(Copy.)

Sir,—I am directed by Mr. Secretary Cardwell to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 13th instant covering papers received by the London Committee of the Northern Association of New Zealand from the Council of that association, and proposing that a Committee of the House of Lords should he appointed to consider the petitions from the Province of Auckland to be erected into a separate Government.

Mr. Cardwell desires me to request that you will inform the Committee that their memorial has been transmitted to the Governor for his consideration, with the assistance of his advisers in the colony; but in the meantime Her Majesty's Government are not prepared to express an opinion favourable to any proceedings which might appear to indicate an intention of making organic changes in the Constitution of New Zealand not sanctioned by any expression of opinion on the part of the Government or of the Legislature of that colony.