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[Translation.] To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The Petition op the Maobi People on the East Coast, in the Peovincial Disteict op Auckland in the Colony of New Zealand. Humbly showeth, — Youe petitioners are persons of the Maori race who are settled upon land vested in them by the Treaty of Waitangi. We also remained loyal to the Queen's Government. We also fought among our own tribes and assisted the Europeans. We have seen the laws you have made for the Maoris' land. Great troubles have come on other Maori tribes, and these troubles have commenced to come .upon us and upon our lands through the defects of those laws. We now come to request that you may make a good law for us and our lands. Upon these laws you have already made, our lands will be all adjudicated upon by the Native Land Court; then the names of the owners will be known, and then the Europeans would desire to come possessed of it. They would come secretly, but not openly to the whole tribe, but to each individual separately, and during the night ask them to sign a conveyance to which the whole tribe, if they knew the circumstances, would not have consented. This is by no means right, it is not a Maori custom. The Maori custom is that the chief of each tribe and men be appointed by the tribe, according to their wisdom and capability of conducting it for the tribe. This is the proper way to manage our lands. We have heard the Government have a Bill which they have presented to Parliament, and that Bill will prevent us from doing with our land as we please, but order us to place those lands hi the hands of the Government. This is a much worse law than those you have already made. We thoroughly object to that bill. We desire that our lands, commencing at Wharekahika and from thence to Uawa, may be managed by the owners, as a run for cattle and sheep, and to have a town laid out, and to lay out farms. We wish you to make a law to give effect to our Maori Committees, to manage the land for us and our children :we will agree to such a law. We wish you also to cancel any laws giving authority to one man to bring trouble on the land belonging to the whole tribe. Do not give effect to the law that the Government are going to introduce, that is, the law placing all the authority over our lands in the hands of the Government. Make a law to give effect to our Committees, that they may have authority to manage our lands for our benefit. The only authority of these Committees is to confirm what the owners have already agreed to; and we request you to have the Native Land Court sit in our district to investigate the claims to our land, so that the authority of our Committee will rest on our land, so that the tribe and the Committee can manage it. And we pray that the laws you may pass may bring peace on both races. And your petitioners will ever pray. Eanieea Tueoa, And 595 others.

Authority: George Didsbury, Government Printer, Wellington.—lBBs.