This Act may be cited as the Native Land Amendment Act, 1914, and shall form part of and be read together with the Native Land Act, 1909 (hereinafter referred to as the principal Act).

Section four of the Native Land Amendment Act, 1913 (hereinafter referred to as the amending Act of 1913), is hereby amended by omitting the words “appointed to a district.”

Subsection four of section six of the amending Act of 1913 is hereby amended by omitting the words “appointed to any other district,” and by omitting the words “first mentioned.”

The said amendments shall be deemed to have operated as from the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and fourteen.

Every Judge of the Native Land Court shall have and be deemed to have had jurisdiction to hear and determine any matter or cause within the jurisdiction of the Court notwithstanding that such matter or cause has arisen, or shall arise, or has been or shall be heard and determined, within a district to which the Judge hearing and determining the same may not have been appointed.

The President of a District Maori Land Board may, if he thinks fit, associate with himself an Assessor to advise and assist the Board, but the concurrence of any such Assessor shall not be necessary for any decision of the Board.

Any Assessor may be appointed by the President to represent the Board at any meeting of assembled owners under subsection six of section three hundred and forty-two of the principal Act.

Every Assessor, whether associated with a Judge of the Native Land Court or with a District Maori Land Board, shall for the period of his service receive the remuneration of one pound per diem and his actual travelling-expenses.

Section eight of the amending Act of 1913 is hereby amended by omitting the word “within” after the words “Native Land Court Office,” and substituting therefor the word “for”; and by inserting, after the words “such place or places,” the words “either within or without the district.”

Section eleven of the amending Act of 1913 is hereby amended by omitting the word “Registrar” where it first occurs, and substituting therefor the words “Recorder of Native Titles.”

Subsection two of section two hundred and seventeen of the principal Act is hereby amended by omitting the words “In the case of land in the North Island”; and subsection three of section two hundred and seventeen is hereby amended by omitting the words “In the case of land situated in the South Island or.”

Subsection three of section ninety-six of the amending Act of 1913 is hereby amended by omitting the words “ninety-eight,” and substituting the words “one hundred and one” therefor; and such amendment shall be deemed to have operated as from the passing of the amending Act of 1913.

The rights conferred by section one hundred and ten of the amending Act of 1913 upon tenants of land acquired by the Crown of acquiring the reversion of such land shall not be exercisable in respect of any land by the tenant thereof under any lease which the Minister of Lands has determined or may determine under the provisions of section three hundred and seventy-five of the principal Act, and shall not be exercisable in any case unless and until the Commissioner of Crown Lands shall have notified such tenant in writing that such right has become exercisable.

Subsection seven of section one hundred and thirteen of the amending Act of 1913 is hereby amended by inserting, after the words “such debentures to bear interest at,” the words “a rate not exceeding”; and such amendment shall be deemed to have operated as from the passing of the amending Act of 1913.

In the case of a contract for sale made by a District Maori Land Board being determined by reason of default on the part of the purchaser, then, in case the purchaser shall have executed improvements on the said land or shall have paid for any improvements executed by a former occupant, the following provisions shall apply:—

Subsection two of section eighty-three of the amending Act of 1913 is hereby amended by substituting for the words “Land Registration Act, 1908,” the words “Deeds Registration Act, 1908,” in the said subsection.

In respect of any lands set apart in the South Island of New Zealand to make provision for landless Natives, or permanently reserved by Proclamation for the purpose of providing land for landless Natives, whether under the South Island Landless Natives Act, 1906, or since the repeal of that Act, the following provisions shall apply:—

Section eleven of the Native Land Amendment Act, 1912, is hereby amended by adding thereto the following subsection:—

Section three hundred and seventy-four of the principal Act is hereby repealed, and the following new provision is substituted therefor:—

No road-line laid off or hereafter to be laid off under sections forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty, fifty-one, or fifty-two of the amending Act of 1913 shall be proclaimed to be a public road until after the expiration of one month from the date on which notice in writing of the intention to so proclaim such road-line shall have been given by the Surveyor-General to the local authority having jurisdiction in the district within which such road is situated.

Where any land is vested in a District Maori Land Board with power of sale or lease and any part of such land is occupied as a permanent residence by any Native owner of such land the Board may, if satisfied that such Native owner would on a partition of the block be entitled to the land so occupied by him, transfer to such owner in fee-simple the land so occupied, together with such adjoining land in his exclusive occupation as shall appear just, but the land so transferred shall not exceed in value the value of the interest to which such owner would be entitled on partition, and his interest in the remainder of the block shall by such transfer be reduced by the unimproved value of the land so transferred or be deemed to be extinguished, as the case may be.

Any land transferred under this section shall be inalienable, except with the consent of the District Maori Land Board.