Circular to the President, and all the Members of the Canterbury Association

Henry Savage

First published by Canterbury Association in 1853

Digitised and made available online by the University of Auckland Libraries and Learning Services and Auckland War Memorial Museum.

Epub © 2016 Early New Zealand Books Collection

ISBN 978-0-947487-74-4

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CIRCULAR... ENCLOSING THE PAMPHLET...

(CIRCULAR TO THE PRESIDENT, AND ALL THE MEMBERS OF THE CANTERBURY ASSOCIATION, ENCLOSING THE PAMPHLET IN CIRCULATION AMONGST THE LAND PURCHASERS.)

7, Gloucester Place, Portman Square,
8th August, 1853.

MY LORD,

THE propriety of applying to the Members of the Canterbury Association for additional aid and co-operation in developing the resources of the Canterbury Settlement, appears to the Committee of Land Purchasers justifiable, from the following considerations-viz.,

The Land Purchasers were solely induced to buy land by the promises held out to them by the Association, and the advantages "positively announced by the Association as distinguishing the Canterbury colony from any other settlement." (See Mr. Godley's speech at the dinner at Greenwich).

Relying on these promises, a superior class of people, totally unprepared for the hardships incidental to an ordinary colonial life, representing about £75,000 worth of land, and carrying with them not less than £150,000, emigrated to the Settlement.

Notwithstanding this large amount of private resources, exclusive of above £200,000 (vide Appendix, p. 133) received for carrying out the project, owing to well-known disappointments, the population of Canterbury has never increased; and is come "to be far poorer than that of many English villages, there not being half-a-dozen people who could keep their sons at a college conducted on the cheapest possible principles." (See Mr. Godley's Speech).

Upwards of £38,000 was secured for church purposes, of which the entire available proportion has been invested in wild land, a proceeding particularly alluded to in the audit of the Association's accounts by

the Government inspector (see Appendix, p. 123), as not in accordance with the spirit of the charter, and since admitted by Mr. Godley himself (see Speech at Greenwich), as a "serious mistake, such investment being a resource far too precarious to be relied on."

The prime obstacle to the rise of the colony, and rendering the Church investment (unless the church fund be reinvested) available for its legitimate purposes, appears to he the want of the great road.

The Committee of Land Purchasers fully admit that the motives of the Association, from first to last, have been of the highest kind possible. Such have ever been the sentiments of the majority of the Land Purchasers, especially when remembering the active part assumed by Lord Lyttelton in carrying out the scheme; but they beg at the same time to observe, that the Land Purchasers are not to blame, and ought not to suffer for the sort of dereliction referred to by his Lordship, on a recent public occasion, as follows:

"Whatever faults or errors the Canterbury Association may have committed, they had been committed, not in pursuance of the principles on which the Association was founded, but through a misapplication or neglect of those principles." (Vide Lord Lyttelton's Speech at the Greenwich dinner).

This is obviously not a question to he determined by the measure of independence lately conferred on the colonies of New Zealand in general. Great and unusual have been the hardships which befel the emigrants entirely through those errors or faults alluded to by Lord Lyttelton. The Committee, regarding the position and character of the Association, venture to depend on your concurrence in the object of this application, and they anxiously look for any suggestion you may feel disposed to make to them on the subject.

I am, my Lord, your obedient servant,
HENRY SAVAGE, M. D.,
Honorary Secretary to the Committee of land Purchasers.

The enclosed opinion, the Committee are assured by Mr. Haly, has been drawn up according to their request, with scrupulous regard to facts and the bearings of the case.

His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury,
President of the Canterbury Association.

PAMPHLET PUBLISHED IN THE COLONY, BY THOMAS CHOLMONDELEY, ESQ.,

PAMPHLET PUBLISHED IN THE COLONY,

BY

THOMAS CHOLMONDELEY, ESQ.,

LOCAL MAGISTRATE. 1

– Incedis per ignes
Suppositos cineri doloso.

MY DEAR MR. GODLEY, – When Mary Queen of Scots asked John Knox "who he was, to put himself forward in the great matters of her realm?" he answered, "Madam, a subject born within the same." If I am asked, "Why I take upon me to discuss Canterbury matters?" I answer, "Because I am a Canterbury colonist." I take the liberty of addressing this letter to you personally; not so much as the agent of the Canterbury Association, but because your character has taken some hold upon us all. Indeed, the agent is, long ago, lost in the man. As a member of the same political party in New Zealand, as an inhabitant of the same colony, I may venture to write openly to you, without any great show of apology for being ignorant of much that I cannot be expected to know, – and I may be allowed, in short, to exceed the narrow limits which conventionality would otherwise prescribe to the very slight acquaintance existing between us.

Starting from this position,. I will begin by avowing candidly that I deal solely and only with known facts – generally received impressions; admitting too, that while my conclusions are not extempore, recent circumstances have tended to draw them out.

It is unnecessary to remind you that public opinion is as yet undeveloped amongst us. We have materials for it in plenty, but it is not as yet sufficiently advanced in growth to be able to work with such unhesitating exactness and speediness of execution as in the old country. We are liable to be surprised into silence, and to remain for months in a state of speechless hesitation, till some one shall take upon himself to say that which hundreds have long had trembling upon their lips. Our nervous dignity requires the spur before it will start; nothing comes; and now, having waited as long as I dare, I mean to try whether this spell can be broken or no.

First, let me be permitted to glance at the condition of the Canterbury under-

taking from its beginning. They enter so far into the history of our times, that a critical investigation of the theory of the Canterbury scheme might furnish matter and title for an interesting and considerable pamphlet. Enough, at present, to declare my conviction that the theory was not the simple outgrowth of one idea. Internal evidence fully satisfies me that an attempt has been made to unite two distinct views into one theory. The spirit which evolved the letter to Mr. Gladstone, and the Minute of May the 24th, is to be carefully distinguished from the spirit which elaborated such details as the first pasturage regulations.

A singularly beautiful but purely abstract idea has been married to the very clever, but somewhat unscrupulous, experience of a practical worldly mind. Thus Thought was united to Fact, and the Canterbury system was the result, soon to unfold a singular likeness, and a no less singular contrast, to the well-known features of each of its parents. The thing gathered shape: a site for a colony was chosen; noblemen were canvassed; rooms hired; clerks engaged; an act of parliament sketched out, passed, and re-passed with emendations; land orders were sold; ships were chartered; promises and engagements made; the best platform orator in England was at once retained, under the title of Bishop-Designate; religious speculation grew hot and zealous. Meanwhile, in New Zealand, lands were surveyed, and works were begun. You, my dear sir, were heard of first at Wellington, and then at Lyttelton. You immediately headed the Self-Government party, little dreaming that you might in no long time have the alternative before you, either to abandon such principles, or perhaps to carry them out in opposition to the great Association whose representative here you are. When the first ships arrived, no time was lost; a great press of business was quickly got off hand. Who that was then at Lyttelton can ever forget that delightful and exciting time? those long cloudless summer days, when we first began to build sod cottages, to carry boards upon our shoulders, when we first had to rough it, when we grumbled and laughed in a breath, and really did a great deal of work. Then came the organization of a Colonists' Council, which, if it be only regarded as a debating club, with Mr. Brittan for chairman, must always command respect. Goods of every description were soon seen up at Christchurch, in spite of the Sumner bar, and those who had been too clever to believe in the capabilities of our capital, were obliged to read a coffee-house recantation. The pasturage question was next handled. It was satisfactorily adjusted by setting aside, or rather evading, the absurd regulations framed in England. But why need I go further? Suffice it to say, that we managed our own affairs as far as we were allowed, and that so far we managed them successfully. And I can truly say, that a year's intercourse has established a confidence between the Canterbury colonists and yourself, which it would require not a little to break down. This is a picture not the less flattering because it is faithful. Now for the reverse.

All this while I believe myself correct in stating that supplies came in very slowly from England. Road-making could only be effected on a small scale, official salaries could only with great difficulty be paid. Married clergymen were obliged to be content with huts, not always elaborately water-tight. Just then, too, another cloud made itself visible on our horizon. Fresh colonists arrived here with great expectations, but with far too slender means. They had been told (they averred) that funds were unnecessary in a new country. It became known that an extensive system of what is commonly called "touting" had been and was being practised in the Colonists' rooms, in London. Does not this look as if a short separation had invalidated the old accommodation, and upset the compromise effected between the two ideas? Are they not actually divorced one from another? Is not one busily at work in New Zealand, while the other lingers in England? I believe that the theory which was the joint stock of the two has answered all purposes of which it was capable. It is now effete, or, rather, resolved into its pristine elements.

I am the more convinced of this, as I find it now pretty generally understood, that we may expect shortly to see a Managing Committee at Lyttelton; certain gentlemen nominated by the Home Committee to do our business here for us; and this, instead of the Managing Committee which we were certainly led to expect was to be elected by and from among ourselves, independent of any control from without, and irresponsible save to our colonists themselves. If this be so, allow me to ask with what face the Association can impose such a Board of Guardians upon us, when they have all along preached up self-government, till it has become a watchword in the settlement? what can have led them to so fatally inconsistent a step as we have now reason to anticipate? Is it, that after so long and so narrowly watching the career of the Colonial Office, the only lesson they can learn therefrom, is to caricature its mistakes? If we have been taught to resist the undue interference of Imperial authority, shall we now be invited to welcome interference which announces itself, backed by no authority whatever? Granted that the London Committee is replete with men of ability, of virtue, of generosity. We readily confess a debt of gratitude to such men, which, however, according to their own principles, can never be repaid by quietly conceding to them a power, the very essence of which tends to defeat and undermine those very principles. The constitution of the Association forbids it. Should we not rather be encouraged to do as much as possible for ourselves? If we are desirous of acting up to our original intentions, ought they jealously to keep our desires in check? There is a covenant between us. If they insist upon playing Shylock's part, they may find there is more in that covenant than they are themselves aware of. It has two sides, with guarantees accordingly. I know that I shall be accused of injustice and ingratitude of the deepest dye in expressing these opinions; but it strikes me that the following little history may be taken as a fair statement of the case as it stands between us.

There was once on a time a certain philanthropist, who by making emigration his hobby, thereby became better acquainted with the subject than the majority of his neighbours; one of whom, John by name, was desirous of emigrating to some foreign land, in order to better his condition. Our philanthropist proceeded to enlighten this man as to the best means of doing so. "My good friend," said he, "there is a certain savage island which is sometimes called Barataria, because it is governed from a distance, and in a most unconstitutional manner. I am anxious to see you settled there, and indeed a man of your public spirit will easily be able to resist the inroads of the governor (who, poor fellow, knows no better). I will assist you to repel his marauding interference in your private affairs. You shall be well backed up from the first with a sound title to the farm which I will buy for you: and since it seems advisable to retain our parochial system, &c. &c., in Barataria, I, who know the country, will tell yon how to go to work in a manner worthy of yourself. You shall place a certain sum of money in my hands, which I will promise to spend for you in a manner herein described (he gave John a bit of paper); but of course, as the money is really yours, the management of it shall really be yours also. Thus you will benefit by my experience, which I tender gratis." And John believed him, and did as he recommended. When he arrived at Barataria, he found something done, and a good deal begun. Setting to work with the money he had left, he struggled with all his heart. It grieved him to receive from his old friend many ignorant letters, and still more to get but very little of his trust money, without any account of how it went. At length, the philanthropist, whose tone grew higher and higher, despatched an overseer to take charge of John altogether. The freaks of the grisly tyrant of Barataria (who laughed at the philanthropist) now seemed light, to John, compared with this astounding act of dictation coming from his old friend. What he did, I know not. I only know that the philanthropist goes about to this day, talking of the black ingratitude of John.

Now what have I exaggerated or understated here? But I wish to be more particular.

I confess it would give me great pleasure to be able satisfactorily to answer such questions as the following, which bear immediately upon the doings of the Society. 1. How came the first pasturage regulations, preposterous as they were, ever to have been drawn up, in the teeth of the advice of Mr. Clifford and other practical settlers? 2. Why have not the accounts of the Association been published? Is it that the Committee may carry out to the full the assurance that "the utmost publicity will be courted, the most detailed information of its expenditure will be afforded?" (Vide Cant. Papers, No. I. p. 17.) Is the balance-sheet published in the Report of April 25, 1851, to be considered as a serious statement of accounts, or as a practical joke put upon us? How much of the fund set apart for ecclesiastical purposes has been actually spent or invested in the colony, in a manner which the colonists approve of?

Tell me, are such inquiries as these fair? Are the answers forthcoming? And is it too much to ask what they are? I might here pause for an answer.

But these very doubts remind thinking men of much that they have hitherto suppressed, deeming then conclusions unripe for utterance...... Would it not be far better that we should be our own association, at least as far as is possible? Is it necessary that land should be bought in London, and there only? Is it advisable to continue an odious system of puffing, which misleads boys and girls, and disgusts those whom it cannot mislead? Are our colonists, generally speaking, arrived at years of discretion? Or, are we to be referred to the category of those who never come of age? Can we not appoint our own officers and public men? Are our friends at home afraid that we should refuse to publish our accounts? Are the London officials so well informed about Canterbury in New Zealand? Do the conduct and preparations of some late arrivals suggest no curious inquiries? We have hitherto been told that political self-government is at the door; – why, then, are we to be so studiously kept out of the management of our own land fund? Why is a body of tutors to be appointed? Why are we to be put into commission? If we yield for one instant to such an act of faithless usurpation, we shall show ourselves unworthy of any self-government for the next fifty years.

