A.—No. Ib.

or, in his absence, the Senior Judge of the Supreme Court, should be empowered to act in the event contemplated. I may mention that I asked the opinion of the present Colonial Ministers on this subject, and that they state that it is so entirely of Imperial interest, that they believe they ought not to tender any advice upon it. It is obvious, however, that in a Colony possessing Parliamentary Government, the Judges are the only functionaries placed in an entirely independent position, wholly unconnected with political party. I have, &c, The Right Hon. Earl Granville, K.G. G. E. BOWEN. P.S. July 7. —Since the above Despatch was written, I have received from Mr. Eox the enclosed Ministerial Memorandum, strongly advising and urging me, for the reasons therein stated, to take steps to delay the departure from the Colony of the 18th Regiment, the last battalion of the Queen's troops still remaining here. I have this day stated to the Ministers assembled in the Executive Council that I regretted that I was utterly unable to comply with this request. I explained that, in my Despatches and letters to your Lordship, and to your predecessor, the Duke of Buckingham, I had repeatedly recommended, on grounds of Imperial as well as of Colonial policy (as indeed General Chute and Commodore Lambert have also recommended), that the 18th Regiment should be left in New Zealand for the present, on the conditions proposed by Lord Carnarvon, but that I had been informed in reply, in the most positive terms, that Her Majesty's present Government declined to repeat Lord Carnarvon's offer, and had resolved on the entire and immediate removal of the Queen's troops from New Zealand. I referred also to the language of the Despatches in which this decision was communicated to me. I further reminded the Ministers that all control over the troops remaining in this Colony had been taken out of the hands of the Governor, for I had not received from the Colonial Office any copies of the orders respecting them, issued to the Naval and Military authorities on this station; and that when the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Monsell) had been recently asked, in the House of Commons, if the Governor of New Zealand had any power to delay the departure of the 18th Regiment, he had replied, most emphatically, in the negative. I added that, in fact, the final orders for the immediate and entire removal of the troops had been sent, not to the Governor, but to General Chute, and that General Chute (as was seen from his letter of the 17th June ultimo) had already taken steps, without any reference to me, to carry out those orders forthwith; — further, that, though styled in my commission " Governor and Commander-in-Chief " of New Zealand, I was left so entirely without discretion, and even information, with regard to the Queen's troops, that (as I have already said above) I had no means of acquainting the Colonial Ministers of the dates at which the detachments of the 18th Regiment now garrisoning the principal towns in the disturbed districts (Taranaki, Napier, and Wanganui,) would be withdrawn, so that the necessary arrangements might be made for replacing them with detachments of the Colonial forces. In conclusion, I felt it to be my duty to draw particular attention to the terms of the Despatch from the Colonial Office, No. 127, of the Ist December, 1868, pointing out that the Colonial Ministry then in office had positively refused, so recently as in August, 1868, to concur with the resolutions of the Legislative Council praying that the embarkation of the 18th Regiment might be delayed, and that " the Government and Legislature of New Zealand might have withdrawn " from the position thus taken, and have sought, if they considered the emergency " so great, to retain the services of a portion of Her Majesty's troops, while " organizing their own forces, on the conditions on which those troops are retained " in the neighbouring Australian Colonies." G. E. B.

Enclosure 1 in No. 4. Major-General Sir T. Chtte to the Goyeenok of New Zealand. Sir,— Melbourne, 17th June, 1869. In conformity with the instructions contained in the enclosed copy of a letter from the "War Office, dated 23rd April, 1869, in reply to my communication of the Ist March, a copy of which was

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DESPATCHES EROM THE SECRETARY OE STATE