Page 59, Note 2.

The admission here made of the desirableness of the establishment of some tribunal for settling questions of Native tenure and custom, is so far satisfactory. The difficulties in the way of doing this appear to be over estimated. All would depend on the constitution of the Court, and on the order and course of our proceedings with a view to the establishment of it. For the creation of a Court for determining land questions is not the first point to be aimed at. This subject will be discussed more fully in connection with Note, page 82.

What the reasons were which induced the Legislature of the Colony to agree to the Declaration in Section 8, I do not know. That they had nothing to do with the point here suggested (namely, that the territorial rights of the Natives stand upon Treaty, and therefore that questions between the Government and the Natives belong to the Governor and not to any Court) is shown by the words of the Declaration itself; which apply, not to questions between the Government and the Natives, or between English Colonists and the Natives, but to questions "affecting the Title or right of occupancy of the Aboriginal Natives, as amongst themselves" The point here referred to as to the Treaty and its consequences, will be more fully considered below in reference to Mr. Richmond's Memorandum.

As to Lord Carnarvon's Despatch, is it intended to be inferred that, whereas the British Government was not to be expected to support by military force the decisions of the Governor in Council, under the Native Territorial Rights Bill, that Government was to be expected to support by military force the result of ' Mr Parris' inquiry ? His Lordship's Despatch should rather have suggested, that the full and proper investigation, which we claim as due of right to the Native subjects of the Crown, was no less needed for the protection of the English Colonists and of the tax-paying public of England.