Enui 19th. April 1857. My dear Sir, I felt very glad to receive yours of the first as it proved that your friendly communications were not yet quite overlaid by official correspondence, which I feel quite aware with your other multifarious duties prevent your indulging as often as you would like in epistolary chit chat with your friends. The Native, question becomes more and more pressing on the attention of those who feel any anxiety for their welfare; and with them for the good of this Colony. I believe that all are now pretty well agreed that it would be beneficial to the Natives for them to dispose of their land to the Government; and the question to be solved is How can they be induced to do so? About this various opinions exist. I will venture to offer some suggestions which may perhaps be stale or wild, or in many ways objectionable; yet may possibly call up in your mind some latent ideas that may enable you to strike out the means of progression towards the desired end. I am rightly informed the two principal sections of dissentients are the Ngatiruanui and the Taupo Anti Land Sale Leagues; the former influencing the South, the latter the North, of this Island, and most likely to some extent uniting to prevent the further alienation of land. Placed as these two bodies of New Zealanders are at a distance from European settlements they cannot so readily feel the beneficial effects of Europeans coming amongst them, and though where they visit our settlements they see how much improved the condition of those Maoris who live near us is, yet they do not see that