"Impatient with the lack of results from this procedure" Premier McIlwraith on his own authority ordered a Queensland Police Magistrate in March 1883 to proclaim the annexation on behalf of the Queensland government of New Guinea east of the Dutch boundary at 141E. When news of this reached London, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord Derby promptly repudiated the act. When the matter came before Parliament, Lord Derby advised that the British Imperial Government “were not ready to annex New Guinea in view of its vast size and unknown interior, the certainty of native objections and administrative expense”.