There is still a hope that we may have been misinformed. Surely you will at length condescend to come forward and enlighten us upon this subject. You will tell us that false reports have been circulated, that the article in the Lyttelton Times was a tissue of mistakes, that the Association could not for very shame behave as we are foolishly led to imagine. You will bid us read the Canterbury Papers over again. Nay, you will in confidence assure us that had there been the slightest ground for real apprehension, you yourself would have been the first to have warned us of the danger, and to have claimed at our hands the right of leading us against all such poisonous interference, whether it come from Cockspur-street, or from Downing-street, or from Wellington, or from any other quarter. Or, on the other hand, you will admit there is a good deal of truth in what is commonly said, that a change of policy has taken place in the offices in London, that Downing-street may be in the right after all, – who knows? That you yourself are not yet a hearty convert to distant government; but still, should certain difficulties be cleared away, you put it to each one among us, whether there is any insuperable obstacle to a change of opinion? that, after all, matters may be pushed too far; that Sir George Grey may possibly be recalled, &c., &c.

But if you should not feel inclined to defend the recent proceedings of the Canterbury Association, then bethink you that you occupy a position in the Canterbury colony notwithstanding, and independent of the London body of men. You have a position yet at our head and in our hearts, and we should rejoice to see you at our head in the assertion of our independence.

I beg to remain, my dear sir, very sincerely yours,

THOMAS CHOLMONDELEY.

1 "A Letter to John Robert Godley, Esq., Chief Agent of the Canterbury Association, on the Present Prospects of the Settlement. By Thomas Cholmondeley."

To the Editors of the Australian and New Zealand Gazette.

To the Editors of the Australian and New Zealand Gazette.

7, Gloucester-place, Portman-square, Sept. 7, 1853.

SIR, – I perceive by your leading article in your last week's paper, that you are among those inclined to blame me for abstaining from issuing the Canterbury pamphlet as a publication. This is entirely a matter for the consideration of the committee of land-purchasers, for whose information it was solely put together.

The pamphlet consists of nothing more than a short statement founded on copious extracts from the recorded proceedings of the Canterbury Association. These extracts are also given, and the accounts as furnished by Mr. Blachford, the accountant of that body. What it contains, therefore, can only be interesting to parties concerned, and I see no valid reason for its publication. But this is not the only pamphlet. You do not appear to have seen a similar production on the special and general delinquencies of the Association, written with really great literary pretension. It was published in the colony last year by the "well-known farmer and magistrate there," Mr. Cholmondeley.

Since the circulation of the pamphlet among the land-purchasers here, what, I have no doubt, was intended as a complete answer to this and every form of criticism on the failure of the Canterbury scheme, has appeared in various public journals, in the form of speeches delivered at the Lyttelton breakfast and Greenwich dinner, given by his friends to Mr. Godley, on his departure from the colony and arrival here. I should feel obliged, therefore, if you could find space for the following rejoinder.

I am, Sir, your obedient Servant,

HENRY SAVAGE.

As it is obviously impossible that anybody not on the spot could fairly estimate the real extent of the cardinal error of abandoning the great road, and the consequences thereof in not only retarding the development of the colony, but aggravating the hardships and disappointments of the colonists, I commence with a short description of the place.

The most available district for colonizing purposes in New Zealand is situated on the east coast of the middle island, extending from the Kaikoris to the Waitangi river. That part of it where the Canterbury block is chosen, consists of two and a half million acres – north, south, and west of Banks's Peninsula – an island-like block of near 300,000 acres of mountain land on the coast line, equidistant from the before-mentioned natural boundaries. About one-half of the peninsula is heavily timbered; and the plain radiates from its steep grassy sides at an easy ascent to the snowy range to the westward. The immediate neigh-

bourhood of the peninsula is swampy, but the whole of the low lands are capable of profitable cultivation. The several rivers running eastward from the mountains have bars at their mouths, which impede navigation and drainage; but they are all easy of removal. Lyttelton is the port town, consisting of a wharf, jetty, sundry streets of straggling wooden houses, laid out at enormous and most preposterous cost (one of the death-blows of the scheme), regardless of the difficulties of the site, which is the broken-down margin of an extinct volcano. The town is five miles from the heads of the harbour of Victoria, which is a cleft in Banks's Peninsula, about seven miles long and a mile wide. Akaroa is another settlement, in a gully at the head of another cleft in the mountain or harbour, on the south side of the peninsula. Christchurch is the capital, about eight miles due north from Lyttelton, reached by a bridle-path over a mountain 1200 feet high. The river Avon flows through it, but is only navigable to a point two miles below the town. The plains are a gentle undulating slope or prairie from the sea-shore to the mountain-range behind, varying from ten to sixty miles in width. Extending in all directions from Christchurch, for from ten to fifteen miles, there is a rich but very marshy land, the only land deemed particularly adapted for tillage: the remainder is very capable of depasturing stock of all kinds, being full of rich indigenous herbage mixed with fern and other impracticable vegetation. Cattle can be put on it at once, but it costs from 30s. to 60s. per acre to bring it into a fair state of cultivation.

The climate of that part of New Zealand, although very healthy, is as variable as that of England. In the winter it is nearly as cold as in England, and owing to violent storms of wind and rain, rather more disagreeable.

The plains are watered by numerous streams of excellent water, which can also be got anywhere in the lowlands at ten feet digging.

Lyttelton gets a precarious supply of water from the ravines intersecting the town; the well-water, attainable only at a depth of seventy feet, being scarcely drinkable. The fuel is nearly exhausted, and must soon be brought from the inexhaustible woods of Banks's Peninsula. The only access for goods and chattels is by the Avon river, which, owing to a dangerous bar, is closed in bad weather. Need another word be said about the "secret of the colony's prosperity and development {vide Mr. Adderley's letter in the Times), viz., the great road?" Is this the Italian climate, the well-water at the port for ten feet digging, land ready for the plough, and other disgraceful mis-statements in the Canterbury Papers?

To colonize this district the Canterbury Association made a bargain with the New Zealand Company, and sent out Mr. Thomas, and subsequently Mr. Godley, a prominent theorist on colonization, and "born to this peculiar mission," according to Mr. John Simeon, "to pioneer and make preparations," which this gentleman, at one of the interesting provincial meetings, asserted would be "such as were never heard of in any settlement." It is now well understood that Mr. Simeon, with other members of the Association who acted on these occasions, unconsciously succeeded in imposing on the land purchasers an old system of Mr. E. G. Wakefield's, such as past experience has amply condemned.

It has become a fashion, with some among the Association, to treat every remonstrance coming from the land-purchasers as abusive ingratitude. It is admitted on all sides that they were taken in, nay, shamefully defrauded; but I am not aware up to this hour that the Association were ever accused of lending themselves knowingly to the deception: in fact, much pains have been taken to show the contrary by every commentator on their proceedings. It is incontestable that a large number of very respectable people, whom age and circumstances would otherwise have kept at home, were induced to buy land and emigrate to Canterbury, through the representations made by the Association, or their agents. It is equally incontestable, that these representations turned out illusory altogether. I have brought together authorities enough in the pamphlet to prove this at least.

Last year a pamphlet addressed to Mr. Godley was published in the settlement

by Mr. Cholmondeley, who informed us in his speech at the Greenwich dinner, that he was a farmer and a magistrate in the colony, and knew almost every one there. He says, "A singularly beautiful, but purely abstract, idea (the migration of a complete Church community?) has been married to the very clever, but somewhat unscrupulous, experience of a practical and worldly mind, (Mr. E. G. Wakefield's?) Thus, thought was united to fact, and the Canterbury system was the result. The thing gathered shape, a site for a colony was chosen, noblemen were canvassed, rooms hired, clerks engaged, an Act of Parliament sketched out, passed and repassed without emendation, land orders were sold, ships chartered, promises and engagements made, the best platform orator in England was at once retained under the title of Bishop Designate, religious speculation grew hot and zealous. Meanwhile in New Zealand lands were surveyed and works begun. You, my dear Sir (to Mr. Godley), were first heard of at Wellington, then at Canterbury. It became known," says Mr. Cholmondeley, a little further on, "that an extensive system of touting had been practised at the rooms in London. Is it advisable to continue an odious system of puffing which only now misleads boys and girls, and disgusts those it can no longer mislead?" Mr. Cholmondeley was then at the colony experiencing the full effects of the puffing and touting when he wrote this. This is pretty well for a gentleman present at the Greenwich dinner got up to lend a sort of eclat to Mr. Godley's return, and re-establish, at the same time, the damaged credit of the Association.

The system Mr. Cholmondeley calls "touting" was not restricted to the Colonists' Rooms in the Adelphi. Public meetings were got up at Birmingham, Canterbury, Ipswich, Reading, and various places in London, when the Bishops of Norwich and Oxford, Lord Lyttelton, Mr. Adderley, Mr. Sidney Herbert, Mr. John Simeon, and others, actually pledged their rank and position in the country as guarantees that for 3l. an acre the land-purchasers should have what would render the land at Canterbury superior (at least to that extent in comparison) to any other land in New Zealand. The Bishop Designate went so far as to offer his sons and daughters as hostages for the schools and colleges, professing to be on the eve of his departure to organize the church: and be it remembered, at that very time, land could be had at Wellington, practically provided with these things, at a sixth of the sum.

In reply to sundry severe criticisms on the faithlessness of these promises, the land purchasers' money having been taken, we were referred by Lord Lyttelton to a letter written by Mr. Selfe, one of the members of the Association, then specially engaged in vindicating the Canterbury system. It appeared in the AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE; but the following extract requires particular attention, because it was written to meet the charge of misappropriation of church money, since proved correct: – "The land-purchasers knew, for they were present at the drawing of the lots, the smallness of the amounts received: they knew that it was intended that the Bishop Designate would sail to New Zealand, and return to this country for consecration: they knew that then nearly the whole of the funds applicable to ecclesiastical purposes must of necessity Be absorbed in the reserve of 10,000l. for the bishopric, in various expenses connected with Mr. Jackson's voyage, and in outfit, passage, and salaries of himself and clergy, six or more, who left England for New Zealand before the close of 1850. If, knowing all this, and in the face of Mr. Godley's despatch, received before the first ship sailed, and faithfully describing the state of things in the Settlement, any one expected to find on his arrival at Port Lyttelton, churches, School-houses, and parsonages erected, and permanent provision made for the payment of salaries, such expectation would be manifestly unreasonable; but they knew all this: they had made up their minds to the gallant venture, and with a wise temerity determined to go." The fact is, the colonists did not expect anything of the sort; but they did expect to find the state of things to some extent agreeing with the statements founded, it was alleged, on Mr. Godley's faithful despatches from the colony itself.

The first four ships, carrying 791 emigrants, sailed in September, 1850; and another body of colonists in June and July, 1851. Mr. Godley's first despatches arrived in August, 1850; Mr. Thomas's plans in July, 1849; Mr. Godley's second despatches in May, 1851. They are copied in the pamphlet. The following is an extract from a private journal sent by Mr. Godley to Mr. Adderley, and published in the Canterbury Papers by the latter gentleman: I think all those who see the Canterbury Settlement will admit that, as I have said before, no first body of colonists from Britain have ever found so much done to prepare for and welcome them as ours will find. In fact, difficulties, in the usual sense of the word, as applied to colonization, there will be none! no roads to make, no forests to clear, no want of food or lodging, or of facilities for choosing or settling on land. Many things will, no doubt, be expensive at first; for example, wood, some articles of provisions, and labour; but every man's enterprise may be made the subject of calculation on paper, as in an old country. Humanly speaking, there is no uncertainty or chance of disappointment to provide against. He may lose his money; but if he does (again I say humanly speaking) it will be his own fault, and not the result of obstacles which he could not foresee. I feel certain that a vast deal of discontent and mutual bad feeling takes its origin from the discomforts and the embarrassments experienced by men thrown with their wives and children upon a barren shore, at the beginning of the winter, without a road or a clearing, or a sign of civilization to welcome or to cheer them." – Canterbury Papers, pp. 194, 195. Now, who, on reading this, saying nothing about the despatches to the same effect, could wonder that the land-purchasers resolved on the "gallant venture" to the colony? Exactly what Mr. Godley said could not take place, did take place.

How was it that he wrote home urging for more money to make the great road, without which, to use his own words, the plains would not be fit for settlement; and why did he say that there was ample temporary accommodation for 700 or 800 people at a time, and when the ships arrived, twenty decent people could not be housed – and after he received the 10,000l., the sending which duly appeared in the Canterbury Papers, with an assurance that the emigrants might be certain that this road would be nearly finished on their arrival – how was it that the road remained untouched, and places instead created to the amount of 1500l. per annum, exclusive of his own salary of 800l., and the remainder of the money spent on other objects?

