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1614. Who took the most prominent part in the proceedings ?—Mr. Cowern. 1615. Hon. Captain Kenny.] Who was the arbitrator for the Natives ?—Mr. Livingston. 1616. Mr. Levi.] What part did Mr. Livingston take ? What did he do ?—lf he made any remark he said it to Mr. Cowern, and Mr. Cowern would ask a question. 1617. Did Mr. Livingston ask any questions of the Natives at all ?—Not that I can recollect. 1618. Can you say whether he attempted to elicit any evidence from the Natives as to the letting-value of the land? —Not as far as the Waitotara Natives are concerned. 1619. Could you say how many days the Arbitration Court sat at Waitotara ? 1620. On the first occasion two days, and on the last there w r ere one or two cases to be heard, and they finished them in one day, sitting very late. 1621. They sat three days altogether?— Yes. 1622. How many cases did they adjudicate upon in that time?— Eight. 1623. I believe, Mr. Fisher, you served a lot of Natives with notices in connection with these matters? —Yes, I did. 1624. What notices were they that you served? —I served them with all the notices —the surrender notices, the Arbitration Court notices, and the awards. 1625. .As to what Natives or what reserves?—l served the whole of the Court notices for the sittings at Patea and W T aitotara. 1626. What do you mean by the Court notices?— That was of the sittings of the Arbitration Court. 1627. You gave them, notices of the day of the sitting?— Yes. 1628. And you served, what else ?—I served also the awards. 1629. Copies of the awards on the grantees ? —Yes. 1630. Who employed you to do that ? —The arbitrators. 1631. For both the Court notices and the copies of the awards? —Yes. 1632. Did the arbitrators pay you ?—They did, eventually. 1633. Could you show the Committee what you were paid for this serving?—l was paid £149 for the services of the Court notices. 1634. And for the other ? —And for the award notices, £204. 1635. Could you show details of your charges in the matter? —Yes; I have a copy of the tender I sent in to them on the occasion. 1636. You did it by tender ? —I sent a tender in; yes. 1637. Have you a copy of that?—l have my copy [producing it]. 1638. Can you explain why the charges are so large ?—They are not so large when you consider the number of Natives I had to serve. There were close on five hundred Natives to serve, I should say. 1639. Do you mean five hundred notices ?—Some Natives might have two or three notices. 1640. You had two lots to serve ? —ln that lot there were twenty grants —twenty distinct grants. 1641. Had you any special difficulty about serving these notices ?—A lot of these Natives lived in different places in the district, running from Parewanui on the south to Parihaka on the north, a radius of 160 miles. Others again lived in Murimutu ; others up the Wanganui River; others in the Waikato. 1642. And you had to find out and serve all those Natives ?—My instructions were to serve those Natives in accordance with section 6 of the regulations. 1643. Which regulations ? —I was to serve these Natives personally, if practicable. 1644. The regulations under the 1887 Act ? —I. have a copy: it is section 6. 1645. Did any of the Natives avoid service?— They never ran after me when I had the notices. I had to go after them. I had to run after one person—fairly run after him. 1646. It has been stated that the Natives avoided service—that whenever an interpreter appeared with the notices the Natives ran away. You served a large portion of the notices: could you say if that was generally true ?—As far as my portion is concerned, it was not. In the Waitotara I got on fairly well with knowing them so well, but further north I had some trouble. If I have not been able to see the people there I have had to wait about and pick them up; but I have always succeeded in serving them. 1647. Take the men—Ngarangi, Ngapaki, Tutangi, and Whakarua —who have given evidence here : did they avoid service of the notices ?—I have never found them to avoid service. 1648. Was the fact that service was likely to be avoided considered in your charges for the services of these notices ?—ln making up that amount I had to take this position into consideration : The arbitrators declined to guarantee payment for the service of any of these notices if the awards Were not lifted ; so that meant —presuming I had to serve the whole of these notices—4so or 500 notices ; and, had the awards never been lifted, I should have done all the work without recompense. I had to take the risk of payment. 1649. And you considered that in making your charges ?—Decidedly. Out of this £149 for the service of the Court notices I had to pay away for additional labour close on £40, I should say, out of my own pocket, in cash. 1650. You did not answer the question I put to you. You have told us several things that you considered in making up your charges : did you consider at all the fact that service was likely to be avoided ?—I had to consider a slight matter in that way for the outside notices north of Waitotara. 1651. Did that make much difference?—lt made a slight difference of £20 in the whole tender. 1652. Hon. the Chairman (producing document).] Referring to this paper you handed in relating to grant 7,037, you said all the signatures Mr. Rennell requested you to obtain could not be got? —Were not got; they could have been got. 1653. This represents the 330 acres you spoke of?— Yes.
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