Talk:William Spain

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New Zealand Mid‑importance

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The information in this article is misleading and in some case incorrect. Spain was an English lawyer and a lifelong Whig. He was a friend of the leading Whig and twice PM Lord John Russell. Spain was also private secretary to another Whig Lord Palmerston (later to become the PM). Spain was the nephew of Lord Palmerston. The Whigs were closely involved in a number of migrant schemes in an effort to solve the real problem of Britain's burgeoning population. Spain was sent to NZ to investigate land owning and enforce the preemptive buying position of the crown. Likewise many of those involved in the NZ company were Whig MPs and associates. There is no information about the 3000 NZ company migrants who outnumbered the local Wellington Maori.The article gives the impression that the NZ company did poorly out of Spain's arbitration while in fact they did far better than the older European residents and the missionaries who had purchased land directly from Maori, sometimes decades earlier. In New Plymouth he awarded the NZ company 24,000 hectares. Local tribe Atiawa had 2,439 hectares. It was common in Britain in those days to use political influence to further ones fortunes and this seems a very good example. Claudia — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.188.178.77 (talk) 10 January 2016

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