as appeared from a written statement by Mr. Collins, of which I enclose a copy, he admitted applications accompanied by deposits for the same runs for which he had before received applications without deposits; and this he did without giving any notice public or otherwise to the parties making the earlier applications.

The simple fact is that applications had always been received for runs in unpurchased districts long before I went to Hawke’s Bay. This was done by Sir George Grey’s directions as may be seen by minutes, I believe, in his own handwriting on one at least of the earliest applications at Hawke’s Bay, or in mine as Colonial Secretary.

This course was adopted for the supposed convenience of the Public. The practice was continued up to the time when the regulations now in force came into operation—and no deposits were required or taken during all this time, because none were required by Sir George Grey’s Land regulations, or by any regulations previously in force.

As years elapsed before the purchase of several of these Districts, so that no decisions could be given upon applications affecting them, two or three applications for the same runs were in many cases received; it being understood that the Applicants could have claims to the runs respectively in order of priority.

The regulations of 1855, recommended by your Honor and the Provincial Council, required deposits upon all applications for runs.

Of course this referred to all applications put in after these Regulations came into operation; the Law not being retrospective.

The deposits were of course required by the Regulations whether the applications were for runs previously applied for or not. I took deposits in all such cases accordingly, and this I did without giving notice to the persons who had made prior applications when no deposit was required by Law—because no such notice to them was necessary: I presumed of course that such prior applicants would not lose their right of priority simply because the subsequent applicants had, as required to do by Law, actually paid deposits. Each class of applicants did what the Law required; and if the first applications were good or valid at all, they were equally good in spite of the payment on subsequent applications.

The policy of making the prior applicants pay deposits on their original applications after the regulations of 1855 came into force, is another question. I think the policy a very good one, as tending greatly to simplify the questions arising from conflicting rights, and should most probably have recommended it when the Provincial Government acquired the entire control of the Waste Lands had I continued to hold the office of Commissioner. Nor do I think that Mr. Fox’s Original notice required any withdrawal. The mistake appears to me (from Mr. Collins’s case) to have been in considering the payment of deposits by the prior applicants as constituting fresh applications, and so annulling their first ones and depriving them of their rights of priority. The applicants should have been made to pay and their rights have remained as before.

Thus then I took deposits where the Law required them, and I took none when the Law required none. No injustice would have been done by me to applicants prior to the regulations of 1855, who had not paid originally, because I should have respected the rights of priority. I considered and still consider their original applications conferred.

I should wish to add with respect to Mr. Collins’s letter published in the same Gazette that the placing the names of applicants on the map had nothing whatever to do with their rights of priority or otherwise. These names were merely written in pencil for my own convenience or that of persons looking out for runs, that they might more easily distinguish blocks applied for from those never applied for previously. I do not remember transferring his name to a block he had never applied for. If I did so, it must either have been done in mistake—as the imperfect state of the Surveys and Plans rendered it mostly very difficult to discover what boundaries were intended or where they were situated—or possibly as a memorandum of a future arrangement to be proposed to all parties concerned, when the time for decision had arrived; in itself it could not in any way have effected any right his application gave him.

I trust your Honor will excuse the length of these remarks which may possibly be of use even in throwing light upon the relations of Government to the Applicants. But no pledge was ever given by me, as far as I am aware, to any one except to the effect that the first Applicant would have the run he applied