this object, the Association provided a set of rooms in the “Adelphi,” known as the Colonists’ Rooms, as a common meeting-place for the future pilgrims. A recollection of these rooms no doubt lingered long in the memory of many as the scene of first acquaintanceships, to ripen afterwards into life-long friendship. In these rooms, on April 25, 1849 (Canterbury Papers, p. 142), the Society of Canterbury Colonists was formed, and rules adopted, Mr. W. Guise Brittan being Chairman of the meeting. The Association had its own organ, the “Canterbury Papers,” which preserved a record of the proceedings of the Society. We can there read how on July 4, 1850, a Constitution, drafted by Mr. J. E. FitzGerald, afterwards first Superintendent of Canterbury, was unanimously adopted. This constitution was somewhat exclusive; only land purchasers could be enrolled as members, and only those land purchasers who were to sail in the first four ships or had previously sailed. A Council was to be elected to conduct the affairs of the Society until the departure for New Zealand, and then to adjourn to meet again in Canterbury as soon as two-thirds of its members had arrived there. The last clause of the constitution ran as follows—“The new Council shall be entrusted with the conduct of all negotiations on the part of the colonists with the Association and with the Government.” Mr. FitzGerald’s object in framing a constitution was evidently to provide the Canterbury settlers with the nearest approach possible to representative government. This was particularly desirable on account of a minute of the Committee of the Canterbury Association (see Canterbury Papers, p. 108) dated May 24, 1850. In this minute, while the Association confidently anticipated the fulfilment of the promise of the Government to constitute a separate province and grant local government, it recognised that an interval must elapse before this could take place, and during that interval the Committee proposed that all communications
