H.—l

45

seem necessary to enter at length upon the consideration of it here. The proceeds are at present devoted to the maintenance of a Church of England grammar school on a small scale. The Bishop of Nelson is trustee of the Motueka Native School Estate, in the Provincial District of Nelson. The income is about £330 a year. A school is in existence, hut not prosperous, as the Natives have never regarded it with favour. The evidence of the Governor's delegate, under "TheNative Reserves Act, 1862," seems to afford an explanation of their dislike to the institution. He states that out of 1,078 acres belonging to the trust, 918 were taken from reserves which had already been selected as Native reserves, devoted to the promotion of the general interests of the Native race; and that, moreover, a portion of this land was at the time in the actual possession and occupation of the Natives, who " were dispossessed in consequence of the grant to the Bishop of New Zealand." This evidence is confirmed by that of the master of the school. We are of opinion that this land should be restored to its original purposes, and some other arrangement made for the maintenance of the school. The Church of England estates in Poverty Bay, at Te Aute, and in the Provincial District of Wellington, have been frequently brought under the notice of Parliament. What additional information we have obtained with regard to them is contained in the appendix to our interim report and in the evidence, and does not call for special comment. With regard to all estates of this kind, which have originated in absolute gifts from the Crown, we think that annual accounts should be rendered to the Minister of Education; and that he should be empowered to ascertain whether the estates are well administered, and to send an agent of the Government to learn by personal observation the actual condition of the institutions as often as he may think necessary. With regard to such estates as have originated in contracts between colonizing companies and the settlers, as is the case with Nelson College, Christ's College, and certain interests in Dunedin to which we directed attention in the appendix (pp. 93-96) to our interim report, seeing that the original beneficiaries cannot be identified, and that the charters under which the contracts were entered into were of Imperial creation, we recommend that the trustees be required to submit to the Minister of Education an annual statement of accounts, and that the Minister be invested with the right of insisting upon a legitimate application of the income. It appears to us impossible that any school can occupy an intermediate position between that of a proprietary school and that of a State school. Moreover, all the contracts to which these foundations were due owe their origin to a condition imposed by the Imperial Government before the incorporation of the New Zealand Company, and expressed in a letter written in 1837 by Lord Glenelg, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, to the Earl of Durham, as representing the proposed corporation, in the following words: "Of that part of the proceeds of the sale of land which is to be expended on local improvements, a fixed proportion would be appropriated to the erection and maintenance of places of Divine worship and schoolhouses, for the support of the ministers of religion and schoolmasters —the aborigines to be secured the most ample participation in the benefits of this provision for religious and scholastic instruction." We were instructed to make inquiry as to grants of public money made at any < time for the purposes of education other than primary. The statements contained ' in old provincial Gazettes and Appropriation Ordinances are not sufficiently explicit to render it possible to ascertain from them what money has been so granted. The accounts of the Provincial Treasurers, especially for the earlier years of the history of the provinces, are not readily accessible. Even where the transactions of the Colonial Government are concerned, the labour involved in preparing a statement of expenditure in years long past renders it practically impossible to give the information required, as may be seen by reference to a memorandum written by the Deputy Auditor in 1869, and printed in Appendix to Journals of House of Representatives, 1869 (A.-5, pp. 41, 42). Our correspondence with the Treasury, and the results of partial investigations undertaken by our own

int. Rep.,Evid., pp'

ibid., qq. 334.8,

Eecommendasupervision.

Estates originbetween coio™ 0'" nizmg companies and the Bettlera-

Grants of pubiio money-