of land ; of consequent uncertainty and hazard in the operations of those who undertake its occupation and culture ; of the most profuse and lavish expenditure of the land funds ; and of the contraction and imposition upon the resources of the colony of heavy liabilities in compensation of those to whom the results of the experiments indulged in have proved unsatisfactory ; liabilities incurred without the consent in some cases, or even knowledge of the Colonial Government or the colonial public, who are so greatly interested in the revenues thus appropriated by anticipation or expended with no adequate return. In addition to these evils the exclusive systems of colonization involve the new evil of the virtual imposition of disabilities upon numbers of your Majesty's subjects by depriving them of advantages and opportunities for the exertion of their enterprise and the improvement of their outward circumstances, except at the sacrifice perhaps of cherished religious principles, or the violation of conscientious scruples.

Any detailed proof of the correctness of the opinions just stated would be out of place on the present occasion. But we may be permitted presently to allude to a few undeniable facts in illustration of the results of some of the experiments that have so far been made. To ascertain precisely what amount of these unfavorable consequences is attributable to the nature of the experiments themselves, and how much to incidental circumstances over which the promoters of the experiments had no control would be an invidious task, even were it a practicable one. But it is greatly to be feared that circumstances similar to those which have been considered as most adverse to the success of the schemes hitherto attempted, will most probably always attend the cession by the Crown of such extensive powers as have been given to the associations hitherto formed. To judge by past experience, it seems to be an evil inherent in the plan of entrusting the administration of Crown lands to companies in England, that they find themselves under the necessity, at least in commencing their operations, of disposing of such lands by sale in that country. Whether called trading companies or not they require immediate funds, which must be raised in that way. To force the sale of land in large quantities, it is necessary to make abundant promises of collateral advantages, whether of a moral or material kind, which may attract the requisite number of purchasers. These advantages (as has been the case with respect to all experiments hitherto tried) not having been obtained, or obtained to the promised extent, claims for compensation arise which have to be satisfied by gratuitous grants of land ; and the result is a greater waste of public land than took place even under the old system, and all the manifold evils that accompany such profusion.

But the establishment of associations also introduces into the colony organized bodies invested with many of the powers which are ordinarily entrusted to the Imperial or the Local Government. The natural consequence is a want of harmony and co-operation, the consequences of which are most injurious to the colony and the public. Past experience seems to lead irresistibly to the expectation that similar difficulties, to some extent or other, will always arise from the co-existence of governing bodies mutually independent and with often conflicting interests. And without attempting to decide with respect to past instances, to which party the blame of failures which have injured both is justly to be attached, we cannot refrain from expressing our apprehension lest the blame of future failures, should such take place, may still be laid to the inharmonious working of the independent societies concerned, with Government ; and that compensation to all parties injured will be again demanded from Government to an extent almost ruinous to the land revenue, and most detrimental to the public interest. Because it will require so small an amount of ingenuity to paint any failure as the result of the nonfulfilment of some supposed duty of Government, or its neglect to adopt some auxiliary measure or measures, real or imaginary, and possibly only discovered and suggested after the event.

But be all this as it may, the illustration of the effects of the system of ceding the Crown's power to associations, afforded by the Company which has lately ceased to act, may be shewn to be strongly against the expediency of its repetition, by one striking fact. The difference between what has been effected by it at the expense of Government, and what Government might have done at the same expense by its previously existing machinery, is as follows. Government has parted permanently with 270,073 acres to the Company of land sold by them, and with about 200,000 acres of land which has been given, or which must be given, under existing engagements to such of their purchasers to whom the result of the experiments have not been satisfactory. It has further in actual money given to the Company a boon of £236,000, and imposed on the colonial land fund a debt of another sum of £268,000, to be hereafter paid to the Company. Had the land so disposed of been sold by Government at the upset price only of £1 per acre, and half of the proceeds devoted under the provisions of the Waste Lands Act to emigration, and the sums expended on the Company been advanced to the colony, and applied to the same object, there might have