At the same time that Colonel Gawler was appointed governor he was also made resident commissioner—vice Mr. Fisher, dismissed—and thus united in his own person all the administrative powers of the colony.
In order to obtain money to commence operations, before the colony had been surveyed or even settled, the commissioners issued "preliminary orders," as a bonus to the first purchasers and colonists, at £72 12s. each, which entitled the purchaser to select, in a rotation settled by lottery, 120 acres of country land, and one acre in the intended capital of the intended colony. This capital city, before discovery or survey, was settled by the commissioners to consist of 1,200 acres, or nearly nine square miles—a space sufficient to accommodate the population of Westminster. As soon as the capital, Adelaide, had been selected and mapped, the holders of preliminary orders, forming the first body of colonists, selected their sections, and the whole surplus was put up for auction to the colonists, "as a reward for their enterprise," and sold at an average rate of £2 per acre. Thus, more than ten times the space that has ever been required was turned into and perpetually dedicated to building land. From that moment the great object of the first colonists became to puff, magnify, and sell to future colonists their building land in Adelaide. No crop was so profitable as land left in a state of nature, but called and sold for a street.
The first operation having been performed, by which the future site of what was intended to be a great city had been transferred into the hands of a few persons, chiefly consisting of the friends of the commissioners and the officials of the South Australian Company, the next was to sell as much land as possible in England, by giving English purchasers a decided advantage over those who, nevertheless intending to emigrate, declined to buy a pig in a poke.
Accordingly land orders were issued at 80 each, which entitled the holder to select eighty acres of country land in the order dictated by the date of payment. Thus, when any particularly desirable plot of land was brought into the market, a speculation arose to discover and purchase the oldest "order" in the colony. A class of Adelaide brokers
England than for the welfare of the emigrants. The same error was committed at Wellington, in New Zealand, where, with a shipload of colonists going they knew not where, Colonel Wakefield was obliged to settle at Wellington a fine harbour shut out by inaccessible mountains from the adjoining country. Even expensive military roads have not yet opened out land enough to feed the town population; and two secondary settlements at Wanganui, distant 100 miles, and New Plymouth were formed in order to obtain the quantity of land sold in England. On a second occasion Nelson was chosen without proper survey, where, in order to find land enough, two thousand colonists are obliged to spread over 150 miles of coast. Even in founding Canterbury, Mr. Wakefield had influence enough to persuade the directors to send out, at an enormous useless extra expense, a fleet of four large ships half filled, to the great inconvenience of the first colonists, in order to make a sensation in the English newspapers. The expedient failed.
