mentioned general right of re-selection, and the quantity for compensation that got yet been selected at all, it would be necessary, if no other means existed of meeting the claim, to provide districts out of which 240,000 acres could be selected now; of which at least 160,000 acres would have to be found for the absentee proprietors in the settlement of Wellington alone, merely for their compensation and for the land chosen by them but not acquired from the natives.

These rights to selection and re-selection being admitted, it appears to your Committee that the Government is undeniably bound either to provide good land for the purpose at once, or to devise some other means of meeting the whole claim. For there is no doubt whatever that the fair expectation and understanding upon which the purchasers from the Company agreed to the compensation arrangement, was that the land should be given within a reasonably short time; so much so, that the Company itself stipulated that all the choices should be made within six months from the time of any districts being declared open by its agents. This expectation was fulfilled in the case of the resident landowners, who in all the settlements had plenty of good land, and a fair range of choice, within a short time after the arrangements with them were made; but it was not fulfilled in the case of the absentees, who were clearly entitled to the same advantage, and yet for whom no district whatever was declared open, or even surveyed in the Wellington, Wanganni, or New Plymouth settlements, either for re-selection or for compensation.

But your Committee believe it may be assumed—1st, that there is not sufficient good land in the districts hitherto attached by the Company to the settlements of Wellington, Nelson and New Plymouth, to allow of 240,000 more acres being immediately selected therein; and, 2ndly—that if there were, the whole would have to be immediately surveyed, since it is improbable that re-selection to any great extent would be made out of land thrown up. And repeated experience has shown, that in order to provide a fair range of choice over good land, at least one-third and probably one-half more than the land actually to be chosen, must be surveyed; so that in order to provide even in the present districts a fair range of choice for 240,000 acres, a survey of at least 320,000 acres, and probably of 360,000, would be necessary, the cost being probably not less than £3,000 if the land were mostly open, or £6,000 if it were mostly wooded. Without a single re-selection, and taking merely the unselected compensation land, an immediate survey of from 160,000 to 180,000 acres would at any rate be required, the cost whereof would not be less than from £4,000 to £6,000.

But independently of the doubt that exists as to there being such an amount of good land immediately available in the present districts for the selections alluded to, it appears to your Committee that, as the resident landowners in all the settlements have had the first choice of the good land therein for their compensation, and in Wellington, Wanganni, and New Plymouth have also had their re-selections before the absentees, it would not be fair to force the latter to select within districts where the best land has been so secured beforehand. An instance of this may be given in the case of the Rangitikei district, where out of about 28 miles of frontage along the course of the Rangitiki river, and 20 miles on the Turakina river, comprised in the block purchased from the natives, the resident landowners have taken about 22 miles frontage on the first river, and 15 on the second; and where out of the 20 miles of frontage remaining about 5 miles are occupied by native reserves, and at least 10 are useless mountains or sandhills, leaving barely five miles frontage on the only two rivers in a district of 160,000 acres open for any other selection. Then if the Government, in order to avoid the injustice, determined on providing new districts for the selection of the 240,000 acres, it would be met by two difficulties: one, that the cost of acquiring those districts from the natives would have to be added to the cost of the survey, thus incurring perhaps several thousand pounds more expense; the other, that as the residents were themselves expressly confined to the present districts and to a limited time for selection, they might take occasion to complain of so extended a choice being given to the absentees, claim the right of throwing up to some extent their present choice, and claim also the right of new land to be acquired and surveyed. It appears, consequently, that if the value of re-selection were to be carried out and land had to be provided for the compensation (and as has been said, this can only be done fairly by being done at once), the public would not only suffer by the extreme position with which it has to give away land under the Company's contracts, but the present settlers of this country would have to provide immediately, out of the revenue raised by themselves, a very large sum of money for the mere purpose of acquiring districts and making surveys for the Company. Or if it be said that the public is really under no unavoidable obligation to provide immediately good land to the extent named; that it may put off once more claims which have been already too long and again for ten years, and suit its own convenience (notwithstanding the Company's promises and engagements) in meeting them; it is still questionable whether that course would not be worse for the settlers. If these rights of choice under the Company's land orders were to be continued indefinitely, no uniformity of system could be maintained; they would constantly interfere with land being put up for sale, and the actual colonists, desirous to buy, would never know whether they could do so, or whether a land order would not be put in for the piece of land on which he had set his wishes.

Again, evidence has been given before the Committee that, in the Wellington settlement, the compensation land given to the residents (the best, it will be remembered, of the good districts then open) has been sold at from 5s. to 7s. an acre; that even under regular arbitration it has been awarded at that rate; and that at Nelson land of the very best quality of soil, given out to the purchasers as rural sections, has been sold at from 6s. to 8s. per acre because the land was 120 miles from the town of the settlement. Your Committee request the attention of the Council to these facts as they affect the prospect of any early revival of the land fund in this Province.

If the persons who have to select the 250,000 acres above estimated find themselves forced and restricted into the present districts after the residents have been allowed to obtain the best land, and after ten years of delays and loss are made to choose land, the best of which has often been sold at 5s. an acre, your Committee believe the inevitable result would be