The instrument Parliament enacted
Schedule 1 of the Waitangi National Trust Board Act reproduces the Trust Deed. Its execution clause is explicit: the instrument was executed on 18 November 1932. The original 1932 Bill printed for Parliament contains the same date and signatures. The National Library catalogue independently records a manuscript Waitangi National Trust: Declaration of Trust, reference MSI-Papers-3815, dated 18 November 1932.
The Act was assented to on 9 December 1932. Section 2 incorporated the parties to the Schedule 1 deed as the Waitangi National Trust Board, while section 4 gave the provisions of that deed effect as fully as if expressly enacted. That makes the 18 November instrument the legally provable foundation document for the statutory Board.
For the current statutory trust, the documentary chain we can prove is: 18 November deed → 9 December Act → incorporated Board with perpetual succession.
Then there is the 6 May claim
A 1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand entry says that, pending establishment of the Board and completion of a deed of gift, “a deed of trust” was executed on 6 May 1932. Te Ara now carries that historical entry with an express warning that the 1966 material has not been corrected and will not be updated. The entry cites Vernon H. Reed's 1957 The Gift of Waitangi, but the 6 May instrument itself has not yet been located in the sources examined for this series.
That leaves at least three possibilities: there was a preliminary 6 May trust instrument later replaced or superseded; 6 May refers to another transaction that was later described imprecisely as the deed of trust; or the 1966 date is an error. None can presently be promoted from hypothesis to fact.
Bledisloe's 10 May letter makes the conflict sharper
On 10 May 1932 Bledisloe publicly announced the gift. His own language was prospective. He said it would satisfy the donors if a Board of Trustees “could include” Government, Māori, locality, South Island, Williams-family and Wakefield-family representation. Contemporary reporting then described the proposed personnel in the same general categories.
That matters because the final 18 November deed is far more specific. It names Kenneth Stuart Williams, Riri Maihi Kawiti, Tau Hēnare, Te Rata Mahuta, Vernon Reed, Heaton Rhodes, Dillon Bell and Coates and assigns differentiated representative capacities to them.
If a final deed containing those exact named offices had already been executed on 6 May, why was Bledisloe still publicly describing the Board in prospective categories on 10 May? That question does not settle the conflict, but it makes the missing 6 May document essential.
This changes the Te Rata chronology
Earlier in this series I treated Te Rata's naming as fixed before Eruera Tirikātene entered Parliament. That was based on the 6 May secondary-source date. It is now corrected. Tirikātene entered Parliament on 3 August 1932. The proved deed naming Te Rata was not executed until 18 November. The political contest over Māori representation could therefore have occurred while the final Board architecture was still being settled.
This does not prove Tirikātene was a direct candidate against Te Rata for the exact clause 7(iv) seat. It does mean the chronology no longer rules that possibility out.
What we need next
The next evidential target is not another interpretation. It is the alleged 6 May 1932 instrument. If found, it must be compared line by line against the 18 November deed:
parties → land description → trustees → representative capacities → beneficiary language → incorporation power → succession clauses → signatures → registration or stamping → later treatment by Parliament.
If it contains the same names and terms, we then need to explain why a second declaration was executed on 18 November. If it differs, those differences may show exactly when and how the representative architecture was negotiated. If no primary 6 May instrument exists, the 1966 account should be treated as an historical secondary-source error rather than allowed to control the chronology.
Primary and archival sources: New Zealand Legislation — Waitangi National Trust Board Act 1932, Schedule 1 and ss 2–4; Original Waitangi National Trust Board Bill — Schedule deed executed 18 November 1932; National Library — Declaration of Trust, 18 November 1932, MSI-Papers-3815; Bledisloe's 10 May 1932 gift letter.
Conflicting secondary source: 1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand — 6 May claim.