Sir George Grey, on Mr. Felix Wakefield's recommendation, took the experienced road maker, Mr. Roy, who was then working on the Wairarapa line, to Canterbury, where, after properly surveying the proposed line of road from Port Lyttelton to the plains, he actually offered to make it. Why did Mr. Godley reject his offer, and then a few days afterwards apply to Sir George Grey for expenditure for roads on the plain? "Now of all the absurdities that could be dreamt of," observes a competent authority, on the spot at the time, "I can't fancy a greater than spending a penny on making roads through a level (where the first surveyor took a cart up to the hills, I forget how many miles in a right line), while the access from the port is neglected." The justice of this remark is too obviously exemplified at this moment. The principal road made by Mr. Godley in the plains, being unmetalled, is fast falling into ruin; and I am moreover informed by one of the most intelligent and respectable farmers of the district, Mr. Bishop, in a letter dated April last, that he is obliged to pass through the lands of seven different people to get to church, and owing to surface water, cannot get to church at all six months out of the twelve.

It has been suggested that it may not be quite right to urge the circumstances altogether so strongly against Mr. Godley. – The truth appears to be that Mr. Godley was not the man for the occasion. How cruelly absurd to send an invalid as the "pioneer" to make the unheard-of preparations so vaunted by Mr. Simeon. "We all said," says a Wellington correspondent, "when we saw Godley going through the water-cure in a delicate state of health, what a pity such an amiable man was not a settler instead of a pioneer. He was fit to establish and lead a

society, not to anticipate it." It was, too, Mr. Godley's misfortune, besides ill health, which kept him, during eight months, 150 miles from the scene of his pioneering, – his return to the colony a few hours before the arrival of the first four ships being a mere accident, – to find himself incessantly struggling to get out of scrapes incidental not only to his false position, but to the absurd land regulations concocted at home for him by the Association. He was doomed to perpetual inconsistencies which marked his career even down to his last appearance at the Greenwich dinner. Almost his first act after he did find his way to Canterbury, was to throw open the district by means of licences at a nominal price, at once rendering such rights purchased at 3l. an acre of no value whatever. With much sound discretion, it is true, he urged the temporary diversion of church moneys for the completion of this road and for other public works; but the Association having spent it in emigration, had before them, at that very time, "the choice of difficulties" alluded to by the Government auditor; and they wrote off on their books, as their alternative, some waste land in favour of the ecclesiastical fund, Mr. Godley remaining without funds.

"The whole available resources," says the Government auditor, "having been expended in other departments, it was determined to make good the balance due to the ecclesiastical fund by an allotment of land, a proceeding hardly in accordance with the spirit of the charter. Doubtless, the money being spent, it was a choice of difficulties." "Yes," says the Times editor, "that is just it. When an apprentice borrows a sum of money received on his master's account, that too is a choice of difficulties." The consequence of this embarrassing choice of difficulties was, that eighteen months after the foundation of the colony the colonists themselves were obliged to subscribe to build a church. Mr. Selfe takes vast credit for the Association because they advanced 500l. out of the ecclesiastical fund as their subscription. Compare the extract from Mr. Selfe's letter on the ecclesiastical fund – which is wrong? Mr. Selfe or the auditor, whose official report he so flatly contradicts? And here I may venture to ask Mr. Selfe, since he is the avowed champion of the Association, who arranged these abstracts from Mr. Godley's despatches "faithfully describing the state of things" which the unhappy colonists on their arrival found to be as unfaithful as could be? Who edited the shipping report, so scandalously untrue, declaring that the emigration operations, owing to the demand for land, had yielded a profit, when the accounts at the time, if properly kept, must have showed a loss of 8000l.? Who were the committee who passed the following report (vide Canterbury Papers): – "The general result of their emigration service has been stated with great clearness and ability by Mr. Bowler, their late shipping agent, which has already been printed and circulated." And further on – "It will be seen that the finances of the Association are in a sound and healthy state. The means at disposal for colonizing purposes appear adequate to insure the successful continuance of their works. Your committee has framed a scheme for the future administration of the funds destined for religious and educational purposes; and so far as it has gone, the plan in all its parts has been attended with perfect success? The utmost publicity will be courted, and the most detailed information of the expenditure of the Association will be afforded." Mr. Cholmondeley here inquires if "in pursuance of this latter part of the announcement, the accounts accompanying the resolution (Canterbury Papers, p. 17) should be considered a serious statement or a practical joke; and how much of the fund set apart (if any?) for ecclesiastical purposes has been actually invested in the colony in a manner the colonists could approve of?" And I would also inquire of Mr. Selfe, who contrived that budget of wretched falsehoods, the Canterbury Papers, whence these few of the multifarious mis-statements in that shameless publication have been taken?

Who are the parties alluded to in the Guardian newspaper – the organ of the Association – as follows: – "Imputations and pecuniary embarrassments of the Association consequent on the ill-omened alliance with justly suspected names?" Who are these people? Mr. Godley? Mr. Wakefield? Which? Who is the

"secret adviser" of the Association? Who sanctioned the payment of the 20,000l. in salaries and commissions, and made 2000l. do for schools and churches. Whose ridiculous statement was it that it would cost 32,000l. (vide Mr. Godley's speech at the Greenwich dinner) to complete the great road, after Mr. Roy, the well-known colonial road-maker, had made a special estimate to the amount of 12,500l.

The wharves, jetty, Mr. Godley's house, were paid for out of the miscellaneous fund, – entirely and solely contributed by the land-purchasers. The Association mortgaged them to the Bishop's trust-fund. The Association now claim them practically as their property exclusively, and threaten to sell them, too, unless the colonists come to "terms with Messrs. Sewell and E. G. Wakefield." Why was the Bishop Designate, the "best platform orator" of Mr. Cholmondeley, sent to the colony at an expense of 2000l. only to come home again, after spending three or four weeks in the place, and vanish as if by magic? Every clue to the wondrous disappearance of the Bishop Designate has been so studiously concealed, that were one not credibly informed of his well-being in a less ostentatious sphere at Stoke Newington, it would be one's bounden duty to invoke the aid of the Royal Humane Society.

"It is two years since," said the worthy clergyman, Mr. Paul, at the valedictory breakfast, "the first detachment of colonists had landed on the shores of Canterbury; and month after month the arrival of the Bishop of Christchurch among them had been deferred. Would it be too much to ask their respected guest, Mr. Godley, on his return to England, to represent to those in whom the appointment was vested, how assiduously the coming of the bishop was looked for? How bitter would be the disappointment, if, under any conceivable circumstances, this most important part of the Association's ecclesiastical scheme were abandoned, or even its execution delayed a moment more than absolutely necessary." The above fact as to the Bishop may probably spare Mr. Paul the "hope deferred," or any other kind of suffering connected with such empty anticipations.

Have the Association been asked for explanation? Yes, they have; and decline altogether to explain, notwithstanding the oft-repeated assurance that "the most detailed information should be given." The land-purchasers are simply referred to a certain Act of 1851: a comprehensive measure, certainly, if, as the Association allege, it not only empowered them to do all this, but, contrary to the spirit and intention of the charter, gave them absolutely the best public property in the colony, and, at the same time, releases their consciences from all moral susceptibilities.

The personal friends of Mr. Godley at the colony invited him to a parting breakfast, and his friends at home invited him to a dinner in commemoration of his return. On both occasions, important statements were made which ought not to be passed over. Mr. Godley, in his address at the breakfast, reminds the colonists of all that would be expected of them as specimens of a highly civilized and enterprising population. He dwells on the dignity of labour. He tells them that they expected too much, but admits his own utopian enthusiasm also carried him away; and, having pointed significantly to the wide, wide waste, whilst he deprecates all objection to his view that the colony (he did not say scheme) was not a failure, and acknowledging that they had experienced "cruel and undeserved disappointments," he retires amidst the tears and blessings of his auditory.

At the dinner we find him, after dwelling on the natural capabilities of five millions of acres of waste land, speaking of the Canterbury population – really a superior class of people (they had bought land to the amount of 75,000l., and carried with them in cash at least 150,000l.), "as between three and four thousand immigrants of both sexes well selected, with the proportion of the sexes duly preserved, and, generally speaking, of good character and industrious habits." "Collectively," says he, "they are considerably poorer than the average population of an ordinary English village. Anything like a college would be thrown away upon them. Do not be afraid to leave them to themselves. Throw them into the water

and they will swim," bringing in the name of Burke to sanction the recommendation; then turning to the few members of the Association present, "Let them revile you;" (who reviles them?) "you have done your work: a great and heroic work. You have raised to yourselves a noble monument, and laid the foundation of a great and happy people." Thank you, Mr. Godley! You have brought us at last to a sequel not inconsistent this time at all events – fraud, robbery, burking, not even allowing the poor English village the sort of "choice of difficulties" alluded to by the too courteous Government auditor. One feels quite anxious to witness the effect of this flattering account on such men as Captain Simeon, Mr. Fitzgerald, Mr. Brittan, and the various captains, clergymen, and doctors, Mr. Godley tells us of in his speech at the breakfast, as occupied in the "honourable" employment of digging and driving in stock.

A graceful and opportune acknowledgment, but not less than those who know his lordship would expect of him on such an occasion, fell from Lord Lyttelton, who rose forthwith and emphatically disclaimed, as well he might, on the part of the Association, any share of credit in the progress of the colony. "What the colony is," said his lordship, "that have the colonists made it." Concluding his speech with this extraordinary admission, "Whatever faults or errors the Association might have committed, they had been committed, not in pursuance of the principle on which the Association had been founded, but through the misapplication or neglect of them;" here again leaving us in the dark as to that mysterious and perverse primum mobile – was it Mr. Godley or the "secret adviser" who beggared the scheme of its "principles?"

With the utmost respect for private friendship, it is impossible to refrain from asking Mr. Adderley to condescend to be more explicit (see Greenwich dinner) – why he brought Mr. Godley into comparison with Raleigh, Baltimore, or Penn? If it might be to render the intensely impertinent assurance (the bottom of Mr. Godley's disputes with Sir George Grey, so fatal to the road) in his friend's description of the colony and colonists more glaring, I should suggest an itinerant astronomer, with the solar system in a deal box, compared to Copernicus or Herschel, as a more becoming model of illustration.

Reverting now to the real state of the case between the land-purchasers and the Association, a number of English gentlemen have actually been seduced by the Association and their agents 16,000 miles from the positive comforts of an English home to a district so shut in, that up to this moment it required their utmost exertions, with spade and mattock, to procure the commonest necessaries of life. Now, having by dint of sheer manual labour, attended with great personal privation, under disappointments which Mr. Godley himself acknowledges were "cruel and undeserved," at last vindicated his claim to the position of a respectable peasant, he takes breath and endeavours to recall to mind what brought him there. Mr. Godley exhorts him not to forget what the Association has done for him, points to the plains, and disappears. But thereupon rise before him, in mystic guise, Mr. Sewell and Mr. E. G. Wakefield, the two delegates from the Association, sent to induce them to undertake their responsibilities; and straightway the one informs him that it is not his "business to tell that truth, which the other could tell much better," if the colonists could contrive to extract it from him; and both the delegates there and then retire to Wellington without affording the colonists the least chance of commencing the operation of extraction to which they were so pointedly invited. I conscientiously state this as intrinsically what took place on the only occasion when these gentlemen put themselves into special communication with the colonists. At home the Association informs him through Lord Lyttelton, Mr. Godley, and Mr. Selfe, that he was greatly to blame, as he ought to have known that what was promised was an impossibility. "We sent you," say they, "in comfort to the colony, and at least put you in possession of your land; in other colonies they did not even do that. We have been at a great deal of trouble and some expense, and incurred liabilities to do so much for you; pay us for our property; relieve us of these responsibilities, and we will sell our reserves." Our property! our reserves!!

Now the reserves, as I said before, consist of the wharves, jetties, Mr. Godley's house, and emigrants' barracks at the port. Their ridiculous cost ruined the scheme. They were paid for out of the land fund, solely contributed by the land-purchasers, and destined for public use. The bishopric trust fund (10,000l.) was then strangely lent by the trustees on these reserves, and the money spent tor emigration purposes by the Association.

The clergy and schools depend on the ecclesiastical fund, which, having been diverted, as we are told by the government auditor, to other objects, is now represented by waste and unsaleable land (letting now at 1s. per acre), which the Association could not dispose of.

The Association advanced 23,000l. at various times to meet their personal liabilities as agents, trustees, land-sellers – (which they appear to have been each and all at various times) – in founding the colony. They subsequently took 12,000l. worth of land, anticipating then no other chance of repayment.

The clergy inquire how their stipends are to be paid.

The Association propose through their delegates, Messrs. Sewell and Wakefield, to pay them out of the proceeds of the reserves mortgaged to the bishopric. The bishopric, on the other hand, claims these very proceeds as interest accruing on the mortgage.

The Association threaten to sell the reserves unless the 23,000l., together until their liabilities to the Government and the New Zealand Company, are paid or undertaken by the colonists.

X. Y. Z., rather an intelligent peasant, astounded at this confused sort of "dabbling in the funds," suggests in his letter to the Lyttelton Times, that having had their diversion with the ecclesiastical fund, the Association only go on in this way about the preserves to make game of the colonists.

The Association intends it to be no laughing matter. "We were," say they, "an amateur body, never intended to last long; we longed to get rid of a great trouble, which the law enables us to do." They defy X. Y. Z., and brandish the Absolution Act of 1851 in his very face.

Most severely do we find Sir John Pakington remarking on the manoeuvre which enabled the Association to do this, particularly stigmatizing their successful attempt at introducing the requisite clause in the New Zealand Bill, as that which it would have been "impossible for him to consent to, had he foreseen the use the Association would have put it to." It ought also to be remembered, that the land-selling functions of the Association were put a stop to for not keeping their engagement with the Government.

