Wallingford October 30th. 1867 My dear McLean, I have very little to write you about this week. In reference to the Country Public Houses the Inspector of Police and the Resident Magistrates under whose orders the Inspector of Police shd. act are the proper persons to see to these houses and lay the necessary information - there is not a day that some one or other of these houses ought not to be proceeded against. Pray jog Cooper up about it a circular warning the keepers of the houses that they will be proceeded against in all cases where it is heard that disorderly scenes have taken place would do some good, and the Police shd. be instructed that if they neglect their duty of laying information against these houses they will be discharged. I see you think the District Constable for this district has not been in employment - the man is here and on pay and I suppose knows nothing of his cessation of employment. I have not told him at any rate. We the Justices down here have had some talk together and have come to the conclusion that it is useless retaining our J.P. ships without the power of acting, which the absence of any Constable amounts to. We intend to send our resignations in to the Col. Secretary and to say that as our District is beyond the reach of the the Police employed in the Province and no provision is made for the preservation of order in it, That it is useless retaining our names in the Commission when we have no power to act. I note that Tareha has had £3500 out of the Papakura purchase money and that you have arranged to close the transaction about the time the assembly sits next. There is no Act required to validate the sale from the Natives to us. The difficulty is to dispose of the land and to give proper titles to the Lessees. There will be an act required for that. But we pleged ourselves to the Lessees to allow the valuations to be made at once and we cannot postpone that if they require it. The terms upon which they were to be allowed to take their lands we settled fully at our Executive Meeting and they were fair and reasonable. In making the fresh terms for early payment to the Natives, you will have to look out that we do not lose in interest. Rhodes purchase and terms are of course the terms we are bound by and on which the title has come to us. If they get the money sooner than agreed of course some one must pay the interest and it will come to lumping big sum altogether, spread over the years Rhodes' agreement was to - I do not think you have the power after the completion of the purchase to pay in any way by which the Province will lose, that is, if the Province has bought the land for certain moneys, You cannot pay what will be a higher price - the plan will be to calculate the interest that wd. have been to the credit of the Province from the time Rhodes' terms wd. have made the money's payable, and deduct that amt. (of interest) whatever it may be for the main sum to be paid. There is no other way. It is the most simple of business. I only name it in case you might have overlooked the position in which we stand. I recd. a request to report on the Maori Lexicon. Have they asked you they have not named so to me. I have said I will report but cannot do so until my next visit to Napier one or two months perhaps. I have also recd. a circular respecting the Justices of the Peace for the Clive District which I have replied to. Yesterday a deputation for a Waipawa Meeting waited on me with some Resolutions that were passed at the Meeting on the Telegraph station question. I told the Deputation the newspaper had misrepresented me and I further told them that if they got a Petition from a majority of my Constituents to the Genl. Govt. to the effect that the Station shd. be at Waipawa in place of Waipukerau that I wd. support it - that this was what I had said in the Prov. Council and that I still considered the question one in which I ought to be guided by the wishes of my Constituents. The deputation expressed themselves satisfied and went back to have another meeting and get up a Petition. There is no doubt at all that Waipawa is the more central place for the population of the inland District. I fear we are going to have back the old cry of town and Country. The Country is very bitter at the late Council proceedings and you will find the Country people as noisy and demonstrative in future as the Townsfolk. By the bye send the Powder, Shot etc. for old Hiriwanu by first Cobb coach. I have sent your letter so he will be sending here for it directly. It is late and I have lots more letters to write. In haste, Yours always, J. D. Ormond.