CO129-316 - Governor Sir Blake - 1903 [1-4] — Page 295

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-ment, in a certain event, on work which he had verbally under- taken to perform personally. In his letter in reply of the 21st. December, 1902, he did not, as he asserts in his later letter of the 3rd. February, 1903, definitely accept the offer which

you had made to him; but he accompanied the expression of his willingness to accept that offer with a condition which would relieve him of much of what your letter contemplated he should

do personally. In his so-called "acceptance", he requires that what he is pleased to call the "purely clerical part of the work" should be performed by a clerk in your office; and then he

I proceeds to direct you to set a clerk to work at once to do for

him that which, had he been employed, it would have become his

duty to do himself.

A definite offer is not binding upon the

party who makes it unless it be definitely accepted; therefore on the receipt of Mr. Ireland's letter of the 21st. December

you were entitled to re-consider your offer of the 29th. October; and consequently are within your rights in replying as

you did on January the 17th.. 1903.

It seems to me that the attention which

this gentleman has hitherto received from the Colonial Office, and; as a consequence, from the Colonial Governments which he has visited, has brought about an inflation of his self-estima-

tion.

I cannot otherwise account for the tone

in which he has ventured to address to you a communication which he intended should reach His Excellency the Governor !

My advice is that Mr. Ireland be informed

that the Government is not prepared to accede to the condition which in his letter of the 21st. December he attached to his acceptance of the offer of the 29th. October and that in con- sequence the Government no longer desires, and does not intend,

to