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1894,' relating to roads." That is all I wish to say about paragraph 3, (g), of the petition. Paragraph 4 reads in this way : " That your petitioners believe that the expenses to be paid by them out of their lands in the working of the said Bill will be far greater than the expenses heretofore paid to the Native Land Court; and that the Bill, if carried by your honourable House, will sooner or later be equivalent to a confiscation of their beneficial interests in the lands remaining to them." That is to say, shortly, that we believe the working-expenses of this Bill will be far greater than the expenses incurred through the medium of the Native Land Court. There are yearly salaries and travelling-expenses to be paid to five members of this Board. Sections 8 and 26 refer directly to this matter. Section 8 reads, "The members of the Native Land Board shall receive such salaries and travelling-allowances as the Governor in Council prescribes: Provided that in no case shall the Commissioner be entitled to a salary, nor shall any payments be made under this section except out of moneys to be appropriated by Parliament out of the hereinafter-mentioned Native Land Fund Account of the district." Section 26 says, " All rentals, royalties, fees, and other income derived in respect of lands vested in the Native Lands Board under the provisions of this Act shall be paid to the Board, and shall, in the prescribed manner, be applied by the Board— (1) First, in defraying the cost of the administration within its district of this Act and of the lands vested in the Board." Then, subsection (1) of section 32 of the Bill, which makes provision for advances to the Board, reads in this way: " The Native Land Board may submit to the Minister a schedule of the proposed works, and of the expenses thereof, and make application for an advance of the amount of such expenses." Now, We understand from these sections that the members of this Board'are to be paid yearly salaries, and their travelling-expenses are to be paid year by year, and that the money to be paid to these people is to come from the Native lands. 10. The Chairman.] The Commissioner does not receive a salary ?—lt is true he is exempt from the provisions I am endeavouring to explain. We will say, for the sake of illustrating my contention, that it will take eight Native Land Boards, as provided by this Bill, to deal with all the Native lands in the two Islands. That would mean that there would be forty members of the eight Boards; so I may say that is constituting forty Judges to investigate Native lands. Now, it is only reasonable to anticipate that it will be necessary that each of these eight Boards shall have a separate office and staff of officials. The burden of the expense of each of the institutions constituted under this Bill will have to be borne by the Native lands. To bear out what lam contending, I may point out that the Native Land Court as at present in operation is not nearly so expensive as will be the Board constituted under this Bill. To bear me out in that contention, I will go on to say that there are not, I think, more than ten Judges of the Native Land Court at present; secondly, the Assessors of the Native Land Court are not paid yearly salaries, but only as for the particular period during which they are employed in the Court; thirdly, there are offices and everything else already established and in working-order. I will also point out that the salaries of the Judges and the Assessors of the Native Land Court and all this great staff of officials are paid out of public moneys. They are not paid out of moneys derived from Native lands. Therefore I say that this Board to be constituted under this Bill must be a source of much greater expense to us than the Native Land Court as at present in operation. Now, paragraph 5 of the petition says, " Your petitioners, according to the petition to Her Majesty and to the Parliament of New Zealand, referred to in the preamble to the said Bill, are desirous that the residue of the Native land now remaining in the possession of the Native owners should be reserved for their use and benefit in such wise as to protect them from the risk of being left landless." I have a copy of the petition which was presented to the Queen. [See Appendices.] We say that the measures proposed in this Bill of the Premier's are not in accordance with the reply which was obtained from the Queen to the prayer of Wi Pere and the other persons who sent in this petition. It is only in the most superficial way possible that it in any way resembles the direction received in the reply to the petition, and in a general way right through it does not fall in with that direction. What we want to obtain is the carrying-out of the direction in that reply elicited from the Queen to the petition sent to her. That is all about that. I shall now refer my remarks to certain sections in the Bill which are not referred to in the petition. Paragraph 3, (h), of the petition says, "That your petitioners have many other specific objections to the Bill, or particular sections thereof, which they propose to set forth when this their petition comes under the consideration of your honourable House." Sections 11 and 12 of the Bill refer to the adoption of the Act. I will read them. 11. The Chairman: Ido not think you need read them. The Committee has a copy of the Bill before it, and it will be sufficient if you point out your objections to the sections.—Very well, I will make my objections. According to section 11 it appears that the Act shall not be adopted in any Native land district except at the request of the Native owners. That is to say, unless they request it the Act shall not be brought into operation in their district; but we are apprehensive that notwithstanding their wishes —whether they wish it or not —it will be brought into operation; because one man in a district can do all that is necessary to have it brought into operation, even though the majority of the thinking people of the district are not desirous that it should be brought in. We think it is quite competent for one man, holding a contrary view to the majority, to go and, with the assistance of others who listen to his representations, get the land brought under the operation of the Act in spite of the majority who do not wish it. Now, if an application as provided for by section 12, signed by twenty or more adult Native owners, be received by the Governor, and if after the expiration of twenty-eight days, as provided for by subsection (1) of section J 2, no objection is received after the publication of the petition in the Gazette, then this Board will be broua-ht into operation over the district wherein is contained the land the subject of the petition. Secondly, a district may, and usually does, contain very many more tribes and distinct people than one; and where that is the case it must mean that there will be a conflict of interests and property between the different people contained within one district. Again, if an objection be received