"Wanganui" Sept.14/72 Dear Sir, My Cousins visit to Wellington on the Peyman V Whitmore Committee of Enquiry - gives me an opportunity of writing privately upon affairs here and with the additional advantage of affording you an excellent chance of obtaining throughly trustworthy information from a throughly reliable source - I know that he sees things pretty much as I see them, and if for some time since I have wholly refrained from expressing any opinion or taking any particularly active steps in any definite direction, it has arisen from a scarcely represible feeling of intense annoyance at the position in which I find myself placed from the miserable paltry intrigues going on around me - Ever since I accepted employment here it has been the same story, and for my own part I could have perhaps endured it with some show of Pateince where my own Interests alone were concerned, but it has spread a great deal further, and more harmfully, so much so that I am almost tempted to speak out and tell you plainly what I mean - I shall not do this wholly unless you ask me, and at present I do not wish you should - I must however say this much That as I did not seek my present employment so was I better off and likely to have continued better off by following my own professional avocations in Hawkes Bay - Ergo I did not take the question up from selfish Considerations. Indeed I can truly say that I accepted the work firmly beleiving you wished me to and because it appeared to offer the opportunity I sought for of entering Public life. I am at present a very heavy loser and likely to remain so - besides which on the barest assumption I am taxed with maladministration and what not! I do not think that men who have studied the question as carefully as Pharazyn and myself are likely to have erred much in our views on so a plain matter of good faith as how best to carry out long outstanding promises when the means for fulfilling them in their original integrity have long passed away. And yet I know of nothing else - whereof I am challenged, nor can I combat a shadow. I feel certainly that fulfilling as I was a throughly invidious and disagreeable task I was entitled to very full support, and that Major Edwards has been allowed to gratify his predeliction for sitting on Commission upon very slender grounds. Whilst naming that gentleman I must refer to the Patea speech and the way in which I was coolly saddled by him with having given advice of a certain nature when the whole tenor of my opinions expressed and felt, pointed the other way - and when himself called to explain left it to be inferred (as I beleive it was inferred by the Govt:) that I had interfered with him in the exercise of his official duties - That I never interfered with any thing or any body I think Pharazyn can safely affirm - That I have done my work in the face of every possible obstacle I can assert, and I should not have got through it as I have, if I had not had the clearest understanding with, and the most cordial cooperation from Mr. Pharazyn in doing it. However I have said more than enough of myself. I have suffered so much from anxiety on these matters and distress from recent illness in my family that I must ask you to attribute to and excuse my egotism on these grounds - I understand that Ballance the Editor of Eveng.Herald stands for the Egmont District in support of present Ministry - this is in favor of Mr. Moorhouse as the Atkinson Interest will split with Ballance - who is pretty secure of Patea Votes; I am going to the Pariaka meeting and may hear something of the prospects of the Candidates at Taranaki and Patea- The native meeting is likely to be a large one and to have important results. I shall endeavour to give you full particulars of it. Amongst the subjects for discussion is the Proclamation by Mr. Ormond (made under prepare of Wellington provincial party), and which in addition to the evil it has already worked in having been the proximate cause of the hostile vote, will be productive of yet further mischeif - Nothing less than the return of Con fiscated Lands will satisfy the Natives, and Wi Parata gave expression to the real Native feeling when he told me when last in Wellington "That nothing short of possessing their landed property in the same way as Europeans would content them and that they felt as slaves or children so long as restrictive laws existed debarring them the exercise of their rights as they themselves viewed those rights" - The grievance so far is partly real partly imaginary it has weight however and will have European influence to back it - I have said enough about these Lands over which there has been so much contention but I think you will admit my views have proved themselves pretty correct ones - and that the results have proved them so - I had hoped you might have found time to have sent me a few lines altho: under all the circumstances perhaps I had no particular right to expect it. I shall determine nothing however as to my own future until I do hear from you - I am thankful to say that Mrs. Worgan is recovering her health, but very slowly. She never ceases to grieve over leaving Napier. Hoping for the best, I beg to remain, My dear Sir, Your faithful Servant George B.Worgan