Mr. H. T. Clarke to the Hon. the Colonial Secretary.

Sir,—

In compliance with the instructions contained in your letter of the 4th April last, requiring me to go into the question of the Native Reserve at Dunedin with His Honor the Superintendent of Otago and Mr. Cutten, which reserve is objected to by the Provincial Government as having been made without authority:

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I have the honor to report that I proceeded to Dunedin without delay, and waited upon His Honor the Superintendent and Mr. Cutten, but I could not obtain any positive information on the subject.

To draw from the Provincial authorities the point at issue in the case, I wrote a letter to His Honor (a copy of which I enclose), and to give the Provincial Government time to examine the public records, I promised to call for an answer in six weeks. I did so, but no answer was ready, nor have I since received any reply.

I have examined a copy of the original deed of Otakou in Maori, executed by Mr. Commissioner Kemp in 1848. I find a clause inserted of which the following is a translation:—"Our dwelling-places and our cultivations are to be left for us and our children after us, and it shall be for the Governor hereafter to make other reserves for us after the land has been surveyed by the Surveyors."

This I presume, apart from any other power which His Excellency the Governor may possess, should set the question at rest.

Enclosure in No. 29.
Mr. H. T. Clarke to His Honor the Superintendent, Otago.

Sir,—

I have the honor to acquaint you that Mr. Dillon Bell, when in Auckland a short time since, spoke to the Hon. the Colonial Secretary relative to a Native Reserve in this city having frontages to the Harbour and Princes Street, which Sir George Grey made on the recommendation of Mr. Mantell many years ago, and which Mr. Bell slates the Provincial Government have objected to as being made without authority.

I have been requested by the Colonial Secretary to go into this matter with the Provincial Government and Mr. Cutten.

Would your Honor be good enough to direct that I may be furnished with a full statement, supported by documentary evidence, of the circumstances under which the reserve was made; when it was made; when first objected to by the Provincial Government; and the ground of those objections.