ADDRESS TO THE GOVERNOR BY THE LIGISLATIVE COUNCIL.

Colonist, Volume X, Issue 762, 17 September 1867, Page 3

ADDRESS TO THE GOVERNOR BY THE LIGISLATIVE COUNCIL.

The Legislative Council having agreed to address the Governor, previous to his Excellency leaving office, T. BARTLET,Esq., Speaker, accompanied by nearly alt the members, waited upon his Excellency at Government House, on Saturday last, September 7, and presented him with the following Address :— To his Excellency Sir Geoege Gbey, Knight, Commander of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, &c, &c, &c. May it please youe Excellency— We, tlie Legislative Council of New Zealand, in Parliament assembled, desire to express to your Excellency our sincere regret afc the intimation whicli you have received from the Right Honourable the Secretary of State for the Colonies, that your successor in fcho Government of this colony will be immediately appointed, and to convey to your Excellency the assurance of our regard and esteem. Your Excellency's administration of the Government of New Zealand has been distinguished by circumstances of no ordinary character. Twice summoned by our Sovereign to that Government, in times of difficulty and danger, as being specially qualified to meet an emergency, your Excellency has for fourteen years in all—more than half the age of the colony—administered its affairs. During that time your Excellency has used every exertion of mind and body in the conscientious discharge of your duties, and in the promotion of the welfare of both races of her Majesty's subjects in these islands. Conversant with the customs and language of the natives, and conspicuous for your influence with them, your Excellency has shown unwearied industry and activity in their improvement, and has cheerfully encountered peril, privation, and fatigue, wherever you considered your presence among them conducive to their peaceful union with European settlers, and to their advancement in civilization. We respectfully beg to tender our appreciation of the earnest desire evinced by your Excellency to cooperate afc all times with the two Houses of the Legislatnre, and of the confidence reposed by your Excellency in their desiro to promote fche interests of both races. We consider that the Imperial authorities have listened too credulously to accusations of the gravest kind, communicated by non-official informants, against your Excellency, your Government, and the colonists generally; and by acting on such information before ascertaining the truth or falsehood, they have been led to reiterate against the colonists most unfounded calumnies, and have produced unfortunate results. Wo have therefore to express our gratitude for the efforts made by your Excellency during the last three years to protect the constitutional rights ol New Zealand^and to defend its character. We lament that the important constitutional questions connected with the Government of New Zealand, raised by your Excellency, should be passed over in silence by the Imperial Government. In asserting the honour ofthe Crown, and maintaining the position of the Governor as representative of the Crown, and the constitutional rights of the colony, as well as in vindicating its character from unjust aspersion, your Excellency has put aside all personal considerations, and has not been dismayed by menace or misrepresentation. This spirit of selisacrifice has well earned for your Excellency the gratitnele of the colony, and we feel sure that when the passions of the moment have passed away, and personal feeling and prejudice no longer obscure the perception of the distinction between right and wrong, it will be universally admitted that your Excellency has, in the interests of honour and justice fulfilled a duty to the Crown which you represented, and to the colony which you governed. We cannot conclude this address without recording our high sense of the services rendered in your private capacity to New Zealand. The love of science for which your Excellency is distinguished, has specially induced you to support and interest yourself in the creation and development of institutions calculated to encourage intellectual pursuits. Your Excellency has also imported, at your own cost, valuable animals and plants, for the purpose of acclimatization in this country. Charity has never appealed to you in vain, and your sympathy has always been with the industrious settler in his humblest efforts to aid the progress of colonization. The history of New Zealand is so closely identified with yourself, that the retrospect of its progress must, we are assured, be ever associated in your mind with pleasurable recollections. The few "isolated settlements, which, on your first arrival, were struggling into life, have multiplied, throughout the length and breadth ofthe land, into numerous thriving communities. Roads, farms, villages, towns, churches, schools, and all the conditions of civilized life, now occupy the then untraversed wilderness, and, above all, the people animated by loyalty to the Queen, desire to exercise the constitutional liberty they possess in a matter not unworthy of the traditions of the great Empire to which ifc is their pride to belong. We trust that on the termination of your Excellency's second administration, the great; services which you have rendered to the Crown and to the people of this colony, may be rewarded by Her Most Gracious Majesty by some signal mark of her favour, and we respectfully beg you to accept our hearty wishes for your future happiness and welfare

His Excellency, who was deeply affected, made the following reply :— Me. Speakeb and Honoueable Gentlemen— I can now only give you thanks for this addresß. I can no longer promise by public services in your behalf to shew any gratitude, but I thank you most sincerely, not only for your address, but for the efforts you have so long made to secure the maintenance of the honour and authority of the Crown, and the welfare of her Majesty's subjects of both races, and to save Great Britain from an unnecessary expenditure of life and money. None can deny that a great and heroic work has been performed in this country. In the midst of difficulties of a most unusual kind, men—many of whom were distinguished by birth and intellectual and physical endowments of no common order—have each in their vocation, by enterprise, toil, and suffering continued through long years, laid the stable foundation of a great Anglo-Saxon nation. Men who have so laboured together may well find a present happiness and consolation in their mutual regard, esteem, and admiration, and leave the case of their fame and reputation to tbe grateful.millions who will follow them, and for whom they have in truth laboured.

Associated, as I have been, with you in so great a work for so many years, it is with sorrow I find that the public tics which have bound us together are to be rent asunder; but ifc will be much to remember thafc one of your lasfc acts towards me has been to present me an address of whicn any Governor or ruler might feel proud, and to know that while I live I shall have the pleasure of seeing you still labour honourably to fulfill your duties to your Queen and your country, however arduous they may be.