It was at one time my hope that the Association would be induced to meet the land-purchasers in a just and conciliatory spirit. Were this at all likely, Mr. Godley would not have dared thus to insult the colonists; but there is every expectation, from recent advices from the colony itself, that a renewed spirit is now re-animating those humble villagers! (the natural result, possibly, of the judicious proportioning of the sexes), which will in all probability put to the test an allegation 2 – if true, so discreditable to such men as constitute the Canterbury Association, viz. "the claimants for justice will be painfully reminded how much wealth and social position have to do with blame or praise; and how hard it is for truth to prevail over the influences which may be arrayed against her in this still aristocratic land."

HENRY SAVAGE.

2 Times.

STATEMENT ON BEHALF OF THE LAND PURCHASERS AND SETTLERS...

STATEMENT ON BEHALF OF THE LAND PURCHASERS AND SETTLERS AT CANTERBURY, NEW ZEALAND.

I.

THAT the Canterbury Association was incorporated by a royal charter bearing date the 13th day of November, 1849, which charter expressed "that it was the purpose of the said Association to expend the whole funds which came into their hands (whether arising from the sales of land or otherwise), in founding the said intended settlement and promoting the prosperity thereof, more especially by the execution of divers works and operations of a public nature, adapted to prepare the site of the said intended settlement for the reception of immigrants, and afford peculiar facilities for the immediate beneficial occupation thereof, and by the establishment and maintenance of Ecclesiastical and Educational Institutions in connexion with the Church of England as by law established."

II.

That the said royal charter further expressed that "it was intended to regulate the expenditure of the Association, so far as circumstances would permit, according to the following distribution and appropriation – that is to say, the said funds shall he considered as divided into six equal parts, whereof one-sixth part shall be appropriated to the acquisition of the tract of land requisite for the site of the said intended settlement, two other sixth parts shall be appropriated to the emigration of settlers, two other sixth parts thereof shall be appropriated to ecclesiastical and educational purposes, and the remaining sixth part thereof shall be appropriated to the general purposes of the Association, including the execution of such preparatory and other works and operations as aforesaid."

[Pages 2 and 3 not found, may not exist]

III.

That His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury became President of the General Committee of the Association; and that a Committee of Management was appointed, consisting of twenty-four members of the General Committee, the Right Hon. the Lord Lyttelton being Chairman, and Henry Sewell, Esq., Deputy Chairman of such Sub-Committee.

IV.

That the Association, thus constituted, agreed with the New Zealand Company for a certain tract of land, estimated to contain about two and a half millions of acres, situate on the south coast of the middle island of New Zealand, and contracted to pay the said New Zealand Company at the rate of ten shillings for every statute acre of such land sold or appropriated under the authority of the Canterbury Association. That the said Association, thereupon, proceeded to sell and allot portions of such land to divers purchasers, such purchasers agreeing to pay and paying to the Association a sum of three pounds in respect of every statute acre of land so allotted to them respectively, and the said Association, on its part, contracting and agreeing with such purchasers that every such payment of three pounds should be considered and taken to be paid to and received by them, and should be faithfully applied as expressed in the charter of incorporation – that is to say, one-sixth part (or a sum of ten shillings) for each acre of the land, two other sixth parts (or a further sum of twenty shillings) towards the emigration of settlers, two other sixth parts (or a further sum of twenty shillings) for ecclesiastical and educational purposes, and the remaining one-sixth part (or ten shillings) for general purposes, including the execution of works "adapted to prepare the site for the reception of emigrants, and to afford peculiar facilities for the immediate beneficial occupation thereof."

V.

That the Association, by its Chairman, members of its Committee, its officers and agents, as well as by means of publications under its authority, represented and held out to the public, and especially to divers persons being purchasers of land or desiring

to become purchasers of land of the Association, that the payment of three pounds in respect of every acre of land allotted by the Association would secure to the land purchasers and settlers; first, the land they might purchase upon good and valid titles; secondly, a port, landing-places, and wharfage, for their goods and commodities in the colony, together with a traversable road from such port and place of disembarkation to the land the purchasers and settlers respectively might occupy; thirdly, churches, schools, and colleges, adequate for the provision of the spiritual and educational necessities of the settlers and their children; and that the said Association further represented and held out that a bishop and a staff of clergy of the Church of England would be sent out to the colony, by and at the charge of the said Association, and that ample funds would be set apart for the endowment of the said bishop and clergy, with suitable and adequate stipends; and that these representations had a tendency to induce, and did induce, many persons of respectability and good position to become purchasers of land of the Association, and to contribute to the Association at the rate of three pounds for and in respect of every acre of such land; and that in all and every of these respects the Association has failed to perform its contracts and engagements, or to carry out the purposes of the Association as expressed in the charter of incorporation.

VI.

That in the month of December, 1849, the Association sent out to the settlement of Canterbury, John Robert Godley, Esq., to undertake the duty of sole agent for the Association in New Zealand, with authority to represent the Association in that colony to the full extent of its powers and privileges; that the said Association agreed to give to the said John Robert Godley a sum of five hundred pounds for his outfit and passage money, and to pay to him a salary of eight hundred pounds per annum, from the funds received from the land purchasers; that the Association represented to the land purchasers and then intending land purchasers and settlers that the said John Robert Godley was instructed as their sole agent in New Zealand, to prepare the site of the intended settlement, and to make the necessary arrangements for the arrival and reception of the intending emigrants on

their arrival in the colony, and for their immediate beneficial occupation of the land, as expressed in the royal charter of incorporation; and that the said Association further represented that they had placed funds at the said John Robert Godley's disposal to effect these objects; that the said John Robert Godley arrived at the settlement of Canterbury in the month of April, 1850; and after remaining on shore there for the space of eight-and-forty hours or thereabouts, withdrew himself from the said settlement, and took up his residence at the port of Wellington, on the north island of New Zealand, at a distance of 160 miles, or thereabouts, from the settlement of Canterbury; that the said John Robert Godley resided at Wellington for a period of eight months from the date of his arrival thereat, having little or no communication with the settlement of Canterbury; that, nevertheless, the Committee of the Canterbury Association published amongst the land purchasers and intending land purchasers and settlers at home, a statement that the aforesaid John Robert Godley was "actively engaged in making preparations for the arrival of the emigrants more complete and satisfactory than had ever been made for a new people;" that in consequence of this and the like representations, a large number of persons, in the whole 791 land purchasers and settlers, were induced to embark for the colony in the month of September, 1850, in four ships, which arrived at the settlement of Canterbury on the 17th and 31st of December following; but that the said emigrants, on their arrival, found that no adequate preparation whatever had been made for their reception, or for the immediate beneficial occupation of their land: and that, with the exception of an emigrant's barrack for labourers, there was not suitable shelter or convenience provided for more than twenty individuals of those who had been induced to take their departure to the colony by the representations of the Association and its agent, and that much suffering, distress, and inconvenience was occasioned thereby.

VII.

That the town of Littelton, which is the port and landing-place of the colony, is situate on a piece of land of limited extent, abutting on a bay towards the west, and surrounded on all other sides by hills of great height, which render the town itself inca-

pable of extension, and only suited for the purpose of a port and landing-place; that the land sold and allotted to the great majority of land purchasers and settlers, is situate on a plain beyond the aforesaid hills surrounding Lyttelton, which plain is called and known as the Canterbury Plain, and on which is the site of the town of Christchurch, hereafter intended to be the capital of the province; that in order to prepare the site of the settlement for the reception of immigrants, and to afford facilities for the immediate beneficial occupation thereof, the first and most essential object is to afford direct and ready communication from the port to the plain, and that in undertaking to provide for the reception of immigrants, and to afford facilities for the immediate beneficial occupation of the site, the Canterbury Association did virtually contract with the Crown and with the purchasers of land, to provide a road from the port of Lyttelton to the land sold and allotted to the purchasers of land and settlers upon the plain. That in the month of July, 1848, Mr. Joseph Thomas, who was appointed by the Association its Chief Surveyor, was sent out by the Association to the intended settlement of Canterbury, accompanied by a Deputy-Surveyor and an Assistant, to make a survey of the land and to lay out the same; that the said Joseph Thomas, as the first and most necessary object to be effected, after survey, commenced the construction of a cart and carriage road, to be carried round the hills from Lyttelton to Christchurch, and also of a path or track for foot-passengers and horses, across the summit of the hills, from the port to the same place; that the path or track was completed, so as to be traversable, before the arrival of the afore-mentioned John Robert Godley, Chief Agent, in the settlement; but that the cart and carnage road had only been constructed for a few hundred yards of its entire length. That the said John Robert Godley represented to the Association, in his first despatches, that "it was of primary importance to complete this road, as the track over the hills was hardly practicable for a horseman," and that "without the road, the plain could hardly be called fit for settlement." That the said Association thereupon placed at the disposal of the said John Robert Godley funds applicable, amongst other things, to the construction of the said road, but that nevertheless the said John Robert Godley caused the works upon the said road to be suspended, and very

shortly after his return from Wellington to the Canterbury settlement, that is to say, in the month of January, 1851, he, the said John Robert Godley, dismissed from the service of the Association the aforesaid Joseph Thomas, under whose superintendence and direction the said road from Lyttelton to the plain was in progress of construction. That, in consequence of the non-construction of the said road, the colonists on the Canterbury plains, who purchased land of the Association, were and continued to be cut off during many months of the year from all communication with the port of Lyttelton, the track over the mountains being impassable except for pack-horses. That there is a stream, called the River Avon, which flows through the town of Christchurch, and empties itself into the bay not far from the port and landing-place of Lyttelton, but that communication between Lyttelton and Christchurch, by boat or vessel, on the said river, is always difficult and frequently impracticable, by reason of the current, the rocks, and of a bar of sand at the mouth of the river; and that much property has been lost in ineffectual attempts to cross the said bar of sand. That at various times, provisions and common necessaries of life have risen to undue and inordinate prices at the town of Christchurch by reason of the impossibility of communicating with the port; that large quantities of goods and chattels are or were lying, at great expense for warehouse room, or otherwise, on the wharves and beach at Lyttelton, in consequence of the impossibility of conveying the same from Lyttelton to Christchurch without great risk and at enormous cost. That in the year 1851, Felix Wakefield, Esq., then a settler in the colony, who in England held under the Association the office of Agent for the sale of land, called the attention of the afore-mentioned John Robert Godley, as sole Agent of the Association in the colony, to the position of the colonists, and the injuries sustained by them by reason of the non-construction of the road, and the said Felix Wakefield invited the said John Robert Godley, as Agent of the Association, to take measures for the construction of the road, which the said John Robert Godley refused to do. That the said Felix Wakefield thereupon repaired to Wellington, and called the attention of Sir George Grey, Governor for Her Majesty of the colony of New Zealand, to the position of the colonists of Christchurch by reason of the want of a proper road

to Lyttelton, and that Governor Sir George Grey thereupon directed Mr. John Roy, Government engineer, to proceed to the settlement of Canterbury, and make a report to the government of New Zealand on the Lyttelton and Christchurch road. That the said John Roy, under date 3rd April, 1852, made his report to the Governor of New Zealand, and that the said Governor, Sir George Grey, together with the Commander-in-Chief of Her Majesty's Forces in New Zealand, personally visited the settlement of Canterbury, and offered the aforesaid John Robert Godley, as Agent of the Association, the assistance of Her Majesty's government in the construction of the road. That the aforesaid John Robert Godley refused or declined to avail himself of such assistance; that Governor Sir George Grey thereupon reported upon the subject to her Majesty's Colonial Secretary of State, and that the road remains unfinished, to the great distress of the land purchasers and settlers in the colony, and in violation of the contract of the Association with the Crown and with the land purchasers.

VIII.

That, under an arrangement to which his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, and the Committee of the Canterbury Association, were the principal parties, the settlement of Canterbury was erected into a bishopric, and the Rev. Thomas Jackson, now Rector of Stoke Newington, in the County of Middlesex, was, in the year 1850, designated bishop thereof, under the style and title of Bishop of Lyttelton. That the said Rev. Thomas Jackson was, during the year 1850, an active promoter of the objects of the Canterbury Association, and of various projects connected therewith; that he attended many meetings called by the Association, and addressed those assembled in support of the Association and its objects; that the said Rev. Thomas Jackson made collections from the public in aid of various spiritual and educational designs represented by him as intended to be carried out in the Canterbury settlement, and exhorted different congregations, consisting of members of the Church of England, in aid thereof, and made collections of divers monies to promote such objects. That the said Rev. Thomas Jackson, then styled and designated Bishop of Lyttelton, embarked for the settlement of

Canterbury, in the month of October, 1850, and arrived at Lyttelton in the month of February following; that he remained there for the space of six calendar weeks, or thereabouts, after which he left the colony and returned to England, and was not further heard of in an episcopal capacity. That in the accounts of the Canterbury Association, there appear the following charges, namely, "For the outfit and salary of the Rev. Thomas Jackson, 2000l.," "For the passage of Mr. and Mrs. Jackson and their children, 653l.," "To the Rev. Thomas Jackson, salary paid in the colony, 340l.," "Rev. Thomas Jackson, balance, 14l. 14s. 10d.," "Rev. Thomas Jackson, sundry accounts, 736l. 7s. 1d." That the circumstances which occasioned the Bishop Designate to withdraw from and leave the colony have never been explained, and that the chairman of the sub-committee of the Canterbury Association has declined to make any explanation to the land purchasers thereof; that no satisfactory account has been furnished to the land purchasers of any portion of the foregoing monies paid out of the revenues of the Association to or on account of the Rev. Thomas Jackson, or his family; that no satisfactory account has ever been furnished by the Association of any monies that may have been collected or disbursed by the Rev. Thomas Jackson, in respect of various ecclesiastical or educational objects in the settlement; that since the return of the Rev. Thomas Jackson to England, there has been no appointment of a bishop to the colonial diocese of Canterbury or Lyttelton, in violation of the expectation and inducement held out to the land purchasers and intending settlers professing the principles of the Church of England; and that a sum of ten thousand pounds, which was originally set apart as an endowment for the aforesaid bishopric, has been diverted from that object, and a mortgage substituted on property in actual dispute.

