THE NEW COLONY 323 



Parliament statistical, pictorial, descriptive, and doubtless in many 

 cases exaggerated the restless and the enterprising in the mother- 

 land had their attention directed to a country that seemed to offer 

 them many advantages towards material prosperity. A land of 

 sunshine, where verdant plains pastured millions of sheep the year 

 round, without shelter, and with the minimum of attention. A 

 land with wide areas of rich soil that would respond generously to 

 the most primitive husbandry. Above all, a land where the people 

 were in deadly earnest about keeping it unpolluted by imported 

 felonry, and where, even already, with the lightest of taxation, the 

 Government enjoyed a substantial surplus revenue after defraying 

 every shilling that had been spent on its foundation. 



This increased knowledge and these alluring reports stimulated 

 a class of emigration which, when the time came for the responsi- 

 bilities of self-government, provided the intellect and character for 

 giving it a fair trial. Mr. Westgarth refers, as a bright feature of 

 those times, to the large number of young men, sons of good families, 

 who flocked out in unusual proportions, and infused into the some- 

 what primitive scene the charm of high culture and refined manners. 



It may seem invidious to select a few names, but it will be readily 

 understood that they are only types, and scores of others who did 

 good work for their adopted country are, in the interest of brevity 

 only, passed over. Amongst professional men whose reputation has 

 stood the test of time we find William Stawell, Eedmond Barry, 

 Edward Eyre Williams and K. W. Pohlman helping through these 

 years to mould and influence the intellectual growth and the social 

 tastes of the community all of them eventually finding their reward 

 by becoming the judges of the land. The names of Charles Sladen, 

 John Fitzgerald Foster, Charles Hotson Ebden, Augustus F. A. 

 Greeves, James F. Palmer and William Westgarth are prominent 

 in all the public movements of the early days, and their reputations 

 carried each of them into positions of political influence when the 

 new colony was formed. On a lower plane, perhaps, from the 

 point of culture, but strong in practical common-sense and experience 

 of human nature, were many men out of whom legislators were 

 formed, some at least showing a capacity for statecraft that led 

 them to power. Of such, John O'Shanassy, William Nicholson, 



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