G.— 4c

26

officer authorised by me under section 79 of " The Native Land Court Act, 1886." Upon that plan a certificate of title may issue, so far as the Survey Department is concerned. Ido not know what portion of the block is included in Jones's lease. I have never seen the lease. It is a plan on which the certificate of title will issue when all objections to boundaries by adjoining owners have been disposed of. The difference of area which would be occasioned by the alteration of the boundary-line of Jones's lease from Totoro to Punirau and thence to the source of the Mohakatino River would be about 20,000 acres. With regard to the map produced before Judge Wilson at the Native Land Court held at Waitara towards the end of 1887, that map was approved by Mr. Humphries in August of that year, with my sanction, for the purposes of the said Court. I consider that that plan would have been a sufficient plan on which to issue a certificate of title. It was what wo call a topographical plan—that is, a plan founded upon a trigonometrical survey, and the features partly fixed by triangulation and partly sketched in between. For all practical purposes I consider it as good as the more detailed plan now before the Court. The actual difference in area between the two plans as given is about 500 acres on a total of 56,500 acres in the one case and 57,000 in the other. I am not prepared to say that either area is accurate within 500 acres, the country being very difficult to survey. An absolutely accurate survey would cost probably from £1,500 to £2,000, and would not be more valuable for practical purposes. Ido not know why the plan was rejected by the Court. By the instructions of the Government the present plan has since been prepared on actual survey at the cost, in the first instance, of the Government. So far as I know, there is no reason why the certificate of title should not now issue. That is a question for the Native Land Court after the objections to the boundaries have been decided. I consider that a topographical plan would have been quite sufficient to have deposited for objections, as it does not differ materially from the present plan. I consider that the topographical map was a survey within the meaning of the Act. •I consider a survey to mean a sufficient representation of the ground to enable it to be identified. On applying the plan of the topographical survey to the plan of later survey, I find very little difference between them, and such difference as there is would practically be of no importance, as it is all on the natural boundaries, which are unmistakable rivers. The cost of the present survey will be a lien on the land.

Feiday, 6th July, 1888. Thomas Humphbies, having been sworn, gave evidence as follows : — I am Chief Surveyor of the Taranaki District. I am the officer deputed by the Surveyor-General to certify maps, &c, under the Native Land Act in the said district. The first application made to me for the survey of the Mokau-Mohakatino is the paper now produced, signed by Epiha Karoro and others, which was forwarded to me by Mr. Joshua Jones in December, 1878. This is an application for a survey of a small part of the said block at the seaward end. The surveyor recommended to make the survey was Mr. Dudley Byre. As Mr. Eyre had then recently been discharged from the Government service on account of incompetency, I declined to authorise him to make the survey. It was Mr. Joshua Jones who proposed Mr. Eyre to me as the surveyor to do the work, I then received instructions from the Surveyor-General to put Mr. Skinner, one of the staff-surveyors, upon the work. I received the instructions in January, 1879. but Mr. Skinner did not actually start on the w Tork until the 4th September of the same year. The reason of the delay, to the best of my recollection, was that some of the Natives objected to a survey being made. In September, 1879, the obstructions to the survey by the Natives had ceased, and Mr. Skinner then went on the ground and cut a line from Koatututahi to Waipapa. This survey was for 1,780 acres at the seaward end of the block, being only a small portion of what is now known as the Mokau-Mohakatino Block No. 1. The cost of Mr. Skinner's survey is now a lien on the land for about £127. The map of Mr. Skinner's survey was completed and signed by me as an "incomplete recognizance survey." The object of Mr. Skinner's survey was to apply to the Court for an order for a title to that portion of the land separately. Nothing further was done until the 9th September* 1881, when the application now produced was received, being an application by Epiha Karoro and others to have the title investigated to a piece of land thejein described, and which is almost the same land now known as the Mokau-Moha-katino No. 1 Block. Upon this application the title was investigated at a Court held at Waitara in June, 1882, and the order of the Court already produced was made thereon. I was present for a short time at the sitting of the Court, having attended at the request of the Chief Judge to give some explanation as to the confiscation boundary-line. The Court, so far as lam aware, made no order about the survey of this land, nor was anything whatever about a survey said in my presence. On the 10th of August following I received a telegram from Rewi Maniapoto [Exhibit No. 6, produced] to the effect that the Natives wished the Government not to interfere with the survey, and that they had selected Mr. J. L. Tole to do the work, and requesting authority for Mr. Tole to go on with it. It was requisite for such authority to be given before Mr. Tole could lawfully proceed with the work. Having satisfied myself that Mr. Tole was a proper person, I gave the authority accordingly, and informed Eewi to that effect, and stated that Mr. Tole should come to my office to get the necessary instructions. This was on the 31st of August, 1882. On the 13th of September I received a telegram from Mr. Tole to the effect that ho was engaged on a large survey, but would