HONI SOIT QUI MALY PENSE
DIEU ET MON DROIT

NEW ZEALAND
GOVERNMENT GAZETTE.

Published by Authority.

All Public Notifications which appear in this Gazette, with any Official Signature thereunto
annexed, are to be considered as Official Communications made to those Persons to whom they may
relate.

By His Excellency's Command,
ANDREW SINCLAIR, Colonial Secretary.

VOL. VII. AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, AUGUST 7, 1847. No. 16.

Colonial Secretary's Office,
Auckland, 6th August, 1847.

HIS EXCELLENCY the Governor has been
pleased to direct the publication of the
following Reports, for general information.
By His Excellency's command,
ANDREW SINCLAIR,
Colonial Secretary.

SIR,— Wellington, 24th June, 1847.

A year having elapsed since you were
pleased to direct the employment of Natives
upon the military roads under my superinten-
dence, and circumstances having caused their
employment in greater numbers than was at first
contemplated, I now do myself the honor to
submit the result for your Excellency's con-
sideration.

In the course of the year, about 350 natives
have been employed, the greatest number at any
period having been 280.

They have generally received 2s. per diem,
but for a short time the majority received 6d.
per diem additional, for food. The total amount
paid to natives to the 30th of last month,
was £3274, and the greatest amount to any
one labourer, £17 2s. 6d. During the year, and
for this £3274, they have felled about twenty
miles in length, by a hundred and twenty feet
in width, of dense forest; have constructed
seven miles of bridle road, chiefly cut out of the
side of steep hills and precipices, and have
helped to construct six miles of carriage road,
taking part in every operation, such as bridge
making, sloping, draining, metalling, &c.

This amount of labour may not equal that
which the same number of expert European
workmen would have accomplished, but I con-
sider it exceeds what the same number of sol-

diers would have performed in the time, while
the wages paid the natives have been little
more than half those of European workmen
when neither they nor soldiers could be obtained;
the natives have converted that which was lately
Rangihaeata's strong hold, into the high road to
the Northern Settlements, already nearly prac-
ticable for the march of troops, and shortly to
become so for artillery, at the same time sub-
ducing their country, and convincing themselves,
by thus opening its wildest recesses, that they
can afford them no permanent security.

The money thus acquired, appears to have
been peacefully expended in the purchase of
flour, European clothing, agricultural imple-
ments, mills, cooking utensils, and occasionally
in the purchase of breeding cows and mares.
In Wellington, the sale of blankets is fast giving
place to that of trowsers, caps, boots, blue
shirts, &c.

As they have thus been employed for a year,
and frequently many miles from their supplies,
and (as in the Horrokiwi Valley) where the
climate, from its constant cold and dampness,
has been very distasteful to them, I think it will
appear to your Excellency, that the opinion
so general here last year, that the natives
were incapable of steady industry, though
said to have been derived from experience, was
fallacious—indeed this has become so evident to
themselves, that the settlers are already out-
bidding the Government by giving higher wages,
food, &c., and are even carrying out contracts
by native labour.

I have found it necessary, so far to modify my
arrangements, as to substitute intelligent Eu-
ropeans as overseers, for the Rangitera's at first
appointed, which has had the effect of increasing
the amount of work done, causing the natives to
respect the superior intelligence of the Eu-
ropeans, and removing the prejudices of the