Woodlands May 21st 1863 My dear McLean I send down the application for gates to wh. I trust yr. Honour will send a favorable reply as promised by return of post. The application for the timber license has, I see by the regulations, to be made to the Commissioner, and I have accordingly written to Tiffen. Should that conscientious officer have scruples about issuing it, I trust you will allay the same and see that I get it. It is really a serious matter to me and after all I am asking very little and for that little, am quite prepared to pay. The Regulations of 1851 under which I apply are old and the part of them is superceded long ago, but they have never been repealed, that I can discover, nor have the Timber license provisions been superceded by subsequent enactment. I am convinced therefore that my application is quite legal, and within the power of the Comr. to grant it. All is quiet and dull up here. Old Hutana and Wi Whiri Whiri of Waipukurau are bothering about certain imaginary claims at the top of Ruahine, for wh. each expects to get £250; their claims are within the Block sold by Paraone known as the "Ruahine Bush Block" for £3000, and they come down on the Govt. in the usual way because they didn't get as much as they thought they shd. have had at the division of the money, wh. you may remember took place at Wakatu just before the fighting when there were a good many people present, and the cash was not long in disappearing so it is likely enough that some of the claimants came off short, but that is not our fault, as I have always told them, and they ought not to ask us to pay for the illusage they met with from their own friends. I am afraid you will have to take a ride up in this direction to "allay the excitement in the Native mind" on these matters - the dispute about the boundary of the Waipukurau reserve at Russell's big gate ought to be disposed of, or it will give trouble. When you come (if ever you do) you know where to find a knife and fork and a shake down. Yours faithfully G. S. Cooper I am writing about a Publican's License question. The fact is Abbott the self elected reformer of morals (!!) and Wheeler have been kicking up a row about Sunday drinking at Waipawa, in which they are supported by the Hon.H.A.R. (whose own shebeen shop is just as bad as the rest) and Harding. Perhaps the Police are not quite so active as they might be. I am always telling them to confine Sunday drunkards and report the houses, but they don't, and it seems to me that the virtuously indignant ought themselves to stir a finger to cure the evil they so loudly complain of. I hope you will send me soon some kind of an answer to my letter that I may show Virtue, Indignation and Co. that I have taken some steps in the matter.