E—No. 3*

TO NATIVE AFFAIRS. ■ an official capacity, your subsequent letters were addressed to me as Colonial Secretary of New Zealand, in which capacity your Lordship must be aware that I am an ex officio member of the Executive Council, appointed and required by Her Majesty to give advice to the Governor on all matters —Native or others—consequsntly your Lordship's assertion that Native questions do not concern myself or the other members of that Council, is incapable of proof. With respect to the second instance referred to, I am not aware of having invited this correspondence, unless, indeed, the fact of my having protested against the imputation of opinions ascribed to the Government in the original "remarks" can be so construed. Your Lordship further states that you cannot understand the words as applying to the Imperial Government, because no remarks have been addressed by.your Lordship or the Clergy of the Church of England to the Secretary of State for the Colonies. Omitting to dwell upon the fact that some prominent members of the Church of England have addressed the S cretary of State on matters connected with the subject of your Lordship's letters, the circumstance that your own letters were officially received by me as Colonial Secretary necessitated— referring as they did to Native questions—that they should be laid before His Excellency the Governor, who, in virtue of his office, represents the Crown and the Imperial Government in all its relations with the Natives; and your Loidship in these letters distinctly, on several grounds, seeks to interfere in the Waitara question, and pioposes to substitute another mode of dealing with it, than that determined on and publicly announced to the Natives by Her Majesty's Representative. In the Memorandum accompanying your letter of the 23rd April, your Lordship further lays down conditions on which your support to Her Majesty's Government will be given. In your letter of the sth instant, your Lordship again assigns reasons why the Clergy of the Church of England should interfere in Native questions, one of which reasons being that all other classes of Her Majesty's subjects were expressing their opinions upon these questions. I have never sought to deny the individual right of Clergymen of the Church of England—in the character of private citizens—to enter the arena of politics, either Native or otherwise, if they should think fit to do so. 'ihe expressions in my letter of the 3rd instant to which your Lordship alludes, and to which you appear to take exception, simply denied the right claimed on behalf of the Clergy of the Church of England to dictate, as members of a religious body, a policy to Her Majesty's Government. I denied—and deny on constitutional grounds —that right as claimed for them in their professional capacity as a quasi corporate body. Referring to the same letter, I must respectfully protest against the inference conveyed by your Lordship in claiming for the Natives " all the rights and privileges of British subjects as guaranteed to " them by the Treaty of Waitangi." His Excellency and his Responsible Advisers have on so many occasions expressed an intention to uphold and act in conformity with the terms of that Treaty as to render the claim now preferred, so far as the Government is concerned, superfluous. As regards the last sentence but one of that letter, I observe with much pain that, by the addition of words not contained iD my letter, your Lordship has misimplied my statement that it would be unwise and dangerous to delay the settlement of the Waitara question, (urgently pressing for settlement,) until the possible establishment of a Special Tribunal, to be an intimation that no thorough investigation of the Native Title there would take place. Permit me to assure your Lordship that there is no need of apprehending that His Excellency will omit to fulfil any pledge which he has thought fit to give in this matter. With reference to the last paragraph of your Lordship's letter, I must beg leave to be allowed to deprecate the expression of your Lordship's regret, as I was and am required to give advice to the Governor on all matters, and do not believe that His Excellency " declared war on Taranaki on an " unproved assumption," I advised the Governor on the matter in question, and so long as I have the honor to hold my present office, I will continue to give that advice which it is my duty to afford, on all matters connected with the Government of New Zealand, although with an " experience of the dif- " ficultie3 of providing for the administration of justice, and with a foresight of the dangers attending " even the investigation of truth." I have, &c. E. W. Stafford. His Lordship the Bishop of New Zealand,

No. 10. THE BISHOP OP NEW ZEALAND TO MR. STAFFORD. Auckland, 24th May, 1861. Sib, — I have to thank you for your letter of the 20th instant, in which you express " your very great " regret at some of the statements and imputations contained in my letter of the sth instant." If I should find, upon further enquiry, that I have imputed anything to His Excellency or to the Ministers, which is not borne out by documents issued by the Colonial Government, I will at once etract it. If I am right in assuming from the general tenor of your letters, that the policy pursued at the Waitara, however satisfactory to those who advised it, will not be drawn into a precedent, I feel assured that not one or two only of the Clergy of the Church of England, as at present, but our whole body,