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I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 14th August, in which you request me to offer suggestions upon several points connected with the transfer of the Association's powers and functions to this country.

I regret exceedingly to hear that in the opinion of the Committee the proposal of transferring all those powers and functions immediately, in the form suggested by me in March last, would be equivalent to an abandonment of all the objects for which the Association was founded. I think the form suggested by me may very possibly be a bad one, or not the best; but if the Committee mean to imply generally that the administration of the land fund by an independent local body would be equivalent to an abandonment of their objects, I confess I think they should have stated their reasons for so thinking. For my own part, I cannot see how that can be the case, except upon the assumption either that local administrators are incompetent, or that they would be unwilling to carry out those objects; and as I think the Committee cannot have intended to imply the former alternative, I am compelled to suppose that their opinion, as above stated, is founded on a belief in the latter; m other words, I suppose the Committee believe that a local constituency would be unwilling to carry out the objects of the Association. I do not myself think there is any ground whatever for this belief; I think a local association, properly constituted, would carry out those objects more satisfactorily and efficiently that a distant one; but if such were not the case, I have no hesitation in saying that it would only prove the abandonment of them to be right and necessary. For the inference would seem to be that the inhabitants of the Settlement, being the parties most interested and most qualified to judge, disapproved of the scheme, and wished it to be given up. I cannot regard an enterprise of this kind, with reference to its abstract or theoretical merits, if it is not good for the people of the country which it affects, nay more, if they do not think it good for them after experi-page 221ence of its working, I hold that the theory of it is thereby proved to be unsound. I say this in the full recollection of the vagueness of the term "people of the country," which does not affect my argument, inasmuch as the Association have the power to select any constituency they please, and if it were only local and independent it would satisfy my requirements. If then no constituency could be framed willing to carry out the "objects of the Association," the inference would be that the "people of the country" were opposed to them, and, as I think, that they ought to be abandoned. Indeed, if such were the actual state of feeling here, the prosecution of the scheme of the Association would do more harm than good to the very cause which it was intended to promote.

I do not see how the clause in the Act lately passed meets the necessities of the case at all; the committee, of which it provides for the appointment, would be nominated by, and dependent upon, and responsible to, the central governing body; it would be, in fact, merely what the agent is now, i.e., a servant of the Association. I should have thought that a simple power of attorney would have effected all that the clause purports to effect, namely placed the agency in commission, supposing that a change so trivial were all that we wanted. Nay, the clause seems rather to restrict than to extend existing facilities for the delegation of powers, inasmuch as you inform me that the delegates appointed under it must first be made members of the Association by name. This seems inconsistent with the principle of local election, for no local constituency would consent to elect a committee of which the names should go home for approval, and be sent out, if approved, a year afterwards. Before that time half of them, or all of them, might have died, or left the colony, or might not choose to act, or might have become unacceptable to the constituency. In a country like this, where the circumstances are changing, and of which the population is growing with incalculable rapidity, unless there were an annual election of the managing committee, it would be impos-page 222sible to secure unity of feeling between it and the body of the people.

With reference to your dispatch of the same date, in which you comment upon the formation of an Ecclesiastical Corporation for Canterbury, I am rather inclined to think that the best way of provisionally dealing with the ecclesiastical portion of the land fund would be to hand it over to the Bishop in trust to administer it with the consent of the clergy and laity of the Church. I speak with hesitation on this point, but I think the Bishop, in whom, as being a corporation, the fund would vest, might be bound by a declaration of trust to any mode of administration which might seem fit; and, further, might be bound to give it up to any ecclesiastical corporation which might be formed hereafter on a broader basis. I cannot think there is any difficulty in constituting a trusteeship either in that or in some other analagous form, such as exists in the case of other religious bodies on whom endowments are bestowed. I am by no means without hopes that the Provincial Legislature of this Settlement may be induced to constitute ecclesiastical corporations within its jurisdiction, but this of course must be doubtful for the present.