IX.

That the Canterbury Association, by its members, agents, officers, and publications, represented, or caused to be represented, to the public, and especially to the then intending land purchasers, that the settlement of Canterbury would be adequately provided, out of the funds of the Association, with churches, a bishop, clergy of the Church of England, a college, schools, and all sufficient ecclesiastical and educational provision, as provided in the charter

of incorporation; that godly-minded men were invited to contribute to certain funds specially raised in aid of such ecclesiastical and educational provision, and especially on behalf of a diocesan fund, the proceeds of which were to be brought into the general account of the Association, as required by the said charter of incorporation; that amongst other proposals and offers of the Association, a grammar school was promised to be erected "in the second or third Pointed style of architecture," at which, it was held out, as an inducement to the public to purchase land, that "the Canterbury boys, sons of gentlemen, might learn Latin and Greek, as well as if they enjoyed the advantages of Eton or the Charterhouse;" that it was further represented that "one gentleman had given a sum of six hundred and fifty pounds as a start towards an exhibition, to be identified with the name of the late Charles Buller," and to be attached to the said intended grammar school; that in a paper issued by the Association, and entitled "Scheme for the establishment of a College at Canterbury, New Zealand," and bearing date "21st May, 1850," it was proposed "that the said college should consist of two departments, one for boys of all ages, from seven to seventeen, and one for young men above the age of seventeen, both departments to be under the immediate government of a warden, fellows, and tutors, subject to the ordinary power of the bishop as a visitor;" that in violation of their charter, and of these engagements, promises, and contracts, the said Association have omitted and neglected duly to provide for the ecclesiastical and educational necessities of the settlers out of the funds at their disposal; that no steps whatsoever have been taken by them for the establishment of any grammar school; that no exhibition whatsoever has been founded, and that no information has been furnished of the application of any fund or funds applicable thereto; that no college has been established, or is in course of establishment, for either boys or young men; and that generally the ecclesiastical and educational provision is not such as is required by the charter, or such as is needful for the settlers in the colony.

X.

That the Association, by its members, agents, officers, and publications, represented, or caused to be represented, to the land

purchasers and the public that the land in the colony was ready for the plough, and fit for immediate agricultural operations thereupon, without necessity for any undue expenditure or outlay for the clearing of the same; and that whereas the land on the Christchurch plains requires an expenditure of three pounds, or thereabouts, for every statute acre, to clear the same of weeds and roots, before the plough can be effectively applied thereto, or other agricultural operations taken thereupon; and that the charter of incorporation is thereby violated, inasmuch as that "the site of the said intended settlement is not duly prepared for the reception of immigrants," nor are "peculiar facilities afforded for the immediate beneficial occupation thereof;" and that the Association have likewise broken their contract, agreement, and stipulation entered into between the committee on behalf of the said Association and the purchasers of land.

XI.

That the Association, by its members, agents, officers and publications, also represented, or caused to be represented, to the land purchasers and intending settlers, that the sites of the towns of Lyttelton and Christchurch were well and sufficiently provided with wood and water, and that at Lyttelton "there was excellent water at ten feet digging, and that every man might have a well in his own house for the expense of five pounds;" and whereas both the towns of Lyttelton and Christchurch are ill and insufficiently supplied with wood and water; that within reasonable distance of the town of Christchurch there is only one piece of copse or woodland, and that the said piece of land yielding wood was sold or allotted by the Association, or its agent, to William Guise Brittan, an officer of the said Association, for his sole private use, benefit, and advantage; that the colonists at Christchurch have consequently been deprived of the use of any wood except such as can be obtained by purchase from the said William Guise Brittan, and that they have been grievously injured and damaged thereby; the said sale or appropriation of the Association to the aforesaid William Guise Brittan being a violation of the charter of incorporation, and of the contract and agreement of the Association with the land purchasers.

XII.

That pending the departure of various parties of land purchasers and settlers from England to the colony, the Association published, or caused to he published, certain papers, entitled the "Canterbury Papers," containing, or purporting to contain accounts and statements relative to, and connected with, the settlement of Canterbury, and the operations of the Association bearing on the same; and that certain publications of importance of the aforesaid "Canterbury Papers" were wilfully and scandalously false, and were wilfully designed to mislead the intending settlers as to the true facts relating to the said Association or the colony of Canterbury, to their deception and injury, and that especially the publication entitled "Correspondence relating to the departure of the main body of Canterbury Colonists," "and the publication entitled "Shipping Report, by Mr. William Bowler," were wilfully and scandalously false; that the said first-mentioned publication was fictitious, and never did in reality pass as correspondence between the parties represented to have corresponded; and that the second-mentioned publication, entitled "Shipping Report," was not the production of Mr. William Bowler, and was not published by him, or by his authority; and that the whole of such publications were issued by the Canterbury Association and its agents with intent to deceive the land purchasers and intending land purchasers and settlers, and that they were deceived and deluded thereby, to their great injury, detriment, and damage.

XIII.

That by the charter of incorporation it was declared that the expenditure of the funds of the Canterbury Association should be regulated according to the distribution and appropriation hereinbefore particularly mentioned, subject only to such variations or modifications as might at any time, or from time to time, be directed or approved by the resolution of a general meeting; and that the said body politic and corporate should cause distinct and true accounts in writing, under each head of expenditure, to be kept in proper books, and to be submitted once in every year to such person as the Lords of the Committee of Privy Council appointed for the consideration of all matters relating to trade

and foreign plantations should appoint to be inspector of the same; and whereas the funds of the Canterbury Association have not been regulated according to the distribution and appropriation prescribed by the said charter; and whereas no variation nor modification has at any time been directed or approved by the resolution of any general meeting; and whereas the accounts of the Association have not been distinctly or truly kept under each head of expenditure as required by the said charter; and whereas, the Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of matters relating to trade having appointed a fit and proper person to inspect the accounts of the said Association, the said inspector, under date "Dec. 14th, 1852," made a special report that the funds held by the Association for ecclesiastical and educational purposes had been diverted from their proper objects, and that the Association had allotted land in lieu thereof; that such proceeding was not in accordance with the charter; and that the land appropriated to the ecclesiastical and educational fund might remain for an indefinite period before it acquired a saleable value. That all such proceedings were violations of the charter of incorporation, and of the contract entered into between the Association and the Crown; that the lands in the Canterbury Settlement appropriated in lieu of the said funds are utterly unsaleable; and that until the Association replaces the money thus diverted, no proper provision can be made for the ecclesiastical or educational purposes of the settlement, as contemplated by the charter.

XIV.

That the Canterbury Association recommended itself to the British public as an association established with a high religious and moral purpose, – that it constantly set forth "that the religious elements of the plan were its main attraction," – that it promised, under the authority "of the historical name of Lyttelton and "with the pioneering of such a man as Godley," that it would "transplant the Church of England to New Zealand," and "make the Colony like Home" to a wealthy class of English people. That the result has been the delusion of between three and four thousand unfortunate individuals, who were induced to place confidence in the promoters of the project and to invest money on the faith of the assurances, who have been located on

[Page 15 missing in this copy]

priation of the funds of the Association, makes no provision specially for roads. It does refer to "the execution of preparatory and other works and operations," which are defined to be "to prepare the site of the settlement for the reception of immigrants and to afford peculiar facilities for the immediate beneficial occupation thereof." It is very clear that the road from Lyttelton to Christchurch was one of the most necessary measures for these purposes; but the accounts of the Association appear to show that a sixth of the entire fund has been expended on works which may be taken to come within the same description, such as making a survey, building a sea-wall and landing-place (part of the mortgage to the Bishop's Trust Fund), as also the construction of a bridle-path, and the road from the river to the town of Christchurch. I am, therefore, inclined to fear that there might be more doubt as to the success of this portion of a suit.

Another course which appears to be open to the land purchasers is an appeal to Parliament, and the parliamentary case is so strong that I cannot doubt the House of Commons would grant a committee of inquiry upon the presentation of a petition signed on behalf of the committee of land purchasers, followed by a motion for investigation. It is, however, to be considered that although the committee might report in favour of the land purchasers, it is by no means certain that a measure of redress would result from their report. In the event of the land purchasers resorting to Parliament the Statement annexed would, with some slight modification and the addition of a prayer, serve as their petition, embodying the facts.

It appears to me worthy the consideration of the land purchasers, whether, prior to resort either to the Court of Chancery or the House of Commons, it might not be desirable to appeal to the Archbishop of Canterbury and other members of the general committee of the Association, who are very probably unacquainted with the real facts of the case, but who nevertheless are deeply concerned therein. Should the land purchasers take this course, the statement annexed might, with some modification, be properly made the foundation of the appeal to their sense of the responsibility they are under to those who are suffering by the acts of the Association.

W. T. HALY.
4, St. Martin's Place, Trafalgar Square,
22nd July, 1853.

[Newspaper extracts]

Extract from the "Australian and New Zealand Gazette," 9th July, 1853.

CANTERBURY.

MR. GODLEY AND HIS DOINGS IN NEW ZEALAND.

IT is just possible that, before what we are writing will be in the hands of our readers, the late agent of the Canterbury Association, Mr. John Robert Godley, will have left New Zealand for good and all.

His career amongst us, from its great pretensions and small performances, deserves to be briefly chronicled. About three years ago, he arrived in Wellington, and immediately attracted public attention as the writer of a letter to Mr. Gladstone, full of novel theories about British colonies. Some people, indeed, looked upon them as the dreams of a dreamer. For instance, Mr. Godley, in denouncing the present system of governing colonies, said – "It will break up the British empire; a consummation which, at the present rate of progress, will not perhaps take a great deal more than ten or twenty months." This prophecy is dated 12th December, 1849, and remains, we believe, unfulfilled.

Previously to Mr. Godley's employment as agent to the Canterbury Association, he had been for some time a salaried director of the New Zealand Company, installed in that berth in order to promote the cause of systematic colonization; and, in that character, projected the Canterbury Settlement, to be founded by means of selling land at three pounds per acre. A third of the three pounds was to be expended in providing religious and educational establishments; and this part of the scheme (Mr. Godley's special favourite) attracted a large number of most respectable settlers. Before, however, the settlement could be said to have been really established, Mr. Godley declared systematic colonization to be a delusion, and squatting to be the true mode of colonizing. He threw open the Canterbury district by means of licences at a nominal price, and so defrauded the buyers of land at three pounds per acre, by rendering the rights resulting from such purchase of no value whatever. Their right to religious and educational establishments had been long ignored and forgotten by him. Thus has Mr. Godley played his part, as an advocate, and paid agent, of a body colonizing systematically.

During Mr. Godley's residence at Wellington for eight months, he was most actively engaged in vituperating the local government, under whose protection and assistance he had come to found a new settlement, as a mass of corruption, tyranny, and vice; tracing all this iniquity to the plan of governing from Downing-

street. At the same time, however, that he substituted, squatting for systematic colonization, as if to he consistent in perverseness, he declared that the Canterbury Settlement would be far better managed by the local government than by the Association, and proposed to that body to hand over their functions to the local government accordingly. This proposal is detailed in several communications alluded to in a letter from Mr. E. G. Wakefield to Mr. Fitzgerald, lately published in this paper, all of which have been carefully kept from the public eye.

But caprice and inconsistency have not been Mr. Godley's only failings. He has sold and conveyed to several persons land in the neighbourhood of Akaroa which did not belong to the Canterbury Settlement; and his answer to remonstrances on the subject, published by us last week, evinces a recklessness of the consequences of such acts.

This, it may be said, although a faithful, must surely be a hostile chronicle. Has Mr. Godley surmounted no difficulties, endured no hardships, conferred no advantages, during his sojourn at Canterbury? We answer that he had no hardships to suffer. The great difficulty has been the want of a road from the port to the interior, the want of which has incalculably retarded the progress of the settlement; and that difficulty still remains as it was. The local government proposed to undertake the completion of this road; to this offer Mr. Godley, consistent in his inconsistencies, was vehemently opposed. The only advantage that can result from Mr. Godley's career is, that it will be another warning against companies, associations, and their patriotic agents. Like his fellow-labourer Mr. Fox, he has been chiefly occupied in thwarting and depreciating everybody to whom he has been opposed. First the Government, and then the Association, have been attacked by Mr. Godley. For this he has drawn his salary up to the very last moment of the Association's existence; and, like Mr. Fox, he leaves Hew Zealand the moment his salary ceases. Like Mr. Fox, too, he will leave many causes of heart-burning and litigation behind him, the consequences of his conduct as agent of the Association. As a practical man of business, he appears to have been utterly incapable; the merit of being a fluent talker (if it be a merit) is all to which he can lay claim.

