— No. 12. —

The Earl of Glasgow to the Secretary of State for the Colonies

(Received 27th September 1892.)

I have the honour to acknowledge the telegram which I received on the 11th inst.^* from the Secretary of State for the Colonies, a copy of which is forwarded by this mail to the Colonial Office in the usual manner; also a copy of my telegram^† in reply to above.

I trust that the latter made my estimate of the strength of the Council clear to his Lordship, the late Secretary of State; I regret that he found it necessary to telegraph, because I am obliged to infer that he could not have received any Despatch on the subject from my predecessor.

Your Lordship will be aware that the same advice that I declined to accept was tendered by Ministers to Lord Onslow just before he left New Zealand; and that he left a confidential Memorandum^‡ addressed to his successor, detailing what had happened and giving his reasons.

It was only because I was persuaded that these reasons had been fully laid before the Secretary of State for the Colonies that I refrained from going fully into them, although I gave my reasons for their adoption in writing my Despatch of the 22nd June.^§

With regard to the present position of the difference between myself and my Ministers, I have the honour to report that the Premier called on me yesterday and tendered my Ministers' advice that, in response to a question put by Sir George Grey, in the House of Representatives, I should agree to lay before Parliament Ministers' reference to the Secretary of State, as well as all other despatches bearing on the subject.

Although I believe it to be contrary to usual practice to lay before a Local Parliament a reference to the Secretary of State before the reply is received, yet, considering the peculiar circumstances, that it is the strong desire of Ministers that they should be produced, that Ministers have advised me to agree to this production, and that I could not conceive of any injury that would be done to the public service by doing so, 1 agreed to accept their advice, and the correspondence will be laid before Parliament to-morrow : I have, however, declined to produce my Despatch of the 22nd June,^‖ although I agreed, in case of Ministers thinking it well to yield this point, to telegraph to you for leave to lay that Despatch also on the table. I also agreed to lay on the table my Despatch of 8th August,^¶ as I thought it only right that my remarks in my Ministers' reference should be laid before Parliament at the same time.