tion of the surveys and to remove all possible doubts as to quiet possession of the land. The Native Minister accordingly visited the district, shortly before I returned to the colony, and made large gifts of land to the natives—both sellers and non-sellers believing, as he states, that this was necessary in order to preserve the peace of the country. He gave to sellers, whose names I left, were perfectly satisfied with the reserves I had awarded to them additional reserves of 4195 acres, to non-sellers additional reserves of 3086 acres, and to natives absolutely excluded by the Native Lands Court 7630 acres. I am bound to say that I differ with both the grounds and the necessity of any interference in the matter, for I am satisfied that if the General Government had firmly persevered in the course of action adopted in the first obstruction of the surveyors against Miritana and M‘Donald no disturbance would have resulted, and peaceable possession would have been secured over the whole block, without the necessity of any further concessions to the natives. But even if a compromise of some sort had been necessary, I cannot but express my opinion as to the effect upon the province of the arrangements made by the General Government. The grant of so many thousand acres to sellers and non-sellers and to claimants who had been expressly excluded by the Native Land Court has alone caused a pecuniary loss to the province of as many thousand pounds, while the giving away of several homesteads of settlers who had been promised that the value of their improvements should be added to the upset price of the land has inflicted more or less loss upon them, for which it cannot be said that the province is justly liable though I have no doubt claims for compensation will be preferred against it. I felt it my duty immediately on my return to bring the claims of the province formally before the General Government in the shape of a demand for the payment of one-fourth share of the value of the reserves made by the Native Minister and Mr Kemp. I made this claim on the ground that from the date of the notice in the “Gazette” that the native title was extinguished over the whole block, save the portions awarded by the Land Court, the block became a part of the territorial estate of the province, and that the General Government had no right in any way to a single acre of it.

From the correspondence that will be laid before you, you will learn that the General Government declines to admit the claim I advanced. Still, I feel assured that the General Government does not intend that the claims of the settlers in question, arising out of its own action, shall be altogether ignored, or that no allowance whatever shall be made to the province for the loss of so large an area of saleable land out of a block the native title to which was so long ago formally declared to be extinguished, and to the proceeds whereof the exclusive right of the province is of course admitted. It is a case for equitable adjustment as between the province and the colony, especially when it is considered that the action of the General Government being taken in the interests of the maintenance of peace in the disaffected native trust be deemed a liability of the colony rather than of the province. I can only further express the hope that the matter may be arranged before my departure, otherwise I must leave it in your hands.

The bills which it is proposed to lay before you are as follows—

1. A District Highways Bill, which is rendered necessary in consequence of the validation of the act now in force expiring at the commencement of the next session of the General Assembly.

2. A Fencing Bill, which is necessary under the same circumstances.

3. The Masterton and Greytown Reserves Trust Bill, consequent on the “Wairarapa Town Lands Management Act” of last session of the General Assembly.

4. An Education Bill, reviving the provisions of the short act passed in 1869, rendering the rating of houses in proclaimed districts compulsory.

5. A Patent Slip Act Amendment Bill, giving effect to the expressed wish of the Council that I should be empowered to arrange the dispute with Messrs Kennard, the act of 1869 having been found insufficient for the purpose intended.

6. A Bill to empower the Superintendent to reserve lands for special settlement, and to lease pastoral lands. This bill is introduced under the “Immigration and Public Works Act, 1870,” and the “Wellington Waste Lands Act, 1870,” of the General Assembly, and authorises the setting apart of blocks of land for special settlement, on terms to be approved by the Governor in Council.

7. An Appropriation Bill for the period ending 30th June next.

You will readily perceive that in the observations I have addressed to you in glancing thus briefly at some of the questions which must be fully discussed when my successor meets the Council, my chief object has been to urge upon you the necessity of maintaining your colonising functions, and that no simpler, more economical, or more efficient form of Government has yet been proposed by pointing out that though the General Government has taken colonisation into its own hands, still that the Provincial Governments can exercise a very powerful and beneficial control over the administration of the scheme—that there is little chance of any province receiving its fair and legitimate share of the advantages of the present policy, if its members in the General Assembly are deprived of that moral support which the provincial legislatures can alone afford them—that to abdicate your functions at the present time would, to my mind, be a betrayal of the high trust confided to you at all events you will have learnt that under no conceivable circumstances would I ever be an accomplice in the perpetration of such a great political crime as that of surrendering one iota, one particle, of the rights and privileges conferred upon my fellow-settlers by the Constitution of 1852—a Constitution which was won mainly by their exertions.

I. E. FEATHERSTON,
Superintendent.

Superintendent’s Office,
Wellington, 2nd March, 1871.