In addition to ' the many cogent reasons advanced by his ! predecessors, there was the centralising s tendency of all larg-e financial and trading ; institutions to Wellington, Their Auck- i land friends appeared to be similarly < situated with the direct London steamers <

s to what they in Wellington were with re s gard to the San Francisco mail. The l j Auckland people were making strenuous l j efforts to have their unsatisfactory direct ; j steam communication improved. He 1 I hoped some member would move a resolu • | tion appointing a deputation to wait upon ! the contractors to urge Wellington’s claims in respect to the San Francisco mail boats. COLONIAL FEDERATION. i ) During the last month the Council had ■ been approached by the Christchurch Chamber on the subject of colonial federa tion, but as the Government had made no move in the direction of taking up this question in an energetic manner, the Council had asked what the Government proposed to do before taking any action thereon. While upon this subject he might remark that in the discussion on federation between the Premiers of New South Wales and Victoria, New Zealand was not mentioned as being one of the federating colonies, and further, the speeches of Sir H Parkes and others in dicate that it was proposed to federate six colonies, or those in Australia and Tasmania. The Council seemed to have done the right thing here, as it was now officially an nounced that New Zealand was not to be represented at Hobart to discuss the ques tion. WELLINGTON AND MANAWATU RAILWAY. As they were aware the Council and the Chamber had been taking the most active steps to get the service improved on this line, and to New Plymouth and Napier, but owing to the differences between the Com pany and the Government Kailway they had failed to even get an improvement. They went further and urged the Govern ment to take over this line, and this was considered in Cabinet, and a reply was re ceived that the Cabinet had so many ques j tions of importance to consider that it had not been able to deal with this matter. THE GOVERNMENT RAILWAYS. 