Wallingford Novr. 12th./68 Dear McLean, I have no letter from you to reply to this mail and not much to write you about. I enclose a letter I recd. from Canning asking that a person he knows might be appointed to collect the Education rate. I see you have appointed Scully but as he is not likely to be able to do the work in the country a person may be wanted and if so the man Canning names can be heard of here or from Canning. The news by the mail is not good. The west coast business is as bad as ever and the nonsense about little Whitmore's admirable plans is of course newspaper bunkum. The Wairoa expedition seems also to have failed and we have that business on our hands yet I fear. Why on earth did the expedition stop at Whataroa? surely they should have gone on and found out where the beggars were - I shall wait however before saying more about it until I hear from you the reason for the fruitless ending of the expedition. I have an official and private letter also today from Haultain. The official simply thanks me for supplying the Govt. with information during your absence - the private note says the Govt. fully recognize that the information we redd. from Wairoa called for all that was done and that Ministers fully shared our opinion as to the course that was taken. Haultain says if Frazer's men had been sent to us - they wd. have had to abandon the West Coast up to 12 miles from Whanganui I suppose he means Waitotara. What do you propose doing now at Wairoa? Will Mr. Kooti and Te Waru leave us alone if we leave them I doubt it very much. I shall be glad to hear from youwhat you propose to do - I am very busy preparing for shearing and begin tomorrow. Always, Yours very truly, J.D. Ormond.