A.—3

4

of very remote separate settlements. Similar considerations induce me to recommend that the limit of the proposed boundaries of the boroughs should be left to the discretion of the Governor and the Executive Council, instead of being confined to the distance of seven miles from the market-place of each town. I do not perceive in the ordinance any provision for giving the powers of Magistrates to any of the officers of the Corporations. Some of its enactments, however, appear to allude to Police Magistrates having authority in the boroughs. Adverting to the intentions of the ordinance as explained in its preamble, I think that the principle adopted in the English Municipal Corporation Act on this point should be followed, and in some degree extended, and that the Mayor and one or two of the Aldermen of each borough (such one or two Aldermen to be selected either by the Council of the borough or by the Governor) should be ex officio Magistrates of the borough, and that the appointment of a stipendiary Police Magistrate or of a paid Recorder in any borough should only take place after the same expressions of the opinion of the Council as are made requisite in the like cases by the English Municipal Corporation Act. The 67th clause of the ordinance excepts from borough rates and assessments the property of any aboriginal inhabitants of the colony. This is not in accordance with the views which I conveyed to you in my despatch of the 13th of June last, in which I contemplate the admission, to a limited extent, of Natives to the privileges, and at the same time to the liabilities, of the local laws. This exemption, therefore, should be repealed by the amending ordinance, and in arranging the boundaries of the municipalities it should be borne in mind that, although it would not be expedient to have too many Natives included in the borough, vet that advantage will doubtless result from the admission of a limited number of them, who may thus become familiarized' with the duties and privileges attached to the possession of property and to citizenship in a civilized community. I have only further to notice two points of minor importance—namely, that, instead of the oath of office required by the ordinance, a declaration, with the usual sanction, may be advantageously substituted; and that it appears to be necessary to prevent persons casually present in a borough from being placed in the burgess roll, by limiting the meaning of the expression " inhabitants of a borough " to those who are hondjide resident. I have, &c, Stanley.

No. 4. Copt of a Despatch from the Eight Hon. W. E. Gladstone to Lieutenant-Governor Geet. (No. 5.) Sie, — Downing Street, 31st January, 1846. Since my accession to this office it has been my duty to review the various despatches in relation to the affairs of New Zealand which were addressed to you by my predecessor on the 27th of June, the 15th of August, and the 29fch of November last year; and my present purpose is to convey to your mind the assurance that you will receive from me a zealous support in the effort which you may make to give full effect to the wishes which Lord Stanley, on the part of the Government, expressed to you in those despatches for the better social organization of the British community in New Zealand. It likewise occurs to me that it may possibly be of some service, and that it is not likely to tend to your embarrassment, that I should state to you, in the most succinct manner, my understanding of the general principles to which the despatches of Lord Stanley were intended to give the utmost practicable degree of effect. The desire and purpose of Her Majesty's Government is that the colonists 'of New Zealand, being as they are of British blood and birth, and not affected otherwise than as it may be casually by the infusion of actual and emancipated convicts into their community, should undertake, as early and with as little exception as may be, the administration of their own affairs. This desire you will consider as the key to the particular instructions of my predecessor: by it they are to be tried, to be harmonized, and to be interpreted. The difficulties which may impede the full operation of such a principle in an infant community, and especially in an infant community under the local circumstances of that now subsisting in New Zealand, are obvious. It is for you to suggest the specific means by which they may be mitigated or overcome. It is for me to indicate those general views by an approximation to which, in so far as you may find such approximation feasible, you will best fulfil the intentions of Her Majesty's Government. Her Majesty's Government, then, are desirous that these difficulties should be met, in the first instance, by assigning prospectively to the Municipalities about to be erected as considerable a share in number and weight of governing functions as they may be found capable of sustaining, and then of determining upon the arrangements most proper for the discharge of those duties which may be fit subjects for the application of the representative principle, but which the Municipalities may not be suited to undertake. With respect to the central organ of Government, and to the infusion of the popular element into it, which my predecessor has directed in his despatch of the 29th of November, 1845, you are at liberty to consider that infusion as the first or experimental effort —as the minimum and not the maximum weight which is to be assigned in that sphere to the principle of representation. I shall be desirous to learn from you the conclusions at which you may arrive, or towards which you may lean, not only upon the division of legislative functions between the Municipalities and this central organ, but likewise upon the constitution of this latter body; to know whether you conceive the time has arrived at which it may properly assume the form of an Assembly founded chiefly upon representation ; whether it should consist of a single or of a double Chamber ; whether it may be possible to mitigate the inconveniences arising from the wide dispersion of the colonizing population, either by periodical change in the place of meeting, or by larger intervals than are usual between the sessions of legislative Houses acting under physical circumstances of a character less obstructive. There is, however, one important limitation which Her Majesty's Government, as at present advised, think it