D.—No. Id,

Six days in all, were consumed in this way. On three occasions returns or information have been required by the Government, and in each case, instead of the papers being forwarded to me at the road (as I consider they ought to have been), so as to enable me to fill them in and return them without delaying the work, I have been fetched down to town from distances respectively of twenty-seven, thirtyfive, and forty-one miles ; and as, on the second occasion, I was delayed by floods both going and returning, the total loss of time in this way has amounted to fifteen days, besides what was consumed in furnishing the reports and returns, and preparing the sketch map which accompanied the last ones. All these losses of time, as you will see, are in regard of matters utterly apart from my estimate, and could not be included in it. Most of them are not even fairly chargeable to the road, though I gather from Mr. Buller that, for want of knowledge of the circumstances, you have been taking the lost time into account, and so unduly swelling the apparent total cost of the work. I hope that this explanation will suffice to show how the misunderstanding has arisen, and how the time has been lost to the prolongation of the work and increase of the total cost; and that when you have read and considered it, you will do me the justice to acquit me both of having misled you and of all blame in the matter. I have, &c, The Hon. W. Fox, Premier, Wellington. H. C. Field.

No. 7. Mr. Field to the Hon. W. Fox. Sir,— Wanganui, 25th July, 1870. On looking over the letter which I had the honor to address you on Saturday, I notice two or three things which I think it may be well to make clearer. 1. As regards the time occupied on the completed track being " fully trebled " through the drawbacks arising from the employment of Natives, &c. During nearly the whole time the road was in progress there were supposed to be twenty Maoris employed, but in reality, as the returns and accounts will show, there were on an average only nine actually at work. This it is obvious would at once more than double the time occupied. Twenty really able Natives, finding themselves, would, under any circumstances, be far inferior (owing to their want of experience in road work) to the dozen Europeans, backed by a commissariat organization, whom I described as the basis of my estimate; but by referring to the time lists I find that, of the twenty Maoris engaged, seven were boys varying apparently from about 14 to 17 years of age, one was a cripple, two (besides one of the boys) were far gone in consumption, and two others were small, slightly built men, unfit for such work. This, coupled with their disinclination to work, and the loss and waste of their time from the various causes I specified in my letter, reduced the amount of work done in a given period by fully one-third. In other words, the nominal twenty, and real nine Natives, were only doing as much work as six good Natives, or four good Europeans, would have accomplished, in the same time. Nine Natives drawing pay for doing the work of six, obviously added fifty per cent, to the proper cost of the mere work, bearing out my statement, that, with European labour, I could have completed for about £150 what has cost nearly £220. As these nine, however, represented a nominal twenty, the time occupied was, as I said, fully trebled, and, of course, the extraneous expenses, officers' salaries, &c.,were increased in this latter ratio. 2. As regards the prolongation and increased expense of the work arising from the time needlessly expended in pig-hunting : it constantly happened that two men were engaged for a couple of days in getting meat, which, if they had kept their dogs at home, they could have got in an hour or two in the morning or evening, and which, when procured, only lasted their party three or four days. The average number of hands actually at work being nine, every time this occurred it was equivalent to prolonging the work by about half a day; and although the men's own time so lost was stopped, yet the total cost was increased by a sum of £1 11s. 6d. for officers' salaries, and what was still worse, it was a loss of half a day of fine summer weather, which had to be made up again in the depth of winter. 3. When I said that £24 per mile was " no great price " to pay for the road, I did not mean to imply that it ought to have cost so much. My own estimate and figures, in fact, show that it could have been completed by European labour for about half that sum. The meaning I meant to convey was that, considering the splendid country the road will be the means of opening up, and the importance of obtaining so direct and easy a line of communication with the interior of the Island, the road, even at £24 per mile, was cheap to the Colony. I thought it better to go more fully into the above matters to prevent any misunderstanding respecting them, and therefore troubled you with these further remarks ; and, hoping they will suffice to disabuse your mind of the erroneous ideas imputed to you by Mr. Buller, I have, &c, The Hon. W. Fox, Premier. H. C. Field.

No. 8. Mr. Field to the Hon. W. Fox. Sib,— Wanganui, 28th July, 1870. There were some special circumstances affecting the Natives' disinclination to work, which need to be stated to complete your knowledge of the facts relating to the Mangawhero-Taupo Road. When Mr. Buller arranged with the chief of the hapu owning the land, respecting the supply of a working party at ss. per day, he unquestionably intended that the twenty labourers should all be ablebodied men. The hapu however could not, I believe, under any circumstances, supply so many ; and at that particular time, even after sending up the inefficients mentioned in my last, the chief had to

10

FURTHER PAPERS RELATING TO FORMATION