Another suggestion which I have already made to the Committee would point to the preservation of the Canterbury Association locally constituted as a Church body for the administration of the ecclesiastical portion of the land fund alone, and providing by a bye-law for the handing over the remainder to the Government.

This plan involves the difficulty of investing very large powers in a body, which, if it were so constituted as to make it a perfectly fit administrator of the Church fund, would be too exclusive to be permitted to exercise the secular functions of the Association. On the other hand, it has the advantage of providing a definite legal organisation for the churchmen of the Settlement, an organisation which might be used provisionally with great benefit. To either of these plans, however it would be essential that the Association, however constituted page 223and whatever functions it might have to perform, should be local and independent, and that the ecclesiastical body should be equally so. That clause therefore in the ecclesiastical scheme already propounded by the Association, in which the following words occur:—"They reserve to themselves the "fullest powers to enable them to discharge this obligation, and "for this purpose to exercise an absolute control over the fund "itself, and over all persons concerned in its management and "distribution. Considering also that at present it would be "impossible to foresee or provide for all future contingencies "they reserve to themselves a full discretion to modify their "scheme as they may from time to time think best"—appears to me extremely objectionable, nor can I conceive that the Bishop and Churchmen of the Settlement would consent to accept any office which involved submission to it. I observe with great pleasure that Mr. Gladstone has given notice of his intention to bring in a Bill next Session for improving the position of the Church of England in the colonies by removing the restrictions which impede her freedom of action. I trust that if any such measure pass, it will obviate many of the difficulties which are alluded to in your letter as surrounding the management of Church property within this Settlement.

In conclusion, I must repeat that I am at a loss to see any difficulty in localising the Association. The Charter provides full power of making bye-laws regulations, &c, &c, for the admission of members, limited only by their being members of the Church of England; why then should not a bye-law be passed at a General Meeting, providing that on and after such a day every man possessing so much land in the Settlement, and signing a declaration that he is a member of the Church of England, shall be a member of the Association, and appointing Christchurch in New Zealand as the place for the next General Meeting after that day? For my own part, I am comparatively indifferent as to the precise mode of transfer and as to the franchise. I think the present Association has better means than we have of ascertaining the former, and page 224cannot go far wrong in fixing the latter. All that I or the colonists care about is, that the exclusive and entire management of their land fund should be in the hands of a local body, responsible only to the people of this Settlement. Far from thinking that that function of the Association which is concerned with the sale of land must continue to be exercised in England, as the Committee assume in this dispatch, I am of opinion, as I have repeatedly stated to the Committee, that it ought more perhaps than any other to be exercised here. The only objection to this would be that the emigration fund could not be made available for a considerable period after the sale; but to a certain extent this might perhaps be obviated by allowing intending purchasers to pay a certain sum towards their own passage, and towards the passage of labourers recom mended by them, with the understanding that that sum should be refunded to them on their completing their purchases in the colony, if it did not exceed one-third of their whole purchase money. A certain amount of emigration might perhaps also be safely carried on in advance of land sales, corresponding to the number of intending purchasers known to have come out. With respect to the immense advantages of a system of land sales on the spot, it is needless for me to enlarge; I am sure that if the Committee were aware of the evils to which the opposite system gives birth by encouraging merely speculative purchasers, they would come to the same conclusion as myself. I have written on this subject in a separate dispatch.

I am at a loss how to deal with the question of the pecuniary liabilities undertaken by individual members of the Association, inasmuch as I have no knowledge either official or private of their precise nature or extent. I have understood, however, from some of those personally interested in the matter, that there is little if any chance of those liabilities being practically enforced; and I have not the slightest doubt whatever that the colonists, so soon as the case shall have been put before them, will gladly and thankfully page 225take all such liabilities upon themselves, as a condition of having the management of the land fund placed in their own hands. But, independently of this, I do not think that the chance of those gentlemen being called upon to pay money on behalf of the Association is at all lessened by keeping the management of the fund at home; except in so far as the sales are thereby made larger, or the management better (which would be assuming the point at issue), there seems no reason for supposing that their security could be affected by the transfer which I propose.