NEW ZEALAND TO THE SECRETARY OE STATE.

29

A.—No. 1

The Resolution of both Houses of the Legislature will, it is hoped, be considered sufficient to justify an application to General Chute for the temporary detention of tho Regiment. Ministers will propose to the House of Representatives a Bill to make legislative provision for tho fulfilment of this pledge, which there is no doubt the Legislature will pass. Want of time alone prevented the Government bringing down a Bill instead of a Resolution. Ministers beg to advise His Excellency that Dr. Eeatherston, a Member of the House of Representatives, (who is prepared to undertake the mission,) should be despatched to Melbourne for the purpose of conveying to General Chute such information in relation to the state of the Colony as may enable him to appreciate the critical position of affairs, which has led to the adoption by the Legislature of the Resolutions which His Excellency is requested to communicate to him. Eor His Excellency the Governor. William Eox.

Sub-Enclosures to Enclosure 2 in No. 12. Copy of a Resolution passed by the Legislative Council the 22nd July, 1869. Resolved : —That a respectful Address be presented to the Governor, praying that His Excellency will be pleased to represent to Sir Trevor Chute, X.C.8., the disastrous consequences which may follow the removal of the 18th Eegiment at this critical period, and will be also pleased, pending further reference to the Imperial Government, to move the General to accept the responsibility of detaining one regiment within the Colony, and to assure him that this Council will concur in legislation making provision to pay such sum as tho Imperial Government may require for tho time the troops are detained until its decision is made known. Copy of a Resolution passed by the House of Representatives the 22nd July 1869. Resolved :—That a respectful Address be presented to the Governor, praying that His Excellency will be pleased to represent to General Sir Trevor Chute, X.C.8., the disastrous consequences which may follow the removal of the 18th Regiment at this critical period, and will be also pleased, pending further reference to the Imperial Government, to move the General to accept the responsibility of detaining one regiment within the Colony, and to assure him that this House will pay such sum as the Imperial Government may require for the time tho troops are detained until its decision is made known.

Enclosure 3 in No. 12. Memorandum by the Governor. Government House, Wellington, 24th July, 1869. The Governor has read with great attention the Ministerial Memorandum of the 22nd instant, stating that " the alarming news contained in the enclosed communications just received from Waikato, and " elsewhere, of the arrival of To Kooti and his armed band at Tokangamutu, the head-quarters of the " Maori King, and of the probability of a combined attack on the settled districts in the neighbourhood " of Auckland, renders it imperative on His Excellency's Responsible Advisers to lay again before His " Excellency an urgent representation of the disasters which the removal of the only Imperial regiment " in the Colony, at such a critical moment, would in all probability occasion." The Governor has also considered with no less care the Ministerial Memorandum of the 23rd instant, submitting copies of " Resolutions, one passed unanimously by the House of Representatives, " the other by a majority of nineteen to two in the Legislative Council, requesting His Excellency to " urge on General Sir Trevor Chute the expediency of temporarily detaining tho 18th Regiment in " New- Zealand." With regard to Mr. Fox's previous Memorandum of the 6th instant, the Governor stated to Ministers in the Executive Council that he regretted that it was entirely beyond his power to delay the departure of the 18th Regiment from this country. He explained that in his Despatches to the Secretary of State for tho Colonies he had repeatedly recommended (as indeed General Chute and Commodore Lambert had also recommended), on grounds of Imperial as well as of Colonial policy, that the 18th Regiment should bo left in New Zealand for the present, on conditions similar to those proposed by Lord Carnarvon ; but that he had been informed in reply, in tho most positive terms, that Her Majesty's present Government declined to repeat Lord Carnarvon's offer, and have resolved on the entire and immediate removal of the Queen's Troops, for the reasons stated in Despatches already presented to the Colonial Legislature. The Governor further reminded Ministers that all control over the troops remaining in this Colony had been taken out of his hands ; that he had not received from the Colonial Office copies of the orders respecting those troops issued to the naval and military authorities in this command; and that when the Under Secretary of State (tho Right Honorable W. Monsell) had recently been asked in the House of Commons if the Governor of New Zealand had power, under any circumstances whatever, to delay the departure of the 18th Regiment, Mr. Monsell had replied most emphatically in the negative; 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 the Governor, to carry out those orders forthwith; further, that though styled in his Commission "Commander-in-Chief" of New Zealand, the Governor was left so entirely without discretion, and even information, with regard to tho Queen's Troops, that (as was already known) ho had no moans of acquainting tho Colonial Ministers with the dates, at which tho head-quarters of the 18th Regiment at Auckland, and the detachments now garrisoning the principal towns in the disturbed districts (Taranaki, Napier, and Wanganui), would be withdrawn, so that tho necessary arrangements might be made for replacing them with detachments of the Colonial Forces. In the Ministerial Memorandum of the 23rd instant, it is stated as follows : —" The large margin " given by the Resolutions as to the rate of payment for the services of tho 18th Regiment leads 8