Selling and Letting.

• 3. The certificate of title, a document created by an Act of the Assembly, will confer on the holders of it such powers as the Assembly may think fit to give, and none other. Those powers should be, in the beginning, the power of letting land for a term not exceeding twenty one years, and the power of sale. To make the exercise of those powers safe it should be enacted that all contracts for letting should be entered into, and the lease in every case be executed, by the parties in the presence of a Civil Commissioner or of a Resident Magistrate, who shall attest the same, and should certify that the lease and a certified copy in Maori had been read over to both parties in his presence, and that both parties understood the same. The rent should be made payable to some person or persons named in the lease, so that no inconvenience should arise to the lessee from the number of the lessors. In case of the death of any of them, the lessee would have nothing to do with any question which might arise as to the division of the rent amongst the persons entitled thereto according to Native custom. That question would be settled by the Resident Magistrate, on the finding of a Maori jury, after the manner of a copyhold Court. It would be convenient for the officers concerned in this business that all such leases should be computed and made to run from fixed quarterly days, so that the rents may fall due at the same time.

  At present there is often found a considerable disposition to let lands where there is no great willingness to sell. And the letting of lands will of itself, if properly managed, quietly and effectually open the country and prepare the way for sale. For it will put us in possession of a survey of the lands and a complete register of the owners of the several blocks. In this way the title will be made clear and safe beforehand, and roads—not merely main roads, but smaller roads also—will be opened peaceably and in all directions for access to the lands under lease.