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As his Honor the Superintendent does not, either in the letter addressed to your Excellency or in that to the Secretary of State, identify himself or his Executive Council with the views expressed in the petition, but confines himself to the formal act of transmission, I shall have occasion to refer only to the statements made by Sir George Grey in his petition, and to the prayer with which it concludes. Sir George Grey sets out with a statement that he has recently, by means of a newspaper (the Lyttelton Times) , become acquainted with the nature and origin of the so-called compact of 1856, which took away from the inhabitants of the Province of Auckland their rights in the revenues arising from the waste lands of the Crown in New Zealand ; and thereon he represents that in 1845, he himself, being then Governor, was entrusted by the British Parliament with the sum of £10,000 for the purchase of Native lands, which sum was to be a perpetually renewable fund for that purpose ; that, when the Constitution Act was passed in 1852, it recognised and perpetuated the system already established, and made it the duty of the Governor to carry it on independently of the Assembly; that large tracts of land were so acquired, which were the property of the whole British people; that the Province of Auckland was, for reasons given, especially interested in the maintenance of the before-mentioned arrangements; that it is doubtful whether, even with the authority of a special Act of the Imperial Parliament for the purpose, the New Zealand Assembly had power to alter the arrangements before mentioned ; that a resolution has recently been passed by the House of Eepresentatives affirming the conditions of the compact of 1856; and as this resolution will probably be submitted to the Home Government with a view to Parliamentary action being taken thereon before the people of New Zealand can have time to know every step that is taken in the matter, Sir George Grey prays his Honor the Superintendent of the Province of Auckland and the Provincial Government to take such steps as they may judge most expedient to protect the rights of the inhabitants of that province, and to delay any hurried action of the British Parliament in relation thereto. A plain statement of the facts of the case will be the most fitting reply to Sir George Grey. I do not know what extent of land, "the property of the British nation," was acquired by the sum of £10,000 entrusted to Sir George Grey, as he states, in 1845. It is certain, however, that when the Constitution Act was brought into operation in 1853, the proceeds of sale of the demesne lands of the Crown in New Zealand were charged with the sum of £268,370 15s. as a debt to the New Zealand Company, with interest at 3 per cent., and that one-fourth of the purchase money received for all land sales, those in the Auckland Province included, was appropriated by the Constitution Act (see section 74) for the discharge of this debt. In addition, there was a large undefined liability upon the public estate in the shape of scrip, and there was also in existence and active exercise that " system" for the extinguishment of the Native title over land to which Sir George Grey attaches so much importance, by which the Governor, independently of the votes of Parliament, was enabled to apply the proceeds of land sales to the purchase of Native lands. In those then existing conditions is the source of the compact of 1856. The unequal pressure of these public burdens, the New Zealand Company's debt, and the Native land purchases, threatened disruption of the unity of the colony. Auckland, which, as it was alleged, had not received any benefit directly from the operations of the New Zealand Company, had been already mulct in the sum of £45,000 for interest and current payment of fourths on the New Zealand Company's debt; and in addition, out of the sum of £155,558, the amount of territorial revenue collected in the province between the Ist January, 1853, and June, 1856, had contributed £40,839 for purchase of Native lands, of which sum £32,205 only was expended within its borders; whilst, out of the total of £92,662 paid by the Governor within the same period for Native lands, £43,800 was expended in Wellington province, its contribution to the total land fund amounting only to £14,579. The compact of 1856 was declared to be an adjustment of the public burden as regarded land. By it, the New Zealand Company's debt was to be allocated to the provinces of the South Island ; the North Island provinces were to be relieved from further payments on that account; purchases of Native lands were no longer to be made out of current receipts, but out of capital fund to be provided by loan, and each province was to pay interest and sinking fund for such portion of the loan as was expended within its borders ; Auckland was to receive refund of the sum of £45,000 paid on account of the New Zealand Company's debt. The terms of the compact as expressed in the Einancial Eesolutions passed in the session of 1856, became law in 1858. In the year 1857, the Imperial Parliament passed an Act (Constitution Act Amendment Act, 20 and 21 Vict., cap. 53) the first section of which expressly repeals so much of section 62 of the New Zealand Constitution Act as authorizes and requires the Governor to pay, out of the revenue arising from the disposal of waste lands of the Crown, sums on account of the purchase of land from aboriginal Natives and sums payable to the New Zealand Compam-. The second section empowers the General Assembly to alter, suspend, or repeal any of the provisions of the Constitution Act, excepting those contained in certain specified sections. Section 62, not being included in the list of exceptions, was thus placed, in so far as it was not already repealed, within the power of the General Assembly. In exercise of the authority thus conferred, the General Assembly, in 1858, passed "The Land Revenue Appropriation Act, 1858," and "The Public Debt Apportionment Act, 1858," which made the land fund provincial revenue, and provided from other sources for the purchase of Native lands. Sir George Grey appears to think the Imperial Parliament was deceived by the terms of one of the Einancial Eesolutions, in which the words "waste lands of each province " are used, there being, as he says, no waste lands of a province, and he suggests that, in consequence, some of the Acts of the General Assembly in relation to the waste lands of the Crown are open to question as to their force and validity, either in whole or in part. Probably, the Imperial Legislature was not much moved by the particular resolution, a portion of which Sir George Grey quotes incorrectly. It desired to give, and it did give, to the General Assembly of New Zealand compl£?te control over the waste lands of the colony. Whatever may now be thought of the policy of the " compact," it will, I think, be held that the General Assembly had all the necessary power to do what it has done. The resolution passed by the