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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 111, 1 May 1863, Page 2

The following are the questions put to his Excellency by the Taranaki settlers. 1. Is your Excellency in a position to "place the settlers in immediate possession of the lands at Tataraimaka and in other parts of the settlement which they hold under grants from the Crown and which they have been unable to occupy during the past three years, in consequence of the hostile attitude of neighbouring native tribes ; and if not, will your Excellency name a time at which your Excellency thinks it probable that they will be able to resume possession ? 2. Can your Excellency inform us, without injury to the public service, what measures you are taking, or have in contemplation, for ensuring to the settlers quiet possession of those lands, either immediately or at some future time.

3. Having in remembrance the hardships and dangers to which the Taranaki settlers were subjected in the late war, the long period of suspense which they have long since had to endure, and also the fact that many of the settlers are past the prime of life and more or less broken in heart and spirit by their trials ; and, remembering, moreover, that the measures for ensuring the ultimate safety of this settlement, which, with a due regard to the peace of the whole colony, and to the wishes of her Majesty’s Government, your Excellency may feel yourself in a position to adopt, may be much slower in their operation than such as you might think fit to take if justice to the settlers of this Province was the sole object to be aimed at, does your Excellency consider that it would be fair or justifiable, on the part of your Excellency’s Government, to exercise a pressure on the settlers in order to retain them here either by withholding from those who leave such compensation for their losses as may be granted to those who stay, or by refusing such assistance as it may be in the power of the Government to give any who desire to establish themselves elsewhere ; and remembering that such a pressure must tend either to keep men here in inaction and in dependence upon Government support, or cause them to return to their farms, and invest capital upon them against their own judgment, for how long a period, if any, does your Excellency consider, that it ought to be exercised ?

4. Supposing your Excellency to have fixed some definite limit the periocUduriug which it would be fair in any way to discourage those who wish to go elsewhere, would your Excellency and your advisers bo prepared to recommend to the General Assembly, at the expiration of the period, the purchase, on behalf of the Crown, of the lands ot those who then desire to leave at about their estimated market value before the war: or what other measures would your Excellency approve, with the view of assisting those who wish it, to establish themselves in some other place ?