31

B.—4a

No. 91. The Manages, Bank of New Zealand, to the Seceetaet to the Teeabijby. Sib,— Bank of New Zealand, Wellington, 26th April, 1880. I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your letter of 24th instant, enclosing draft, in triplicate, for £250,000, drawn upon the Managing Director in London, at thirty days' sight, the proceeds of which were placed to the credit of the Public Account at par. I have, &c, E. W. Kane, The Secretary to the Treasury, Wellington. (pro Manager.)

No. 92. The Peemiee to the Agent- Geneeal. Sic,— Government Offices, Wellington, 24th April, 1880. I shall feel obliged if you will forward to me by the first mail after the receipt of this letter a nominal list of the subscribers to the £5,000,000 loan, with a statement of the sums subscribed for by them respectively. I have, &c, The Agent-General for New Zealand, London. John Hall.

No. 93. The Agent-Geneeal to the Peemiee. Sib, — 7, Westminster Chambers, London, S.W., 19th April, 1880. I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letters of the 27th and 28th February,* in reply to mine of the 18th November and 16th December,f in which you refuse to allow me a commission on the negotiation of the late loan. You base your refusal on the fact that such a commission has not usually been paid to the Agent-General. I have to submit that my letter of the 16th December sufficiently showed that the services rendered in connection with the loan were not of the usual character. But there are other circumstances within your knowledge, that stamp the transaction as one of a specially exceptional nature. I do not set some of these circumstances forth here, because you may wish to regard as confidential the communications which passed between us before the negotiation of the loan; but I presume you will not object to admit that no Agent-General ever had the responsibility thrown on him that was devolved on me. There is another class of correspondence, to the publicity of which I think you cannot object. I allude to the telegrams which passed between us on the subject of my position. I attach copies of the telegrams to which I refer. Of my telegram of November 6th, the Government, as I believe, presented to Parliament only the few first words. Of course it was within your right to thus only partially represent me; but I may be permitted to express regret that you considered it desirable to adopt that course. The omission of the latter part of my telegram prejudices me considerably. It has to be considered in connection with the question of my subsequent remuneration as Loan Agent. In the passage to which I refer, I had to state that I could not accept the conditions for which the Government stipulated, if I was to continue as Agent-General. Judging from the discussions which took place in the Legislative Council, I am of opinion that no member who spoke would have denied, had the whole of the telegram been published, that the position I took up was a fair and honorable one. Be this as it may, the Government knew that I could not continue Agent-General on the condition they had laid down, and that I proposed a different arrangement. In reply to my telegram, I received a telegram from you to this effect: " Agency-General incompatible other business. Government considering expediency relieving therefrom, appointing you Agent Inscribed Stock, at centage. Report fully by post arrangements you would propose : sketch scheme, estimate annual conversion. "We should sociate two agents with you. Anxiously waiting news loans." I do not wish to imply that I charge the Government with attempting to deceive me ; but I ask, after these two telegrams, could any one suppose that it was in the mind of the Government that I should do all the work that would have to be performed for sixteen months, and that the Government should, on the technical ground that it was performed whilst I was still Agent-General, refuse to pay for it ? It would have been quite easy for me, on the eve of the negotiation of the loan, to have sent in my resignation aa Agent-General at once, and so have placed myself in the position to demand payment. Such a course, however, I could not have adopted, even with the knowledge of the subsequent view taken by the Government. Without that knowledge, I could not have supposed that it was necessary for me to have recourse to such a step: but, with that knowledge, I would not have done so, for I have always made the interests of New Zealand my first consideration, and I certainly would rather have rendered my services for nothing, than that the colony might have suffered from the want of them. You raise, in one of your letters, the point that your telegram did not refer to the agency for ordinary loans, but only to those inscribed. My telegram, to which yours was a reply, referred to loan agency generally. It is not necessary for me to go into the question of the commission to be paid on the conversion of the £5,000,000 loan, because when the matter came to be referred to my colleagues, a conclusion was come to about it which will be separately communicated to you. That conclusion is based upon custom, usage, and common sense ; but I beg to say it was not originated by me, though, on its being fully explained, I fully concurred in it. * See 8.—4, Nos. 19 and 20. f 8.-4, Nos. 16 and 18.