G.-2.

general promise about fenced and cultivated lands) should be respected, as well as any old pas or burial-places, together with such fishing-places as it may be proper to let them keep at the mouths of any streams. We ask Your Excellency to let us withdraw the opinion Ave expressed in our Eirst Report against the present occupation of this seaward Parihaka Block. We know more about it than Ave did then, and further consideration has made us change our minds about it. In the first place, the Cape Egmont Lighthouse has to be built there; and Ave hope Ave are not going beyond our proper functions in advising very strongly that it should be begun at once. Your Excellency will perhaps remember that when the survey of Waimate Plains Avas about to be commenced, it Avas agreed at Parihaka that the lighthouse ought not to be opposed, though its site will hardly be six miles from Te Whiti's village. A very great political effect Avould be now produced upon the Natives throughout the coast if they saAV the three things for which the Government have so long contended, being done together; the road, the telegraph line, and the lighthouse. Then the land in the Parihaka Block seaward of the road begins within six miles of the settled districts at Stoney River, so that it would offer attractions to settlers Avho might not wish to go far from established townships. Again, the location of a body of settlers there Avould be the forerunner of settlement within both the Stoney River block belonging to the Ngamahanga people, and Matakatea's larger block at Opunake. Lastly, there is the Aveighty consideration that the true solution of the trouble on the coast is, after all, occupation and settlement; and that, as on the Plains so even more certainly at the very doors of Parihaka, the establishment of English homesteads, and the fencing and cultivation of the land, will be the surest guarantee of peace. Crossing Matakatea's reserve, between the Moutoti and Taungatara streams, we come to the Oeo Block of 26,000 acres. Of this, 6,000 acres are open land, and 16,000 forest up to the six-mile radius. In our Interim Report Ave thought it was. going far enough inland to the nine-mile radius; but, as Avill presently be seen in the case of the Waimate Plains, later examination of the country has shoAvn that we can go quite up to the six-mile radius for good land: so that it is safe to estimate there are 22,000 acres available. We have shoAvn in our Second Report that it is still impossible to calculate exactly what extent of Compensation and Court awards may have to be settled in this Oeo Block when the question of merger is decided. The only other liability is the 1,500 acres for Hone Pihama's tribe, under Mr. Richmond's original promises in 1868 : this will leave about 20,500 acres free, of which 4,500 are open and 16,000 forest, 3. Waimate Plains Division. The estimate we gave in our Interim Report of the extent of available land in this division was 120,000 acres, 30,000 being open, country. We are glad to say that 10,000 acres more may now be safely added to that estimate. The whole area enclosed between the Waingongoro and Oeo Rivers is 146,000 acres, of which 31,000 are open country, 78,000 acres (forest) up to the nine-mile radius, 21,000 (forest) between the nine-mile and the six-mile radii, and 16,000 up the mountain. Last March the Government directed an exploration to be made of the back country, Avith the most satisfactory results. Mr. Wilson Hursthouse thus describes the line between Stratford and Opunake, about seventeen miles in length : "It is very favourable for road-construction; there are no hills or ranges to contend Avith; all the streams are very easily crossed, the Waingongoro and three or four streams near it being the only ones that require any study in placing the road-line, and these by no means difficult. Generally the streams have no banks exceeding 20 feet in height, and are simply like large, broad ditches; all of them have good hard gravel and boulder bottoms. About one-tenth of the length of the road will be through what is uoav swampy ground, but the swamps will all disappear on drains being cut. The line can be taken straight with slight devia-

Hursthouse, Beport, 29 April 1880.

LVIII