Future Management.

As regards the future management of those reserves, I believe that the most simple and practicable arrangement would be to place them under the control of a local board, to consist of his Honour the Superintendent, the Crown Commissioner, and the Resident Magistrate, and, as honorary members, such clergymen as are engaged in missionary duties connected with the Natives, together with one or two intelligent Native chiefs in the district, who would by this means, although possessing no executive authority in the matter, be nevertheless undergoing a training for managing their own affairs, while their knowledge of all the proceedings of the Board would divest the Natives generally of any suspicion that justice was not done to them in reference to the mode in which the proceeds of their property were appropriated.

The Board should have power to let and receive all rents for the reserves for terms varying from seven to fourteen and twenty-one years, on improving leases; and the proceeds should be applied for the social, industrial, religious, and educational advancement of the Natives. For instance, improvements in their dwellings are much required; for providing them with useful implements of agriculture, page 22such as ploughs, carts, &c., and occasionally perhaps draught-horses or oxen, to enable them to cultivate their land to greater advantage and bring their produce to market.

The Board should report its proceedings to His Excellency the Governor of the Colony at least twice in every year, with statements appended, exhibiting the amount of rents received and the manner in which the sum was expended for the benefit of the Natives. But I conceive that the Board should not have the power of finally alienating any of the reserves without the express sanction of His Excellency the Governor, as it is of importance, for the benefit of the Native race, that certain lands should be permanently retained for them, and it would be even advantageous if, after benevolent provision for carrying out the above objects were made, any surplus funds might be applied for purchasing portions of land for industrious and deserving Natives who would make good use of it.

With reference to religious and educational requirements, provision is already made by the late New Zealand Constitution Act, so that it is unnecessary that funds should be set apart for this purpose, at least until some advance has been made in promoting the secular condition of the Natives.