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his farm at £1 per acre less than other people pay, on condition of your assigning your shares (500) to Wi Pere and myself. It will be necessary that your son should have power to draw the necessary funds for clearing, fencing, and purchase of stock. I would suggest that all money be spent at this end under the sanction of the manager of the Bank of New Zealand and myself, as I feel to a large extent responsible for proper expenditure. Beports could then be sent to you from time to time as to progress, &c. The year's experience will be of great value to Jack, and I think he will settle down to and make an excellent farmer. Mr. Birrell and the Fords are all doing well. I shall, with God's blessing, be able to settle them also upon good farms in a short time. I am, &c, Willoughby Mullins, Esq. W. L. Eees.

Enclosure 4 in No. 11. Mr. W. Kennaway to W. Mullins, Esq. Dear Sir,— 13, Victoria Street, London, S.W., 22nd April, 1890. I am directed by the Agent-General to answer your letter of the 16th instant, covering copy of one you had received from Mr. W. L. Eees. The Agent-General informed you personally the other day that he had received no information from the New Zealand Government of such steps as are referred to by Mr. Eees having been taken, with regard to the two blocks of land called Paremata and Pakowhai; and he also expressed the opinion that if those blocks were to be acquired by the Government, the disposal of the same would be regulated by the Land Acts in force within the provincial district, adding that he could not conceive of any power Mr. Eees could have to dispose of from three hundred to five hundred acres of that land privately, to yourself or your son, at £1 per acre below the price at which it was open to the public. From what you have stated at several interviews here, as well as from the references to the matter in both your letter and Mr. Eees's, the Agent-General has understood that during that gentleman's visit to this country you paid him a sum of £500 as the price of five hundred shares in a company then intended to be formed for the colonisation of certain lands belonging to Wi Pere and other Native chiefs in the provincial district in question, which company, however, was never actually established. It now appears from Mr. Eees's letter to you that the transfer of these five hundred shares to himself and Wi Pere is the condition on which the above-mentioned three hundred to five hundred acres would be conveyed by him to your son; but the Agent-General entirely agrees with you that it is most unlikely Mr. Eees would be placed either by the Government or any one else in a position to recoup you in the way he proposes for the £500 you had paid to him for the shares. The transaction about the shares having, however, been a private one between yourself and Mr. Eees, the Agent-General does not think he or any one else can properly interfere, so long, of course, as any proposal relating to the land was one that could legally be carried out. The Agent-General proposes to send this correspondence to the Government for their information. I am, &c, Willoughby Mullins, Esq. Walter Kennaway, Secretary. Approximate Cost of Paper.— Preparation, nil; printing (1,375 copies), £4 16s.

Authority : Samuel Costali,, Government Printer, Wellington.—lB93.

Price 6d.]

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