Colonizing Steps to be taken.

Means should now be adopted to resuscitate and promote upon a permanent basis the colonization of this portion of the Northern Island, so materially valuable, and historically so interesting as the seat of the earliest European settlement of New Zealand. To effect this it will be necessary to adopt liberal and comprehensive measures contemporaneously with the extinction of the Native title to the extensive districts of waste land that as yet remain unpurchased in this peninsula.

The first step which I would recommend would be the resumption by the Crown of all the lands which have been already alienated by the Natives to different individuals, and which have been subsequently exchanged by those individuals for Government scrip. There should be no delay in taking possession of these lands while some of the older Natives who sold them are still alive, and can point out to a surveyor the locality and limits. From what I have observed among the northern tribes, they are most anxious that this should be done, and they are almost all of them particularly honourable in pointing out the exact boundaries of what they have sold. Two intelligent surveyors and parties, acting in concert with the Land. Purchase Commissioners, could in twelve months determine with sufficient accuracy the extent of these lands, which should be declared open for sale and selection whenever the boundaries are defined. The next step, and one which is now in successful progresses is to acquire larger tracts of land by purchase from the Natives, out of which blocks, varying in extent from 100 to 2,000 acres, should be reconveyed under Crown grants to the principal chiefs upon the extinction of the tribal title, such blocks consisting not only of culturable but also of forest land, in order to secure to them a continued revenue proportionable to their rank.

In order to do away with present or future dissatisfaction on the part of the Native sellers at the price they receive for their land as compared with the value it acquires when in the hands of the Government, unable, as yet, to comprehend the reasons that influence comparative value, it would be most desirable to expend a certain definite proportion (and that no inconsiderable one) of the moneys realized by the waste-land sales on roads and other improvements exclusively within those districts from which they have accrued, and from time to time to publish the balance-sheets of such expenditure in the Maori Messenger.