wound up, and its species of overlordship finally extinguished.  By an English Act of Parliament its debt to the Imperial Government was forgiven.  The Colony was ordered to pay it L263,000 in satisfaction of its land lien.  This was commuted in the end for L200,000 cash, very grudgingly paid out of the first loan raised by a New Zealand parliament.  Thereafter, the Company, with its high aims, its blunders, its grievances, and its achievements, vanishes from the story of New Zealand.

In the Church settlements of the South the Wakefield system came into full operation under favourable conditions.  Three pounds an acre were at the outset charged for land.  One pound went to the churches and their schools.  This system of endowment Grey set himself to stop, when the Company’s fall gave him the opportunity, and he did so at the cost of embittering his relations with the Southerners, which already were none too pleasant.  For the rest, Canterbury continued within its original special area to sell land at L2 an acre.  When Canterbury was made a province this area was enlarged by the inclusion of a tract in which land had been sold cheaply, and in which certain large estates had consequently been formed.  Otherwise land has never been cheap in Canterbury.  The Wakefield system has been adhered to there, has been tried under favourable conditions, and on the whole, at any rate up to the year 1871, could not be called a failure.  As long as the value of land to speculators was little or nothing above the “sufficient price,” things did not go so badly.  The process of free selection at a uniform price of L2 an acre had amongst other merits the great advantage of entire simplicity.  A great deal of good settlement went on under it, and ample funds were provided for the construction of roads, bridges, and other public works.

Meantime, Grey was called upon to devise some general system of land laws for the rest of the Colony.  The result was the famous land regulations of 1853, a code destined to have lasting and mischievous effects upon the future of the country.  Its main feature was the reduction of the price of land to ten shillings an acre.  Had this been accompanied by stringent limitations as to the amount to be purchased by any one man, the result might have been good enough.  But it was not; nor did those who ruled after Grey think fit to impose any such check until immense areas of the country had been bought by pastoral tenants and thus permanently locked up against close settlement.  Grey’s friends vehemently maintain that it was not he, but those who afterwards administered his regulations, who were responsible for this evil.  They point out that it was not until after his departure that the great purchases began.  Possibly enough Sir George never dreamt that his regulations would bring about the bad results they did.  More than that one can hardly say.  In drawing them up his strong antipathy to the New Zealand Company and its system of a high price for land doubtless obscured his judgment.  His own defence on the point, as printed in his life by Rees, is virtually no defence at all.  It is likely enough that had he retained the control of affairs after 1853 he would have imposed safeguards.  He is not the only statesman whose laws have effects not calculated by their maker.