a—2

11. The Question oe Parihaka. By this we mean the question of what is to be done with the country between the Oeo and Stoney Rivers ; which belonged before the confiscation to the Taranaki tribe, and contains about 125,000 acres of available land, of which 34,000 are open plain. It has been a popular idea that within these boundaries there was a vast area of valuable land which would one day bring in much money to the Treasury. No delusion could have been greater. The country on the Taranaki coast extends for about thirty miles beyond Waimate Plains up to Stoney River, and may conveniently be separated into four divisions : — 1. The Stoney River Block, from our township of Okato to Waiweranui; 2. The Parihaka Block, from Waiweranui to Moutoti; 3. The Opunake Block, from Moutoti to Taungatara; 4. The Oeo Block, from Taungatara to the Plains. Following these streams to their sources in Mount Egmont, the areas of the divisions are nearly as follows: Stoney River, 18,000 acres; Parihaka, 58,000 acres; Opunake, 44,000 acres; and Oeo, 26,000 acres. But the Stoney River and Opunake Blocks were both returned years ago to the Native owners, excepting 1,400 acres retained by the Crown round Opunake township. Along the whole coast, therefore, north of the Plains, there are now only two divisions out of the four which we are free to deal with. And in speaking of these, we must first deduct a large part of the mountain itself as worthless, and then we must remember that for nearly the whole distance along that part of the coast, the forest comes clown to within three miles (and often within two) of the sea; so that, if an arc is drawn round the mountain with a radius of nine miles, leaving a breadth of not less than seven miles back from the sea, we shall enclose in the latter all that will be worth talking about for the next twenty years. Within these limits the area of available land left to us on the Taranaki coast beyond the Plains hardly exceeds 60,000 acres, and of this not more than 20,000 acres are open country. But against even this modest extent must be set two liabilities. In the first place, there are awards of the Compensation Court of 1866 still to be satisfied, usually estimated at 10,000 acres: we cannot speak yet with certainty of the amount, as there are complicated questions about the awards to which we do not yet see our way ; but at any rate the floating character of the liability will have to be put an end to, and the place and time of selection under the awards defined. Secondly, and far beyond the first liability in importance, is the one caused by the necessity of providing for the Parihaka people. This question, quite independently of any opinion as to how far the land of men like Te Whiti himself, who never were in arms against the Queen, was really taken by the confiscation, is a serious one, and ought to be faced at once. The population of the Taranaki tribe, down to the tribal boundary between them and the Ngatiruanuis at the Rawa near Oeo, was given in the census of 1878 at 841 souls, of which 342 were living at Parihaka. Since then it is said that the Parihaka settlement has increased ; but whether this is so or not, no one pretends we can tell Te Whiti and his people they must leave it. So that for all practical purposes the Parihaka Block is only what will be left after a large reserve for those people; and this means, taking the Native Land Act scale of 50 acres for each soul, that we have to set apart at least half the available land there for them. Nor is this all: when the land required for the Parihaka people has been set apart, what is then left to us there will only be a strip along ten or twelve miles of coast, entirely isolated between the two large blocks that were returned to the tribe years ago. It is very doubtful whether, for a long time to come, it would be right to let settlers go upon such a strip at all: certainly the example we have had north of Urenui, is a warning not hastily to repeat such an experiment again. Putting together what we have said, it will be seen that half of what is left to the Government north of the Plains will be wanted for existing liabilities and

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