Writers of colonial and New Zealand history, who mention the Canterbury settlement in the early fifties, all describe it as carried out along the lines of Edward Gibbon Wakefield’s famous system of colonisation. It is sometimes referred to as the perfect example of a Wakefield colony, but without the necessary detailed dissertation is to ascertain as accurately as possible the degree to which Wakefield's aims and plans were realized in Canterbury during the first few ; years of its history. The work divides itself more or less naturally into three parts. In the first place it was thought necessary to give a short resume of the Wakefield system, mainly for the purpose of reference. This is the more desirable, because the system was only gradually evolved by its founder, and not stated and written down definitely at one time in its perfected form. It is not till his "Art of Colonization" that manv of the details appear; and this work of Wakefield’s is complicated by references to the Colonial Office, and criticism of previous methods of colonisation, from which the plan, us such, must be more or less "dug out".