A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
WITH Australia's celebration of the first half-century of her existence as a federation, and New Zealand's of the centenary of the Canterbury settlement, it it perhaps relevant to recall the part played by the Spectator, under its first editor, Robert Stephen Rintoul, in the founda- tion of the colonies of both South Australia and New Zealand. The leader in both those enterprises was that remark- able man, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, whose personality and achievements are too little remembered, and his principal, and unswerving, supporter in the Press was Rintoul. Of all Wakefield's activities, the Colonisation Society, the New Zealand Association and others, the Spectator, then in its first decade of existence, was an ardent advocate. Wakefield, wrote his biographer, "could. look upon the Spectator as his organ in all matters relating to the colonies," and Wakefield's letters show clearly what reliance he placed on Rintoul's judgement. Canada comes full into the picture, too, for it was the Spectator, I believe, which first suggested the mission which Lord Durham discharged with such notable success— accompanied and greatly assisted by Wakefield. This chapter of not unimportant history is worth recalling at greater length.
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