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this Commission, you and each of you are hereby empowered and authorized to call before you such persons as you shall judge likely to afford you any information on the subject of this Commission, and to inquire of and concerning the premises by all other lawful means and ways whatsoever. And this Commission shall continue in full force and virtue; and you the said Commissioners, or either of you, may from time to time, and at any place or places, proceed in the execution hereof, and of every matter and thing herein contained, although the inquiry be not regularly continued from time to time by adjournment. And, lastly, that you do, with as little delay as possible, report to me under your hands, your opinion resulting from the said inquiry of the several matters and things herein net forth. Given under the hand of His Excellency Sir George Ferguson Bowen, Knight Grand Cross of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, Governor and Commander-in-Chief in and over Her Majesty's Colony of jNTew Zealand and its Dependencies, and Vice-Admiral of the same, at Wellington, this seventh day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and seventy-three. William Fox, Approved in Council. Presiding. FoESTEE GOUINO, Clerk of the Executive Council.

Enclosure 2 in No. 71. Dr. Bakewell to His Honor J. Macandrew. On board the " Charlotte Gladstone," Sib, — Near the Snares, 13th February, 1873. Our near approach to land warns me that I must attempt at least a brief report on the causes of the extraordinary amount of sickness and mortalit}' on board this unfortunate vessel. I must ask to be allowed to defer any report on other matters until I have a little recovered my health. At present lam suffering extreme pain, greatly aggravated by the necessity of sitting up in bed to write the draft of this report. 1 have been suffering for some weeks past from abscess in the pelvis,* which caused me the most excruciating pain, so much so that I have only been enabled to go about my work by the help of continual doses of opium. It may serve to give some idea of what I havo suffered if I state that I have been obliged to consume during the past three weeks about ten ounces of laudanum. This will, I hope be a sufficient excuse for the style of my report. I find that up to to-day there have been registered 384 cases of illness among the emigrants, including three or four among the second-class passengers, and that there have been sixteen deaths among them, and one among the crew, making a total of seventeen. The causes of this extraordinary sickness and mortality have nearly all been preventible. The deaths have, except three, all been caused by diarrhoea assuming a dysenteric form or by typhoid fever. Although we have had measles, sore throats, and thrush epidemic, no death has originated from any of these causes. As regards measles, of which I shall treat when I have concluded ray remarks on the fever and diarrhoea, it was remarkable to me how favourably the children had it; not one suffered from bronchitis or pneumonia, and many not even from the symptoms of catarrh, for they had it in the tropics. We have had about ninety-four cases of diarrhoea, chiefly among the children.f We have had fifty-seven cases of fever among the emigrants,]; and three among the crew, making in all sixty. Of these, eighteen were cases of febricula or ephemeral fever —cases originating in the same poison germ acting on a healthier constitution, or one less fitted for the nutrition of the poison germ. Of these, eight cases have proved fatal—one of them being a sailor, the remainder emigrants. All the emigrants were adults, with the exception of one child who has died to-day. This child seemed to bo devoured by intestinal worms, of which he passed large numbers by the mouth and rectum. In discussing the causes of the mortality, we have to consider two points : first, the cause of the diseases ; secondly, the causes of the mortality from these diseases. First, as to the causes of the diseases, they are various. A. The people themselves, when they embarked, were the most sickly, unhealthy, underfed lot of people I had seen for many years. I made this remark to the inspecting medical officer, Mr. Humphreys. Ho replied that they would improve on the voyage. This was a mistake. So far from improving oil the voyage, the most unhealthy have died, and the remainder have been almost constantly suffering under one form or other of zymotic disease. They have been drawn, apparently without any kind of medical selection from the lowest class of agricultural labourers. They comprise a large number of consumptive persons ; many others who have been chronic invalids, and who have avowedly come out for the benefit of their health ; and the sickliest lot of children I ever saw, even in the out-patients' room of a London hospital. Pale, wan, flabby, scrofulous, and anemic, among all the fifty-three children there were not a dozen who would pass muster as robust or healthy. Many of these children came on board suffering from diarrhoea, all came from the very nests and haunts of epidemic ; all belong to that class amongst which epidemic diseases always begin, rage most fiercely, and prove most fatal. Illnourished, insufficiently clothed, these wretched children were piled into a compartment crowded with far more than its proper number, and this leads me on to the second cause of the mortality. * Which lias Bince broken —17th February. t I intend in a subsequent report to separate the children's cases from those of the adults. The former alone are fatal. Many if not most of these assumed a dysenteric character, blood and mucus being passed with much tenesmus. Of these five proved fatal—all being children weakly in themselves, and with one or both parents constitutionally weak. t P.S.—Up to the lGth.