will not cease from their labours; nor will their children, or new-comers fail to do their utmost, while pushing their own fortunes, to aid in advancing the general prosperity of the province and the colony.

Recognising all this, how much has been, how much remains to be done, it is certain that the time has arrived to facilitate individual labour by the systematic collection of information as to what has been accomplished, and pointing out the various directions in which research or discovery would be most desirable, and most probably prove beneficial to individual workers and the community at large. Here will be a great and almost virgin field for the members of this Institute—to collect a really good library of works of reference, a want that is continually being felt, notwithstanding that many useful works are already to be found scattered amongst local libraries—to render more perfect that Museum, which it is but scant justice to Dr. Hector to say, forms a splendid nucleus for future additions—to collect and record fully and accurately facts of all kinds that relate to our industrial development, even though at the moment we may not be able to foresee their exact value or true bearing—to prepare practical papers, however short, and it may be not altogether conclusive, to be elaborated by careful discussion at our meetings, and to collect for the New Zealand Institute, and other such societies elsewhere, not only museum, but trade specimens of our products, whether raw or manufactured, with full and accurate information concerning them.

The Royal Colonial Society, lately established in London, offers us great facilities for the exhibition of our products in its Museum, and of maps, statistics, and records in its Library, access to which will be so easy to those at home seeking information of any kind as to the colony. No one who has himself encountered the difficulty of obtaining reliable information on colonial subjects in Great Britain, or has observed, since he has himself become acquainted with the colonies, the lamentable ignorance displayed by even leading statesmen, affecting to govern them from Downing Street, will lightly estimate the valuable services colonists and the Colonial Society may mutually afford each other, and offer to enquirers, whether commercial, scientific, or public men at home. It would be well then for a sub-committee of this Institute to be appointed to make collections, representative of Otago and her resources, both for the Museum and the Library of the Colonial Society. So good an example would be speedily followed by other societies incorporated with the New Zealand Institute, and, after awhile, their united efforts would result in a collection eminently useful to New Zealand interests in Great Britain. We may be sure, too, that other colonies will avail themselves of the organisation afforded by the Colonial Society. Let us hope that there will soon be in that society's rooms a museum and library worthy of the Colonial Empire, not only rivalling, but surpassing the fine collection of Indian products and manufactures constituting the Indian Museum in Whitehall. Let it not be said that the bureaucratic government of India is more practically useful than the freer institutions of the colonies; or that self-government is but another name for slow material-development. Let colonists show to others what they know themselves of the enormous extent and value of the resources of the colonies, and then we may be sure the political value of these great countries will not, as now, be either doubted or ignored.

It would be necessary for the sub-committee to transmit with the specimens, etc., full and precise information as to the products themselves, their situation, extent, cost, transit, and other incidental charges, without which they would be mere curiosities, and of little value economically; and, in return for these contributions, we may fairly expect to receive from the colonial and other societies to which they may be sent, copies of their own publications, specimens of similar products obtained elsewhere to compare with ours, samples of manufactures from them, and such reports on the commercial and scientific value of the New Zealand specimens, as would be extremely useful to us as their producers.

We are, fortunately, able to obtain from the Director of the Geological Survey of New Zealand, very valuable information on the mineralogical and chemical characters of the ores, etc., etc., submitted to him; but frequently it is desirable to get accurate information as to the commercial value of products, and how far they can be made to pay; to obtain which, it is almost absolutely necessary, that they should be submitted for examination and report to those trade experts, who are seldom found except in the great marts of the world.

Scattered as is the population of the province, might not we, enlarging on the suggestion of our President in his eloquent inaugural address, establish branch or corresponding societies in some of the country towns? In these branch societies, would probably be prepared and read, papers of a peculiarly practical bearing, on subjects specially interesting in each particular locality, and which would be the more valuable from being discussed on the spot by men possessing the advantages of local knowledge, and minute practical acquaintance with their subjects. I could almost wish, too, that the efforts at present scattered amongst so many public bodies in this province, such as the Agricultural and Pastoral, the Acclimatisation, and the Horticultural Societies, the Committees of the