A.—No. 1b

" Chute and the Secretary of State for War and the Eield-Marshal the Com- " mander-in-Chief, upon this subject." Sir Erederic Rogers replied, on the 9th of March, 1869, " Lord Granville is " informed that your Despatch No. 131 was not printed with the Weare Cor- " rcspondencc, because it appeared more naturally to belong to the general " correspondence relating to the New Zealand disturbances, with which it will " shortly be laid before Parliament." Again, on the 23rd of April, 1869, Sir E. Rogers, in relation to the same letter from me, wrote as folloAvs :— " I am to add that there are no papers on the subject which Lord Granville " wishes to conceal from you, and that the whole correspondence on the subject " will be, he hopes, shortly laid before Parliament, being now in course of " preparation for the press." My letter which I have quoted, and Sir E. Rogers' tAvo letters in reply, were printed, and Avere laid before Parliament on the Bth July, 1869. Marginal notes were printed in these Parliamentary Papers to the paragraphs of my letter of the 17th Eebruary, 1869. These notes stated that my Despatch No. 131, of 26th November, 1867, was printed at page 85 of the Parliamentary Papers, and that the Correspondence with the War Department to Avhich I had alluded was printed between pages 438 and 495 of the same Papers. As was stated in the marginal note, my Despatch No. 131, of the 26th November, 1867, was printed in the Parliamentary Papers at page 85. Its publication was, however, then of little use. It was isolated from the Papers with which it was connected; and this fact, and the length of time which had elapsed, rendered it almost impossible for any one who was not in possession of the papers to which it referred to estimate its real significance. The other Military correspondence which Sir E. Rogers, in Lord Granville's name, had promised should be produced, and which the marginal note informed Parliament had actually been printed somewhere between pages 438 and 495, was kept back. At first, I did not look for the promised letters, believing that they had, as Avas stated, been printed: when I searched for them, I found they had been evidently omitted, and apparently by design. I represented this, and was then informed:— Ist. That the marginal note attached to my letter of the 17th Eebruary, in the Parliamentary Papers recently printed, Avas not the result of any misunderstanding of the subject, but a blunder of the clerk who compiled the Returns. 2nd. That I had been informed that my Despatch No. 131 would be printed in its proper place, and that this had been done. 3rd. That the further correspondence to which I alluded Avas not in the possession of the Colonial Office. 4th. That Lord Granville never had any intention of adding it, or any other Papers, to the Weare correspondence laid before Parliament by direction of his predecessor. Upon the first two of these statements it is not necessary for me to make any remark here. Upon the 4th, I Avould say that a distinct promise was made in Sir E. Rogers' letter of the 23rd April, 1869, that the whole correspondence avouM be produced. I remained, at considerable cost and much inconvenience, in London, Avaiting day by day for that event; and I submit, if your Lordship had from the first intended not to produce it, I ought, in justice and fairness, to have been at once told so in March, and that I ought not to have been kept waiting until after the Parliamentary Session had passed, to learn, at the end of November, that the correspondence would not be produced. It is by such delays that unfortunate applicants to the Colonial Department are noAV worn out, or so impoverished that they are forced ultimately to abandon all hope of justice. Such delays not only shut out from justice suitors from a distance, but often punish them with ruin for having sought it. The third statement, that the correspondence is not in the possession of the Colonial Office, puts the whole case in its true and in a very sad light. The letters ought to be there. The Constitution requires that they should be there. The Queen's Regulations ordered that they should have been sent there

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DESPATCHES EROM THE SECRETARY OE STATE