Page:The Coming Colony Mennell 1892.djvu/57

 after, and arrangements made for clergymen of various denominations to periodically visit the farm, and hold religious services. Farms can be selected suited to a capital of £200 and upwards, and the Directors propose that parents or friends shall, if they so think fit, deposit with the Company the amount of capital they can give the youths, the Company undertaking to select and place them on farms suited to their means, and after paying the purchase money, or the first instalments thereof, hand over the balance as required for the further development of the property. Parents and friends would thus be certain of their money being judiciously expended for the object intended, which might not always be the case if the lads were entrusted with the capital. As it is not wished to make the training farm more than self-supporting, it is intended to fix the annual charge for board, residence, and tuition of students, at a very low figure.

The pecuniary necessities of the Company in the embryo stages of its operations induced it to alienate several large blocks of its territory to single large holders, with the view of obtaining an immediate return in ready cash. Lord Brassey, at Ettacup, a settlement three miles away to the west of the line, has thus become possessed of 26,000 acres at, I understand, 13s. 3d. per acre, Mr. Hassell (who manages for Lord Brassey), and Mr. Powell, of London, dividing another area of nearly 35,000 acres to the east of the line at Martinup. Lord Brassey is fencing his property, and erecting dams for water storage, and it is understood that he is willing to set an example in the way of subdividing his large holding into suitable farming lots, and assisting the right class of tenants to take them up on a basis of time payments, both for the land and the needful primary improvements. Lord Brassey has always shown him­ self a public-spirited as well as a practical man, and great hopes are entertained that he may see his way to illustrate both characteristics by initiating a colonisation scheme which will benefit the colony, a deserving class of immigrants, and his own pocket into the bargain. The thing could be managed on much the same lines as have been so successfully followed in the case of his lordship's Canadian properties, and from what Lord