G.—2.

specially careful in dealing with it. Eor ten years the Crown had virtually ceased to exercise any right of ownership beyond Waingongoro River under the confiscation, and had tacitly sanctioned the return of the Natives to the land. 70,000 acres of the confiscated territory on the coast had been given back in 1867 to the tribes. Sir Donald McLean's declaration of 1872 had never been rescinded, that none of the country between Waingongoro and Stoney Rivers, " though nominally confiscated," was available for settlement until arrangements had been made with the Natives for the land they were to have. More than 160,000 acres within the confiscation had been acquired under regular deeds of cession from the Native owners; while 180,000 acres more had been paid for by takoha, or compensation. Above all, every tribe along the coast had been for years more or less under the sway of a singular fanaticism, and had become persuaded that the confiscation was unreal, and that Te Whiti's supernatural power would soon give them possession again of all their land. With so many warnings from the past, every question relating to reserves upon the Plains ought to have been arranged before any survey was attempted there at all; and it was certain that settlers could not be put quietly upon the land while the Natives were not even told what they were themselves to have. The rashness which had marked our proceedings culminated when, on the day after the surveyors were turned off, and we were face to face with a trouble that will soon have cost a quarter of a million, people in other parts of the colony, and even in Australia, were invited by widely-published advertisements to buy land of which there was no longer even the pretence of being able to give quiet possession. We only press this now upon Your Excellency's notice because exactly the same problem is before us to day. Whatever else is doubtful, this, at any rate, is certain : that the Plains will never be occupied in peace until proper reserves are made and marked out upon the ground. We have no hesitation in declaring our conviction to Your Excellency that to do this is an immediate and imperative necessity. Moreover, it has to be done by the almost unaided exercise of the Crown's authority. We have so disheartened our steadiest friends among the tribes by our alternate rashness and pusillanimity, that they are afraid to tell us what they wish, or even to point out the land that ought to be reserved for them. They say that the decision must be left in the Governor's hands. But if the influence of Te Whiti, which has always been exercised against war, proves equal to the strain of road-making and reserve-surveying at the same time, your Excellency's decision about the reserves will be accepted by the resident Natives, and their acquiescence will most likely prevent resistance on the part of others afterwards. The first thing to do is to determine the extent of the reserves. The quantity which appears, from the debates in Parliament, to have been contemplated by Sir George Grey's Government, was about 25,000 acres ; and we shall in due time lay before your Excellency our reasons for thinking that this amount is as nearly as may be the right one. But it is the question of position which is more serious than that of mere extent. We assume as a matter of course the fulfilment of promises to respect the fishing-stations, burial-places, and cultivations on the open plain. But these are nothing : the real question lies in reserving the villages and clearings in the forest. Now, there is one governing fact about these : The forest is not merely fringed with Native settlements here and there; one clearing succeeds another for a considerable distance into the bush, some being in cultivation, others apparently disused. The only way is to include them all, and to make sure we take in enough land to do it. We accordingly advise the following course :— 1. To make a broad continuous belt of reserve, extending the whole distance between Oeo and Waingongoro rivers. 2. To cut the boundary-lines of this Continuous Reserve at once upon the ground, so as to take in all the villages and clearings, enough land being included to allow of an aggregate reserve of 25,000 acres.

VI