Judge Edwards this week, following the usual practice of Government officers, forwarded his voucher for salary for the current month, falling due on the 30th inst. As there was no appropriation to meet the payment of the salary voted for Mr Edwards by the House as Native Lands Commissioner, having expired on 31st March, the claim was referred to the Ministers. After consideration of tho matter in Cabinet, it was decided that the Government have no power to make payment, inasmuch as the appropriation for the Commissioner has been exhausted, and Ministers have no power to pay Mr Edwards a salary as judge, because the House definitely declined to recognise his judgeship by striking out his judicial title from the estimates ; and further, that the message proposing "the excision of the word came to tha House from the Go vernor. The Premier and the Minister of Lands visit the Pahiatua special settlements to morrow, returning in the evening. In the Cabinet to-day the est. mates were discussed. It was decided that the salary of the consulting engineer in London should in future be charged to railways instead of public works, as hitherto. The removal of Mr T. Humphries, Commissioner of Crown L^nds, from Auckland to Invercargill, was also consideied. Mr Humphries requested that in the delicate state of the health of his family he should not be compelled to remove to a cold climate. The matter was left with the Minister of Lands to'deal with. The Miners Conference, now sitting at Greymouth, have wired to the Minister of Public Works, thanking the Government, •md him specially, for providing work lor tho unemployed by engaging them on productive works on the co-operative principle. Mr Seddon sent a reply say-< ing that the Government recognise he would not be doing his duty to the people of New Zealand unless he provided work for those temporarily out of employment, and states that he is assured that the co operative system is tho proper one under which to engage men, and that it will become universal in the near future. He suggests the disuse of the term " unemployed," as in its own application it refers to those for whom Government found work on unproductive works at pauper rates of pay, in return for which the State is rewarded with the " Governs ment stroke" in the work done.
