No. 3.
Hon. W. B. D. Mantell, to Under Secretary, Native Department.

Sir,—

I have the honour to acknowledge your letters of 16th May, 1867, and 26th February, 1868, expressing the wish of the Government that I should attend at the sittings of the Native Land Court, to be held in the Middle Island, in order to produce evidence on questions connected with the purchase which were conducted by me, and informing me that the Court has appointed a sitting at Christchurch on the 20th April next.

If my presence at these sittings is really necessary, I am prepared to submit to such personal inconvenience as may thereby be caused to me; but in my present uncertanity as to the precise position or capacity in which my attendance is desired, I may be allowed to entertain serious doubts whether such attendance will be of any use either to the Court or to the Native claimants.

My contemporaneous reports on such purchases as I formerly conducted, are far more trust worthy than my recollections after a lapse of nearly 20 years Many of these reports have been elucidated by subsequent minutes, and unless I am certain that the whole of them were produced, my testimony would necessarily be given with too much diffidence to deserve much weight; again, if these were produced, my paid evidence would probably be superfluous.

If, however, it be the practice of the Government or Native Land Court invariably to require the page 183attendance of former Commissioners for extinguishing Native claims, or of the Native Land Purchase Department, when investigations relate to lands formerly purchased by them, I must remind you that the purchase of the Ngaitahu block, in which Christchurch is situated, was conducted, not by me, but by Mr. Henry Tacy Kemp.

A careful perusal of the deed executed by that gentleman, and some of the claimants of the Ngaitahu block, as well as of the correspondence and minutes on the subject, will, I think, convince you that whatever the general practice may be, the presence at the approaching Christchurch sitting of the Native Land Court of this particular Commissioner for extinguishing Native claims, is highly desirable if not indispensable.