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recommendation from a Committee, and the anomaly of his refusing to give effect to the recommendation when it had been made, thereby blocking the inquiry recommended by the Committee report. I discussed these instances with Treadwell at the time, and shortly afterwards obtained from him a document mainly confirmatory of what is stated in this and the last two preceding paragraphs. 36. That the inquiry recommended by the Committee was not and never has been held j neither has the land been protected from further dealings as recommended, but, on the contrary, the leasehold which the acting Price Minister, Sir J. Carroll, repeatedly declared from the public platform to be of more value than the freehold, was, by the improper influence of Dr. Findlay, as a Minister and with his firm, allowed to pass through the dummy purchaser, their client Herrmann Lewis, to certain speculators who were in this position of finding money; and the freehold, which, accelerated by the acquisition of the leasehold, was, by virtue of a certain Order in Council, never intended by the Legislature for such purpose, allowed to pass exclusively into the hands of the dummy purchaser of the leasehold, who alone was named in the order, for the benefit of the speculators above referred to, upon the pretext that it was in the public interest that the land should pass in such manner — whereas it was directly inimical to the public interest, inasmuch as the State had purchased the freehold at £15,000, and paid deposit on the purchase. That, at best, the transaction can only be viewed in the ratio of one for the public and ten for the speculator. That your petitioner submits that the transaction would not have taken place had not Dr. Findlay, in the interests of his firm and the client, blocked the inquiry recommended in 1908. 37. That the terms before mentioned as put forward by Dr. Findlay to Treadwell in October, 1908, were not agreed to or carried out, and on the 6th November Mr. Treadwell informed your petitioner that Mr. Dalziell had called upon him and stated that in consequence of a member of the Upper Chamber having communicated with the Prime Minister respecting the terms put forward on behalf of Herrman Lewis, Dr. Findlay had decided to send the case to a Stout Commission, with a threat that this step would prove to my damage. 38. That in May, 1909, your petitioner noticed in an Auckland paper of the March previous that the Stout-Palmer Commission had held inquiry into the Mokau lands, which inquiry I had received no notice of, the same having been held unknown to me. Your petitioner has no reason to doubt but what this procedure was set up pursuant to the intimation given by Dalziell to Treadwell as stated in. the last preceding paragraph, the Stout-Ngata Commission having completed the services required of it and become dissolved, and the Stout-Palmer Commission set up specially for this case; and with cunning ingenuity the report opens in a manner to deceive, leading up to matters of leasing or sale that did not require the presence of a Royal Commission to deal with in order to give colour to the procedure as being necessary to Native lands inquiry. That the Mokau Block was not Native land, the same having been brought under the provisions of the Land Transfer Act, and any subdivisions or partitions required did not come within the scope of the Native Land Commission ; that there are separate enactments relating to this land that removes it from inquiry, excepting by the properly qualified Courts and departments outside of such as the Stout-Palmer Commission. That, irrespective of any question relating to Native or any other land or other business of any description, your petitioner submits there is no power, and that even the King is prohibited by statute from directing inquiry into the private business of any subject, as in this case, without his or her consent. That the report contains material statements that are untrue and misleading, and the whole document is evidently written, not to say with prejudice, but with malicious intent; nor is it possible to place even a lenient construction on the action of the Commissioners, inasmuch as they did not seek the truth where they might have known it could be obtained, whereas they examined all and sundry who desired to profit by an improper report. 39. That your petitioner, upon learning in May, 1909, that the so-called inquiry by the Stout-Palmer Commission had taken place, wrote to the Prime Minister remonstrating against such form of procedure, but received no satisfaction beyond the usual vacant reply from that gentleman. That in October, 1909, two honourable members strongly supported in personally requesting the Prime Minister to remove the report from the table of the House upon the grounds (1) that there was no legal power to set up such inquiry, (2) that the inquiry was held unknown to me, (3) that Sir Robert Stout was not qualified to sit upon such inquiry, he having already adjudicated upon the case to my prejudice on the Bench. Sir J. Ward replied that he would make inquiries as to removing the report, but your petitioner is in a position to believe that he made no such inquiry, and the document became bound up in the blue-book as a stain upon myself and family. 40. That your petitioner submits that the Chief Justice either knew or he did not know that there was no power in the Commission to inquire into the Mokau land-dealings. If he did not know there can be no plea for such ignorance, inasmuch as the so-called inquiry appears to have been directed solely against myself irrespective of power or truth, ff he did know and produced the report of the nature 1 allege it to be, which undoubtedly he did, so much the worse for public morality; and with the deepest humility I would urge upon Parliament to at once grapple with this ugly feature, and that injustice to the entire community as well as to this humble petitioner. 41. That your petitioner would inform your honourable House that during the last session of the last Parliament in 1911 a Committee of the House, holding special inquiry into the Mokau transaction —neither for nor against the interests or dealings of your petitioner—rejected this Stout-Palmer report from its deliberations upon the ground that it was an illegal production— a noxious weed —whereas at the same session the Government referred to it as the basis, as stated by Sir J. Carroll in Parliament, for the State interference in deeming the Mokau titles to be void or voidable, and thereupon issuinir the notorious Order in Council to allow of the freehold passing. The Commission recommended for me in 1908 was refused, and this illegal Commission, set up unknown to me, made use of to my detriment. 42. That in April, 1910, your petitioner received a cable from London offering to build a harbour at Mokau upon the Government plans, and work the minerals upon the property. Upon