I.—3a

126

JH. LEWIS,

90. Have you any idea what profit has been made from Eglinton's, which is now Bayly's? —No. 91. With regard to the amount cm money that you received, £71,000: will you tell the Committee what liabilities there were against that which you had to disburse?—l have never gone into the figures. 1 never keep accounts. As long as I pay my debts 1 never trouble. 92. Can you tell us approximately?—! have never gone into the matter. 93. Would it be £20,000?— Oh, no I Of course, the freehold had to be paid for—£2s,ooo : that would leave only £46,000. 94. Have there been any disbursements besides the £"25,000 —for instance, for getting signatures, and so forth? —No, 1 had nothing whatever to do with that. What I did was to pay a portion of the shares that 1 received, and that came to £1,200 out of my £4,000 worth of shares. That was my total expenditure as regards paying the Natives, which included my giving to them the £2,500 worth of shares. That was the whole cost. 95. Have you been up the river any distance? —Yes. 96. Jiight'up to Totorol —Yes.

Wednesday, 20th September, 1911 Archibald William Blair sworn and examined. (No. 20.) 1. The Chairman .] What are you, Mr. Blair? —A solicitor. 2. I understand that you wish to make a statement in connection with some remarks that have been made regarding your partner, Mr. Skerrett?—That is so. I am a member of the firm of Chapman, Skerrett, Wylie, and Tripp, in which Mr. Skerrett is a partner. There are only two matters upon which 1 desire to .say anything. The first point is this: I understand a suggestion has been made that my firm was engaged, not by the Natives, but by the Government, in connection with this matter. My firm, mainly through Mi. Skerrett, acted for the Natives interested in the Mokau Block as long ago as 190!), and there was some work done in connection with Mokau which was paid for at the end of 1909. The matter was renewed again in April, 1910, and Mr. Skerrett was engaged more or less on behalf of the Natives interested in Mokau up to the time when he left New Zealand-—in the middle of January of this year. The whole of our costs were made up to about the time Ml. Skerrett went away, and were rendered to Pepene Eketone, the representative Native interested in Mokau from whom we received instructions. We had no instructions from the Government from beginning to end. Our account was rendered against Pepene Eketone and others. 3. You were dealing with them on behalf of the other Natives? —Yes, dealing with the majority of the Natives interested in the Mok-iu Block. They were at that time th&> followers of Pepene Eketone. i. And you were paid by them? —Yes. —1 can give the dates if the Committee wish. Our account was actually paid by the Natives on 31st May of this year. 5. Mr. Berries.] Was that the final account? —Yes, the final payment for Mr. Skerrett'e services in connection with Mokau. 6. The Chairman.] Are the Natives in any way indebted to your firm?—No, not at all now. There were actually some small items subsequent to this work, but, although they were incurred before the account was paid, we did not make any charge. I should like also to refer to a suggestion that has been made with regard to the time when we ceased to act for the Natives in connection with the block. I understand there is some doubt as to whether Mr. Skerrett was acting for them at any time subsequent to the meeting at Te Kuiti which he attended. It is true that I had a conversation with Mr. Bell in the Supreme Court Library, and Mr. Bell spoke to me about what Mr. Skerrett had said to him in connection with what had happened at the meeting at Te Kuiti. Mr. Bell indicated to me that Mr. Skerrett had said that when he got up there he found that a majority of the Natives wer,e not followers of Eketone, but had joined the party which was being advised bj r Mr. Bell; and I agreed with Mr. Hell that Mr. Skerrett had said something to the same effect to me. Mr. Skerreft had said that when he got up there he found that he was not representing the majority, that Eketone's following were not the majority, but that the majority appeared to be the other way: ami 1 said that to Mr. Bell. lam afraid, therefore, that I must take the responsibility for any misconception under whioh Mr. Bell may be labouring with regard to that. I did not look upon that conversation as of any great importance. I do not desire, however, to suggest that Mr. Bell was not free to make whatever use of it he desired, because he was asking me for a purpose. Mr. Bell wrote me on the matter, and asked me to read to the Committee his letter in which he sets out in detail his recollection of this conversation in the library, and I also have my reply, in which I specifically agree with what Mr. Bell says. 7. Mr. Herries.] What is the 'late of Mr. Hell's letter? —It is dated the 15th September, and is as follows: "A. W. Blair, Esq., Wellington.—Dear Blair, —In the New Zealand Times this morning Dalziell is reported to have stated to the Committee on the inquiry as to the Mokau purchase that he had your authority in his contradiction of my evidence on the point of Skerrett's attitude after the first meeting. I desire to record my clear recollection of what took place between you and me. I spoke to you in the library of the Supreme Court, and told you, first, that I had been to your office to see you, but you were out. I then said to you (Chapman was present throughout) that there was a matter I might want to refer to, but my difficulty was that I was not sure whether Skerrett intended what he said to me to be repeated, and for that reason I wanted to know whether he said the same to your office, as in that case he could not object to my repeating it. The exact point was that before the first meeting of the assembled owners Skerrett and I had had a discussion as to which of U6 represented the majority of the Native owners—he