A.—3

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5. In the apportionment of any such ultimate surplus as aforesaid between the said respective provinces, the part of the surplus to be assigned to each shall bear to the whole of such surplus the same proportion which the part of the gross proceeds raised and collected within such province may have borne to the total amount of the gross proceeds of any such duty, tax, rate, toll, or assessment.

Chapter XIII. On the Settlement of the Waste Lands of the Crovon. 1. Charts of the New Zealand Islands shall bo prepared with all practicable expedition and accuracy, and especially charts of all, those parts of the said Islands over which cither the aboriginal natives or the settlers of European birth and origin have established any valid titles, whether of property or of occupancy. 2. In every district into which the said Islands shall be divided in pursuance of these our Instructions, shall be kept a registry of the lands therein situate, distinguishing, with reference to such charts as aforesaid, the settled lands in such district from the unsettled lands therein. 3. At the capital town of each of the provinces of New Zealand shall also be kept a general registry of the settled and of the unsettled lands in that province, with reference to such charts aforesaid. 4. It shall be the duty of every person, and of every body politic and corporate (other than the aboriginal inhabitants of New Zealand) to transmit to the Registrar of Lands for the district in which his or their lands may be situate, a statement of the extent, locality, and metes and bounds thereof, and of the title under which he or they claim the same, all which statements shall be provisionally registered immediately on the receipt thereof at the office of registry. 5. The protector of the aborigines, or any officer appointed to act in that capacity by the Governor or Lieutenant-Governor of the province, shall in like manner transmit to the Registrar of the district a statement of the extent (as nearly as it can be ascertained) and of the locality of all the lands situate within the same, to which any such Natives, either as tribes or as individuals, claim either a proprietary or a possessory title, which claims shall also be forthwith provisionally registered. 6. All lands not so claimed or provisionally registered by the time so to be limited as aforesaid, shall thenceforward be and be considered as vested in us, and as constituting the demesne lands of us in right of our Crown within the New Zealand Islands. 7. Within a time to be for that purpose appointed after such provisional registration as aforesaid of the lands in the said several districts, a L.and Court shall be holden in each, for investigating and deciding on the accuracy and validity of such registrations, which Court shall be competent to decide on the accuracy and validity thereof, both as between the claimant on the one hand and us in the right of our Crown on the other hand, and as between different claimants asserting opposite and incompatible titles to the same lauds. It shall not, however, be competent to any such Laud Court to decide upon or to investigate any titles to lands which at any previous time may have been adjudged to any body corporate, or person or persons, by the sentence of any Court of competent jurisdiction, or which may at any previous time have been granted or assigned by us, or by any Governor-in-Chief, Governor, or Lieutenant-Governor of New Zealand, in our name, or in our behalf, to any such body corporate, or person or persons. 8. The several land registries of the said several districts, being revised and corrected by tho adjudications of the said Land Courts, an appeal shall lie from any such adjudication to the Supreme Court of civil justice for the province in which the lands may be situate. The registries of the several districts, when so revised and corrected, by the adjudications of such Land Courts, or by the adjudication on appeal of such superior Courts, shall constitute and be received as final and conclusive evidence of the title to any lands comprised in such registries, and as final and conclusive evidence of our title in right of our Crown to all lands not comprised therein. 9. No claim shall be admitted in the said Land Courts on behalf of the aboriginal inhabitants of New Zealand to any lands situate within the said islands, unless it shall be established, to the satisfaction of such Court, that, either by some Act of the Executive Government of New Zealand as hitherto constituted, or by the adjudication of some Court of competent jurisdiction within New Zealand, the right of such aboriginal inhabitants to such lands has been acknowledged and ascertained, or that the claimants or their progenitors, or those from whom they derived title, have actually had the occupation of the lands so claimed, and have been accustomed to use and enjoy the same, either as places of abode or for tillage, or for the growth of crops, or for the depasturing of cattle, or otherwise for the convenience and sustentation of life by means of labour expended thereupon. 10. Eor insuring the observance of the preceding rules respecting the preparation of the charts and keeping of the registries aforesaid, and for determining the methods to be followed in drawing up and transmitting such claims as aforesaid, and in the provisional registration of them, and for ascertaining and regulating the constitution and proceedings of the said Land Courts, and the mode of proceeding upon appeals to be thence brought to the said Supreme Courts, and otherwise for carrying into full effect these our instructions respecting the several matters aforesaid, the Governor-in-Chief of New Zealand shall, by Proclamations to bo by him for that purpose issued/make and establish all such rules as in pursuance of the powers in him in that behalf vested by the said recited Act of Parliament and charter, and by these our Instructions, it may be competent to him so to make and establish, and, so far as it may not be competent to such Governor-in-Chief to establish such rules, it shall be his duty to propose to the respective Legislatures of the said respective provinces the enactment of all such laws as may be necessary for that purpose, that so the extent and limits of the demesne lands of us in. right of our Crown within the said islands, available for future settlement, and the extent and limits of the lands of the aboriginal inhabitants, and the extent and limits of the lands of the inhabitants of European origin, may severally be distinctly ascertained. 11. No conveyance or agreement for the conveyance of any of the lands of or belonging to any of the aboriginal Natives, in common as tribes or as communities, whether in perpetuity or for any definite period, whether absolutely or conditionally, whether in property or by way of lease or