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recommend to your Excellency that the vessel placed at the disposal of the Deputy-Commissioner here should be fitted with accommodation which will enable him to utilise the many hours of his voyages, otherwise wasted during calms and contrary winds, in accomplishing the clerical work which inevitably accumulates during these journeys. There should be room also for the guard proposed above. The movements throughout the district of your Excellency's representative have not been|without a beneficial effect on the natives. At first repudiating the Government as anything but beneficial to them, they are begining to recognise that it is not " all gammon," that Government " all same father belong New Guinea man," and also that it has more power, and they less ability to evade that power, than they first believed. Eor this reason alone, I would submit that it would be very disadvantageous to the interests of the Protectorate here, especially at the present juncture, if the representative of the Government at Dinner Island were permanently removed. The east end of New Guinea is daily becoming of more importance ; the number of vessels making Dinner Island their port of entry is largely on the increase, and the continued accession of Europeans to our numbers, whose doings require official supervision and between whom questions constantly arise for settlement, make it almost imperative that there should henceforth be a representative of the Government here. Considering that one of the causes assigned for the recent Joannet massacres was a quarrel re a rifle, it might be well for your Excellency to draw renewed attention in the Gazette to the laws in force with regard to the carriage and introduction cf firearms into the Protectorate waters; those also with reference to spirituous liquors—which I have some reason to believe are often given to the natives : and I should recommend that opium be included in the list of proscribed articles, as Chinamen are now frequenting the region. At the change of the monsoons the natives seem to suffer greatly. Numbers of sufferers have applied to me for medicine, without my being able always to supply them. I would suggest to your Excellency that a fairly-stocked medicine-chest and some nutritive medical comforts should be placed in charge of the Deputy-Commissioners on the coast. On the 31st December died here Dick Kiake, the London Missionary Society teacher, who has exerted a'powerful and beneficial influence on the natives over a wide area, and to whom not only every man-of-war, vessel, and trader visiting these waters for many years has been indebted in varying degree for good services, but also the Government, which has oftener than once publicly acknowledged his courageous and worthy conduct. I have, &c, Henry 0. Forbes, His Excellency the Hon. John Douglas, C.M.G., Acting Deputy-Commissioner. H.M. Special Commissioner for New Guinea.

No. 2. The Special Commissioner, British New Guinea, to Sir W. E. D. Jebvois, G.C.M.G., C.B. Sib,— Thursday Island (Torres Straits), 19th March, 1887. His Excellency the Governor of South Australia having intimated to me that no contribution will be made by that colony towards the expenses of the British Protectorate in New Guinea for the current financial year ending the Ist June next, it became my duty to consider in what way the deficit thus arising in the amount of £15,000 guaranteed to Her Majesty's Government is to be met. 2. On reference to the official correspondence on this subject it appeared to me to be not unreasonable to conclude that the Governments of Victoria and Queensland would, in virtue of their telegrams to Her Majesty's Government bearing date respectively the 4th and Ist July, 1884, accept this responsibility. 3. It is held, however, by the Government of Victoria that the guarantee thus given only referred to the first year of contribution ; and the Act of Parliament passed in Queensland which rules the action of that Government only authorises a payment in proportion to the population of the colony as compared with the population of the other contributing colonies. The Government of Queensland is willing to recognise its obligations in this respect. 4. I propose, accordingly, that the deficit of £1,524 11s. 7d. thus accruing should be met by the several contributing colonies in the proportions shown in the accompanying statement, and I have to request your Excellency to submit the adjustment to your Advisers, for their approval. 5. I shall hope to be advised by your Excellency that this arrangement will be accepted as satisfactory, and that the sum of £303 11s. Bd. will be remitted to me in accordance therewith. 6. I regret extremely that this application should be rendered necessary, but I am bound, on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, to secure the annual payment which has been promised. I cannot venture to make a further request to the Government of South Australia for a payment which has been categorically refused, and I am impelled most reluctantly to have recourse to the proposal I now make, in order to secure a settlement. I have, &c, John Douglas, His Excellency the Governor of New Zealand, &c. Special Commissioner.

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