No. 31.
Mr. Commissioner Johnson to the Assistant Native Secretary (acting for the Chief Commissioner.)

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 1st instant, on the matter of the Native Reserve at Pukekohe, requesting, by His Excellency's direction, that I would report fully on the same.

In complying with your request, I would remark that the subject does not appear from your letter to be clearly understood. It is still unsettled, and the survey which has been completed can only be regarded as a preliminary step to its settlement. No terms have, as yet, been made with the Natives concerning the portions of their Reserve which had been sold under Sir George Grey's Regulations previously to the matter having been referred to this Department for adjustment.

The course I adopted, which Mr. McLean also approved, was to survey the Reserve, circumventing the portions sold by the Government, so that when the survey was finished and a plan produced, we might see the actual extent of the Native land which had been erroneously sold, and what the difficulties were which had to be adjusted with the Natives.

I sent word to Moses and Isaac, when I was proceeding to the ground with the surveyor, and requested them to meet me there, but they did not make their appearance. (I think I afterwards heard that they were absent at a feast on a visit to their friends somewhere, and perhaps did not receive my message). The contract surveyor was waiting with his party to commence work, and I myself had no time to spare, my presence then being urgently required in my own district, whither I returned immediately after having pointed out the locality and explained to the surveyor what was required to be done. I did not hesitate, under the circumstances of the case, to commence the survey without the presence of the Natives, as I made the agreement with them at the final payment for the block in 1853, and know exactly what was then promised to them. I am also fully aware of the justice of their complaint, but I was not in a position to satisfy them, had they been on the ground, as I would not have directed the surveyor to include land in the Native Reserve which had been previously granted by the Crown to private individuals.

You will perceive that, until this survey was completed, and the quantity of Native land sold ascertained, it was not in my power to carry out the instructions I received relative to giving the Natives an equal quantity of waste land to what I might be able to induce them to relinquish, in order that the Government may fulfil its engagements with the European purchasers who have selected portions of this Reserve, and not having settled the business finally, I did not make any written report of the same.

I have not been in Auckland since this occurred, and had no opportunity of moving further in the matter, which I presumed would have been in my absence attended to by some other officer of the Land Purchase Department.