G.—lo.

£140 13s. lid. The truck earned a credit of £43 2s. 9d. The scattered nature of the units comprising the scheme entailed a good deal of expense in truck-running and transport of implements. It was decided during the year to use horses and horse-drawn implements. Notwithstanding these items of expenditure it is probable that the various subdivisions of the Onewhero scheme will be brought into production at a lower average cost than the Waiuku schemes. (d) Waahi (Huntly). Although only a small area, 671J acres in all, is involved the importance of this scheme lies in the fact that Te Rata Mahuta and three of his brothers have thereby engaged to place themselves and the great influence exercised by their family throughout the Waikato-Maniapoto district and beyond it behind the movement for the development of Native lands. A feature of the scheme is that members of the Waikato tribe who are employed on lands farmed by Te Rata's family will not accept wages, although the Department has offered assistance in this respect. An area of 69§ acres near the Waahi Settlement was purchased to enlarge the dairyable lands and to provide ground for potato-cultivation. This has been stocked with dairy cows, a shed built, fences have been erected, and the farm equipped with labour, material, and stock contributed by the Waikato and Maniapoto tribes', who wish to assist Te Rata. Other than the purchase of the land mentioned, the assistance from Native-land-development funds up to the 31st March, 1932, has been confined to fencing-material, seed, fertilizers, and stock. The expenditure was as follows : — £ s. d. £ s. d. Wire .. .. .. .. .. .. 10 10 7 Fertilizers .. .. .. .. .. 30 14 0 Seed .. .. .. .. 1 16 0 15 cows and heifers and 1 bull .. . . 176 2 8 Petrol .. .. .. .. 1116 — 220 14 9 Purchase of land (69f acres) .. .. .. .. 1,174 10 8 1,395 5 5 Less repayments by settlers .. .. .. .'. 25 4 10 £1,370 0 7 Apart from the purchase the only expenditure has been on Lot 171 a, Parish of Pepepe, occupied by Tonga Mahuta. The area cleared of manuka, fern, and blackberry, partly stumped, ploughed, and worked up was 43 acres. There were already in fair pasture and in rough feed 48 acres. Ten acres were put into permanent pasture, and 29 acres into crops, and the whole top-dressed. The fencing, including repairs, was 236 chains, and draining 30 chains. The scheme purchased fifteen in-calf heifers, which were milked last season, and one pedigree bull. In addition there are on the property, without cost to development funds, one seven-roomed house and one three-roomed, a whare, a cow-shed, and out-buildings. Tonga possesses a full supply of farm implements and two lorries. Regarding the labour element in development, the Field Officer reported : — " The work on the property is undertaken by ten men under the personal direction of Tonga Mahuta himself, and all have recently been engaged on the wattle-cutting and grubbing work at Te Kauwhata . . . The ' tuckering 'of these workers and other members of the household is one of those mysteries that can only be understood by one well versed in the ways of the Waikato people, and in their conception of the term ' loyalty.' I broached the subject of wages or a sustenance allowance to Tonga again. The men will not work if in the slightest degree they would by doing so be adding extra cost to the development of the property. All the workers are registered under the Unemployment Act, and most of the work they are doing is entitled to assistance from the Unemployment Fund ; but the workers will not conform to the conditions entitling the employer to a subsidy." At Rotowaro some distance away, on Lot 78b 2 (part), Parish of Pepepe, another brother of Te Rata, Tumate Mahuta, is occupying one of the family blocks, an area of 290| acres. It is well watered, has rich river flats and easy hills, 110 acres of which are in fair pasture, but requiring top-dressing with fertilizers, some reconditioning and subdivision. The land was added to the Waahi scheme at the end of the financial year 1931-32, but no expenditure was incurred on the block until the current year. Tumate was milking thirty-nine cows, which were secured by bill of sale to a dairy company. 2. Maniapoto oe King-country. In parliamentary paper G.-Ib, 1907, the Native Land Commission appointed to inquire into the question of Native lands and Native-land tenure reviewed in detail the position of Native lands in the King-country up to that year. Although a section of the Ngati-Maniapoto Tribe, which inhabited and owned the King-country territory, took part with Waikato in the Waikato War, only a small portion of the Maniapoto lands was involved in the confiscation. The bitterness engendered by the war, however, led to the locking-up of the latter for upwards of a generation, so that the Courts could not investigate the titles to the lands, without which no settlement of any kind could be undertaken. It was the prosecution of the North Island Main Trunk Railway that influenced the Government of the day to treat with the King-country chiefs for the submission of their lands to the jurisdiction of the Native Land Court. This investigation covered 3,500,000 acres of land held by the Maniapoto and associated tribes, including Whanganui, and the Ngati-Tuwharetoa Tribe of Taupo. The area

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