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An Epitome of Official Documents Relative to Native Affairs and Land Purchases in the North Island of New Zealand

[untitled]

Ministers find the following passages in His Excellency's despatch:—

  • "4. With regard to the general complaint made by my Responsible Advisers of the delay in the transmission of documents to your department, I beg to state that every effort has been made by the very limited establishment allowed me to copy for transmission all documents which it appeared necessary to send Home. But the office accommodation allowed me is too limited.
  • "5. There is now an army of nearly ten thousand men here, a large squadron, and consequently a vast correspondence to conduct; besides the ordinary business of an important Government, within the limits of which a civil war prevails., I am allowed for office accommodation a small office for myself, a writing-room of 12 feet by 16, and one other room of the same size as a general office. The assistance allowed me is miserably inadequate for the work to be performed, and has not been increased at the time that all the other departments have been largely augmented; whilst at the very time my Responsible Advisers complain I was not: transmitting documents to England they were refusing, as will be seen from the enclosed statement of the Despatch Clerk in my office (Memorandum by F. G. Moore, 1st July, 1864), to furnish me with copies of documents in their office which I required for transmission to you, on the plea that any documents that they wished to have sent Home should be copied in duplicate, but that they could not order copies of any documents, to be made which the Governor desired should be sent, but which they did not care about sending."
page 96

Ministers think it necessary to place these facts on record, which will show that the excuse offered by His Excellency is absolutely without foundation:—

  • 1. They have never limited His Excellency to any amount of office room, nor interfered in any way with his arrangements at Government House. His Excellency can take as many rooms of that house for business as he thinks proper; and those, used for that purpose have been so used without any direction or interference on the part of any Ministry.
  • 2. His Excellency has never complained before, nor in any way intimated, that he had not sufficient accommodation for his official establishment.
  • 3. Ministers expressly deny having ever refused, or directed to be refused, any official assistance asked for by His Excellency in his official establishment, and have in all the instances when it has been requested immediately supplied extra clerical aid in His Excellency's official establishment. The memorandum by Mr. Moore on this point, forwarded by His Excellency to Mr. Cardwell, has not been seen by Ministers.
  • 4. In reference to the non-transmission of the particular document referred to, Ministers are quite certain that no request was ever made to them to have it copied, and that they never refused any such request; nor was it ever intimated to them that it was being kept back, least of all that it was kept back for any such reason.

In conclusion, they beg to express their most respectful opinion that it is hopeless to attempt to work Responsible Government with His Excellency, if he continues the practice he has adopted on so many occasions, and which has already formed the subject of complaint, of suppressing or withholding from Her Majesty's Government important documents of his Ministers, while he forwards by the first mail after events his own despatches and statements, without Ministers even seeing them till after the mail has left.

William Fox.

19th November, 1864.