My dear McLean I am obliged to go up to my Station for a day or two on business but shall speedily return I believe I shall get away by the October Mail steamer but between now and then have much to do. The Commandants of the Col. Def. Force at Auckland and Wellington are to be at Napier to draw up Regulations for the permanent force on the model of ours 10 per cent are to be Natives. In this I want you to help me. The Natives must be smart fine looking fellows and will have to be brought into discipline as our men are and will get the same pay and dress. The Force I shall arrange to put practically at your disposal while I am away and hope you will come up and take a salute from them before they are broken up to their summer quarters. The Troops will soon come down from Waipawa Mate and I shall send the A Troop to hold it and the Waipukurau Stockade - I think the road may now be begun y the Military Settlers. If Mr Weber will lay it out the best piece to begin on will be that nearest the Town. The Govt., not we, are to blame for not calling out the Military settlers for actual service. I begged them to do so which acknowledge. They have got into such trouble with their own settlers that they are determined to have none but gentlemen whom they know to be unobjectionable and who have been in the army to command companies. They had therefore decided to appoint one of their Waikato Lieutenants to our Military Settlers vice Corfield, but I managed to get them to reconsider this though they would not hear of Tuke. We have therefore got a very gentlemanly young fellow, called Fraser, late of the 73rd Regt. and if Tuke should resign it will afford me an opportunity of promoting Mr. Wilson, and appointing your young friend Campbell to an Ensigncy. I shall have to sit on this Board, from the 27th I think to the 7th Prox. afterwards I think Mr. Neill will be down till the 17th Then I propse going in the Iris to Wairoa mahia and Poverty Bay. Would you like to come too? We might send on the Iris and go up in a steamer to Poverty Bay. I think I am so worried about my land which they got my agents to apply for behind my back that I shall have the whole up lest it is picked at while I am away. I feel sure it would be so though at a great inconvenience I mean to try. and have it up before I go. The Governor and Ministry came to an unexpectedly harmonious solution of the Tauranga question - The Ministers say it was all owing to the General. However there is a feature in the case which will still be squeezed to the disadvantage of the Colony. It appears that these Tauranga folk want money so they offer any quantity of land at 6d an acre and a great deal will be taken. The Genl. strongly advised them to keep the two things as separate as possible. I want to have all the C.D.F. and ''Iris'' affairs brought into the best order before I go in order that you may be able to get some use out of them without any trouble. The Mily. Settlers I look an as a failure - partly through their being so bad a class of men, partly because Corfield was never at his post. However mean to handle them now that there is a Captain whom one can find when wanted. The Ministry seem to like the idea of our getting the Takapau block and not unwilling to give us our balance of the loan. Fancy they make out that they have not yet spent £800000; of course there is a long bill in the Commissariat office, but we might dispute it. The Bishop after saying at the altar that this was a just and necessary war now is tryint to make out that it was produced entirely by our driving the Natives from Tuakau etc. See about your plans for emigrants from England as I'll be able to give you a lift though only a short time in England. Yours truly G. S. Whitmore