A.—3a

22

another doctor from New Zealand to assist Dr. .Perceval in the work he is doing amongst you. Health is the most important thing, and without health you cannot be strong and happy. Therefore you must pay attention to what the doctors tell you. That is another matter that will be dealt with on our return. I wish to speak about another matter. You know that Makea Ariki is gone. 1 understand that Rangi Makea will succeed her. That will, of course, be settled by law. You will all recollect that Makea Ariki was elected by the other Arikis to be chief of the Government. Now, His Honour the Chief Justice has told you that we all have one supreme chief, KingGeorge V, and there is now no necessity in any part of the British Empire for another supreme chief. I wish to thank you for all your kindness and hospitality. It has been a great pleasure to me to come here and meet you all, and when Igo back to New Zealand I shall not forget you. Every ' one has been very kind to us, all the Arikis, chiefs, and people. The officers of the Administration have also been very kind to us, and have assisted us in every way. Mr. Savage here has done a great deal of work for us in translating, and he has done his work to my entire satisfaction. I thank him also for the work he has done, and now I thank you again. Address by Natives. —To your Honour the Chief Justice, to the representative of the Government, and also to your officers, and also to the two lawyers who have come with you : You have come here on a business matter. You have come here as Chief Justice to carry out the work of Chief Justice, and you have now finished your work. We are satisfied that everything has been done. Your children of this island have watched the work you have been doing, and it has put the fear of the law into them, and they now know what will happen to them if they offend against the law. What I have seen enables me to make this request. It is about liquor. Some time ago a man was killed by a lot of drunken people. He was a policeman. He was doing his work as a policeman, and was killed. There was also another European policeman assaulted by drunks, and another of our Native policemen was assaulted —Parau. It was all through drink. This drink is causing a lot of trouble among the Maoris. It is a great evil on this island. That is why I make this request to prohibit liquor altogether. We heard you say in church the other day that it was forty years since your doctor had prescribed any liquor for you, and I also recognize that to be perfectly true. That is why I ask you to make some laws to make drunkenness punishable on the island. We do not possess a population of a million. The population of the whole of the Cook Islands does not amount to ten thousand people, and we recognize that through drink we are dying out, and we ask our father to feel sorry for his children. We are living in peace and have no trouble whatever under the jurisdiction of His Majesty King George V. These are our requests, and we leave them to you to deal with. His Honour the Chief Justice. —I return the greetings just addressed to me. In New Zealand lam known as one who wants drink done away with. I have never had a drop of liquor in my house, and Ido not feel the need of it, and none of my people feel the need of it. My children are all strong teetotalers. My wife is now a leader in England, Scotland, and Ireland for temperance. One of my sons has for some years taken the platform in favour of doing away with all this. If I had my way there would be no liquor made at all. But lam not a lawgiver. I have only to interpret the laws that the people make. I shall do all that I can to urge that great care be taken of your people, so that they shall not suffer from intoxicating liquors, and if my recommendation can help you you shall have it. I hope you will train your children from the earliest years to look upon intoxicating liquor as poison. It has killed every Native race that has taken to it. It has slaughtered the Natives of America by hundreds and thousands. It is slaughtering our own white people. It is a fruitful source not only of disease and death, but also of crime. I recognize all that, and hope that you will all recognize it, and that the white people in this island will recognize it. I hope the white people will recognize that they have a duty to you as well as to themselves and their children, and their duty is to preserve your race, and if they recognized that duty they would not ask for any liquor to be imported into the island at all. I cannot say more than that my sj-mpathy is with you in your crusade against this intoxicating poison. I hope your efforts will be successful.

P. Address handed in at Arorangi, 20th June, 1911. [Translation.] Arorangi, Rarotonga, 18th June, 1911. 0 Sir, greeting to you ! We are pleased to meet you, because we know that you are the mouthpiece of the Government and the Parliament of New Zealand—also over the Cook Islands. You have told the Arikis, the Mataiapos, and the Rangatiras, and all the people of Rarotonga to place their wishes and desires before you, and to do it publicly, so that you may convey those wishes and desires and place them before the Government of New Zealand, so that that Government may know what it is we want. Therefore we have drawn up in writing those things we desire you to know so as you can see what we want, as follows : — 1. We ask you and the Government of New' Zealand and the Parliament of New Zealand, Has the power of the Arikis and other people of rank on this island been done away with—that is to say, that power we held from the period of our ancestors ? 2. About the leases of land already executed for lands, the term of those leases are for ninetynine years. We ask the Government to allow those leases to be reduced in this respect, that the