Page:History of Adelaide and vicinity.djvu/49

 The Architects ADELAIDE AND VICINITY 23 Mr. Angas advised that a collateral association should be formed to assist the Commissioners. He proposed that a company with capital sufficient to purchase the necessary quantity of land and for the working of the colonial Government should be established, and that it should take to South Australia agents, servants, and other emigrants, and supply them with provisions while they were engaged on reproductive works. The other Commissioners did not at once fall in with the suggestion, but finally they gave it their unanimous support. Mr. Angas, with Messrs. Henry Kingscote and Thomas Smith, subscribed capital enough to purchase the unsold land, which, he declared, was to be handed over to the projected company at cost price, with interest at 5 per cent. The concession he required was that the land was to be cleared to him and then to the company at I2S. per acre. This was granted, and as, under the few earlier sales, land was sold in 80-acre blocks, with one town acre added (first regulations), the Commissioners in a spirit of common fairness extended the reduction to these previous purchasers by increasing their lots of land to 134 acres and one town acre. The Commissioners offered to sell, until March i, 1836, land at the same price to any person who could show George Fife Angas introduce adequate capital to .^35,000 having been received Commissioners to invest ^20,C)CK) were empowered to borrow up to was procured and invested. by Mr. Angas was constituted on was set down at ^500,000, with Operations, however, could be amounted to ^200,000, and this through the energy and enthusi- overcome opposition and contempt people who were largely interested that he would be prepared to improve it. The amount of for land sold, it devolved on the in the names of trustees. As they ^200,000, the sum of ^20,000 The company projected January 22, 1836. The capital power to increase it to ^1,000,000. begun when the subscriptions sum was obtained principally asm of Mr. Angas, who had to from the public press and from in the colonies of New South Wales, Van Diemen Land, and Western Australia. The name of " The South Australian Company " was taken. The original Directors were George Fife Angas (chairman), Raikes Currie, Charles Hindley, M.P., James Hyde, Henry Kingscote, Alderman John Pirie, Christopher Rawson, John Rundle, M.P., Thomas Smith, James Rudell Todd, and Henry Waymouth. In the plan of operations the Company proposed, when South Australia was reached, to erect wharves, warehouses, and dwelling-houses upon their town land, and to let them to colonists, or to otherwise dispo.se of them ; to improve and cultivate their country land, and to lease or sell part of it if expedient ; to lay out farms, erect buildings upon them, and to let them to industrious tenants with the right of purchase before the expiration of the leases ; to grow wool for PLuropean markets ; to embark in whale, seal, and other fisheries in the waters adjacent to the Province, and to cure and salt fish for exportation ; to .salt and cure beef and pork for export or for the provisioning of ships ; and to establish a bank or banks which should advance loans on the security of land, and undertake such