We congratulate our fellow-colonists upon being secured in this part of the world in all the rights of British subjects. All know, of course, that His Excellency has it not in his power either to extend or limit our rights, consequently if we were, so are we now entitled to the representative Government we have sometime enjoyed, though it may be for the present placed in abeyance. Under the British flag and having our representative Government in respect of administration of affairs, we shall be the most favoured Colony in this part of the world. We shall be in a better position even than South Australia, whose constitution is conditional upon having a given amount of population at a particular moment, and the which may be when obtained of a very questionable kind. If deprived of our representative Government, the main good of the proclamations will have been placing us, so far as the benefits of trade are concerned, on a footing with all other British colonies. But with this good we have a large quantity of bitter thrown into the cup. The highest in the scale of rank is a non-subcolony with a representative Government, and free of convicts; the lowest a subcolony to a Crown penal colony; and this is the position in which the free men of New Zealand find themselves placed by a British proclamation. We are dependent on New South Wales, and are therefore lowest in the scale of British colonies--indeed it would be difficult to conceive a lower condition. We are to be legislated for by a convict colony, we are therefore its inferior. New South Wales has Norfolk Island--the accursed of jails--and New Zealand as its dependencies. We place Norfolk Island first, because first subjected to New South Wales. The difference between these dependencies is that the one is now devoted to the convict system and the other is not, but as yet we have no guarantee that this shall not be the cherished abode of vice and crime. We have congratulated the colonists upon being placed under the British flag, but of course we firmly believe that Lord John Russell will immediately render these Islands independent of New South Wales, and that if we lose our Representative Government for the present, we shall not find ourselves placed upon a less favourable footing than the colonists of South Australia. It must never be forgotten that we have shewn we can govern ourselves, and were proceeding in a quiet, orderly, and successful career when the assertion of British authority took place.