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Nelson Trust Funds were intended to be certain permanent moneys, administered for ever by Trustees elected at recurring intervals of three years, under the provisions of the Nelson Trust Funds Act.

The Act of Parliament under which the Local Legislature acted contemplated the possibility of the funds being expended before the 1st January, 1855, or, if not by that time, their total expenditure at no very remote period. And it is not difficult to imagine a state of things which would have justified the Trustees in appropriating the whole of the money, and thus effectually putting an end to the Trust. There are but three objects for which provision has to be made out of the Trust Funds: these are—religious purposes, steam navigation, and a college.

Now, with regard to religious purposes, the course which the Trustees have taken, and it is believed with the general approbation of the community, has been this:—They, in the first place, divided the funds among the different religious bodies in proportion to the numbers of each, and then, having ascertained the sums thus respectively due, they handed them over at once; and thus, with the exception of claims of further religious bodies which might yet be acknowledged, they closed that particular branch of the Trust. They did not hold these moneys in their hands, acting as stewards or trustees for the different sects; but, finding that there was in existence a set of Trustees within these bodies themselves, they handed over to them the money absolutely, taking their receipt for it as a discharge in full: thus expending all that was due upon that particular object.

Then, as regards steam, it is true that the operations of the Trustees have been hitherto limited to making advances by way of loan; but at the same time there can be no doubt that, had a public company, possessed of capital and credit, offered to some public service in the way of steam navigation, by which the Province of Nelson would have been greatly and permanently benefited upon receiving a certain amount of bonus, it would have been entirely legitimate for the Trustees, upon being satisfied that the service would be rendered, to have handed over to that company the whole amount due upon that particular object, and thus to have entirely expended the fund.

Or again, as regards the College: supposing the Trustees had found, when they obtained possession of the money, an educational establishment in existence, or more than one, fulfilling the original intentions of the scheme, and offering to the youth of Nelson an education of a superior character; it would undoubtedly have been competent for the Trustees to have assisted these institutions, either by loans, or even by grants, to the whole amount of the fund, only taking sufficient precautions for the due and beneficial application of the money so given. But if it were competent for the Board of Trustees to apply the funds in such a manner as that above supposed, it is surely competent for them, themselves, to create the body to which they hand over the funds, and under such regulations, and with such restrictions, as appear to them effectually calculated to secure their application for ever to the purpose for which they were originally destined. The Board of Trustees, in fact, consider themselves not so much the body charged with the function of watching over and controlling the daily and constant expenditure of the funds, as the body through whose intervention the funds are to pass into other hands, to be by them applied to their ultimate purposes. Upon this view of their duty they acted with regard to the Steam and Religious Fund, and this same view they have recently reduced to practice with regard to the College Fund. In thus proceeding, they believe that they are acting in accordance with the 9th clause of the Nelson Trust Funds Act, under which it is provided, that the Trustees "shall and may dispose of the said Trust Funds, for the benefit of the said Province of Nelson, to the purposes mentioned and set forth in this hereinbefore recited Act, and in such proportions as to any of the said purposes as to them shall seem meet; and shall and may in all things conduct and manage the affairs and business of the said Trust, and enter into, make, do, and execute all such contracts, engagements, acts, deeds, matters, and things, as may be necessary or expedient for the disposal and appropriation of the said Trust Fund, and for the conduct and management of the affairs and business of the said Trust."

With a view to securing for the inhabitants of the Province of Nelson the inestimable advantages of an institution in which the higher branches of education shall be imparted to its youth, and with a view at the same time to securing its establishment in that part of the province in which the funds for its support arose, the steps which the Trustees have taken are as follows:—They have, by Deed of Foundation, nominated the following nine gentlemen Governors of "Nelson College":—John Danforth Greenwood, Charles Elliott, David Monro, John Waring Saxton, John Wallis Barnicoat, Charles Bigg Wither, William Wells, Alfred Domett, and Henry Cooper Daniell; and at the same time have appointed the Governor of the colony to be the visitor, with the functions and powers usually belong-