them was then handed over to Weteri, He brought them as far as Mokau, when two of them, fascinated by the graces of the Maori females, went through the ceremony of walking round the pole, and were left there with their adopted better-halves. The Chief Weteri brought the remaining man (Duncan, I believe by name, formerly carter to Mr. Thorpe, at Te Awamutu) as far as Mr. H.Turner's, a three day's journey, lending him a horse. Having brought hitn there, Weteri refused to come into camp, saying,' I have now delivered the man to you and have now kept my word.' The man Duncan will have to be taken into hospital here,"