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A—No. 1b

who has now had some experience in his office, states that he finds the Senior Military authority discourteous and impracticable. I trust your Lordship Avill see hoAV just is the request I make, and that you will order the correspondence to which I refer to be placed in the archives of your department. I have, &c, The Right Hon. Earl Granville, K.G. G. GREY.

No. 12. Copy of a LETTER from Sir Erederic Rogers, Bart., K.C.M.G., to Sir George Grey, K.C.B. Sir, — Downing Street, 26th January, 1870. I am directed by Lord Granville to acknowledge your letter of the 15th of January. I am, first, to point out that my letter of the 23rd of April, which is stated by you to have been written "in relation" and "in reply" to yours of the 17th. of Eebruary, was really written, after two months and five other letters had interA rened, in answer to your letter of the 15th of April, in Avhich you requested verification, by reference to the correspondence existing in this department, of certain allegations of yours which you supposed to be disputed. In answer to this request, and without any reference to your letter of 17th of Eebruary, Avhich had been long before disposed of, Lord Granville informed you that the Avhole of the correspondence on the subject —that is to say, the correspondence in this office relating to the truth of your allegations—Avould be laid before Parliament, and this has been done. If it had occurred to Lord Granville that my letter of the 23rd of April would be read in connection Avith the opinion incidentally expressed in yours of the preceding Eebruary, he would have limited his announcement in so many words to " public correspondence in the possession of the Colonial Office." But it did not occur to him that there was any reason for expressing a qualification usually implied as a matter of course. Your letter concludes Avith a request that Lord Granville Avill order the War Office correspondence, already referred to, to be placed in the archives of his department. Lord Granville directs me to state that he has no power to order, and sees no sufficient reason for requesting, that this should be done. He apprehends that you are mistaken in supposing that in this case any constitutional usage has been violated or any constitutional change introduced. The Commander-in-Chief having made inquiry, and arrived at a conclusion on certain allegations made by one Military officer respecting another serving in the same Colony, it rested with the Secretary of State for War for the time being to decide Avhether that conclusion, in which he concurred, should be communicated to the Colonial Office, with or without the data on which it was founded. In the present case it was decided by General Peel to communicate the decision without those data, and Lord Granville does not feel called on to question his decision. Whether the Papers should now be laid before Parliament is a question for the Secretary of State for War. Lord Granville does not apprehend that Mr. CardAvell would oppose any motion made to that effect by any Member of either House who desires their publication, and Avho is not unwilling to recall attention to those untoward controversies betAveen the Civil and Military authorities of New Zealand from which the Colony is said to have suffered so much, and for which the withdrawal of the troops aaIII remove all future opportunity. You quote a Despatch from Sir G. BoAven to show that your remarks respecting the unconstitutional treatment of the Governor of New Zealand do not relate to a past system, but to what is now taking place. You do not, of course, forget that the withdrawal of the Governor's powers in respect to troops not intended for sendee in the Colony, whatever the merits of that measure, was adopted not by the present, but by a previous Ministry, having, in Lord Carnarvon's

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DESPATCHES EROM THE SECRETARY OE STATE