WHEREAS by certificate of title, Volume Seventy-four, folio one hundred and seventy-seven, of the Land Transfer Register of the Auckland District, dated the tenth day of April, one thousand eight hundred and ninety-five, the block of land known as or called “Mahoenui,” containing eight thousand and thirty-six acres, more or less (hereinafter called “the said block”), was certified to be the property in fee-simple of Arapata Rangituataka and forty-three other aboriginal natives of New Zealand therein mentioned (hereinafter called “the Native owners”):

And whereas by certain memoranda of lease and transfer, duly registered on the said certificate of title, Joseph Houston, of Waitara, settler, became the registered proprietor of a lease for twenty-one years from the twenty-seventh day of December, one thousand eight hundred and ninety-three, of the whole of the said block with the exception of five hundred acres, being Subdivision E, as hereinafter specified:

And whereas the Native Land Court, sitting at Otorohanga on the nineteenth day of April, one thousand eight hundred and ninety-five, made partition amongst the Native owners of the said block, under the provisions of “The Native Land Court Act, 1894,” and for the purposes of such partition subdivided the land into the subdivisions specified in the First Schedule hereto:

And whereas Her Majesty the Queen has acquired for an estate of freehold in fee-simple Subdivisions B, C, and D, as the same are specified in the First Schedule hereto, and has also acquired certain freehold interests in Subdivisions A and E, as the same are specified in the same Schedule, and is in negotiation for the acquisition of further interests therein, subject in each case to the said lease:

And whereas the said Joseph Houston has contracted with the Minister of Lands for the surrender of the said lease, in respect only of Subdivisions B, C, and D, in exchange for. a freehold title to a portion of Subdivision D, containing two thousand acres, more or less, as the same is specified in the Second Schedule hereto: