Napier 24 Decr. 1862. My dear Bell, You will see by the Hawkes Bay Herald that I have consented to become a candidate for the Napier country district. I do not expect any opposition in fact the majority of the voters agreed at once and I have promises of support from all parties if I choose to accept the office of Superintendent but I have some delicacy in interfering with Carter should he desire to retain the office, I understood from you that I might continue my present office conjointly with that of Supt. and this being the case I will leave the latter in the hands of the council. There is much to be done here with the Natives and it will occupy a good deal of my time to get matters settled with them and start Whitmore in his new duties, I propose visiting the various districts with him when he is appointed and I have already paved the way for him. There is no disposition on the part of the Natives here to fight but they irritate and annoy to such an extent that at any moment we may have an outbreak - a few days ago a row took place about five miles from town, it appears the aggressors were a vagrant party from Taupo or Waikato, one of them was reaching down or attempting to take something off a shelf and he had to stand on the counter to get at it, he was however noticed by the owner of the house whom he violently challenged to fight, before they came to blows other Natives interposed and put a stop to it the aggressors were not without supporters who came a distance of one or two miles with bludgeons to attack the Europeans when the police stopped the quarrel. Again they refuse to allow a road over Native land to connest European properties and Renata from being disappointed in not getting an exorbitant sum of £160 for mail contract which another Native agrees to undertake for £70 threatens to stop the mail. In the Clive case I had the Native accused of stealing a pair of trousers brought up for trial there was no evidence to prove the theft and the case was dismissed, Russell and Curling differed about the mode of having the case proceeded with the former referred it to you and it appeared so simple that it would exhibit great weakness not to have the Native brought forward. The breaking of the lock up I could not interfere with as I was not clear as to the steps Russell intended to take, with respect to it. All these cases point to the absolute necessity before it is too late to be of any use of our having an effective constabulary force here, there is no part of the Islandwhere such a force could act with equal success and I really trust that something will soon be done in the matter, Whitmore would just be the man to command it and it would add to his authority and influence in fact he will be poweess without such a force. It would not take long to organize by commencing with a few and gradually augmenting it as the necessity for doing so presented itself. (D. McLean.)