what was left. The remaining lands were transferred in 1892 to Wi Pere and Sir James Carroll as trustees for the owners, encumbered with the remaining debt of £53,000. This arrangement, again, was not a success. Between the trustees, the bank and a vast number of lawyers and hangers on, no effective development of the land occurred, but vast legal and interest charges accrued, and a few years later the debt had once again risen to £138,000. After more legal exchanges, August 1902, was made a final date for sale of the remaining 170,000 acres to the Bank of New Zealand. If this sale had gone through, all the land later farmed by the East Coast Commission would have been lost forever to the Maori people. It was at this stage that Sir James Carroll, then Native Minister, and Wi Pere, M.P. for Eastern Maori, succeeded in getting the Government to intervene. Bank and trustees at last came to an agreement, and two days before the date fixed for the auction, Parliament passed a Bill postponing the sales until August, 1904. During the parliamentary debate preceding the passing of the East Coast Maori Trust Lands Act, 1902, speakers from both sides of the House sympathised with its main purpose, which was to prevent the land passing away finally from the beneficiaries. Some opposition members expressed great regret that so much money had been frittered away by what some called “milking the cow” and others plainly “chicanery”. However this be, clearly the tide had turned and the colony had begun to see the importance of preserving to the Maoris the rest of their ancestral lands. Although formally the 1902 Act merely postponed liquidation for two years, in essence it did far more. The Government had expressed its firm resolve to prevent the land from being lost to the Maori owners. During the debate both parties acknowledged a duty to protect the land. Even though some people have found weaknesses in the Carroll and Wi Pere trusteeship, these leaders certainly served the Maori people well by showing the country, through this melancholy example, how Maori lands were being lost by their owners almost unknowingly and without real recompense. They thus paved the way for laws to be introduced, only a few years afterwards, to protect the land remaining to the Maori people. The Act of 1902 set up a board of control to raise finance to meet the mortgages. Through some concessions by the Bank of New Zealand, the sale of some further blocks and some successful farming, the bank's mortgage was finally paid off in 1905. A year later the Carroll and Wi Pere Trust was dissolved, and a commissioner substituted with full powers to farm, borrow and determine interests of beneficiaries. Successive East Coast Commissioners were: J. A. Harding, 1907. T. A. Coleman, 1907–1920. T. A. Coleman jun., 1920–1921. Chief Judge W. E. Rawson, 1921–1933. Chief Judge R. N. Jones, 1933–1934. J. S. Jessop, 1934–1951. F. N. Bull (Deputy Commissioner), 1951- During the early years of commmission control the blocks most suitable for farming were leased to Europeans. Then, in later years, as the term of leases expired, heavy costs for the purchase of stock and compensation for improvements had to be met. The policy was changed under the commissionership of Chief Judge Rawson. Instead of renewing the leases, the commissioner began to farm the land himself on an ever-increasing scale. The commission's executive officer at the time of the change-over was Mr (now Judge) J. Harvey. Hardest of all was the preservation of those lands which were in a really critical financial state when the commission took over. To prevent these from being lost to the Maori people altogether, a system was started by which the better-placed ‘creditor’ blocks lent money to the less fortunate ones. Mr J. S. Jessop, commissioner from 1934, built the Trust into a huge, tightly interwoven farming enterprise. During his administration, first emphasis was placed on the full development and bold and aggressive management of the stations. The fullest use was made of the advantages of bulk buying and selling, and stock transactions between the different stations became a highly organized business, highly profitable to the blocks. The system of mutual money-lending between the stations has saved considerable sums in interest charges. The East Coast Commission lands very soon became by far the most powerful farming combination on the East Coast, especially while the link with the Mangatu lands lasted. Together, the 24 trust estates contained 16 sheep and cattle stations, all fully stocked and equipped as going concerns in an advanced state of development. Last year these stations carried 100,000 sheep and 15,000 head of cattle. In spite of the rapid pace of development, Mr Jessop's administration saw the most decisive landmark in the history of the trust, when in 1939 the last of the old principal debt was paid off. In 1945 the more recent mortgages followed, leaving the trust as a whole debt-free except for occasional seasonal overdrafts.