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over their ground. We have fifty members paying £3 3s. We pay our huntsman £250 a year and we get £240 from members' fees, so we could not carry on without the £200 subsidy from the Auckland Racing Club. Our huntsman is the best-paid huntsman in New Zealand. If the show-ring is any criterion our dogs are the best in New Zealand. Our hunters are also the best in New Zealand. We held a meeting just before the war started and we made a profit of over £125, which we gave to the Patriotic Fund. We have been offered the Ellerslie and Avondale courses for our meetings free of cost. Wo consider that if we get a permit we are in a position in Auckland to give a decent stake. We can guarantee £500 at our first meeting if we get a permit. We have, men on our executive capable of carrying out a meeting. Our committee arc men who have been stewards of most of the racing clubs about here. We have both town and country members. The stamp of horse wanted to-day is the hunting horse that can carry a man of 12 stone or 13 stone over country, and that is the horse wo have. We think we breed the largest number of horses in New Zealand. Our country has been the nursery for some of the best cross-country horses in Australasia. We want a totalizator permit to develop the sport more than for our finance. This will be the only hunting permit from Auckland to the North Cape in the north and the Waikato in the south. There are only two hunts in the Auckland Province. We feel it will be very hard to keep the hunt club going if we do not get a permit, and it is unnecessary to point out how much good a well-managed hunt club does in bringing forward good horses which eventually develop into good steeplechasers. Waikato Hunt Club. The headquarters of the club are at Cambridge. The club was formed in 1884, and is registered. The last meeting was held in September, 1914. A list of the present members of the club and a copy of the last balance-sheet have been forwarded. The racecourse is at Cambridge, and comprises part of the Waikato Central Agricultural and Pastoral Association's showground and part of the property of Mr. James Taylor. The tenure is leasehold. The course is splendidly suited for steeplechasing, the fences being one water jump, one post-and-rail, two live thorn fences, one brushed " double," and two to three flights of hurdles. The water is jumped the first time round, the "double" the second time, and the other fences twice each. The circumference of the course is about 9 furlongs. The lease is for nine years, and is registered, expiring on the Ist November, 1923 ; and there is every chance of renewal. The accommodation ranks well with the country clubs, and consists of grandstand to seat about fifteen hundred people, saddling-paddock, with ten loose-boxes therein. The course is fenced only on the inside for about a furlong (coming into the straight). The nearest club using the totalizator is South Auckland Racing Club, at Hamilton, distance fourteen miles, and the next nearest is the Te Aroha Jockey Club, thirty-six miles away. Neither of these clubs is a steeplechase club, however: the nearest steeplechase club being Ohinemuri, at Paeroa, fifty miles from Cambridge. The only club that provides for hunt events is the Auckland Racing Club, a distance of a hundred miles away. The nearest clubs not using the totalizator are the Waipa Racing Club, at Te Awamutu, sixteen miles distant, and Kihikihi Hack Racing Club, Kihikihi, eighteen miles distant. There are no other clubs under a distance of twenty miles from Cambridge. Within a radius of two miles of the Cambridge Town Clock there are at least two thousand five hundred residents, and we think it reasonable to ask for the use of the totalizator to run one race meeting per annum there, and that meeting to be a hunt meeting, the most useful type of the sport. There is one race meeting held at Cambridge, and that is the annual meeting of tha Waikato Hunt. We want the totalizator so that we may give away in stakes something that will encourage breeders in this district to produce horses for the purpose of hunting and of racing at our steeplechase meetings. This type of horse is perhaps the most useful in the Dominion, particularly in war time. Ihe revenue from the totalizator is very necessary to us in order to meet the very considerable expense of upkeep of hounds, as we do not receive 'any assistance from racing clubs. In conclusion, there is no other hunt club within a hundred miles of us, and we hunt here. By the Deputation. —We think we are the one club that has produced better jumping horses than any other hunt club in Noyv Zealand. At our last meeting, with a good crowd and giving £50 in trophies, we lost £15 on the meeting. In the old days with the bookmakers we used to make a profit. We have a good pack of hounds. We hunt as far as Morrinsville, twenty-five miles east; Huntly, thirty miles north; and Te Awamutu, seventeen miles south. It is fairly expensive to carry on the hunt. We have a big list of members, but a large number are farmers, and it is merely a matter of honour with them whether they pay their subscription or not, as we hunt over their country and cannot force them to pay. We have been hunting for close on thirty years, and have always been looking for a permit. Our hounds are looked upon as one of the leading packs in the North Island. We do not run drags; we hunt the hare only. We have a pretty hard row to hoe to make ends meet. Our only source of revenue is our subscriptions. A few of the members round Cambridge have had to put their hands in their pockets very heavily to keep things going. Our hounds and hunting have always been carried on on fair lines, and if we had a little more revenue our hunt would compare favourably with some of the small English hunts. We imported hounds from England at a big cost, and have now one of the best packs in New Zealand. Other hunts are always asking to be allowed to breed from our hounds, and we never refuse them, because we want to develop the sport as much as possible. At the last meeting with the bookmakers we gave £230 in stakes, and if we had a permit we would be in a position to give between £300 and £400 in stakes. We have better hunting country than most places. This place is the favourite recruiting-ground of the Government remount officer for good weight-carrying horses for the Expeditionary Forces.

7—HY22.