No. 5.
Mr. H. T. Kemp to Mr. Gisborne.

Sir,—

In allusion to my letter of the 19th instant, and with regard to the arrangements for the future payment of the instalments for the land in the Middle Island, 1 beg to offer one or two suggestions. In the first place, I should explain that it was originally intended that they should be paid annually; but the first instalment of £500 being scarcely sufficient to satisfy the claimants present, and rather than this should be a subject of jealousy or dissatisfaction amongst them hereafter, I have been induced to promise that the remaining three instalments shall, if possible, be paid half-yearly. I did this after consulting with Mr. page 210Kettle, the Company's principal surveyor, and I trust no serious difficulty will be found to result from this arrangement With reference, then, to the manner in which the payments are to be made hereafter, I beg respectfully to suggest that one moiety should be paid over to the chief Tikao, at Akaroa, on behalf of his tribe, in their preseuce, and through the hands of the Resident Magistrate. In the same manner, the other moiety might be forwarded to the public officer at Otago, to be paid over to the chief Tairoa, receipts in each case being taken for the amount. This plan would, I think, not only be simple, but less expensive, and dispense in a great measure with the necessity of collecting the Natives together from the more distant parts of the country, and at the same time be a great convenience to those persons residing in the neighbourhood of each of the settlements mentioned The above arrangement was proposed in the first instance by the chiefs themselves, in the presence and with the consent of their people, and is one which, I believe, would give general satisfaction.