Wallingford Dec. 4th. 1867 My dear McLean, I have read your letter and its three enclosures with much interest particularly your proceedings with the Uriwera tribe all of which I perfectly coincide in. Also the proposed route for the Duke of Edinburgh which is the best I think that could be devised. As for Fitzgerald's letter I have read it with great interest, poor fellow he evidently feels the yoke of the Comptrollership too heavy for him to bear. I don't know what to advise you to write to him, it seems to me knowing the little I do of his position and affairs that it wd. be most unwise of him to think of giving up the Office he holds for the speculation of a run in the interior. He wd. require capital and a good deal of capital too to make anything like a settlement fit for his family there. As to his projects for settling the interior, we know well enough that it will not be done - the way he proposes the only practical part of his letter, is where he says if it comes to that I can hold the land as a Sheep farm etc. or words to that effect and go in there and live. As to the desire he has to work out the Native question and to teach the Natives that industry is the wealth and happiness of peoples, You and I'know how Utopian are such views. One rises after reading such a letter as our friend Fitzgerald's, disgusted with the practical view one's own common sense forces upon one - at least that is my feeling. I followed Fitzgerald with pleasure through his flight but when I had done reading and came back to think - then I realized how little he understood what he proposes to do. However the thing to consider is how to help him and what will be real help to him. He is a fine noble hearted man and you and I both value his true worth as much as most people who he perhaps thinks estimate him more. I enclose an official I have written you about that cursed Waipawa Waipukerau Telegraph Station. Of course I care no more than you for the question at issue. But I know that my enemies are working this case against me with a view to have a handle in case of a general election, which it is more than likely we shall have next session, and so from that point of view I am putting myself as straight as I can and hence the official which I enclose. There is a suspicion in the minds of the Waipawa-ites that I am favoring Waipukerau and this was supported the other day by the Telegraph Surveyor who came back from Napier and told them he had consulted you and you had simply referred him to Lord Henry. Of course they put a good deal of stress upon this and think you and I are playing into His Lordship's hands, however the whole thing is contemptible only one is obliged to keep an the wave of public opinion if you are a public man. There is no doubt Waipawa is the proper place for the Station. I see what you say about Patea and agree with you that no time ought to be lost in doing what we intend. I shall be hearing from you however again on that subject on your return from the Station. I have heard that Lord Henry, Whitmore etc. are looking that way also. We must be before them. There is no use that I see in going in to see the country until you have first moved the Natives. Get from Renata or whoever you think has influence enough to be depended upon, the offer of a large country or an understudy to treat for such. Then I will be ready to go in with your brother, taking Renata with us and treating definitely in there with the Resident Natives. I am a pretty good judge of country and also of extend and we could settle at one sweep, for yourself and myself and for those you want to obtain country for inthe Middle Island - the sooner we get at it the better of that I am sure. If the Country be large enough 3 or 4 or 5 of us together could afford a big rental to be sub-divided among us. But the country must be extensive or the object in going in for it is nil. I have heaps of work on hand grass seed saving, and all sorts. The weather has turned out hot at last and I suppose we really are to have summer at last. Always yours verytruly, J.D. Ormond.