now to expend thousands of pounds in providing land for absentee proprietors whom the Company should have satisfied long ago, would have the greatest possible inconvenience and uninterest in finding the money, and the land for colonists, and would, in fact, the more people came out on such terms, be the more able and willing to do it. No one who has had any share in the practical conduct of emigration, and has mixed at all with the class referred to, is ignorant of the kind of passion with which they regard the prospect of becoming independent landowners in a colony, nor how large a part that feeling has in inducing them to leave their homes; where (as for instance in emigrating to America) they may feel certain of obtaining what to them is cheap land. Your Committee believe that under the scheme proposed in the present Bill, this feeling might be greatly and most legitimately directed towards New Zealand, if efforts were made to render the scrip accessible to such intending colonists. One means would be its issue in small sums so as to place it within the reach of persons of limited means; another would be for the Colonial Government to inform her Majesty's land and emigration Commissioners very fully on the whole subject, requesting them to circulate that information by means of the numerous agents throughout the United Kingdom; and many others will readily suggest themselves to the executive officers who will carry out this scheme. In this way and with some little trouble, many who would go to America or other colonies might be legitimately attracted here, certain as they would be of meeting with the assistance of their own Government in their character of creditors and bondholders.

And, besides the good which would thus in all probability result from the plan in England, your Committee are assured that it will be hailed with satisfaction by the whole body of the earlier settlers and labouring population of these settlements, to whom the absence of a legal title to land and its division into large sections chiefly in the hands of absentees, have hitherto been obstacles in the way of acquiring any. And yet notwithstanding all such causes, the history of the last two years will be found strongly to confirm this assurance.

The claims to Crown grants at Nelson were investigated the other day, there were only about 50 original purchasers from the Company retaining the land; but there were more than 200 other persons, chiefly of the working class, who, though they had not paid any money to the Company, were yet prosperous landowners there; and when the investigation is extended to the other settlements a similar result will most likely be also found. The issue of the scrip in small sums will certainly provide facilities which have never yet existed for such persons to acquire land; thus again improving the proportion both of the resident to the absentee proprietors and by the population to the land alienated at each place.

Your Committee having thus discussed the general plan of issuing scrip as a substitute for the immediate provision of a large extent of land, desire to refer in conclusion to some points more of detail than of principle in the measure.

The first and most important of these is the proposition that land be funded some Government debentures, bearing a moderate interest. This proposal was, apparently, intended originally as an answer to objections that might be made against the scrip, and as a means of earlier relieving the land fund; but on the whole your Committee believe that under present circumstances the funding of any large proportion of the whole scrip issued would itself be objectionable, and they are unable, consequently, to recommend the adoption of the proposal by the Council.

After giving their most careful attention to the various amendments proposed on the 12th clause of the Bill, your Committee have come to the conclusion to recommend to the Council that persons owning land in districts not yet acquired from the natives should have that land assessed and be allowed scrip to the amount.

Some doubt seeming to have arisen as to whether the bill, as at present printed, would enable every purchaser without exception to exchange his land for scrip, your Committee recommend that this right be expressly declared, subject to the following reservation; that as by some awards in arbitration between the Company and its purchasers the latter have been allowed to take land at a less assessment than £1 per acre, they should upon exchanging it for scrip receive only £1 of scrip for every pound's worth of land awarded, and not for every acre taken.

It appears that under the bill as it now stands, the land owners in those settlements where the Company's selling price had exceeded £1 an acre would be able to obtain (if they exchanged) more pounds of scrip than there were acres given up. Your Committee recommend it to be expressly declared, that no landowner who has received or may receive compensation should afterwards receive more than £1 of scrip for any acre he may throw up.

As an investigation into a large number of claims to land at Nelson has already been completed under the orders of his Excellency the Governor-in-Chief, your Committee recommend that a new clause be added exempting those claims from further examination.

Upon a consideration of several propositions with respect to the disposal of fees received on the issue of Crown grants, your Committee have agreed to recommend the Council to adopt the proposal that the money so received should, after paying the actual expense of the grants, be applied to emigration to the various settlements in proportion to the amount of fees paid by each.

Experience having proved that in the Company's surveys roads were frequently laid down where it was impracticable to make them, your Committee recommend that a power be given to the Commissioners under the Bill, with the consent of the chief officer of the settlement concerned, to alter or to omit any of the Company's roads, and to lay out others where absolutely necessary; any such alteration being distinctly laid down on the plan at the time.

And lastly, your Committee having ascertained that in many cases the lands to be granted under the Bill are either held in trust, or in estates for life, or under mortgages, or grant other conditions where it would be improper to grant the whole estate for ever, as proposed by the schedule, and that it is probable the grantees may in some cases be obliged to bar the dower of their widows,—recommend that the Commissioners be authorised, under the responsibility of the law officers of the Crown in each settlement, to alter or to omit any of the alterations in the form of the grants as circumstances may require.

E. Eyre,
W. A. M'Cleverty,
W. M. Smith,
G. Cutfield,
Henry W. Petre,
F. D. Bell,
Alfred Domett,
C. A. Dillon.