No. 50.
The Chief Commissioner to the Hon. the Colonial Secretary.

Referring to your letter of the twenty-sixth (26th) ultimo, acknowledging receipt of certain deeds transmitted to your office with my letters as per margin, I have the honor to observe that similar deeds to those alluded to in your letter, as documents which would not operate as a conveyance according to the law of real property in force in New Zealand, have been hitherto submitted to and approved of by the Attorney-General as sufficient conveyances.

There are several of the receipts that do not profess to be legal conveyances, but which are, nevertheless, ample evidence of the transactions entered into with the Natives for the purchase of lands; and many of them are intended only as temporary receipts until the final arrangements with the Natives (such as the extent of the purchase, the position and extent of the reserves, the total amount of purchase money, &c.,) are concluded, when a complete and binding document should be executed on the form which I have been in the habit for years of using, and which I have never yet known a Native to dispute. On the contrary, the final deeds of sale are considered by the Natives as irrevocably binding, whilst an English form of conveyance would be frequently repudiated by them, from the fact that it could not be literally translated so as to be understood by them; and I believe that the only binding treaties with most barbarous Natives have been those that were most clearly understood by them. The same rule is certainly applicable to the New Zealanders; and I have seldom heard of any English form of conveyance they have signed which they have not disputed.

I should feel much obliged if I can obtain from your office separate receipts for these documents, as I want them as vouchers to my accounts.