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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 68

Partition

Partition.

On this important question I see very little to take exception to. The Act gives full powers to the Court on partition. I confess, however, to not understanding why there should be a difference in the mode of page 12 obtaining a title when the purchaser has only acquired a portion of a block of land and not the whole. I refer to land dealt with under the title of Memorial of Ownership or Certificate of Title. In the former case, any Judge can make the Order for freehold tenure; in the latter, it is only the Chief Judge who can do so; and as the Chief Judge's visits to districts are few and far between compared to visits of other Judges, unnecessary delay in completing the title arises.

I would suggest that Section 4 of "The Native Land Court Act, 1886, Amendment Act 1888," be amended by striking out the words "the Chief" in the third line, and substituting the word "a." There really seems no good reason why this duty should be cast upon the Chief Judge alone. As regards Native owners, the Act appears to me to afford ample protection. No doubt Natives are dissatisfied at the decision of the Courts in partition cases, more especially where the interests of purchasers are being defined. For this we can hardly blame the law, although we may blame the method by which that law is administered. The peculiar nature of Native custom also has its effect, protecting as it does individual rights to plots of land, besides the general right to the lands held in common by the sub-tribe or "people." I admit that these individual rights should where possible be recognised. But to make any hard and fast rule would be contrary to the wholesome dictum that private rights must sometimes give way to the public good.