8.—5

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2. In your second series of paragraphs, No. 10, you inform your co-Agents that their appreciation of what was most incumbent on them to explain, had been " obscured," inasmuch as they had wholly failed to justify Sir P. G. Julyan's sending you a document purporting to be a copy of a signed letter, but which was not signed, adding that you " cannot too strongly express your sense of the disastrous consequences to political and commercial morality which such a course would be fraught with, if it were accepted as a precedent," and that you were " quite at a loss to understand how Mr. Featherston could reconcile himself to overlook such an offence against his public position, to say nothing of his private feelings." We are happy to be able to assure you that neither political nor commercial morality were outraged on this occasion, but that the document in question was the deliberate and joint production of all three, who chose to signify that fact to you by having their names written at the foot of the letter they proposed to send, subject to such modifications as your suggestions might possibly have led them to adopt. It is scarcely necessary to explain that, under such circumstances, Mr. Featherston had no offence against his public position to overlook, nor any wounded feelings to assuage ; but we may add that in all matters connected with the Four Million Loan—as in others which have preceded it—we have never failed to consult together, with an earnest desire to do that which we believed best calculated to promote the true interests of the colony ; that whatever differences of opinion may have existed between us, we have never failed to reconcile them on a reasonable basis ; that each one of us has taken his full and independent share in discussion and responsibility ; and that in no one instance has there been the least lack of cordial unanimity in the many important decisions which we have had jointly- to arrive at. 3. After what we have above written, it would seem scarcely necessary tbat we should allude to your statement about leaving affairs of magnitude to "the management of two partners" (which you say Sir P. G. Julyan once described to you to be the position of himself and Mr. Sargeaunt) ; and as the conversation in which tho expression occurred had no reference to the late negotiation, and two of us were not parties to it, Sir P. G. Julyan has replied to it himself, in a letter which accompanies this. We have, &c, P. G. Julyan. I. E. Featherston. W. C. Sargeaunt. The Hon. Julius Vogel, C.M.G., 87, Gloucester Place, Portman Square.

Enclosure 3 in No. 11. Sir P. G. Julyan to the Hon. Sir J. Vogel. Sib,— London, 12th May, 1875. In a letter addressed by you to your co-Agents for the New Zealand Four Million Loan, on the sth instant, you state that I had once described to you the position of myself and Mr. Sargeaunt as that of " two partners." The meaning with which you evidently seek to invest an expression used, in a qualified sense, by me —when discussing another subject —-without giving the context, renders it necessary that I should supply the omission, and place on record the circumstances under which the alleged words were made use of. In conversation with me in this office on one occasion, you inquired, inter alia, in what manner the public account at the Bank of New Zealand was operated upon; and in reply I stated that money required for services conducted by the Agent-General was transferred to his account upon the joint order of himself and one of his co-agents—or trustees—for managing the Government account; and that all moneys required for services conducted by the Crown Agents were transferred to their bankers on a joint order signed in like manner, adding that, although any two of the Agents were empowered to operate on the account, yet as Mr. Sargeaunt and myself, as Crown Agents, having a joint responsibility, might possibly be regarded in much the same light as partners in one concern, we had arranged with Mr. Featherston that whenever it was possible to do so he should unite with one of us in signing the order for transfer to the Crown Agents' account, so that Mr. Sargeaunt and myself, as trustees, should not be withdrawing money for our use as Crown Agents without Mr. Featherston's * co-operation. I have, &c, The Hon. Julius Vogel, 87, Gloucester Place. P. G. Julyan.

Enclosure 4 in No. 11. The Hon. Sir J. Vogel to the Loan Agents. Gentlemen, — London, 6th May, 1875. I have the honor to point out to you that the debenture from which it is proposed to issue for the Four Million Loan contains a provision that the principal of the loan will be payable at the office of the Crown Agents. 2. The advertisement calling for the loan provided that interest should be payable at the Crown Agents' office, but said nothing about the principal being made payable there; and lam of opinion that it will be quite sufficient to say that the principal will be payable in London. 3. I am not prepared to say that the insertion of the words to which I refer makes it incumbent that the principal be payable at the office of the Crown Agents, but, supposing they amount to a con-