Report on Petition of Hori Kerei Taiaroa.

The petitioner requests that the Government will pay him the sum of £6,000, being the rent for the Princes Street Reserve, Dunedin, previous to the period at which the grant was made to the Superintendent of Otago; and also that interest be paid him for the time during which the said sum of £6,000 has been withheld.

I am directed to report as follows:—

That there appears to have been a misapprehension as to the full extent of the compromise effected by the payment of the sum of £5,000 to the Natives, and the two parties understood the agreement differently. That, under all the circumstances, it is highly desirable to remove all further grounds of complaint; and the Committee is of opinion that a further payment should be made to the Natives of the rents which had accrued prior to the issue of the Crown grant, or a reserve should be made of land to that value, for the benefit of the Natives interested.