New Zealand Company should be set aside. It was, it may be noted, this Waitara dispute that led eventually to the wars in 1863 and the following years. At the time, too, the various awards were the occasion of more or less trouble on the part of the natives. Mr. Spain left New Zealand after his work was over, and practised as a solicitor in New South Wales.
Spalding, Colonel Warner Wright, C.M.G., commandant, New South Wales Regular Artillery, son of the late Colonel Richard Spalding, was born in 1844 and educated at the Royal Naval School, New Cross. He entered the Royal Marines in 1862, retiring on halfpay in 1869. He served in Japan in 1864 and 1866 with the Royal Marines battalion at the bombardment of the batteries at the Straits of Simonaski, and carried the colours at the assault, capture and destruction of the five batteries, stockade, magazine and barracks, from Sept. 5th to 8th, 1864. In 1871 he became captain in the New South Wales Artillery, major in 1876, lieut.-colonel in 1885, and subsequently brevet-colonel. He served with the New South Wales contingent in the Soudan war in 1885, as second in command under Major-General Richardson, being thereupon created C.M.G., mentioned in despatches, and receiving the medal with clasps and the Khedive's star. Colonel Spalding married, in 1884, La Valette B., daughter of F. Keele. In 1892 he succeeded Colonel Roberts in the command of the New South Wales Artillery.
Speight, Richard, late Chairman of the Railway Commission of Victoria, was brought up from boyhood in the service of the Midland Railway Company until he attained a responsible position on the management. In 1883, the Service-Berry Government having passed an Act transferring the management of the railways of Victoria from the political head of the department to a permanent board of three commissioners, it was decided to obtain the services of a first-class expert from England as chairman of the embryo board. In the result the choice fell upon Mr. Speight, and he arrived in Melbourne on Feb. 11th, 1884, to assume the duties of his responsible post, his colleagues being two local gentlemen, the late Mr. Agg and Mr. Ford. The new arrangement appeared to work excellently for a time, and when Mr. Speight's first term of seven years was nearing its expiry, negotiations for its extension were opened with him by the Gillies-Deakin Government. On their defeat at the end of 1890, Mr. Shiels, the new Minister of Railways in the Munro Government, assumed a tone decidedly unfavourable to the commissioners, and introduced a bill, which was subsequently carried, greatly curtailing their powers by rendering them more directly amenable to the authority of Parliament. Construction was to be taken out of their hands, and their duties were to be confined to practical management. On these terms Mr. Speight's reappointment was ultimately negotiated, but friction continued to prevail between the commission and the political head of the Railway Department. In 1892 Mr. Wheeler, the Minister of Railways in the Cabinet of which Mr. Shiels had now become head, demanded of the commissioners the suggestion of a scheme for effecting a very large retrenchment in the annual cost of working the state lines. The commission complied, but in a manner which gave dissatisfaction to the Government, the result being that they were summarily suspended from office till the pleasure of Parliament could be made known. When the Houses met after the General Election in April 1892, an address to the Crown was carried in the Assembly for the removal of the commissioners. In the meantime efforts were made to effect a compromise, with the result that Mr. Speight and his co-commissioners ultimately agreed with the Government to resign on being paid compensation for loss of office to the amount of half the salaries which would have accrued due to them had they continued in office till the expiry of their renewed engagements. The sum Mr. Speight received was £5,250.
Spence, Charlotte H., daughter of David Spence and sister of John Brodie Spence (q.v.), is a lady of great cultivation, who has contributed numerous articles to Australian and English periodicals, and was a friend and correspondent of the famous George Eliot. Miss Spence contributed a valuable literary essay on the genius of the great female novelist to the Melbourne Review, and also wrote on Daudet and the later
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