D.—No. Id

8

the Assembly had been for the employment of Natives in road making." I said at once that such an arrangement would add to the cost of the work, though I could not at the time have any idea of the extent to which it would do so ; but nothing transpired, at that or any other time, which could lead me to suppose that you or ho understood the salaries of the officers engaged on the work to be included in my estimate. Had I had the slightest notion that either you or he had so misunderstood it, I should at once have undeceived you. And I cannot imagine how the smallness of the sum I had named as sufficient for the cutting of such a length of track, and my explanation of the manner in which my estimate was arrived at, by showing that there was no margin for salaries, failed to dissipate the misunderstanding. I will now point out the sources of delay and increased expense. 1. From so many of the AVanganui Natives being away with Kemp and Topia, those who remained at home were wanted to do the necessary work about their kaingas, and being mostly old men, young lads, and those who were disinclined for active exertion, were by no means the sort of labourers that were required for road work. It was so difficult to obtain them that some of those actually employed were Ngatiraukawa from the neighbourhood of Alanawatu, another was a cripple, and latterly they sent up an European as one of the party from Alatetera. A large proportion were mere boys, some of whom I refused to pay as men, though I was obliged to pass others in consequence of their having served as men during the operations against Titokowaru. They were not, however, capable of doing fair men's work, and of course tho progress of the line was delayed by the engagement of such hands. The chief who was to supply the next gang, came up twice to try and get the hands then engaged to go on with the work on his account, as otherwise he could not make up the required number. The same cause which made it difficult to procure labourers made it equally so to maintain them. They constantly left without notice, to attend to their own affairs, and it was a matter of perfect uncertainty when they would return. The first gang consisted of a chief and nine men, but the chief did no work. They were to have begun on the 17th January, but did not do so till the 20th, and on the 29th, on receiving news of a death at their pa, they all left, and remained away several weeks, reaping their wheat and other crops. During their absence I was obliged to set my son and the overseer to do their work, while I selected the line and cut it through by myself. By the time they returned, I had got so far ahead with the leading line, that, in order to enable them to come up with me, the engagement of a second gang was authorized. This was about the 20th to the 25th February, but the new hands arrived so slowly that it was some way into Alarch before they all came, and then some of them only stayed a few days. At the end of March they nearly all left to gather in their maize and potato crops, and during April, except for a few days that 1 induced some of them to remain when they came up to receive their previous month's pay, I had actually only from three to six at work, instead of the twenty who ought to have been there. The restriction imposed by the Government, to the effect that the labourers should be supplied from the hapus interested in the land over which the work was being done, increased the above difficulties by narrowing the field of selection, and thus I was obliged to retain hands whom I knew to be pl^-sically incompetent or lazy, because I had no hope, if I discharged them, of getting others in their stead, the engagement of them not resting with me. 2. Natives are infinitely inferior to Europeans as labourers, both in respect of speed and style of work. The time they waste in smoking, resting, and talking, is enormous, and as a rule they are disinclined to exert themselves. Those I had to deal with were generally so unwilling to work, that the European whom I mentioned as having been sent up as one of their party, afterwards told me and an overseer, that on his arrival tho first thing the Natives did was to show him how little work they were doing, and caution him not to do more lest more should be expected of them. There were some steady men, however, among them, and these stayed till the last, and it was a fact that, as the overseer and others engaged at the same time can corroborate, we got more and better work done by six men during the last fortnight, than we coulel accomplish with twenty men and boj rs in a similar time a few weeks previously. 3. The defective commissariat arrangements of the Natives were a great and perpetual source of delay. At the outset, I suggested to Air. Buller that the Natives, if they were to find themselves, should be engaged, as surveyors hero find it advisable to engage them, for five days only in each week, leaving them Saturday (and Sunday if they choose) for pig-hunting and procuring supplies. The Natives, however, insisted that Sunday would suffice to procure potatoes, Ac, and that pigs were so plentiful that their dogs would probably catch as many as they would neetl close by the work, and that they coulel make up any deficiency in the mornings and evenings. They were therefore engaged for the whole six days per week, and the result was considerable loss of time. From the number of dogs the Alaoris brought with them, and their permitting the animals to range about on their own account, the pigs near the work were, as we moved on, either killed or driven so far off that, when meat was wanted, the men who went in search of it were often a day or two, and had to travel a long way in procuring it. It was no use to remonstrate with them on the subject. They consielered they were the chief sufferers in having to go short of food or carry it so much farther, and could not apparently understand my objecting to the loss of time. Of course I stopped all days or half-days devoted to pig-hunting, but the understanding that they could kill what pigs they could near the work caused constant loss of time. If the dogs found a pig half a mile off, one or two of the men would set off to secure it, and would be in no hurry to return. In fact, as they scorned any but the very best, they would often kill several pigs before they came back, and then return empty-handed, saying they were all "no good." The difficult}' of feeding the party was increased by the women and children who accompanied the labourers, and by the number of Natives who came up from time to time to see the road. In fact, when Mr. Booth came up, in Alarch, to inspect the work, the Natives wanted him to allow them the Saturdays on pay i\>r the purpose of procuring food, and tho arrangement of allowing three of them a day each week with this object had to be made. The improvident manner in which Alaoris consume food when it is plentiful, also considerably increased our difficulties in this respect.

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