A.—4,

18

No. 11. The Hon. Sir J. Vogel to His Honor, James Macandkew, Esq. General Government Offices, Sir,— Wellington, 25th May, 1876. I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of 13th May, in reply to mine of the 3rd instant. 2. Whilst I desire to bring this correspondence to a conclusion, I feel it necessary to explicitly explain certain points concerning which you clearly misunderstand me. 3. I did not say, or desire to say, that there were never any able engineers in Otago. I meant no more than the words I used implied, that the province has suffered—which does not mean always suffered—from inexperienced engineers. If the Government are correctly informed, some of the branch railways in Otago amply corroborate this statement. The memory of past engineering talent is no substitute for present inexperience. 4. You still fail to see the view rs of the Government about the land sales. They have not expressed any opinion as to whether or not it was desirable to sell the particular pieces of land: their objection has been to the manner of the proposed sale. Using a power delegated by the Governor, it was contrived to give certain persons an exclusive privilege of purchase. To this the Government objected; and, seeing that your Honor and your Executive were acting under a delegated authority, the Government had clearly the right to object. They did not, hoAvever, attempt, as you suppose, to coerce or guide the Board. They obtained information which was patent in Dunedin as to the supposed feelings of members of the Board, and they were glad to be able to think that there was no necessity for interference. 5. If your Honor will only give proper notice, the Government have no objection to the lands in question being sold. Indeed, they are quite at a loss to understand why the lands have been given back to the runholders, instead of the latter being compensated, and the land properly submitted for sale. 6. The estimates for the six months now current were prepared by your Honor before the land sale was stopped, and you have represented that the very large land revenue there set down was because of expected sales in Hundreds, not because of the sale of mountain-tops. 7. I have not objected to branch railways. The objection I stated was, that you constructed them without the means to pay for them. The logical position is this : —You incur expenditure ; to meet it, you propose large land sales; on one occasion you tell us, you look to the sales of land in Hundreds for the necessary means; on another occasion {vide Memo, to Waste Lands Board), such sales are condemned, and you state that you rely for expenditure on the sales of mountaintops, and that works will have to be suspended in consequence of the sales having been stopped. Subsequently, you write that you still consider your estimate of revenue reasonable, and rely upon obtaining the amount; whilst at the same time you send us copy of your memorandum to the Waste Lands Board, conveying quite an opposite impression. Amidst this labyrinth, the Government can find no path excepting that of upholding the law and deprecating its violation. 8. I subjoin extracts from the correspondence, showing the contradictions to which I refer. 9. Notwithstanding your Honor's ejaculatory remarks, I am unable to discover any breach of faith from which Otago will suffer. At the time wiien the colony, under the Public Works policy, began to perform provincial work, it was stated that if the provinces proved to be inconsistent with that policy they must give way. That policy has done for Otago what provincialism failed to do, and could not have done in a much longer period. 10. I have already expressed the opinion, that the idea of making Otago a separate colony is purely chimerical. Such a step is altogether opposed to the received policy of the day. To make a miniature Victoria and New South Wales out of Otago and Canterbury, with a border-duty question on the Waitaki, would be as injudicious as impossible. The notion of a separate colony for one island is