A.—3a

Secondly. There would be no difficulty in forming this district into a separate province from the date of the first establishment of the proposed settlement. $ * % * # =!.- *= =K- # Should these advantages lead to the selection of Port Cooper as the site of the settlement, two questions would then remain to be adjusted: — Firstlv. Where should the capital of the new colony be placed —at Nelson, at Port Cooper, or at some other place ? Secondly. If Port Cooper should be selected as the site of the capital, would it not be just to Nelson, as it would then be placed under a Government so distant from it by sea, that some portion of the public works fund of the Canterbury Association should be expended in opening the road from Nelson to Port Cooper, —a line of road which would be of great advantage to both settlements, —whilst the public works fund of the Canterbury Association would be derived from the sale of Crown land in that province in which Nelson is situated, and possibly partly from the sale of lands which from their vicinity to Nelson might justly be regarded as attached to that settlement ? [The following paragraphs of this despatch allude to a possibility of the Manawatu District being selected as a site for the Canterbury Settlement.] However, there can be no doubt that the agent of the Association will, after an examination of the Port Cooper District, maturely weigh the several points considered in this despatch previously to making his selection ; and your Lordship may rely that, when his choice has been made, the local Government will do their utmost to secure the prosperity and advancement of the new settlement, at whatever point it may be located. I have, &c, The Eight Hon. Earl Grey. G. Geey.

No. 15. Copy of a Despatch from Governor Geey to the Right Hon. Earl Geey. (No. 4.) My Loed, — Government House, Auckland, 2nd Eebruary, 1849. In reference to my Despatch No. 108, of the 29th November last, in which I detailed, for your information, the measures I had, in obedience to your commands, adopted for the introduction into this colonv of a complete representative form of Government, if a Constitution of the nature I proposed met with your Lordship's approbation, I have now the honour to report the further proceedings which I have taken in reference to this subject. In the despatch to which I have before alluded, I stated it as my opinion that at the end of about four years I had every reason to believe that a representative form of Government might with safety be simultaneously brought into operation throughout the whole of New Zealand; and my intention at the time I wrote that despatch was not to have promulgated in this colony the outline of the form of Government which I had recommended for your Lordship's approval until I had received your directions to lay my proposed plan before the Provincial Councils in these Islands, who might then have reported their opinions regarding it, and your Lordship, with these reports before you, could then have gone to Parliament for such a measure as, with the information before you, might have appeared best adapted to promote the prosperity of this country. I had calculated that in point of time the whole of these preliminary steps might have been taken in less than two years, which would then have left an ample period for the settlement of the details of the future Constitution, and for the necessary arrangements for its introduction before the expiration of the period which I still think should be allowed to elapse before an attempt is made to introduce a representative Government into these Islands. Upon my arrival at Wellington, I found, however, that many of the persons who were most interested in the colony appeared to regard it as essential to its future welfare, and to the promotion of emigration to this country, that the nature of the plan I intended to recommend for your Lordship's adoption should at once be made known, and as this desire upon their part appeared to me to be reasonable, and as what I proposed was merely a modification of a form of representative Government which your Lordship wished to confer upon this country, but which, upon my recommendation, you had suspended, I thought that I should in no way embarrass Her Majesty's Government by at once making public the purport of my recommendations to your Lordship, and by allowing, at the earliest possible period, that public opinion should be expressed regarding them. When, therefore, upon the 22nd of December last, the Legislative Council of the Colony of New Munster brought up to me an Address, the copy of which I have the honour to enclose, I felt justified in returning to them the reply, a copy of which is also enclosed. When my reply was delivered to the Council a long discussion ensued, which resulted in their unanimously adopting, upon the 26th December, the report of which a copy is enclosed. The Council at the same time passed unanimously the enclosed resolution, expressing their satisfaction at the exposition of my plans for the introduction of representative institutions into New Zealand. Throughout the whole of these proceedings I understood that the form of representative Government which I had recommended for your Lordship's approval met with the cordial approbation of every member of the Council, with the exception of the single point alluded to in their report —viz., the number of persons who I proposed should be summoned to the Provincial Councils by Her Majesty, to which point 1 need not here allude, as my reasons for the recommendation I made on this subject" are fully explained in my Despatch No. 106, of the 29th November last; and I should add that, after waiting to the present date, no representation adverse to the form of Constitution I have proposed has reached me from any quarter. The only objection regarding any part of my general plan which was raised in the Legislative Council of New Munster was the time at which I proposed representative institutions should be introduced into this country, a feeling in favour of their almost immediate introduction being very

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