to earn their own living is amongst the greatest of evils and the being struck off Government pay the acme of injustice - I am of opinion that the system under which the lands here are sold is opposed to the best interests of the District. On the East Coast notwithstanding the bad feelings engendered by protracted hostilities and outrages perpetrated during their continuance, affairs have settled peacefully down and good feeling has been re-established - this result is attributable almost entirely to the presence as settlers of men of education position and sufficient enlightenment to give tone to the opinions of those about them - What inducements are there to such men to settle here? Where indeed will you find any men possessed of capital who will be content to purchase under the present system? Even for the hypothetical "Yeoman" the 100 acre lot is at once too little and too much - Arguing from the small results of the system in use the Govt. might fairly make the experiment of taking broader ground and offer 300 to 500 acres lots to men in Canterbury and Otago and there is small question of finding purchasers. This however although a subject to which I have given much attention, is not now my business and I merely write suggestively - I believe I may understand the duties imposed upon me to take this form namely "To reconcile the responsibility under which the Government lies of fulfilling certain pledges to the natives, with the Public feeling of the Colony and at the same time