Page:Canterbury Papers.djvu/48

 The Governor of New Zealand shall receive my instructions to afford the Association all the assistance in his power towards securing the land which may be required, and shall he placed for that purpose in communication with the gentleman whom the Association have selected for their Agent, as soon as the latter may arrive in the Colony. He shall be directed to use his best endeavours to obtain available land to the amount specified in your Lordship's letter, and to extinguish the native title to it, if any be found to exist in such locality as the Agent shall point out to him.

If, however, the land so chosen should be within the Southern Province, and consequently within the Act 10 and 11 Victoria, by which the demesne lands of that province are ceded for a time to the New Zealand Company, with whom the Association are in treaty, it appears to me advisable that the Governor should receive, in addition, express sanction from the Company to his thus exercising the right of pre-emption in their behalf. Upon this subject I will immediately cause a communication to be made to the Company; and the best endeavours shall be used to have all preliminary arrangements completed in time to allow the Agent of the Association to leave this country invested with the necessary powers. I am, &c.. The Lord Lyttelton.

. 3.

41. Charring-cross, May 23, 1848.

My Lord,—I have to thank your Lordship, on behalf of the Association for founding the Settlement of Canterbury, for the very favourable reply which you were so good as to give to my former letter, and to inform your Lordship that it is the intention of the Association, in consequence of that reply, to send their Agent to New Zealand by the ship advertised to sail on the 1st July, for the purposes which I have already explained. There are, however, two other points to which your Lordship's attention has already been directed by verbal communications, and upon which the Association consider it of essential importance to obtain an answer, as favourable as the encouragement which you have given them has led them to hope for.

The first point relates to the grant of a Charter of Incorporation. The Association find themselves seriously impeded in all their proceedings by the impossibility of acting as an independent body, and by the consequent necessity of availing themselves of the assistance offered by the New Zealand Company, and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, in a manner calculated to involve the evils of divided responsibility and conflicting direction.

The embarrassment which is thus produced, and the unsatisfactory position in which the Association is placed by it as regards the public, are fully recognised by the New Zealand Company, and they have offered accordingly to advance to the Association a sum of money sufficient to defray the expenses of obtaining a Charter, and to carry on their operations during the period which must intervene before they can offer land for sale.

Under these circumstances, the Association trust that your Lordship will see no objection to the grant of a Charter of Incorporation to them; and I have to request, on their part, that your Lordship will have the goodness to direct whatever measures may be necessary for enabling them to obtain it.

The second point on which the Association wish me to make application to your Lordship is even more important, and relates to the question of Government for the Colonists.

In an interview which Mr. Godley and I had with your Lordship on the 17th inst. at the Colonial-office, and which we had requested for the purpose of ascertaining whether an application from us for the grant of a Charter, generally similar to those given to the companies who founded the early American Colonies, would be entertained, your Lordship stated that you did not think such a grant would, under existing circumstances, be possible or advisable, but that you would be prepared (if the Canterbury Settlement were founded in a part of New Zealand where no difficulty could be interposed by the vicinity of other settlements, or the