Zealand,” published by J. W. Parker, West Strand, London. On the first page appeared the names of the members of the Association, His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury as President, and fifty-two others, consisting of Bishops, Peers, Members of Parliament, Clergy, etc., of whom twenty were members of the General Committee, under the Chairmanship of the Right Hon. Lord Lyttelton. They were an eminently respectable and influential body, all staunch supporters of the Church of England, but not, perhaps, precisely fitted for the work of organising and carrying out a large colonising scheme in the South Pacific. The pamphlet itself was a quaintly optimistic document, beginning with a selection of quotations from various writers, praising the fertility and climate of New Zealand, from which was deduced the rosy anticipation that “land thus treated” (cleared, cultivated and laid down in pasture) “instead of one sheep to four or five acres, which is the common power of unimproved natural pasture in Australia, will maintain about four sheep per acre throughout the year.” Again, in the financial prospects, the hopeful tone was imparted; it was estimated that there would be available from the land sales during the first year or two the sum of £200,000 for the religious and educational endowment fund. The “Plan” even went so far as to dispose of this sum (prospectively) by spending £41,000 in churches and other buildings, and investing the balance, £159,000, as an endowment fund, from which to pay stipends.
The investments even were specified—the sum of £80,000 was to be invested in British Funds at 3½ per cent., and £79,000 in “Colonial Securities,” at 6 per cent., yielding a revenue of £7,540. It cannot, in fact, be denied that the “Plan” was open to a great deal of criticism, much of which it subsequently received. In justice, however, to the founders, certain facts have to he remembered. The scheme of the
