G.—S

The following is an account of what the trust estate in each case now consists of :— Kohanga — Land, 750 acres, valued by Government Valuer in 1903 at ... £865 0 0 Money ... ... ... ... ... ... Nil. Income : Is. a year, being rent under a lease. From the present year the rent for twenty-one years will be £37 10s. per annum. Hopuhopu — Land, 1,385 acres, valued by Government Valuer in 1905 at £2,194 0 0 Money ... ... ... ... ... ... Nil. Income, rents... ... ... ... ... ... £30 11 0 Pepepe — Land, 133 acres, valued by Government Valuer in 1903 at ... £170 0 0 Money ... ... ... ... ... ... Nil. Income, rent ... ... ... ... ... ... £10 0 0 Puniu — Land, 870 acres, valued by Government Valuer in 1903 at ... £3,125 0 0 Money ... ... ... ... ... ... 2 12 1 Income, rent ... ... ... ... ... ... 50 0 0 There are no accumulated funds in these trusts. Accounts of the annual receipts and disbursements of the above estates, so far as we have been able to obtain them, will be found in Appendix Q. We have found considerable difficulty in obtaining these statements of account, incomplete as they are, from the fact that regular and systematic accounts were not kept during the early years of the trusts, or if kept are not available. The absence of these accounts is much to be regretted, as, in their absence, much of the history of the trusts up to a comparatively recent period is lost to your Comrrissioners, though, if time allowed, they might possibly be obtained from the Church Missionary Society's office in London. The fact that the net income of these estates has been paid to the trustees of St. Stephen's School at Auckland on account of the maintenance of boys from the Waikato at that school explains the fact of there being no accumulated fund. The trust lands being, after the war, unoccupied became infested with gorse, briar, and scrub to an extent that has reduced their rental value to a nominal sum, except in the case of Puniu. Particulars of the rents of the several properties will be found in Appendix Q. We are informed by the secretary to the trustees that the Puniu Estate was let from 1869 to 1879, but that no rent was payable. The lands having reached the state described, the trustees made considerable efforts to let the lands, with the result that a large area is unfortunately locked up under what may now seem unreasonably long leases of questionable validity, at an annual rental of Is. per acre, which was thought at the time of the leasing to be fair and reasonable, and compares not unfavourably with that derived from the University endowment in a neighbouring locality, a return of which is appended for purposes of comparison. The trustees allege that they had no funds to spend upon the estate, and that, although after the conclusion of the war in 1864 there was an inflow of population to the Waikato, the quality of the land was so poor as compared with some of the confiscated lands that they could get no persons to rent it. This, to a great extent, is true, but does not appear to apply to Puniu, where the land is good, and has been in occupation, but where they do not appear to have been fortunate with their tenants. But, taking everything into consideration, we feel we must record the fact that an estate like Kohanga was for twenty-six years, from 1864 to 1890, absolutely unproductive, and that the total revenue from that year to 1904, a period of fourteen years, amounted to only £37 7s. The present tenant has occupied the estate for seven years at a nominal rental of Is. per year, with a covenant to expend within that time £500 on improvements. The rental reserved by the lease for twenty-one years from the expiration of that period is £37 10s. per annum. The Government valuation shows the small amount of improvement on the estates, except that of Puniu: Kohanga, in 1903, £115; Hopuhopu, in 1905, £120; Pepepe, in 1903, nil; Puniu, in 1903, £1,375. Your Commissioners are called upon to reply to the question, " Have the original trusts been carried out, and, if not, why not?" Our reply must be that they have not been strictly carried out since the closing of the schools. These grants differ from those of Porirua and Otaki, inasmuch as they appear to be fox the general benefit of all schools established under the superintendence of the Bishop, while the Otaki and Porirua grants are in each case for the benefit of a specific local school. It is, however, doubtful if that was the intention, as the recital of the grant contains the following words: " And whereas it would promote the objects of the said institution to set apart certain pieces or parcels of land in the neighbourhood thereof for the use, &c, of the same." It seems to us, therefore, that the intention was that the trust should be for the maintenance of schools in the locality of the ii— Q. 5.

IX