H.—2lb

1898. NEW ZEALAND.

Presented to both Houses of the General Assembly by Command of His Excellency.

Wellington, 18th August, 1870. May it please Your Excellency,— The Commissioners appointed to inquire into and report upon the condition and nature of Educational and other Trust Estates held directly under Grant from the Crown upon Special Trusts for Religious, Educational, or Charitable purposes, and particularly to inquire into the extent and application of the Endowments, Funds, and Revenues belonging to or received by the Trustees of all such Estates in respect of the same, have taken a mass of evidence as to the past history and present state of the various Trusts in question, and, after careful deliberation, have agreed to the following Report:— With respect to lands granted in Trust to different religious denominations for the education of Natives, or of Natives and Europeans combined, the Commissioners have, with much regret, come to the conclusion that the attempts to effect the objects for which the lands were granted have, generally speaking, even in cases where grants of public money were made in aid of them, resulted in failure. This failure is attributable to various causes. With reference to many of the cases, it may be affirmed that the Trustees appear to have attempted to achieve results to which the means at their disposal were inadequate, even with the pecuniary assistance afforded them, originally by the Government of New Zealand and subsequently by the Provincial Governments, in the nature of capitation allowances; and when this assistance was withdrawn, the imperfectly established institutions collapsed. The state of warfare in which the country has been plunged since 1861 had, perhaps, a still more detrimental effect upon them. Still, making all allowance for these and other impediments to success, the Commissioners cannot but express their conviction that to the negligence and langour of action natural to bodies carrying on an experiment of considerable difficulty, without special responsibility and with resources gratuitously supplied them, at least as much as to the causes above mentioned, is owing the failure in question. In many cases the Grants of the endowments themselves seem to be of questionable legality; in one instance, at least, the lands have been diverted I—H. 21b.

[Reprint of A.-3. 1870.] TRUST ESTATES FOR RELIGIOUS, CHARITABLE, AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES (THIRD REPORT OP THE COMMISSION OP INQUIRY INTO THE CONDITION AND NATURE OP).