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favoured with a report on the subject of this application, and that you will cause the applicant to be informed of the action taken on his letter. I have, &c, The Officer Administering the Government KIMBEELEY. of New Zealand.

Enclosure. Mr. Madigan to the War Office. Sir, — Meanee, Hawke's Bay, New Zealand, 11th September, 1882. I beg most respectfully to request that you will bring under the notice of His Eoyal Highness the Duke of Cambridge, K.G., Commanding-in-Chief, this my application for land, as given to soldiers who were discharged in New Zealand (who received sixty acres each from the New Zealand Government for their services). Having made various applications for the same amount to the Crown Lands Office, I cannot receive any satisfactory reply. I therefore request that you will please take this my application into your favourable consideration, and lay my case before His Eoyal Highness. I joined the Ist Battalion, 18th Eegiment Eoyal Irish, in the year 1855, and volunteered my services for the 70th Eegiment, 1856, and was discharged in Auckland on the 31st December, 1865. Eeg. No. 105. Trusting for a favourable reply, I have, &c, The Adjutant-General, Horse Guards, London, SW. Luke Madigan.

No. 20. The Secretary of State for the Colonies to His Excellency the Governor. (New Zealand.—Circular.) Sir, — Downing Street, 29th November, 1882. With reference to my Circular Despatch of the 6th of September, and to your telegraphic reply of the 4th of November, relative to the proposed agreement for regulating the postal relations between France and the Australian Colonies, I have the honour to transmit to you, for communication to your Government, a copy of a letter from the General Post Office on the subject. I have, &c, The Officer Administering the Government KIMBEELEY. of New Zealand.

Enclosure. The General Post Office to the Colonial Office. Sir, — General Post Office, London, 22nd November, 1882. I have laid before the Postmaster-General your letters of the 2nd and 6th instant, communicating the replies received by telegraph from the Governments of Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, and New Zealand, respecting the draft agreement which was transmitted to them in August last for regulating the postal relations between France and the Australian Colonies. Mr. Fawcett is glad to find that, subject to certain conditions on the part of Victoria, South Australia, and New Zealand, which will no doubt be easy of arrangement, these four Colonies agree to the proposed reduced postal rates, and he has had the satisfaction of informing the French Minister of Posts and Telegraphs of their acquiescence. As regards the Colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, and Tasmania, it is understood that no replies have yet reached Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies. The absence of those replies up to the date when the new French service was about to be inaugurated has been the cause of some embarrassment to this department, the French Post Office being naturally desirous of putting the new agreement in force simultaneously with the first departure of the French packets from Marseilles on the 23rd of this month; and M. Cochery having stated that he must have a decision on the subject not later than the 16th instant, to enable him to obtain the signature of the President of the French Eepublic to a decree reducing the French rates of postage to Australia, there was no time for further deliberation, and Mr. Fawcett felt himself under the necessity of giving his consent provisionally to the advantages prearranged by the agreement being applied to the mails despatched from France to Australia by the first ship of the new line, with the distinct understanding, however, that if, eventually any of the Colonies should decline to be bound by the agreement, the conditional consent thus given must be revoked. Mr. Fawcett hopes that Lord Kimberley will approve of the course which he adopted in the emergency, and that his Lordship will be good enough to cause a telegram to be sent to the Australian Colonies informing them that the agreement has been provisionally put in force, commencing with the mail leaving Marseilles on the 23rd of this month. I have, __c, E. G. W. Herbert, Esq., 'C.8., Colonial Office, S. A. Blackwood.

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