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New Zealand Mail, Issue 426, 10 April 1880, Page 25

Considering that the public is in a state of extreme expectancy respecting the opinions the Native Commissioners have formed as to the position of native affairs on the West Coast, and the recommendations they have decided to make to the Government, we certainly think that their interim report, which has been 30 much talked about of late, might be published. We readily admit that prudential considerations may warrant the withholding its publication in full, but at least its general tenor might be made known. Notwithstanding the reticence observed in connection with it, it is leaking out drop by drop. We have heard that the opinion of the Commissioners is highly favorable to an early settlement of the question in dispute, and that they have recommended the survey and allotment of the reserves promised to the natives. Our West Coast correspondents, men deeply versed in native matters, and whose opinion should carry weight, have spoken very plainly upon the subject, and are singularly unanimous upon the reserve question. They say that no time ought to be lost in settling the reserves, and that nothing would so tend to bind the more influential chiefs and their followers to the side of the Government. We observe that our contemporary the JLyttelton Times has, in his issue of the sth instant, what we presume is intended to be a funny article upon the subject, in which pretence is made of doubting the existence of an interim report from the Commissioners, or else why was it not published ? As we are not behind the Ministerial scenes we cannot enlighten him as to the report, but we are nearly confident there is one. Something more about it leaked out the other day, for there was a rumor in the Government Buildings to the effect that instructions had been sent to Mr. Parris to go on with the survey of the reserve promised to Honi Pihama, and also to cut the front line, from Normanby to Mania, of the reserve allotted to the Ngatiruanui tribe. It was further rumored that the surveyors had made a commencement. We shall be glad to be assured of the correctness of these rumors, and still more so if the mysterious interim report finds its way into the columns of the Press.