A.—3a.

62

should entertain a better opinion and a better hope of a Native who never entered a chapel, but had his two or three acres of wheat and a good barn, than we should of one who might attend the church service twice a day, but spent the rest of his time in lounging in the sun, or galloping a broken-down mare about the country. In examining, then, the relative success of the two experimental systems of Native civilisation above described we shall adopt Sir Fowell Buxton's test of the plough. Down to the end of 1844 there was very little cultivation in progress in the Nelson Settlement. No Native on that side of the Strait had, we believe, grown a bushel of wheat. The decision of the Land Claims Commissioner at that date in favour of the Company's title to Blind Bay and Massacre Bay put an end to the expectations previously entertained by the Natives of getting'further payment for the land, which had, more than anything else, contributed to maintain them in habits of indolence. The same event, removing the insecurity which had previously attached to the title of the colonists, induced them to commence cultivation with great activity, particularly in the district where the bulk of the Natives resided and their reserves were situated, and the result was soon visible in a multitude of small farms, carefully cultivated, chiefly by men of the labouring class. The Natives, no longer relying on the hope of living on the sale of their lands, set about the cultivation of their reserves, imitating the practices of the white settlers, and often hiring them and their teams to plough for them {vide Appendix). The very next season they had about forty acres of wheat at the Motueka alone. The example was soon followed in Massacre Bay, then at the Waitoi and other parts of the Sound, till, in 1848, the entire Native population on that side of the Strait, amounting to 1,400 souls, exhibited in the Government returns 1,000 acres of wheat, besides 600 of maize and other produce. By much the larger part of this amount of cultivation exists in Blind Bay and Massacre Bay—chiefly in the former, from the very centre of which the whole of the agricultural enterprise of that side of the Strait emanated and spread. The contrast between this and the agricultural progress on the northern side of the Strait is most remarkable. With a Native population of 4,711, as returned by Mr. Kemp, extending from the Wairarapa to Eangitikei, both inclusive, there are only two hundred and forty acres of wheat, and only 1,268 acres of cultivation of all sorts, wheat included ; while at Otaki, in particular, the Government village and head-quarters of the mission, with a population of 664, there are but five acres of wheat, and only one hundred and forty-three acres of all sorts. The following table shows the relative proportions at a glance:—

There may possibly be some points of the case, to which we have not adverted, which may require explanation ; but of its general bearing and its completeness as an answer to Sir George Grey's assertions and insinuations, we think there can be no misunderstanding. Tour Lordship has two entire districts before you, similar in most respects, inhabited by Natives of the very same tribes. One has been left to itself, and the intercourse between the races permitted to produce its legitimate results; the other has been made the special object of a different system, the focus of its power being removed from the colonists, and resting its hope of success, in a great degree, on such separation. We take the plough as the test of progress, and we find the result immensely in favour of that district in which the colonists and Natives have been most closely intermixed, and in which the latter have received their civilisation from the former. Tour Lordship may easily conceive how much good feeling, and how many opportunities of friendly intercourse exist in such a state of society-—a state which it would be the earnest desire, no less than the strongest interest, of the colonists at all times to promote. Such a fact is worth ten thousand of Sir George's predictions of evil, and his aspersions of the character of his fellow-countrymen as unfitted to be trusted with the institutions of freedom, lest they should oppress the Native race. Nor are other tests wanting to prove the superior civilisation of the Natives on the southern shore of Cook Strait over those on the north, as well as the superiority of constant intercourse with white men, as an instrument of their civilisation, over the system adopted by the Government and the missionaries. For instance, the fence which surrounds the pa at Waikanae continues to this day ornamented (if it may be so called) with a series of gigantic figures of the most obscene design, though within a mile or so of the missionaries' house, within a hundred yards of the church, and not five hundred yards from the habitation of the Eesident Magistrate. As we cannot suppose the Government authorities or the missionaries to have wanted the will to abate so demoralising a nuisance, we can only infer that their influence with the Natives was too weak to enable them to effect it; but what shall we think of the civilisation of those Natives (which has been more boasted of than that of any in the Islands), when it advances no farther than this ? Now, we believe, not a single instance of such moral degradation will be found on the southern shore of the Strait; certainly there is not one to be found anywhere in juxtaposition with any considerable body of colonists. Nor can we omit alluding to another important fact as demonstrating the feebleness of the influence of the Government on the mind of the Natives. In this province there are several wide and dangerous rivers and a lake, which the avocations of the settlers constantly require them to cross. The only means of transport consists in frail and most insufficient canoes, kept by the Natives at the places where travellers usually cross. Owing to the irregularity of the Native attendance, the exorbitance of their charge, and other circumstances, the greatest inconvenience is experienced by those who use these ferries, and loss of life has occurred in repeated instances, no less than from twenty to thirty valuable colonists having been drowned at these places for want of proper ferries within the last six or eight years. The Government has been repeatedly appealed to n the subject; but, though the right of establishing ferries is undoubtedly a branch of the prerogative

Wheat in Cultivation of Population. Proportion of acres in Wheat. Proportion of all sorts. acres. all sorts. louth side forth side )taki ... 1,000 240 5 1,600 1,268 143 1,400 4,700 664 4 1_ O ao_ l 133 u x Less than i