A.—No. 3

illegal) as those for which they were originally given. These Trustees should be invested by the Act with powers to combine the funds accruing from any number of these Estates within the same district, given upon similar Trusts, whenever it should appear to them that the Trusts could be more effectively carried out by such combination. In these combinations, denominational distinctions and the appropriation of the lands for the children of persons of particular sects should, as far as possible, and whenever the beneficial objects of the Trusts would be better attained thereby, be disregarded. It is believed that by a judicious combination of this kind, at least one boarding-school in each district might be established, in which Maori children might, from the earliest age practicable, be lodged, educated, and brought up entirely as Europeans, both in habits and intellectual acquirements ; and that thus some portion, however small, of the Native race might be rescued from the degradation and extinction that otherwise seems to threaten them. With respect to all the above Estates or Institutions, as well as to the few which have been attended with success, the Commissioners recommend that a Commissioner should be appointed to whom all Trustees should, in the month of April in every year, furnish Reports showing the condition of the Trusts, and the degree in which the objects for which they were created are being effected.; together with a balance sheet showing all the receipts and expenditure, assets and liabilities, connected with the Trusts during the previous year : such Commissioner to cause the accounts to be audited, and to send in a Report annually to the Governor, in time for presentation to both Houses of the Legislature. It may also be found advisable to vest in such Commissioner the necessary approval of all proposed dealings by the Trustees with the Trust properties, and. to provide that the Trustees shall be indemnified when acting with such approval. Precedents of legislation in this direction will be found in " The Charitable Trust Estates Acts (Imperial), 1853 to 1869." The Commissioners abstain on the present occasion from particularizing the Institutions to which the above recommendations should severally be applied; but they are prepared to do this whenever they shall be apprised that the Government have consented to adopt the general principles on which their recommendations are founded. One or two cases seem, however, to call for special remark. I. — Wellington Wesley an Reserve. This Grant conveyed to the Superintendent of the Wesleyan Mission a portion of the Town Belt originally laid out as a recreation ground for the use of the inhabitants of the Town of Wellington. Acting on what appears to have been deemed competent legal advice, the Trustee, misinterpreting the provisions of "The Religious Charitable and Educational Trust Act, 1856," has conveyed the land to members of the Wesleyan Denomination, to hold upon the Trusts declared in the Model Reed of that Association of lands belonging to the Denomination, which Trusts include powers of sale, and appropriation of the proceeds to the purposes of the Denomination generally. Proceeding under this error, the Trustees so appointed have arranged with the Provincial Government of Wellington for the sale to that Government of the land included in the Grant, which was for purely educational purposes, to be appropriated to the original purpose of a recreation ground, for a sum of £8,500, of which they have received £1,150, and £588 interest; the proceeds being appropriated to the general purposes of the Wesleyan Society. This case illustrates the necessity, in several instances, that power should be given to the new Trustees to invest and accumulate the proceeds and income, until some suitable scheme shall be settled for carrying out the Trusts. II. — Te Aute Estate, Hawke's Bay, and the Three Kings, Auckland. In the former of these cases the attention of the Trustees seems to have been latterly wholly directed towards the improvement of the Estate as a pastoral farm. In this they seem to have succeeded, as it is now stated to be worth a rental of £600 a year. But the object for which nearly half the land was given by the original Native owners, viz., that their children should be educated as Europeans, has been abandoned.

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