The executive authority of the Association was, he said, to be placed in the hands of a Commission resident in England, which Commission was to be merely a provisional body to last so long as might be thought necessary to set the scheme on foot. It was proposed to delegate to these Commissioners the power to make laws, the Crown to determine the extent of the delegation, and many other important matters. A further power of delegation was to be given to a Council in New Zealand, but the responsibility for all that was done was to rest with the Commission at home. "Whatever the powers are, it is only required that they should be exercised for a period of twenty-one years, and the Association would not at all object if it should seem desirable to have the time shortened. At the end of that term the whole Government of the colony would revert to the Crown."
In its land dealings, the element of profit was to be eliminated by the fact that the whole of the money derived from the sale of land or other sources must be spent in the interests of the colony, and no member was to derive any advantage therefrom: "The money for which the land will be sold by the Commissioners will be a price made up of several sums. It will in the first place contain the sum paid for the land itself, which I conceive will be a very small proportion. It will contain then a sum which will be calculated as sufficient for bringing out labourers to cultivate the land purchased; that will be the largest amount. It is also proposed that there should be a further sum added for the purpose of making roads, bridges, and public works, and it is also proposed that one of the items should be a sum to be expended in making provision for the natives, such as procuring them medical assistance and some instruction in the arts. The price the settlers will pay for the land will be only the price paid for it to the natives, and the additions to that sum will be in fact the purchase money paid for certain benefits which are considered essential to the prosperity of the colony, more especially for a due supply of labour."
The House of Lords' Committee reported against this scheme on the broadly Imperial grounds that the extension of the colonial possessions of the Crown was a question of public policy with which the Government only should deal. The element of private enterprise was, in their Lordships' opinion, eminently undesirable, holding with Captain Fitzroy, whose personal experience they valued, that "colonisation to be useful must be entirely under the control of the Executive Government of the Mother Country."