Wairarapa Standard Published Tri-weekly, Price 1d. MONDAY, MARCH 8, 1886. Where is Captain Smith's Report?

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XIX, Issue 1804, 8 March 1886, Page 2

Wairarapa Standard Published Tri-weekly, Price Id. MONDAY, MARCH 8, 1886. Where is Captain Smith's Report?

During the last four weeks we have been making every possible effort to obtain a copy of a report stated to have been furnished to the Wellington Provincial Government by the late Captain Smith, at one time of the survey department, relative to his survey of of the country between .Wellington and the Wairarapa, with the object of discovering a line for a railway. It was thought that Captain Smith's ' report would give some valuable information relative to a line for a railway of an easier and better character than the one at present in use. We did our level best to obtain this report. We searched the blue books of the old Provincial Council from the first session to the last, embracing a period of some thirty years, and could find no trace of the report. We waited upon Mr Marchant, the Commissioner of Crown Lands, and he most courteously had a search made of the records of the Wellington Survey Department, but Captain Smith's report could not be found there. We got hold of Mr John Howard Wallace and of Mr George Allen, who for many years were members of the Wellington Provincial Council, and they clearly remembered of the existence of the report in question, but could not fix the date of its preparation. Then we hunted up Mr William Jones who use .-i to be clerj? to the Superintendent—Sir William Fitzherberl— and he (Jones) clearly remembered having made a copy of the report, by desire of the Superintendent, which oopy was sent to the General Government, presumably either to the Minister for Public Works, or the Colonial Secretary. Straightway, we wrote a letter to the Hon the Minister for Publio Workß„ explaining the position, and asking if he, peroban.ee, had a copy of Captain Smith's

report amongßt the records of bis department. To this letter the following courteous reply baa been reoeived : " Bir,—l am direoted by the Minister for Public Works to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of 11th inst., requesting that you *wij<lit be supplied with a copy of a report of " a «iaith, relative to his survey of the Captain -. ft u d s be Wairacouutry between v.- '* rapa, made in the year 1848 01 ~* *« of which is supposed to have been sen* ; this department by the Superintendent of the Province of WellliDgton Borne few years ago. In reply, lam to state that the records of the Public "Works Department have been searched, but no trace of suoh a report having been received in this office can be found, aud the Minister therefore regrets that he is unable to comply with your request. I am, however, to suggest that the plans of the survey may possibly etill be in the Wellington Provincial Survey Office." I am, &a., C. Y. O'Connor, Under Secretary Public Works.

It will be seen from the foregoing letter that Captain Smith's report is not to be touud in the Public Works Department, while it is not amongst the records of the survey department. We wish to acknowledge the courtesy of the Hon the Minister for Public Works, and if the Oommiseioner of Crown Lands in causing diligent search to be made for this report, and regret that they should have been put to any trouble for a fruitless result. But Captain Smith's report is certainly in existence. It used to be amongst the records of the Wellington Superintendent's office. But, practically, we fear that the report is not to be got at. When the Provinces were abolished, the whole of the records of the Superintendents' offices were handed over in bundles to the Colonial Secretary of that day. There were nine Superintendents of Provinces, and the records of their offioea j mu«t amount to nine awfully big bundles of j

papers. What has become of the particular bundle of papers which was taken out of the office of the Wellington Superindent ? \\e fancy it is packed away in some lumber room of "the big building" in Wellington, and that even the oldest messenger has lost the run of it. Yet the report of the late Captain Smith about a line for the Waiiarapa Railway is undoubtedly one of the papers in that bundle, and {if we could get hold of the reoord.book of letters received in the Wellington Superintendent's Office during 184850 we could find an entry giving the number and date of the sought-for document. Wherefore, oh, Hon Patrick Aloysiua Buckley—who art now Colonial Secretary—we invoke thy aid to find the much-sought-after doou* ment.