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The Kaiapoi question I shall be unable to undertake till the end of January, when Mr. Aid: will be able to spare time for it. He apprehends no difficulty with it, I find, however, that Natives of Kaikoura, 80 miles North, are interested in it, and their consent will be indispensable. In illustration of the forbearance the Maories exercise towards us when trespassing , on their land, I may observe that the whole of this newly purchased tract has long been let by the Crown, and occupied by Cattle and Sheep runs, and part of it positively sold as freehold. And it is a fact worthy of notice that so early as the year 1850, when the Canterbnry Association's Surveyors first crossed the Ashley (Eakahauri) the Kaiapoi Natives complained to me that the land North of it had never been sold by them. The Kaikoura Maories had previously asserted the same thing to me. I represented the matter officially to the New Zealand Company's Chief Agent. But until Mr. Johnson's arrival here no official enquiry into the case seems ever to have been made. I have, &c, (Signed) J. W. Hamilton. The Chief Commissioner of the N. L. P. Department, Auckland. Native Secretary's Office, Auckland, January 6th, 1857Sic,— I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of yonr very interesting report of the 11th ultimo, notifying the surrender to the Crown by the Natives of their remaining possessions in Banks' Peninsula. In reply, I am directed by the Governor to convey to you His Excellency's thanks for the able manner in which you have brought this long pending question to such a satisfactory termination ; the more so from the fact that the question was one which-was generally misunderstood on the part of the Europeans ; and in which the Natives might infer that the Government was not acting on those principles of equity and good faith that have been observed in the various other treaties for the cession of territory that have been made between the New Zealand tribes and the officers deputed by Her Majesty's t representative to effect those treaties. The Maories in this particular instance have probably felt that advantage was taken of the comparative weakness of txieir position to deprive them of the land to which their claims had never been extinguished, while with few exceptions the Europeans were laboring under an impression that the Natives were setting up claims and endeavouring to extort further payments for lands which they supposed had been purchased. These misconceptions have now, after a sifting investigation been happily removed, and it is to be hoped that the Natives will feel that while His Excellency would not tolerate any imposition on their part that it affords him the greatest pleasure to recognize and religiously observe all their just rights, as nothing would be more foreign or repugnant to His Excellency's feelings than to learn that in any way the Natives should be divested, without compensation, of a single acre of their lands to which they had a just and equitable claim. I am further directed by His Excellency to request that you will convey to the Eevd. Mr. Aldred his best thanks for the able and indispensable assistance he has rendered to you in acting as Interpreter as well as to the Paora and the other Chiefs, whose combined influence and co-operation have so materially aided you in bringing this negotiation to such a pleasing issue. His Excellency will cause instructions to be given to preserve the rights of the Natives to their lands under crop until the end of March, 1857, the period you have limited in your report for this purpose. I have, &c, (Signed) Donald McLean, Native Secretary. J. W. Hamilton, Esq., J. P., &c, &c, &c. , , f Lyttelton, January Bth, 1857, Bm,— On my return on the 24th ulto., from completing the Native land purchase at Akaroa, I found Whakatau (or Kaikoura) chief of the Kaikora Maories, with some 20 or 30 of his principal people, waiting to see me. Hearing that Government were in treaty with the Kaiapoi Natives for the surrender of their lands North of the river Ashley (Eakahauri) which, although unpaid for, have, notwithstanding their repeated remonstrances, been in our occupation for some six years past. Whakatou came to assert the rights of himself and his people. Whakatou stated at the interview I had with him, in presence of the principal Maories of Kaiapoi, Kapaki, Port Levy, &c, (who are all members in common with the Kaikoura people of the Ngaitahu Tribe) that Ngaitahu are the lawful owners of the country southwards from Pari-nui-o-whiti (The white Bluffs) between the Wairau and the Awatere(Wakefield); of this tract the Kaikoura Maories claim the special ownership as far as the Waiawha, which was fully admitted by the Kaiapoi and Eapahi Maories who, on the other hand, claim no special ownership north of the Waiau-ua. Their lands may be estimated at 1,000,0.00 to 1,500,000 acres, accordingly as Waipara Eiver or old Kaiapoi Ta is taken, as the South Boundary. \