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English
Auckland 24 August 1871. Dear Mr. McLean, Since I last wrote about the Native Land Court I think that if you have a new Land act, there ought to be a clause to this effect "When any land is before the Court the judge ought to ask how many slaves the then applicant has in his tribe, when this is ascertained there ought to be set a part under the power of the Native Reserves commission certain land for these slaves to hold for life only when it can revert to the chiefs. If you do not take this action, I fear that at some future time you will have a lot of poor fellows like Dick Terpin of old living on what they can take from others which will be cause of more expence and annoyance to Government than the slight trouble now to get to the chiefs to agree to what I now poopose. Yours as ever, John White.