The treaty returned to the public eye after the Treaty House and grounds were purchased by the Governor-General, Viscount Bledisloe, in the early 1930s and donated to the nation. The dedication of the site as a national reserve in 1934 was probably the first major event held there since the 1840s. The profile of the treaty was further raised by the New Zealand centenary of 1940. For most of the twentieth century, textbooks, government publicity and many historians touted the treaty as the moral foundation of colonisation and argued that it set race relations in New Zealand above those of colonies in North America, Africa and Australia. There was some popular acceptance of the idea that the treaty transferred sovereignty since the early twentieth century. Popular histories of New Zealand and the treaty often claimed that the treaty was an example of British benevolence and therefore an honourable contract. Even though Māori continued to challenge this narrative, the treaty's lack of legal significance in 1840 and subsequent breaches tended to be overlooked until the 1970s when these issues were raised by the Māori protest movement.