1.—17.

[j. JONES.

56

perty in, and he said, "Is it good morals to pass an estate of such value to these trustees? " He wanted first of all to know my identity, and if I was the man who had had all this litigation in London, and he also said, " I think you may rely that he may have a good answer as to his ignoring the documents he signed." The question of this bad report did not come before the Court in a prominent form. You can find out by cabling to London if I am not correct. You can cable to both sides if it is necessary. 1. Mr. McGallum] You have a copy of your petition, and sections 38, 39, and 40 are the only ones I intend to touch upon. Those three paragraphs make very grave charges against a Judge of the Supreme Court?— Please pardon me —against Commissioner Stout. Of course, it is the same gentleman, but he was then sitting as a Commissioner. 2. The particular sentence I direct your attention to is in paragraph 38, in which you say, " And the Stout-Palmer Commission, set up specially for this case, and with cunningingenuity the report opens in a manner to deceive"?— They say in their report, "One of the first matters that we had to do was to investigate a block of land known as the Mokau-Mohakatino Block." Gentlemen, it was the only inquiry that they investigated. If you turn to the schedule of G.-1h you will find that there are a lot of matters referred to; but these are merely formal things that could have been done without any Royal Commission at all. The Native Land Court could have done them. 3. Does not a Commission give them wider powers to deal with other matters?—lt is the only matter in the report which is dealt with. Here is the document itself. 4. You say, " and with cunning ingenuity the report opens in a manner to deceive," because they only dealt with one matter. 1 accept your answer. You say, " That the report contains material statements that are untrue and misleading, and the whole document is evidently written, not to say with prejudice, but with malicious intent; nor is it possible to place even a lenient construction on the action of the Commission, inasmuch as they did not seek the truth where they might have known it could be obtained; whereas they examined all and sundry who desired to profit by an improper report"? —Absolutely. The very fact of my not being examined covers the whole thing. 5. Then you say in paragraph (3) of clause 39 of your petition, " That Sir R. Stout was not qualified to sit upon such inquiry, he having already adjudicated upon the case to my prejudice on the bench " ? —Absolutely. 6. You say that merely because he sat upon the Supreme Court bench? —Yes. 7. Then you go to Sir Joseph Ward, and you say, " Sir J. Ward replied that he would make inquiries as to removing the report, but your petitioner is in a position to believe that he made no such inquiry, and the document became bound up in the blue-book as a stain upon myself and family." You say the report contains a deep stain on your honour?— Yes; you read it. 8. I wish to call your attention to this terrible suggestion in paragraph 40. Did any one advise you to put such a terrible thing in a public petition? —Let me read it: "The Chief Justice either knew or lie did not know that there was no power in the Commission to inquire into the Mokau land dealings." 9. Read the whole paragraph?—" If he did not know there can be no plea for such ignorance, inasmuch as the so-called inquiry appears to have been directed against myself irrespective of power or truth. If he did know and produced the report of the natui'e I allege it to be, which undoubtedly it is, so much the worse for public morality; and with the deepest humility I would urge upon Parliament to at once grapple with this ugly feature, and in justice to the entire community as well as to this humble petitioner." What is your question upon that? 10. You have alleged corruption on the part of the Chief justice. You do not call him Commissioner Stout there—you call him Chief Justice by name, and you say there is " this ugly feature"?— The ugly feature is that he holds an inquiry behind a man's back and frames a report like this. 11. Suppose we as a Committee, and the public outside, and also the Parliament of this country, think that your interest has entirely ceased in the block?—T will not suppose it. 12. It will not do your case any good to put a bad construction upon the acts of our public officers, and it is our duty to protect our public officers. Assuming that Sir Robert Stout had come to the conclusion that you had lost by your operations all your interest in this block of land, was he not entitled to make all the statements he did in this report?—No, becaiise I was not present when Sir Robert Stout came to the conclusion. He had said, "We will not let you appeal to the Privy Council," and he was the President on the bench. T am not going to allow you to build up a supposititious case. 13. Here was an agreement. You are quite right from your standpoint in saying there was a clause respecting the bad report of Wales omitted which would have affected the whole case, but you told Mr. Bell that the omitted decision of the Court at Home did not come before the Supreme Court here? —It was not before Lord Justice Parker, and he made an order. 14. You said it was not before the Supreme Court here? —I do not think it was. 15. Then all that Sir Robert Stout had to go on was the agreement come to by you, which was in these terms : " Mr. Jones undertakes not to apply to Mr. Flower's executors, to the Court here, or in New Zealand, for any further time to delay the registration of the abovementioned documents, the present extension to the Ist March, 1907, being final." Later on you had six months' extension and added £500 to the mortgage?— You are trying to lead the Committee away from the point. If Sir Robert Stout wanted to come to an honest conclusion on that, why did he not seek the truth? Why did he not tell me? 16. I am considering the matter from the Commission's standpoint : their standpoint is the protection of the Native interests?—-Oh, indeed. There is no justice for me?