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upon on many recent occasions to consider what minimum of expenditure could be safely adopted in similar cases, I framed a scale of establishments involving the lowest possible cost which, according to my experience, could safely be incurred. I at once perceived, however, that it was very doubtful whether the revenue would meet the cost of such an administration; and as New South Wales and New Zealand had liberally volunteered to give assistance, through their Governors or Judges, or otherwise, in the conduct of public affairs, I thought it not impossible that they might be disposed to make their contributions in another, and, as it so happened, in a more convenient form, and that the other two colonies principally concerned in Polynesian matters, namely, Victoria and Queensland, might desire not to be excluded from any such arrangement. In order to place all as far as possible on the same footing, it appeared to me that the most satisfactory course for all parties might be a money contribution, but that, for reasons which I explained, and which I think must command general assent, the colonies contributing should not undertake any share in the government of Eiji. 7. Without recapitulating in detail the replies of the several Governments, I may state briefly that the Government of New South Wales was of opinion that it would not be possible for all the four colonies to combine with the Imperial Government in granting financial assistance, but, with a liberality and readiness which Her Majesty's Government fully appreciate, offered to ask the sanction of the Legislature to a proposal that New South Wales should bear an equal part of any deficit with this Government: suggesting, as an alternative, that New South Wales and England should each guarantee one-half of a contemplated loan of £100,000. 8. The Government of Queensland, on the other hand, was not favourable to the principle of a contribution from the revenue of that colony, and considered that Eiji had no claim, direct or indirect, upon it, on the ground that no trading relations exist between the two colonies. Without desiring to enter into any unnecessary controversy, I feel bound, in passing, to observe on this head, that as Queensland has been largely concerned in the labour traffic, the regulation of which was a principal object of the annexation of Eiji, that colony could not be considered to be uninterested—if, indeed, it was not under a special obligation to assist in such a case as this. 9. The Government of New Zealand took a somewhat different view, and was unwilling to contribute towards the expenses of Eiji without a corresponding voice in the direction of the administration. 10. And lastly, the Government of Victoria, observing that it had not been a party to previous communications with respect to the annexation of Eiji, felt unable to decide whether it should place the proposal before Parliament without further information as to the duration of the proposed grant, and as to the obligations which would devolve on Victoria in the event of complications in Eiji—matters which I had endeavoured, though as it would appear imperfectly, to explain in my despatch to the Governor of New South Wales of the 7th August. The representation, however, made by the Government of Victoria, that " no colony or " colonies should exercise any exclusive control or enjoy any special privileges in " Eiji from which the rest of Australia should be shut out," would in any case have had great weight with me, and expressed a conclusion to which I had myself already been led. 12. It would, in my opinion, have been obviously undesirable, in a matter where the grace of the action depended upon it being voluntary, and where the amount involved was so small that it would be mainly valuable as proving the readiness of the great colonies to accept their membership in the common duties of the Empire, to put the slightest pressure upon any one of them to make this joint contribution. It was, as I explained in my former despatch, principally to give trial and effect to the principle of joint action among different members of the Empire in such cases that I invited co-operation in a matter in which the contributions proposed were so inconsiderable as to make it practically immaterial, except in connection with such a principle, whether the arrangements could be at once carried out.