G.—2.

It is not necessary that any Commission should have power to determine claims and order grants on their own authority. There are too many complicated political interests at stake for this. On all accounts it will be best that Ministers should have the right of final decision, answering to Parliament for Avhat they do. Eor instance, there is the land (62,000 acres) restored by Sir George Grey: it would be absurd to issue the Crown grants if we had afterwards to fight the people it was given to. It is administration that is wanted more than law. We say once more that it is no use to wait for the express consent of Te Whiti's adherents; but a large section of the Natives is already with us, whose numbers will grow every day. One of the first things Ave told Your Excellency was that whatever you did would have to be done by the almost unaided exercise of the Crown's authority : and we say the same again. There is nothing so good as laying out the lines upon the ground. It was said we would never be allowed to survey the Continuous Reserve; but the lines of it are cut, and broad lines from it through the forest too, Avhile the re-survey of the Plains themselves is all but done. If the work is quietly but resolutely pressed on everywhere, we shall not have greater trouble at the north of Waitara than we have had upon the Plains. The following are the objects for Avhich we advise that power be taken in wide terms : — 1. Allocate the Court AAvards and Government Awards. 2. Declare the various classes of Reserves. 3. Survey the exterior boundaries and hapu- subdivisions of reserves. 4. Issue CroAvn grants in trust for tribes, and also to small hapus and individuals. 5. Subdivide reserves to individualize the title, whenever the chiefs and people are ready for it. 6. Make formal abandonment of the land returned by Sir George Grey, conditional on the maintenance of peace. 7. Make regulations, with the assent of chiefs and people, for the leasing of their reserves. 8. Settle any special claims and grievances. 9. Constitute the land from Stoney River to Waitotara a special land district. 10. Determine how and when the land shall be disposed of. 11. Temporarily put the Land Board under the orders of the Governor. 12. Make such regulations for village and small-farm settlements, especially in the back-country forest, as will attract a population and ensure the rapid occupation of the country. 13. Incorporate the poAvers of the Public Works Act, Telegraph Act, and Harbour Act, for making roads and railways through any reserve, for the Cape Egmont Lighthouse, and for other works. 14. Declare obstruction to the Act an offence punishable with imprisonment. 15. Take such new executive powers as may be wanted in any emergency to ensure obedience to the orders of the Governor, to repress all outrage, and to keep the peace. Assuming, then, an Act to pass this session as we suggest, there is another step we also recommend. Your Excellency was pleased by Proclamation to declare the purposes for which you appointed this Commission, and your declaration was certainly the cause of so many chiefs having come before us. We advise an equally wide promulgation of the measures which Your Excellency may now approve on the completion of our inquiry. But last of all, if there is one thing that day by day comes clearer than another to our minds, it is that Te Whiti should not be left in his present isolation, and that a serious and persistent effort should yet be made to influence him. This West Coast Question will never be settled —unless, indeed, we do it by resort to force —except by some arrangement with him. To fill our gaols with prisoners, not for crimes, but for a political offence in Avhich there is no sign of criminal intent, is not only a most harassing and perplexing process, but the worst of it is that it does not advance

Appendix A, No. 2.

LXIII