H.—6

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wish such claims to be preferred, and also the day, time, and place when and where you will be prepared to receive and hear any evidence or information which any claimants may desire to offer or bring before you in support of their claims. 4. You shall cause every such notice to be given and published in such manner and form as you may from time to time prescribe, and at such place or places as you may deem best calculated to give effect to these presents. 5. For the purpose of this Commission you are hereby empowered to call before you and examine on oath or otherwise as may be allowed by law all such person or persons as you may think able to afford you any information in relation to the premises. 6. Each claimant shall be entitled to present his claim in such manner and form as you may from time to time prescribe. 7. You may also require any person or persons to bring before you and produce in evidence (saving all just exceptions) any books, papers, deeds, or documents of which any Court of law might compel the production. 8. You are hereby also empowered, in case no claim is made or evidence offered before you in respect of any matter which might have been made the subject of such a claim as aforesaid, of your own motion to examine into and report upon such matter which may be in any manner brought to your knowledge, and, although the same shall not be made or preferred by any claimant, and in any such case you shall have or may exercise all and every the powers and authorities conferred upon you by these presents. 9. In giving effect to this Commission you shall have full power and authority to employ such clerical assistance and other persons as you may deem necessary for your assistance in the premises. 10. In case any inquiry under these presents shall be made and concluded by you, and it shall afterwards appear desirable for any reason that the same shall be reopened, you are hereby empowered to reopen the same; and all proceedings shall be taken in respect of such reopened inquiry as if it were an original inquiry : Provided that no inquiry shall be entered upon after the date fixed for the making of your report under this Commission. 11. And it is hereby declared that this Commission shall continue in full force and virtue, and you, the said Commissioners, may from time to time, and at any place or places within the said colony, proceed in the execution hereof, although the inquiry be not regularly continued from time to time by adjournment. 12. And you are hereby required, with as little delay as possible, but not later than three calendar months from the date hereof, to report to me' under your hands and seals your opinion resulting from the said inquiry and the evidence taken thereon of the several matters and things inquired into by you under these presents : Provided always that you may report separately upon each claim, or from time to time upon any one or more of such claims, without waiting for the completion of your inquiries into all the claims which may be brought before you. 13. Lastly, it is hereby expressly declared that all the powers, authorities, and duties conferred or imposed upon you, the said Commissioners, may be exercised and performed by any one of you sitting under this Commission ; and that you, the said Walter Edward Gudgeon, shall act as chairman under this said Commission. Given under the hand of His Excellency Sir William Francis Drummond Jervois, Lieutenant-General in Her Majesty's Army, Knight Grand Cross of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, Companion of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, Governor and Commander-in-Chief in and over Her Majesty's Colony of New Zealand and its dependencies, and Vice-Admiral of the same; and issued under the Seal of the said Colony at the Government House, at Wellington, this fourteenth day of September, in the year of Our Lord one thousand eight hundred and eighty-six. (1.5.) W. J. M. Laenach. Approved in Council—Foestek Gobing, Clerk of the Executive Council.

To His Excellency Sir William Francis Drnmmond Jervois, K.0.M.G., Governor of New Zealand. May it please youb Excellency,— We, the undersigned, appointed by a Commission dated the fourteenth day of September, 1886, under the hand of the Governor, and sealed with the public seal of the colony, to examine and report upon all claims to land brought before us by officers or private members of Her Majesty's naval or military forces as having retired to settle in New Zealand, and by members of the local forces of the colony for services rendered by them in such capacities (which claims, owing to lapse of time or from technical reasons, cannot now be enforced by law), respectfully submit for your Excellency's consideration the following report of our proceedings : — In conformity with the 4th clause of the above-mentioned Commission, we have caused to be inserted in not less than two newspapers in each district, at least fourteen and in many cases twenty-eight days before the sitting of the Commission, notices calling upon all persons claiming to be entitled or to have been entitled to grants of land for military service under any Act now or formerly in force in the colony to send in claims in writing, and to appear and give evidence on the days named in such notice. In reply to these advertisements we have received applications from some sixteen hundred persons, and have taken evidence in nearly thirteen hundred cases. To facilitate inquiry we have held sittings at Palmerston North, Hawera, New Plymouth, Auckland, Wanganui, Hamilton, Thames, Tauranga, Dargaville, Whangarei, Gisborne, Napier,