We wish him a pleasant voyage to England, and earnestly hope that the infliction of any similar dilettante performers in the work of founding colonies may be averted from New Zealand. -New Zealand Spectator, Jan. 12.

Extract from the "Guardian," 29th June, 1853.

CANTERBURY AND COLONIZATION.

THE eloquent speech of Mr. Godley, on bidding farewell to the people of Canterbury, which we have elsewhere printed, is the best answer (and it is a most complete one) to those who have pronounced the whole scheme of the Canterbury Settlement an entire failure, and the management of the Canterbury Association either extremely incompetent or very corrupt. It confirms in almost every particular the view we have always taken of this matter, and justifies the sanguine expectation we have uniformly expressed of the ultimate success of the colony itself. The speech is a striking one, as containing the general opinions which a man of vigorous mind and high principle has formed on colonization, after a considerable practical experience in one of our colonies. The well-known principles of Mr. Godley have undergone no change. He is not an atom more enamoured of distant government, nor less disposed to confide in the good sense and discretion of the settlers themselves. Colonial experience has, indeed, led him to appreciate

more thoroughly the difficulties in the way of the application of any theory, however true; and to see that he and others were induced by their enthusiasm to disregard them too far, and to believe in the possibility of realizing a vision of colonial life, which, at least to the full extent, it was unreasonable to expect to see. He comes before us not less genial, not less hopeful, not less liberal than he was, but with an enthusiasm chastened by knowledge and a judgment enlarged by experience. His evidence as to the Canterbury Settlement is that of a chief resident in the place, with the fullest means of knowing all the facts; his opinion of the Association is that of a man who has differed from and resisted them more than once, who doubts the wisdom of some of their arrangements, and speaks without reserve of the many errors of their management. He is, in short, about as competent and as impartial a witness as any one really desirous of the truth could desire to examine.

Now it will be seen that he expresses the highest opinion of the prospects of Canterbury, viewed merely as a commercial settlement. That colony, in common with New Zealand generally, is at this moment suffering from the withdrawal of labour consequent upon the discovery of the Australian gold. But even as it is, the settlement is, on the whole, prosperous: cultivation is spreading and cattle farming is increasing; and Mr. Godley looks forward to an influx of settlers from Australia itself, the gold regions of which will be no home, he thinks, for the quiet and well-disposed amongst those who have made money at the diggings. Nor can the neighbourhood of so wealthy a country be without its beneficial effects upon the trade and farming of New Zealand. Beyond this, however, Mr. Godley maintains that the Canterbury scheme has answered in its distinctive features, though not so fully as he had hoped. There are schools and churches – there is an endowment hereafter to become valuable – there is a well-educated and well-disposed body of colonists, such as would not have been got together but for the principles professed by the Association, and who are not, on the whole, dissatisfied with their lot. Canterbury is not, indeed, the Utopia or New Atalantis Mr. Godley hoped, and once even believed, it would be. But he is not ashamed of, nor does he repent, his enthusiasm. He says, as Southey said of his republicanism, that he no more regrets it than he regrets having been a boy; and further, that nothing really good, such as he believes the colony to be, could ever have been founded without a good deal of that sanguine spirit which always meets with a certain measure of disappointment. Of the Association he speaks in just and candid terms. They have made mistakes, they have been guilty of mismanagement, and they have become embarrassed. This, unfortunately, cannot be denied. But he does full justice to their zeal, to the purity of motive by which their ostensible managers have throughout been actuated, and to the high-minded manner in which personal sacrifices, sometimes great and ruinous, have been made by many members in no way legally responsible; and he places against their errors of judgment and misplaced confidence in others, their own disinterested and entirely unrequited labours. No member of the Association could ever be a shilling the better for his management; some of them are, we fear, in fact, many thousand pounds the worse.

It must be very satisfactory to them to meet with so just and temperate an appreciation of their conduct from one so well qualified to judge, after the imputations to which an ill-omened alliance with justly-suspected names, and a consequent state of pecuniary embarrassment, had unfortunately exposed them. Mr. Godley's return to this country may, we hope, open the way to a better understanding of the Association's claims, and a juster view of their position, than they have been hitherto able to obtain from the government. Sir John Pakington treated them always with a harshness and insolence which it would be difficult to account for, if they were not to a great extent idiosyncratic. The entire suspension of their powers was the last act of his administration, the formal completion of

which, we believe, he left, with characteristic good taste, to the Duke of Newcastle, who had been himself an active member of the Association. But the transference of the powers of the Association to the Provincial Legislature, for which Mr. Godley is justly anxious, and which can only be done, we presume, by Act of Parliament, will, we trust, afford the Duke a proper opportunity for rendering that justice to the Association which they are really entitled to, and from which a sense of personal delicacy has probably hitherto restrained him. A colony, founded by their means, as Mr. Godley emphatically testifies, and wishing to assume their powers, should in all reason assume, at the same time, those responsibilities which, but for the colony, would assuredly never have been incurred.

In any case, however, we are glad to have Mr. Godley's warrant for reverting, not to the dreams of a few years since, but to a sober reality with respect to Canterbury, which is sufficiently satisfactory. We are justified in believing it an accomplished fact; a well-ordered, prosperous, and advancing settlement; with a provision for education and religious teaching, and a body of energetic settlers who, in intelligence, refinement, and general capacity for political advancement, cannot be equalled by any English colony so recently established. In all the essential elements of future greatness, it yields to no colony of its own age; and neither is its foundation matter for regret, nor are its future prospects matter for discouragement or apprehension.

THE CANTERBURY SETTLEMENT.

We have had sent to us a copy of the Lyttelton Times giving a full account of a farewell breakfast, on the 18th December last year, to Mr. and Mrs. Godley, previous to their departure for England, whose homely shores they have once more reached in safety. Captain Simeon presided at the festivity, and read an address to Mr. Godley from the inhabitants, expressing deep regret at his departure, and their full appreciation of his unwearied services on behalf of the Colony, which had been crowned with so great a measure of success. The address concludes: –

"We should deeply regret to think that the connexion between us were now to be wholly severed; but we are persuaded that you will never cease to feel a lively interest in the welfare of a settlement with which your name has been so closely linked; and that in any future measures which may be contemplated in England affecting its prosperity, we may rely upon a continuance of your services, to defend or advocate our rights and interests. Especially, in the final adjustment of the relations which are to exist between the Canterbury Association and the Settlement, we earnestly hope you will take an active part, as possessing the entire confidence of the great majority of its inhabitants, and being fully competent to express their sentiments and wishes.

"We desire, at the same time, to offer our acknowledgments of the part in private life, which Mrs. Godley has borne with yourself, by influence and example, in conducing to the friendly feeling existing throughout our young community. We are at a loss how to pay a just tribute to her worth, but we cannot do less than convey to her the very sincere expression of our regret at her departure, and of the high esteem in which her name is held by all classes.

"In conclusion, we beg to offer, both to yourself and to Mrs. Godley, our wannest and heartiest wishes for your future happiness and prosperity; and to assure you that, should you ever return amongst us, you will be welcomed back with the same cordial feelings of affection and respect with which we now bid you farewell."

Mr. Godley replied, with heartfelt acknowledgments for the kindness of the colonists, regretting the miserable necessity of saying farewell to Canterbury,

which had been to him a second home, dearer, if possible, to him than the first, though he looked forward, should his health be spared, to visit them again in four or five years. The following is the concluding part of his address, referring to the position and prospects of the colony, in which the speaker had taken so active a part in the founding:

"On the whole – that is, looking back at our enterprise as a whole, not dwelling upon this or that detail, not indulging in the plaintive truism that we might have done it better if we had had more experience; but looking on it, I say, as a whole, I am prepared to maintain, not only that it was a great and noble enterprise, but that it has been successfully carried out. We have a magnificent colony in embryo, certain (humanly speaking) to prosper in a material point of view, as rapidly as any other colony of modern times, and to become, within a man's lifetime, a great people; actually containing too, within itself, as much of the elements of high civilization as, I now believe, it is possible to plant in a new country, unless where some forcible instrumentality happens at a particular period, to expel from the old a large section of its people. We have a branch of the Church of England planted here, with a competent supply of clergy, and ample permanent endowments, although the Association, acting, I have no doubt, in ignorance of the value of land in a new country, have made a mistake in trusting too exclusively to land endowments, instead of reserving a fund to meet ecclesiastical expenses until they should be provided for out of those endowments. We have provision for the higher and lower branches of education to as great an extent, I now find, as there is an effective demand for, among a population situated as this is; we have, moreover, to the best of my belief, a more concentrated population, a larger proportion of resident proprietors, and consequently a greater command over the appliancies and civilities of society, than has been attained before, render similar circumstances, by agricultural colonists. At the same time that we enjoy these special advantages, there has not been any deficiency in opportunities of profitable investment for capital, and of profitable employment for labour. On the contrary, considering the inexperience of the colonists, and among a large proportion of them the want of sufficient means to meet their habitual requirements, there have been wonderfully few instances of actual failure – wonderfully few instances of men who are unable to look forward (through struggles, no doubt, and privations, but still to look forward) to an ultimate and certain competence. I know there are many who will not take this view, and who will feel, perhaps, more or less angry with me for expressing it, as though I insulted their disappointments. Yet, at the risk of offending them, I must remind them, that though there have been cruel and undeserved disappointments, there have been also many which were caused by people's expecting impossibilities. I don't blame them for it; for to a great extent I did so myself; but such is the fact. They expected that such an edifice of civilization as it has taken many laborious centuries to build up at home, could be created in a few months out here; while they expected, in addition to this, that a capital, of which the interest would not have supplied them with the commonest necessaries of life in England, would provide for them and for their families, when invested in New Zealand, not only necessaries, but luxuries in profusion, without difficulty, or anxiety, almost without toil. I will not say that I have not been disappointed in many things myself. No man in this world can go through any enterprise that has greatness in it without being often and sorely disappointed, because nothing great is ever done without enthusiasm, and enthusiasts are always over-sanguine. When I first adopted and made my own the idea of this colony, it pictured itself to my mind in the colours of a Utopia. Now that I have been a practical colonizer, and have seen how these things are managed in fact, I often smile when I think of the ideal Canterbury of which our imagination dreamed. Yet I see nothing in the dream to regret or to be ashamed of, and I am quite sure, that without the enthusiasm, the poetry, the un-

reality (if you will), with which our scheme was overlaid, it would never have been accomplished. This colony, full of life, and vigour, and promise, as it is, would never have been founded, and these plains, if colonized at all, would have fallen into the hands of a very different set of people from those whom I see around me. Besides, I am not at all sure that the reality, though less showy, is not in many respects sounder and better than the dream. Take for example that common notion which so many educated and intelligent people have of colonization – the notion that it will enable them to live a sort of careless, indolent, easygoing life, under their vines and their fig-trees, among their children and their flowers, to revel in the spontaneous plenty of an exuberant soil, and to enjoy all the luxuries of civilization without its responsibilities, its restraints, and its labour. This is the kind of life that many of us fondly dreamed of. I will not say that I did not sometimes dream of it myself. But would this, even if it were not out of the question, be a life worthy of a man – of an Englishman? Is the desire to fly from toil and trouble a worthy motive for colonization? Ought not our motive rather to be a desire to find a freer scope and a more promising object for our toil and our trouble? We all know now that when men colonize, more perhaps than in any other walk of life, they have to eat their bread in the sweat of their face. But this is the advantage, and pride, and glory of colonization. It is the corroding evil of old and highly-peopled countries, that in them whole classes, from the Sybarite peer to the workhouse pauper, have this curse hanging heavy on their lives, that they have nothing to do; and this it is that justifies us in urging men to emigrate, that in new countries every man must do something, and every man finds something to do. (Cheers.) I have seen here clergymen ploughing, and barristers digging – (laughter) – and officers of the army and navy 'riding in' stock, and no one thought the worse of them, but on the contrary. (Cheers.) The principle, then, which it is the business of colonizers to assert, is the nobleness of work – work at any kind, so that it be hard and honest work, and a sound and time principle it is, though it has its own dangers and abuses, against which colonists would do well to guard. But this is a digression. To return to what I was saying. There may have been disappointments among us to individuals, but on the whole, and to the community, there has been remarkable success; and I say with perfect confidence, that five or six years hence those who battle through the first difficulties will have no more to say about disappointments. I trust I shall be pardoned for quoting, in support of what I say, two or three cases which have come lately to my personal knowledge, and which I have no reason at all to suppose extraordinary or out of the way. There may be many more of a stronger kind, but these happen to have been brought before myself. One is the case of a gentleman, of good family and education, who landed in this colony with a land-order for fifty acres, and 300l. He has now horses and cattle alone to the value of his original capital, 300l. He has built an excellent house, has fourteen acres fenced and cropped, and owns four hundred sheep and lambs, and, moreover, he does not owe a farthing in the world. The next instance is that of a man whose capital was still smaller. I was informed it was just 50l. He, too, had fifty acres of land, and a large family, including two grown-up sons. I visited his farm the other day, and found the whole of it fenced in, and divided into five separate fields, all with substantial fences. He has a comfortable house, a particularly neat and well-cropped garden, two cows, with their calves, several pigs, and no less than twenty-seven acres (including the garden) under crop; and am happy to say, I never saw crops look finer or more promising. The third and last case which I mean to quote is this: – I was told two days ago by a working mechanic – a man who had no money at all when he arrived, not a farthing – that he had saved and laid by, in two years, from the labour of his own hands, no less a sum than 200l. (Cheers.) Such instances as these show that those who said that this colony would prove a fine field for the exertions of a working man, said

