I.—3a.

J. JONER.

3. It has been published in the newspapers?— Yes, 1 hare seen it. 4. Have you anything to say in connection with this paper, or would you prefer to be asked questions by Mr. Massey, at whose request you have been summoned as a witness? —My reply to that is this : This is not my Committee. I shall obey the orders of the Chairman to answer any questions of Mr. Massey's, but I shall have a great deal to say about this perhaps on some other occasion. 5. Mr. Massey.'] I want you, Mr. Jones, to give the Committee some information with regard to what is known as the Mokau-Mohakatino Block. I presume you know all about it?— Yes. 6. You know more about it than any man alive, I think? —I think I ought to. 7. Can you give the Committee, approximately, the area of the different blocks? —The total area is about 56,500 acres. 8. Will you tell us something about its situation? —It is situated between the Mok'au and Mohakatino Rivers, at the mouth. It is bounded on the north by the Mokau River, and on the south by the Mohakatino for a distance of the length of the block, all but about three miles; on the east by a line due north and south from a spring at Totara down to —it is supposed--the Mohakatino River. 9. Does the railway which is being constructed from Stratford to Ongarue go anywhere near the block ?—On the south-east corner it will go within four or five miles of it, at a township called, I think, Mungaroa. 10. Then the block is within four or five miles of the Mungaroa Township?— That is co, if you can rely on the Crown survey. 11. And at Mungaroa there will be a railway-station?— Yes. 12. Hon. Mr. Ngata.] Is that the surveyed route of the railway? 13. Mr. Massey.] Yes. About the main road, Mr. Jones —and when I say " the main road " I am speaking of the road from Awakino to Waitara —does that road go anywhere near the block? —It crosses the block. 14. That is, after crossing the Mokau River going south? —It runs direct to the Mohakatino. The road crosses the block for a distan3e of about three miles. 15. I want you to tell us something of the quality of the land, and I do not think I can do better than quote a paragraph that I have here from a settler in the locality and ask you whether it is correct. The writer of the letter to which I refer —a man named Jackson —says this: " 1 have been on perhaps the worst portion of the block, which, though broken, is good mixed bush on a good papa formation, which grows and holds grass excellently. A great portion of this estate is easy country of magnificent quality. I believe few people realize the enormous quantity of coal in it. Coal shows in nearly every creek on the Ohura side, and outcrops of reefs 18 ft. thick are numerous." Would you consider that to be a fairly correct description of the block? — Yes, it is very fair. Some of the valleys are very rich, and all the hills are fit for sheep, and the coal is cropping out as the writer of that letter says in the creeks —in fact, the Government have had a survey made of the thickness of each seam. 16. Have you seen an advertisement of the Mokau Land and Estate Company with regard to this particular block which appeared in one of the Wellington papers some few week ago?—l saw it in the New Zealand Times, I think it was. 17. I am referring to the New Zealand Times. Would you consider this description of the property fairly accurate? It is referred to an " heavy bush and limestone country of first-class quality, with good roads from New Plymouth and Te Kuiti "; and then it goes on to say that the Mokau River is navigable the entire frontage of the block for fifty miles. Do you consider that correct? —Speaking of the land, undoubtedly. Limestone land is the best you can get anywhere —limestone and heavy clay. The hills will run fully a couple of sheep to the acre, and the valleys are very rich. 18. Do you want the Committee to understand that the valleys are particularly rich? —I do not know of any richer land in the North Island than those valleys. It is wonderful to see the fruit and vegetables and ntaize and other things that are grown there where there is cultivation. 19. Then you think that the description in the advertisement is fairly correct? —Well, it is written haphazard, and I am on my oath. When you get up to Mangapohoi, some twenty-eight miles up the river, there is a rapid that could not be termed navigable except by canoes. 20. You think it is not quite correct to say that the river is navigable for fifty miles?—No, it is not. I have taken a steamer twenty-eight miles up to this rapid, and cannot get over it. It is a particular spot —the boundary betwixt the larger lease and the smaller lease inland. Above that you can go for, I daresay, twenty miles. 21. The river is navigable for twenty-five miles, would you say?— For twenty-eight miles, 1 should say, because I have taken a steamer right up to this Mangapohoi Stream. 22. Do you know anything about the coal-deposits? —Yes, I think I do. 23. Can you give the Committee, from your own personal knowledge, any idea of what the coal-deposits are like, arid whether they are numerous or otherwise?— Once I saw Mr. Park there, the Government Geologist. He went over them. Some of the seams are across the river. 24. You mean some of the seams referred to in Mr. Park's report?-—Yes. The river does not make any variation in the seams; they are on the other side too. He speaks of some seams on one side of the river, but there are the same seams on the other side too. He mentions a certain creek on this new lease that the company have got —the 14,000 acres —but if he had gone on to the south bank and proceeded a little distance from the river he would have seen the same seam of coal. 25. In Mr. Park's report—one of the reports of geological explorations by Sir James Hector and Mr. Park, dated 1887—there is this paragraph at page 44 : " At Mangangarongaro Creek three seams are exposed; and about a mile up the Mangakawhia four seams crop out in a sand-

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