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suit has been, according to evidence taken before your Committee, that up to the present time it has been necessary to alienate a large qnantity of land, close'on IBo,ouo acres, in order to fulfil in a just spirit contracts entered into 'by the New Zealand Company many years ago, but which, even at the date of the surrender of its charter, it had failed in carrying into effect. The value of the land thus alienated your Committee have some difficulty in ascertaining with precision; liut looking not only to the nature of the land actually surrendered to the Colony by the New Zealand Company, but also to the right of selection of the remainder surrendered at the same time, it is perfectly clear, and your Committee has it in evidence from competent authority, that the inevitable effect of the selection of the compensation land has been most materially to diminish the value of the unselected portions. It must be borne in mind that by the terms of its agreement with the Government, the Company was bound to select its land under Mr. Pennington's award, in blocks generally of the size of 30,000 acres, and of rectangular shape, with a given proportion of the sides. Blocks thus selected in a country of broken surface like New Zealand will, as a general rule, contain along with some land of high value much that is of inferior quality and comparatively worthless, and the inevitable operation of a selection of portions of such blocks is to diminish most materially the value of the remainder. Your Committee consider that a price of ten shillings an acre upon the land thus selected will certainly be within its value, and in putting this price upon it they are guided not by its gctual and present selling value, but they bear in mind the price per acre at which the Company's land was taken by the Government, viz., five shillings an acre all round. Your Committee consider that, having regard to the fact that the best porhave been picked out, and the value of the remainder consequently deteriorated, the price which they have assigned to the portions alienated will be admitted by the House to be certainly within the mark. The money value of 180,000 acres will accordingly amount to the sum of £90,000. But, in addition to this, it is to be borne in mind tliat the cost of surveying this land has also fallen upon the Colony, and this expense, together with the expenses attending the investigation of the claims and grants thereon, which your Committee have also in evidence, can not be reckoned at less than twenty thousand pounds (£20,000). And it must further be borne in mind that the process of carrying out the Company's contracts is not yet completed. Fresh claims daily arise, which can only be duly satisfied by an award in land, and a still further diminution of the number of acres which the Company has pretended to hand over to the Crown for the service of the Colony, and upon the value of which the debt was originally computed. So that, in fact, the process which has been going on is this—This Colony has been compelled to purchase a certain number of acres from the New Zealand Company, but out of the estate so surrendered to it, it has been found necessary to give up a large portion to satisfy outstanding liabilities of the Company. Your Committee feel assured that the injustice of this proceeding must be manifest to every one; and that, as a measnre of the merest equity, a re-adjust-ment of accounts ought to take place, and the debt charged upon the Colony be at all events reduced to an amount corresponding to the real value of the property which the Company has surrendered to it. But there is another feature of the case upon which your Committee feel it their duty to offer a few remarks. It will be in the recollection of the House that the Company was charged in Parliament with having concealed from Lord Grey, in 1847, facts which it was their duty to have communicated to him, and thus by a process to which it is impossible to apply any other term than that of