nothing but the truth; for I happen to know that there is nothing exceptional or peculiar in the opportunities or advantages which the men whom I have referred to possess; they have simply exemplified the rewards which honest industry can reap in a new country. I have little doubt but that success of a similar kind to this would have been to a still greater extent the rule among our colonists, if it had not been for the discovery of the gold-fields of Australia. The check which that discovery has given to our growth has undoubtedly been very severe. We have felt it in the price of provisions, in the emigration of labourers, above all, in the difficulty and expense of procuring stock. But my firm belief is, that within a very short period you will begin to reap the benefit which must ultimately result from the neighbourhood of a country so enormously rich as Australia is becoming. If there be one point on which all those who have visited the diggings agree, it is this – that of the hundreds of thousands that have flocked thither from every part of the world, not one intends to live there. Every man intends to go away as soon as he shall have made money enough. No amount of money could tempt a man to make deliberately an El Dorado his home. Now I cannot but look upon it as mathematically certain that a very large proportion of these people will come to New Zealand. You may depend upon it, the great majority of those who have come, even with the intention of returning to England, will not return. Experience shows, that when a man, especially a young man, leaves England, and remains for a few years in a new country, he does not care to go back again for good; somehow or other a new set of habits have been generated, not necessarily worse habits, but different ones, which make the thought of a permanent residence in an old country distasteful to him, and he will rather seek for the blessings of order and civilization, if he can get them, in a neighbouring colony, than in the old world, from which he has with such an effort uprooted himself. It is to be remembered, too, that precisely the best people among the immigrants into Australia will be likely to leave it again soon, because the best people are the least likely to be satisfied with such a state of society as a gold-producing country exhibits. I see nothing, therefore, in the Australian gold diggings to make me alter the sanguine view I have always taken of the fortunes of this colony, or to make me less satisfied with the part which I have taken in founding it. It is impossible for me, my friends, altogether to abstain, on such an occasion as this, from some allusion to the colonizing association which I have represented in this country. The Canterbury Association has not escaped the ordinary fate of colonizing bodies, in two respects at least; it has exceeded its means, and it has incurred considerable unpopularity in the settlement it has founded. This result seems to be inseparable from the nature of such bodies; they generally manage badly, and they are always disliked for managing at all. Yet without them many of our noblest colonies would never have been founded, so that embarrassment and unpopularity are to be taken, I suppose, as part of the necessary burden which those who embark in the glorious work of founding colonies must be content to bear, and, for my part, I will willingly take the one with the other; I am content to bear a share of the burden, if I may be permitted to bear a hand in the work. I am not about to defend the Association's policy in detail, but this at least you will pardon me for saying – and I say so with the utmost confidence – that no body of men ever engaged in a public enterprise with higher or purer motives, or ever prosecuted it with greater zeal, energy, or disinterestedness. They have made plenty of mistakes, no doubt; that, as I have said, was inseparable from their constitution as a distant governing body, and nobody has protested against what I believed their errors more strongly than I have; but if they have made such mistakes, the leading members of the Association have nobly done their best to redeem them by voluntary personal sacrifices, which no one had a right to demand at their hands. I know those men intimately; they are not rich, any one of them; they were under neither legal nor moral liability to spend their

private funds in the service of this settlement, because, as yon know, they were not in the position of a trading corporation, and they could not, under any circumstances, have made one farthing by its utmost conceivable success. Yet sooner than hazard the failure of the enterprise – nay, sooner than that funds should be wanting for its vigorous and rapid prosecution, they came forward cheerfully and simply, and without making a fuss about it, and paid sums, and incurred liabilities, which, in comparison with their means, were exceedingly, almost ruinously, large. (Cheers.) Remember this when tempted to forget what they have done for you; remember that errors of judgment and calculation are venial, when redeemed by sincerity, earnestness, and self-denial. (Cheers.) I must just say one word about your new constitution. I rejoice to see so lively and intelligent an interest taken in its working, but I clearly foresee that there will be a reaction, and that there will be great disappointment with it at first. I clearly foresee that a great many of you, probably the best people among you, will be disgusted with the turmoil, and agitation, and strife inseparable from the working of a popular constitution; and disappointed, because its beneficial results will, in all probability, not become very obviously or rapidly visible. But you must fight against this feeling. You must remember that we were never meant to enjoy quiet lives. Quiet lives are for beings of a higher or a lower nature than man's – for beatified spirits, or the brute creation. It is the business of man, and most of the noblest men, to work, to struggle, and to strive. (Cheers.) Life is a battle, not a feast; and those conditions of existence are the best and the most wholesome which most tend to strengthen and harden us for the combat. (Cheers.) It is in this light that I have learned to regard and value political liberty; not primarily, because it tends to promote material prosperity, ease, and enjoyment, but because by providing a high object for our aims, and a noble field for our intellectual exercise, and by forcing us to take a part in matters which do not concern our individual selves alone, it tends to form a great and glorious national character. (Loud cheers.) Try to work the new system with these aims, and in this spirit, and you will learn to exercise, with satisfaction and advantage, that most troublesome as well as most precious privilege, political freedom. Forgive me if I have seemed to speak in too presumptuous and didactic a tone. My approaching departure, and my deep interest in all that concerns you, together embolden me to express myself freely; and I know I speak to indulgent ears. I must now offer my best and most cordial thanks, on behalf of my wife, for the manner in which you have received her to-day. She bids me say that she has to thank the people of Canterbury for two of the happiest years of her life: she bids me ask you not to forget her, as she can never forget you; she bids me say, that she never could have believed she could have felt such sorrow as she now feels in parting from any country but her native country, from any people but her own people. (Loud cheers.) But it is time for me to stop – if I were to go on till I had said all that I want and should like to say, till I had expressed all the fulness of my heart, I feel as if I should hardly ever come to a conclusion. But the parting word must come – that word which I have been dreading to pronounce – farewell. God bless you, and prosper you. God grant, if it be his pleasure, that we may meet again on earth, and that, whether we meet on earth or not, we may meet in the everlasting mansions of his kingdom. (Mr. Godley resumed his seat amidst loud cheers, a great portion of the company being deeply affected by his parting words.)"

As to the state of the Church in the colony, the Rev. R. B. Paul, in returning thanks for "Bishop Selwyn and the clergy of the diocese," gave the following account: –

"He had never been one of those who thought the ecclesiastical scheme of the Canterbury Association a failure. With the large provision made for the future endowment of the Church in this settlement, he believed that the time would

come when her own property would be amply sufficient for all her requirements; and, in the meanwhile, they had the satisfaction of knowing, that some of the original founders of the Canterbury Association had pledged themselves to the support, for three years longer, of the clergy sent out at the commencement of the undertaking. As one personally uninterested in the question, he might, without indelicacy, express a hope that the words of this engagement would be interpreted in the most liberal and comprehensive sense, and that no alteration in the affairs of the Association would affect the validity of the equitable claim set up by those gentlemen to whom the guarantee was originally made. In connexion with this subject, he would say a few words respecting the appointment of their Bishop. It was now two years since the first detachment of colonists had landed on the shores of the Canterbury Settlement, and month after month the arrival of the Bishop of Christchurch among them had been deferred. Would it be too much to ask their respected guest (Mr. Godley), on his return to England, to represent to those in whom the appointment was vested, how anxiously the coming of our Bishop was longed for – how bitter would be the disappointment if, under any conceivable circumstances, this most important part of the Association's ecclesiastical scheme were abandoned, or even its execution delayed a moment longer than was absolutely necessary."

Extract from the "New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian," Saturday, February 28th, 1852.

IN our last number we published from the Australian and New Zealand Gazette, an article on the Canterbury lands, in which the writer, who appears to be well versed in his subject, urges the Association, unless they are prepared to cease all further operations, to reduce the price of their lands from 31. to 30s. an acre, compensating those who have purchased land at the higher price, as it is clearly impossible to obtain so high a price for land at Canterbury, when it can be obtained in any of the older settlements for one-third that sum, or even less. He strongly urges the adoption of some uniform system in the disposal of the waste lands, and represents in forcible terms the evils arising from the different and conflicting systems in the disposal of land in the different settlements, and describes them as being sufficient to drive an intending settler to some other colony where such conflicting systems and interests do not exist. In our present number will be found a letter to Mr. Godley from Mr. Cholmondeley, originally published at Lyttelton as a pamphlet, which suggests some other points connected with the Canterbury scheme, as subjects for consideration. The writer, who handles his subject in a masterly manner, touches in a sarcastic vein upon several topics, which are evidently tender places. After describing, in a few rapid sentences, the process of the formation of the settlement, when noblemen were canvassed, land orders sold, ships chartered, promises and engagements made, and the best platform-orator in England retained under the title of Bishop Designate; he reminds Mr. Godley of his neglect of his duty in playing the part of demagogue at Wellington, instead of being at Lyttelton superintending the arrangements for the reception of the colonists. "You, my dear sir, were heard of first at Wellington, and then at Lyttelton." He then points out Mr. Godley's inconsistency in leading the self-government party, and yet acting as the representative of an Association that wishes to impose its nominees on the settlement in the shape of a managing committee; and in "a little history" with great humour and ability states the case as it stands between the philanthropist and his

too confiding neighbour. Mr. Cholmondeley then puts a few questions to Mr, Godley as agent, as to the pasturage regulations, the publication of the accounts of the Association, and the expenditure of the fund for ecclesiastical purposes, which are more easily asked than answered, and inquires, "Are these fair, – are the answers forthcoming, – is it too much to ask what they are?" and observes – "I might here pause for an answer." Mr. Cholmondeley might easily have multiplied these questions: as a Canterbury colonist, he might have asked when such efforts have been made by the Association to maintain so high a price for the land, why have the religious and educational features, which, "in the extensive system of touting that has been practised in London," were put so prominently forward, so little reality? Where are the promised churches and schools? When will the cost of chartering all these vessels be defrayed, and by whom? Who are the responsible parties in the Association. The smouldering fires seem on the eve of bursting forth – the dissatisfaction caused by the neglect or non-fulfilment of so many solemn pledges is finding an audible expression; but we fear the able writer of this brochure will pause a long time for an answer, unless Mr. Godley's Irish blood, getting the better of his discretion, impels him to break the silence he has hitherto maintained on these subjects.

Extract from the "Morning Chronicle," Thursday, July 21, 1853.

THE CANTERBURY SETTLEMENT.

THE return of Mr. Godley, whose services in connexion with the establishment of the Canterbury Settlement are so well known and so justly appreciated, was yesterday celebrated by a public dinner at the Trafalgar Hotel, Greenwich. Lord Wharncliffe presided, and amongst the company we observed: – Lord Monteagle, Lord Lyttelton, Right Hon. Sir J. Pakington, M.P., Sir W. James, Bart., Sir Horace St. Paul, Bart., Sir P. Hopkins, Bart., Hon. (?) Mr. Chapman, Hon. (?) J. Daly, Hon. E. Twistleton, Hon. Captain Denman, R. N., Messrs. W. Monsell, M.P., A. Stafford, M.P., R. Palmer, M.P., M. Higgins, C. B. Adderley, M.P., Blackford (the Accountant to the Association), Mr. Aylmer (their emigration agent), T. Cholmondeley, W. Forsyth, W. H. Gregory, Logan, J. Simeon, S. Lucas, R. S. Rintoul, J. Ball, M.P., Edward Wakefield.

