CATHOLIC COLONISATION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IX, Issue 431, 15 July 1881, Page 21

CATHOLIC COLONISATION.

" A dividend of six per cent, on capital stock, payable in sixty days ' was declared." We have not yet received an official report of the meeting of the Irish Catholic Colonisation Association in Chicago, but this information of a dividend reaches us through one of the Chicago dailies likely to be well informed on the subject. It gratifies us and all well-wishers of this great work, although it is very far from surprising us, for as we have always assured our readers, no business enterprise that is safe, promises much greater returns than are to be earned by the Colonisation Association. We say nothing of the good work which this investment will accomplish. The Secretary, W. J. Onahan, in reporting to the Directors the work of the year, called attention to the aims and purposes of the Association, which were to aid and encourage Irish emigrants to come to the United States and locate on the fertile lands of the West. Its purpose was avowed in its charter. There was more than money at stake in this Association, and greater results were looked for and expected for it. Somebody had said that to found colonies was greater glory and triumph than to cemmand armies or achieve victories. This association, whose success had been doubtful, had now reached a position where it commanded the attention of the whole country. The work of the Association commended itself to every class and creed ; the methods were plain and the organisation legal ; its design acknowledged to be laudable, its plans demonstrated to be practical and business-like, The well-wishers of the race, it was especially founded to serve, owed to every prompting of duty, to every instinct of loyalty, to the welfare of the country, to every motive of self-interest to push forward the work of colonisation. The financial exhibit showed that 80,000 dollars had been paid and much more subscribed. The money paid into the Issociation had been invested in two colonies, the lands of which had been fully paid for, and the title vested in the Association. The cost of the land, the houses, and other improvements in the Adrian Colony in Minnesota aggregated 40,466.94 dollars, and the amount due the Association from the colonists was 64,472.30 dollars. In the Greeley Colony, Nebraska, there had been an outlay for land and improvements of the sum of 43,244.43 dollars. About three-f ourths of the land in this colony had been sold, and sufficient sum realised to make good more than the organisation's indebtedness, leaving a considerable residue of land as assets for the Association. Reports received by the Secretary from the colonies in Minnesota and Nebraska showed that they had done well, notwithstanding the severe winter and the great floods this spring. Quite a number of'immi. grants from England and Ireland had recently come to this country aud settled in the colonies, and a large number of people from Boston had also moved to the colonies. We notice that the new Archbishop of Chicago takes a lively interest in the work and accepted office as a Director. Of the outgoing Directors Bishops Ireland, Spalding and Ryan were re-elected. Mr. James Dormer was also elected. The old board of officers, Bishop Spalding (President), Anthony Kelly (Vice- President), W. J. Onahan (Secretary), W. J. Quan (Treasurer), were re-elected for the following year. — CatJwlio Review.