Sir,—The London Committee of the Northern Association of New Zealand have read with much disappointment, and concern the letter which, by your directions, Sir Frederick Rogers has addressed to them, in reply to their letter of the 13th April last, in reference to the petitions from the Province of Auckland, praying for a separate Government for that province as essential to the peace and welfare of its inhabitants, and renewing the prayer of this Committee that Her Majesty's Government would favour the appointment of a Parliamentary Committee to investigate the grievances of which the colonists of Auckland have for so many years complained in their petitions to the Queen and Parliament; and they have observed with equal concern the reply which you are reported to have made in the House of Commons to a question put by Mr. Adderley in relation to the same subject.

Sir Frederic Rogers is "desired to inform this Committee that their memorial has been transmitted to the Governor for his consideration, with the assistance of his advisers in the colony, but that 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."

With all the respect which is due to your high office as Her Majesty's Minister for Colonial Affairs, this Committee on their own behalf, and in the name and on the behalf of their fellow-colonists of the Province of Auckland, most emphatically protest against such a mode of dealing with their petitions. One of the petitions which this Committee were requested to support was signed by no less than 9182 persons, comprising nearly every male adult of the British population of the province, which numbers less than 40,000 persons; another petition is from the Auckland Provincial Council, the local Legislature of that province; and a third is from the Auckland members of the General Assembly of the colony. This Committee respectfully insist upon the indefeasible right of all these petitioners to have their petitions considered by Her Majesty's supreme Government, on their own merits, and not upon the representations of persons who are avowedly "responsible Ministers"—not of the Crown—but of a majority of a House of Assembly who are not representatives of the petitioners or of their province, but of the colonists of other provinces who have interests separate from—not to say anta-gonistic to—theirs.

This Committee entirely repudiate the claim of such persons to interfere with the petitions of Her Majesty's subjects of the page 11 Province of Auckland in any shape, much less to dictate whether they shall be governed according to the Constitutional rights and free customs of British colonists, or in such form as may serve the ambitious aspirations of men from whose misgovernment the petitioners have already been made to suffer the most grievous injuries. To these men the colonists of Auckland owe no allegiance, and they are to a man determined no longer to submit to the dominion which they have been allowed to assume.

These and other grievances were partly the result of the anomalous Constitution of Government which was provided for the provinces of New Zealand by the Act of 15th and 16th Vict., Chap., and partly the result of the abdication by the Queen's Governor of the functions of government, undee the system which is called "Responsible Government."

In illustration of these propositions, this Committee submit:—

First: with regard to the Constitution Act:—

1.	That it was by an abuse of language that the Provinces of New Zealand have come to be designated as one colony, seeing that no colony of ancient or modern times was ever more distinct in all essential particulars from all other colonies than is each of the six colonies planted in the New Zealand Islands from all the rest.
2.	That the colony of Auckland, with which alone this Committee are concerned, was settled under the sanction of Her Majesty's Government, which could have no other object than the welfare of the colonists; while all the colonies to the south of the Province of Auckland were settled by a company of speculators whose object it was to make the welfare of the colonists subservient to their own personal ambition and self-aggrandisement.
3.	That such a Constitution of Government as was provided for the New Zealand Settlements, confederating six separate and distinct provinces, each with its own local Legislature, under what is called a General Government and General Legislature, with powers to override the legislation and government of the provincial authorities, is absolutely without precedent in the history of ancient or modern dependencies. Such a Government is, in fact, an imperium in imperio, having no legitimate functions, and being scarcely capable of action unless by usurping the functions of sovereignty on the one hand, or, on the other hand, by encroaching upon the right of the provincial authorities to deal with questions affecting the separate interests of their constituents.
4.	It is also worthy of consideration that the New Zealand Constitution Act was avowedly (see Hansard's Debates) a hurried and imperfect measure, passed when "Parliament was in a state of dissolution," and more or less unsatisfactory to every statesman who took part in the discussion. The following words may be cited from the speech of the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone :—" Concurrent jurisdictions, I must confess, are to me subjects of apprehension and alarm. A concurrent jurisdiction in the business of legislation means uncertainty, conflict, and confusion. The overriding of arrangements already made, under authority deemed competent, by extraneous power must ever lead to annoyance and angry feeling." But these and other obvious objections were overruled on the ground, artfully represented by the leaders of the New Zealand Company's Settlements, that those provisions of the Constitution which were deemed objectionable were in accordance with the wishes of the colonists; whereas the colonists of Auckland, page 13 who were equal in number to one-third of the whole British population ox the sis settlements, were never consulted in the matter, and their Provincial Council has consistently protested and petitioned against it from their first meeting to the present day.
5.	That the subsequent conduct and language of the leaders of the New Zealand Company's Settlements have made it plain that their object in obtaining such a Constitution was to create the most extensive possible machinery of government, in order to provide sufficient scope for their statesmanship as the founders and rulers of an infant nation, if not to make a profitable speculation of the offices and transactions of government—of which aspirations and speculations the miseries of war, of which the colonists of Auckland have been the victims, and the load of taxation and debt which threatens to overwhelm them, are the frnits.

Secondly, with regard to the abuses of administration under which the colonists of Auckland have suffered, resulting from the system called "Responsible Government." This Committee will refer to no other example than what has occurred in relation to the petitions which form the subject of this communication. The Governor, in a public despatch addressed to your predecessor, and dated Auckland, January 5, 1865, stated his opinion, "that unless some such arrangement as is prayed for by the Provincial Council of Auckland is carried out, it will be impossible to bring to a satisfactory termination the difficulties prevailing in this country," But his "responsible advisers" having intervened with a minute couched in the following words :—"Ministers are of opinion that the division of New Zealand into two or three separate colonies would dwarf the political intellect of the colony, confining it to the consideration of narrow and personal interests," Sir George Grey chose to withhold or to suppress the full report which he had promised to forward by the next mail "upon the important question raised in the petition" (of the Provincial Council), Such a report might in all probability have relieved the colonists of Auckland from the burden of any longer affording the means of expanding the political intellect of the politicians of the New Zealand Company's Settlements, and from being made subservient to their ambition, at the expense of their own peace and prosperity. If, in withholding information upon a subject which involved the possibility of bringing to a satisfactory termination the difficulties prevailing in New Zealand, Sir George Grey may be considered to have betrayed the trust committed to him by the Queen's Commission, he only, in this as in other matters, fulfilled the requirements of what is called "Responsible Government," under which the Queen's Governor is made to disregard the obligations imposed upon him by his Commission and Instructions under the Queen's sign manual and signet, in order to become the tool of subordinate function page 14 aries whom it is his duty to make "aiding and obedient" to himself in the administration of the Queen's government.

Finally, in appealing to their rightful Sovereign against a Constitution ana administration of government which virtually makes them the subjects of a dominion incompatible with the dominion of Her Majesty, this Committee consider that the colonista of Auckland have sought to vindicate the sovereign rights of their Queen, as well as to procure the restoration of the Constitutional rights and privileges of which they themselves have been deprived. But to them it is more than a question of Constitutional rights—it is a question of life and death; for as matters now stand they may at any time be involved in a fresh war with their Maori fellow-subjects through the conduct of colonial politicians who are themselves removed by hundreds of miles from the consequences of such a misfortune, All which is very respectfully submitted by your most obedient humble servants, the London Committee of the Northern Association of New Zealand,