A.—3

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Schedule. The Trading License Ordinance, 1909. No. [Date] 191 . This is to certify that has paid the sum of for a trading license for the ending 191 in respect of premises situated at £ . Collector of Customs [or Resident Agent] at Passed by the Federal Council, this second day of October, nineteen hundred and nine S. Savage, Clerk to Council. J. Eman Smith, Resident Commissioner. Assented to by His Excellency the Governor on the 4th December, 1909.

No. 13. Sin, — Cook Islands Administration, Wellington, 6th December, 1909. 1 have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 9th October last, forwarding the Trading License Ordinance, 1909, No. 29, for the assent of His Excellency the Covernor, and, in reply, to return the Ordinance herewith, duly assented to by His Excellency. I have, &c, The Resident Commissioner, Rarotonga. J. Carroll.

No. 14. Sir,— Cook Islands Administration, Rarotonga, 21st January, 1910. I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter (C.1.A., 09/155, No. 276), covering the Trading License Ordinance, 1909, duly assented to by His Excellency the Governor. The Ordinance has been gazetted in the Cook Islands Gazette. I have, &c, J. Eman Smith, The Hon. James Carroll, Resident Commissioner. Minister in Charge, Cook Islands Administration, Wellington.

No.-, 15. Sir, — Cook Islands Administration, Rarotonga, 15th March, 1910. I have the honour to report to you the serious nature of offences committed by some Natives in digging up the bodies of other Natives interred in the burial-ground. The reason given for the offence is that the spirit of the dead is haunting the living, and until the dead body has been destroyed by fire the superstition is not removed. The two cases on which I send you a report herewith nearly caused bloodshed ; but I am glad to say that the relatives listened to reason, and I fear no further cause of anxiety. I may say that this is not the first occasion on which such a thing has occurred, for shortly prior to my arrival a similar case was brought liefore the late Commissioner, who found he had no law to deal with the offenders. At the unanimous request of the federal Council, the enclosed Ordinance making the offence punishable was approved of on the 12th instant. Will you kindly forward it on for the signature of His Excellency the Governor? I may point out that the bodies in the two recent cases had only been buried a short time, and for the protection of the health of the Natives alone it is absolutely necessary that such a law should be passed. I have made inquiries, and find that this practice is unknown to the ancient inhabitants of the Cook Islands, and I am given by the Council to understand that it has been introduced from the Island of Tahiti. I have, &c, J. Eman Smith, The Hon. James Carroll, Resident Commissioner. Minister in Charge, Cook Islands Administration, Wellington.

Enclosure. Federal Ordinance No. 30.—An Ordinance to prevent the Desecration of Graves, and Disinterments. Be ii exacted by the Federal Council of the Cook Islands as follows: — 1. The Short Title of this Ordinance is the Desecration of Graves Ordinance, 1910. 2. It shall not be lawful to desecrate any grave or to rsmove from its burial-place any body or- the remains of any human body buried in any cemetery, burial-ground, or other place of burial,