Correspondence relating to the Tairua Native Reserve.
(No. 1.)
His Honour the Superintendent, Auckland, to the Hon. the Colonial Secretary.

I have the honour to enclose an, abstract, prepared by the Waste Lands Commissioner, showing the manner in which an area of 1,000 acres (as yet unselected) was reserved for Natives in the Tairua Block. You will find from this abstract that this block appears to have been purchased from the Natives on the 7th December, 1872, without any such reservation for them having been made, and that it was handed over to this province on the 24th June, 1874, free from such reservation of 1,000 acres. I beg, therefore, that an explanation may be afforded as to the time when the reservation was made, and by whose authority, and whether the Natives have since attempted to sell or lease this land, or any part of it, to any other person; and, if so, to whom.