Count Hatzfeldt to the Earl of Rosebery.
My Lord: In continuation of my note of the 14th ultimo respecting the land commission in Samoa, to which your excellency returned a provisional reply on the 27th ultimo, I have the honor, under the instructions I have received, to state as follows:
It appears from the reports received from the Imperial consul at Apia that the chief justice intends to make the registration of each title to land dependent on a preliminary survey of the land, to he made at the expense of the interested parties.
The Imperial Government is of opinion that no survey is necessary, and that it can not be required under the provisions of the Samoa act, the 4th acticle (section 7) of which speaks merely of a registration of the land titles. Apart from this consideration it is, however, clear that such a procedure, as far as the local circumstances make its execution at all possible, would delay the settlement of the land question in Apia in a most undesirable manner and would throw disproportionate costs on those interested in the land. The Swedish official appointed by the chief justice would alone derive any real profit from the survey in question. The Imperial Government intends, therefore, not to sanction it, and to send instructions in this sense to the Imperial consul at Apia. The Imperial Government hope that Her Britannic Majesty’s Government will furnish similar instructions to their representative in Apia.
I have, etc.,