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4580. Is this the first time you have seen the inside of it ?—Yes ; to-day is the first time to my knowledge. 4581. Mr. Loughrey.] I said I had gone through upwards of seven hundred files of papers, and had about two hundred and fifty cases in which I felt it necessary to make inquiries. I asked you then if the actual fact of my having to make inquiries did not show good grounds for some little dissatisfaction with reference to the working of the department, and you said "No." Now, I shall have to go seriatim through these cases. You have admitted that Cockroft's (Ross's) case and Hatfield's are not satisfactory. There is also the case of Hugh Wright, and that one and Ross's and Miss Hatfield's are, on your own admission, not satisfactory. In those cases you considered the parties were properly so dissatisfied. Take Miss Wright's case for instance : has she not great cause to be dissatisfied ? —Yes. 4582. Has Ross cause to be dissatisfied ? —Yes. 4583. And are not the other cases pretty much on the same footing, some of them not so strong perhaps.— [No reply.] 4584. The Chairman.} Has not Winter, senior, in England, great cause to be dissatisfied at not having heard from you for over two years as to the state of his account with you ?—Yes, I think he has a right to be dissatisfied. 4585. Has not the representative of Mrs. Dallon's estate great cause to be dissatisfied ?—He has; but if I may be permitted to say, I think I labour under a very great disadvantage, not, of course, intended, but I have the daily current duties of my office to attend to, and have not time to look these matters up as they ought to be looked up. 4586. Mr. Loughrey.} Do you remember you stated you had not attempted to look at the papers ?—My current duties have required me for years to devote seven, eight, or nine hours a day to them. Now, this immense pressure comes upon me also. I have still to carry on my current duties and work up these old questions. It is a very great pressure. 4587. Do you not think it would be a very great advantage, and assist you, and particularly anybody who succeeded you, if there was attached to the papers a precis of the state in which your work is at the time—a pricis of everything that had been done ? Then you will not need to turn up whole files. Or you could have the particulars in books, or in both forms. If you had kept these matters under your control in a systematic way, would it matter then when such pressure as you refer to came down upon you? —Possibly not. 4588. The Chairman.} Then you complain that, with the immense pressure put on you by this investigation going on and the current work besides, you find it more than you can battle with ?— It is. 4589. Well, I can quite understand it, seeing the confusion in which your business appears. If you had a better knowledge of how to keep your business together, and how to run a business of this kind as it ought to be run, you would not have found the difficulty you are now finding?— Possibly so. The system adopted by this office is exactly the same as that adopted in the Government offices. 4590. Then, if that be so, I say, " God help them " ?—I do not say that the Government system is the best that could be adopted for this department. 4591. It has to be admitted by you that in many cases important parts of your files are missing. In Ross's case the conditions of sale and plan are missing?— That is so. 4592. Take Dallon's case: there is no inventory. The most important part of the file is missing?— That is so. 4593. And so on with numbers of papers, I find your files are incomplete. Take Mr. Acland's case. The private letters are missing, and we cannot form a clue. Mr. Acland has been retired for some reason ; but your files are incomplete to the extent that some documents are not there ?—I am not aware of it. 4594. Supposing we had been asked how it was Mr. Acland had given up the Christchurch agency, we could not tell until we saw the private letters ?—There are none that I know of. 4595. You said that you allowed all district agents outside of Canterbury to charge procura-tion-fees ?—Yes. 4596. Was the agent in Canterbury ever allowed to charge procuration-fees?—lt was not prohibited. The Christchurch agent was the same as the other agents in that respect. 4597. Do you approve of that system? —No, certainly not. 4598. Why, then, have you encouraged it by allowing it to go on?— Simply because the agents, as a body, are not sufficiently remunerated ; and, if I had prohibited procuration-fees, it would have caused discontent. The system is bad, lam willing to admit. 4599. Have you not been unfortunate in certain instances in the direction in which you have placed your agencies, by putting them into the hands of people who had very little else besides to look to for a living?—No doubt; the question of the appointment of agents has always been a difficult one to me, because I have not known a large number of men in any town. 4600. It has occurred to me that your system has been a wrong one. If I were asked to appoint an agent in any part of the colony I should go and place the matter into the best going firm suitable to accept it. Would that not be a better system ? —The difficulty is that in all the smaller towns the business is probably too small to induce any man of standing to take it up. 4601. But you see that a person already in business is always ready to accept respectable business that has a progressive future in it—the very thing which any" business you had to offer had—and when put before a business man who has already a standing in the community, so long as your business did not clash with his*- own, he would be only too glad to get hold of it, because it is a respectable connection and has the features of a progressive tendency in it?— Yes. 4602. Mr. Loughrey.] Did you notice in the-returns for Canterbury there was only one mortgage effected through the office ?—Yes,