A.—7

3

likely to be served thereby, although at the expense of the rest of the community. I observe that your Government attribute the strong feeling which exists against Abolition to misrepresentation and agitation, for which they hold me in a great measure responsible. This is a grave charge against myself and others, which is utterly without foundation in fact. It is, moreover, a poor compliment to the intelligence of the people, who, I would beg to assure your Excellency, are perfectly competent to understand and judge for themselves in this matter, and who cannot but see in Abolition the destruction of their provincial entirety, and the almost entire abstraction of their local revenues for colonial purposes outside the province. This they regard as a grievous wrong, which they are determined to use every constitutional means to avert. As it appears that no redress need be looked for at the hands of your Excellency's Government, it only remains now to appeal to the Imperial authorities, in the hope that what is understood to be the law of the Empire will be maintained, —namely, that Constitutional privileges, once granted to a people, are never taken away without their consent. Your Government deeply regrets that a Superintendent siould venture to tell your Excellency that the action of your Advisers must, if persisted in, result in the dismemberment of the colony. Knowing, however, as I do, the strong determination which animates thousands of those who are the stamina of Otago not to submit to a policy which is detrimental to their interests, and being forced upon them by what they believe to be a minority of the people of the colony, I should be much to blame did I not Hell your Excellency what I know and believe to be the truth. Indeed, I might have gone further, and said that, but for the fact that the people of Otago are a law-abiding people, entertaining the utmost loyalty for Her Majesty and the Imperial Parliament, this determination ere now would have evinced itself in more decided action. Thanking your Excellency for your permission to publish, which, I presume, applies to this communication also, I have, &c, His Excellency the Governor of New Zealand, J. Macandrew. Wellington.

No. 5. The Hon. Major Atkinson to His Excellency the Governor. sth October, 1876. Ministers have the honor to submit that no further answer is called for by Mr. Macandrew's telegram of the 4th instant. H. A. Atkinson. His Excellency the Governor.

No. 6. His Honor the Superintendent of Otago to His Excellency the Governor. Dunedin, 11th October, 1876. I regret that, by some inadvertence, the copy of the following telegram, sent by me to Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies, was not forwarded to your Excellency, as intended, by mail. J. Macandrew.

Enclosure to No. 6. His Honor the Superintendent of Otago to the Right Hon. the Secretary of State for the Colonies, London. (Urgent.) Dunedin, 6th October, 1876. Abolition of Provinces Act, passed last Session of General Assembly, is being forced into operation notwithstanding the strenuous opposition of people of Otago, constituting about a third of the population of the colony. I am advised the said Act, founded on chap. 92 of 32 Victoria, is ultra vires.