No. 24.

Lord J. Russell to Govenor Hobson,

16 April 1841.

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Extract of a DESPATCH from Lord John Russell to Governor Hobson,

dated Downing-street, 16 April 1841

Para 56.

I HAVE laid before the Queen the Act of the Governor of New South Wales, passed with the advice and consent of the legislative council of that colony, in the fourth year of Her Majesty’s reign,. intituled, "An Act to empower the Governor of New South Wales to appoint Commissioners with certain Powers to examine and report on Claims to Grants of Land in New Zealand."

Her Majesty has been graciously pleased to approve the general provisions of that Act as well as the more particular details which it comprises. But circumstances to which it, was impossible that the legislature of New South Wales should have adverted will probably 1ender the execution of it difficult if not impossible. The separation of New Zealand from New South Wales will render obsolete and impracticable those enactments, which require the interposition of the governor of the older colony. The arrangements which I have made with the New Zealand Company will forbid the application of the Act, in its present form, to the case of the lands to be granted to them.

To these considerations is to be added the remark, that I propose to commit these inquiries to the single commissioner appointed by Her Majesty for that purpose, and not to three joint commissioners as the Act has provided.

For these reasons it appears necessary that a new law on the subject should be proposed to the local legislature of New Zealand, to meet the various exigencies which I have pointed out, and any others which your experience may have brought to light. Subject to such variations, the Act of New South Wales may be followed as a safe and proper guide.

Her Majesty has therefore been pleased to disallow the Act passed by the governor of New South Wales with the advice of the legislative council of that colony. But as difficulties may possibly arise in obtaining from the legislature of New Zealand the necessary enactment in substitution for it, or as the immediate disallowance of the New South Wales Act may be productive of other inconveniences which at this distance it is impossible to anticipate, the Queen has been further pleased to authorize me to signify to you Her Majesty’s pleasure that you do postpone the notification of Her Majesty’s disallowance of the Act in question, if you should be of opinion that the disallowance of it would, on the whole, be injurious to the public service. In that case you will report to me the grounds of that opinion, and until you are in receipt of further instructions, the New South Wales Act will continue in force in New Zealand, so far as it may be capable of execution, although subject of course to any amendments which may in the interval have been made by yourself with the advice of the legislative council of New Zealand.

I have, &c.

(signed) .J. Russell.