After the usual loyal toasts had been given,

The Noble Chairman rose to propose the toast of the evening. In doing so he said: We are met on the present occasion to welcome the return of one who has been an old and intimate friend of a very large portion of the gentlemen now present, and of one of whom others are able to say that they have had experience of his kindness, of his friendship, and of his ability (cheers.) I am sure I may express to him, on your part, the hearty welcome which we give him, on his return, after an absence of some three or four years, from a part of the world where he has filled the post of guide and leader of a host of enlightened pilgrims (cheers) – on his return here to fill that station amongst us, and in the land of his birth, to which his talents, his character, and his public spirit justly entitle him (cheers.) When we look back to the functions which Mr. Godley has had to fulfil in that distant quarter of the globe, we must feel that it was scarcely possible for any man to be placed under, more trying and arduous responsibility (hear, hear.) He went there charged with the duty of preparing for the arrival of those who had been led to expect that they were to land upon the shores of New Zealand with facilities and advantages which were never offered to colonists before (hear, hear, hear.) He was placed there to carry out those arrangements which were entrusted to his management – he was placed there, at a distance of 11,000 or 12,000 miles from those who instructed him, with such rare means of communication that he was left almost wholly to act on his own unassisted judgment and decision (hear, hear.) He was placed there, as you will perceive, under difficulties of no ordinary kind, and we are now, I believe, able to say with confidence that he discharged those duties which were entrusted to him manfully and successfully (cheers.) We are here sitting in the old hemisphere, and it may be said that we are not the best judges of the merits of the proceedings of Mr. Godley in New Zealand. On this point I will cite a higher authority – an authority which no one here can question – an authority of undisputed weight, and one which, in my opinion, entitles us to pronounce a correct judgment, in spite of any question which may be raised in those parts of the world with respect to the success of Mr. Godley's operations (hear.) On the 18th of December last, an entertainment, somewhat of an analogous character to this, was given to Mr. Godley upon an opposite occasion, namely, upon his departure from the colony which has lost his services, and an address was then read, expressing the sentiments of the colonists over whom he had so long presided as to the value of those services, to one sentence of which I beg to call your attention. They say: – We should deeply regret to think

that the connection between us were now to be wholly severed; but we are persuaded you will never cease to feel a lively interest in the welfare of a settlement with which your name has been so closely linked; and that in any future measures which may be contemplated in England affecting its prosperity, we may rely upon a continuance of your services to defend or advocate our rights and interests. Especially in the final adjustment of the relations which are to exist between the Canterbury Association and the settlement, we earnestly hope you will take an active part, as possessing the entire confidence of the great majority of its inhabitants, and being fully competent to express their sentiments and wishes. If any question is raised here as to our competency to pronounce an opinion upon Mr. Godley's efforts in New Zealand, my answer is the language used by these colonists, assembled in public meeting, without a whisper of contradiction (cheers.) It may be said that was only the opinion of an assembly like the present; but I believe no one will question that it is the prevailing opinion of the colonists (cheers.) I have said that the duties which Mr. Godley had to perform were indeed arduous and responsible; but I will venture to say that in spite of all the charges brought against the Association – in spite of all their alleged delinquencies – they did their duty in the selection of Mr. Godley for this undertaking (cheers.) The operations of such a body, and the progress of such an undertaking, must have depended more than ordinarily upon the character and power of the man chosen to carry it to its issue. They selected a man well known to most of those concerned in the enterprise, as answering that description, and one who was further known by having turned his attention seriously and earnestly to these subjects, and by having attained an eminence and connection with topics of this description (cheers.) Mr. Godley having been selected on these grounds, did, I will venture to say, the utmost credit to that selection (hear.) The noble chairman concluded by proposing "Health and happiness to Mr. Godley," which was responded to by loud and prolonged cheering.

Mr. Godley, after expressing in the warmest manner his thanks for the manner in which he had been received, asked permission to pass to matters of a public nature, and to give some account of the present condition of the Canterbury Settlement. He proceeded: I have heard a good deal in this country about the settlement's being a failure, and I think it worth while to show that such is not the case; not for the sake of those who founded it, for to them personally it signifies very little whether they be considered to have failed or not; but in the first place, for the sake of the colony, which ought not to be discredited; and, in the second, lest future enterprises of a noble and disinterested kind should be damaged by the supposed precedent of our want of success. The best way in which I can meet assertions of failure is by giving you a very short and simple account of the actual condition of the colony, with a statement of what has been done there; and if any one should think I am likely to mis-state, or to over-colour, I can only say I made statements to the same effect six months ago, in the presence of 200 people, at Canterbury, and they, who knew best whether I told the truth, sanctioned what I said by their unanimous applause. I am happy, too, to see here several gentlemen whose friendship I was so fortunate as to acquire in New Zealand, and before whom I could hardly venture upon any great exaggeration, even if I were so disposed. In the first place, then, there arrived from England during my stay in the colony twenty-two ships, bringing about 3100 immigrants, well-selected, with the proportion of the sexes duly preserved, and generally speaking, of good character and industrious habits. I calculate that from three to four hundred people came to us from the neighbouring colonies, and that the gold fever and other causes have deprived us temporarily of about five hundred. The present population, therefore, may be set down at 3300 Europeans, and they are, take them for all in all, as good

materials, morally and physically, as any colony was ever composed of. Of the site of the colony there can be but one opinion, namely, that it was not only the best, accessible to us, in any part of the world, but that, by peculiar good fortune, it was the most advantageous, though the last selected, site for a settlement in New Zealand. A short description will make its extraordinary advantages clear, even to you. The capital of our settlement is the town of Christchurch; the sea-port, Lyttelton, is eight miles from it. These towns form the centre of a district comprising 150 miles of coast, of which the natural boundaries are, to the west, (what we call) "the snowy range;" to the north, the Kaikora mountains; and to the south, the Waitangi river, and which varies in width from seventy to forty miles. I call these its natural boundaries, because such is their impracticable nature, that in all probability, for an indefinite time to come, they will not be crossed by a road accessible to commerce. Of this district, thus shut in, Lyttelton is (with the exception of the inlets of Banks's Peninsula, also in our settlement, but lying quite out of the way) not only the best and most accessible, but the only harbour. The district consists of low hills and level prairies. It is not of uniform fertility, but the whole of it is admirably adapted for carrying stock. We calculate it to contain five or six millions of acres available for pasturage, which in the natural state will carry at a very low computation two million sheep. These will produce seven million pounds of wool, worth at present prices, say, £500,000. Add £100,000 for tallow, hides, and farm produce (a very low estimate), and you will have on the whole, produce to the amount of £600,000, necessarily exported from Lyttelton, and you will have, on the other hand, the supplies which the producing population will require, drawn either from the same place, so far as they are seaborne, or from the agricultural district surrounding Christchurch. And this prospective trade, very much larger as it is, than the whole export trade of Van Diemen's Land before the gold discoveries – larger than the whole export trade of the Cape – equal, if my memory be correct, to the export trade of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick put together, is not, humanly speaking, problematical and uncertain. It must come. The land wants nothing to be done to it; there are sheep enough on it already to stock it fully, even if there were no further imports, in eight or nine years, and the rest follows as a matter of course. I have used round numbers, it is true, and my estimate may be a little too high, or a little too low, but that does not affect my argument, which is, that by the necessary course of things, the Canterbury settlement must become in a few years one of the richest colonies, and its port one of the most flourishing places of commerce in the South Seas. Now I will take the state of the case at the present time. The number of sheep in the district which I have been describing is at this moment at least 100,000, which will yield, after the next shearing, exportable produce of the value of £25,000, to which must be added a considerable sum as the value of cheese, which is now bringing 14d. a pound, for export to Melbourne; so that the exports of the district during the ensuing year, that is the third year after the foundation of the colony, will be not less than at the rate of £8 per head of the population, or three times as much as the proportion of exports to population m the United Kingdom. Again, notwithstanding the immense enhancement in the price of stock, consequent on the gold discoveries, importation into Canterbury still proceeds with great rapidity. The week before I came away two ships landed 2700 sheep, besides a good number of cattle, at Lyttelton, and were immediately taken up for another trip. On our way to Wellington we met another stock-ship going down with a full cargo. It is difficult, perhaps, for you to realize as I do the full value of this increasing import trade in stock, both as a symptom of present enterprise and as a sure earnest of future prosperity. As regards agriculture, I assert, unhesitatingly, that no body of first colonists ever set to work with so little delay and so much success, to provide food from their own soil. The obstacles to cultivation in a

new country are such as generally to extend longer than you would deem possible the period of imported subsistence. New South Wales did not feed itself, I think, for twenty years; Wellington does not feed itself now. Well, the people of Canterbury raised last season potatoes enough for their consumption. There were 500 acres under wheat, which will give about two-thirds of the consumption. After next harvest the settlement will cease to import the main articles of subsistence. This a true picture of the state of the colony as regards its industry and its commerce. I ask you, does it look like failure? And now let any fair-minded man just take up any number of the Lyttelton Times – let him observe, in the first place, its tone and style; in the second, the number of its advertisements; then the varied record that it exhibits of the sayings and doings of the colony – let him at the same time remember that that colony was only two years old, and contained little more than 3,000 people, and then let him say whether it is possible to come to any other conclusion than that the community of which it is the organ must be not only advancing and flourishing in a material point of view, but also intelligent, moral, and civilized in a very high degree. Where will you find a rural parish in this country, of equal population – aye, though such a parish, by being placed in the midst of an old and rich country, would have immense advantages over a colony – that could produce a newspaper like this I hold in my hand? I brought it because a speech of mine was published in it, from which I thought I might wish to quote; but I find, in looking through it, ample illustration of what I have been saying. I find recorded, for example, the meeting of a horticultural society, which is said to have been so successful that they meant to have another on an extended scale in March; the performances of a choral society, with an elaborate and well-written critique on them; a long account of horse races (for we have our English sports too); and finally, an entertainment given to myself, at which 150 people sat down, and which I can assure you was got up in a way that would have done no discredit to the old country. These things are trivial in themselves, but they are collectively inconsistent with the notions of depression, apathy, and failure. But it may be asked, assuming the colony to be as you say, how much of all this is due to the Canterbury Association? Now this is, strictly speaking, beside the present question, my object being not to defend or extol the Association, but to describe the actual state of the colony. But I will, nevertheless, in a few words, tell you what the Association has done. In the first place, its agent explored and selected the site, which, up to that time, had been utterly neglected, and almost unknown; it set on foot a survey, which, Captain Stokes told, me, was unparalleled for excellence in the southern hemisphere; it organized, with vast labour, one of the best bodies of colonists that ever left these shores; it conveyed those colonists, with comfort and security, to New Zealand; it provided for them accommodation so ample, that the hardships ordinarily suffered by newly-arrived emigrants have been unknown; it secured for them a cheap and secure title to their land, and made such arrangements for giving them possession, that within two months the whole of the first body were actually in occupation; and it has effectually represented the interests of the colony in this country, especially as regarded the acquisition of constitutional rights. On the subject of what has been done in the way of roads, and of ecclesiastical provision, it is necessary that I should speak a little more at length. Before you can understand the demand for roads in the settlement, or the value of what has been done to supply it, it is necessary that I should recall to your minds the formation of the country. It chiefly consists, as I have said, of level plains and undulating downs, dry, grassy, and traversable by drays in every direction. There is, however, a belt, five or six miles wide, next to the coast, north and south of Lyttelton, containing the richest part of the land, which is thickly intersected by swamps. The plains are separated from the port by a range of hills, from 1100 to

600 feet high. The only roads, therefore, which, in the existing state of population and commerce, are much required, are, first, one to cross the hills, between the port and the plains; and, secondly, branch lines communicating with it, and leading westward, northward, and southward, through the belt of swampy land, so as to connect the port with the dry land beyond the swamps. The first object we had in view, and that which I considered the most important, was to make the road over the hill. A large sum of money had been spent upon it before I came, and it was estimated by our chief surveyor that 7000l. would finish it. Subsequent and more careful surveys, however, made it clear to me that to finish it to Christchurch on the scale on which it had been begun, would cost from 25,000l. to 30,000l.; to finish it on the inadequate scale of a width of eleven feet would cost (with a bridge over the Heathcote) 16,000l. This, of course, altered my view of the matter, because there was no prospect whatever of getting the sum required; I saw, therefore, that it was my business not to go on sinking my small means in a work that I could not finish, but to spend them in cutting through the swamps from the head of the navigation to the dry land. I should have mentioned before, that the rivers Avon and Heathcote, which flow into the sea close to the heads of Lyttelton Harbour, are navigable for vessels of twenty-five tons close up to Christchurch, and I found, after the experience of some months, that the difficulty of this water communication between the port and the plains had been greatly exaggerated, so that, in the opinion of many of the most experienced colonists, the greater part of the heavy goods would go round by water even if the road were finished. Accordingly, I made a good bridle-path over the hill, and a cart-road from the other side of the hill to Christchurch, touching the head of the navigation. From Christchurch I formed roads to the west, north, and south, with the necessary bridges; so that, when I left the settlement, the country was opened in every direction, and a complete communication for heavy goods effected, partly by road and partly by water, between the port and every part of the plains. At present, I have no hesitation in saying that Canterbury is, on the whole, notwithstanding the want of a dray road to the port, more traversable and accessible in every direction than any other settlement in New Zealand. I will now speak of ecclesiastical and educational institutions. There are four churches in the settlement, built partly by the Association, partly by subscription, in which Sunday service is performed; in one of these there is service every day, in another on alternate days. Besides these regular places of worship, Divine service is performed from time to time in private houses in various parts of the settlement. There is a day school at Lyttelton, and another at Christchurch, both excellently taught and well attended. I tried the experiment of having schools in two other localities, but found the population so scattered, and so busy, that the attendance was not such as to justify my keeping them up. At Christchurch there is a grammar school, conducted by the Rev. Mr. Jacobs, at which there are about twenty boys of the upper and middle classes. Now this may appear not to be much – and I fully admit that it is not as much as was intended; but, on the other hand, I maintain that it is as much as there is an effective demand for. I must again remind you that the population is smaller, and, collectively, far poorer, than that of many villages in England. Now, apply this fact to the question of education. Over estimating, as we always did, the probable extent of our colonization, we thought and spoke a great deal about a college. But a college, in the English sense of the word, for 3000 or 4000 poor and hard-working people, would be out of place. It would die for want of students. I doubt whether there are half a dozen people at Canterbury who would keep their sons at a college conducted on the cheapest possible scale. Unfortunately, in new countries, there is such a demand for men and money, that very few are content, on the one hand, to pay the sum which would keep their sons as gentlemen at college; and, on the other, to sacrifice those sons' services

just at the age when they are beginning to be useful on a station or a farm. The true criticism would be – not that we have not a college, and many other things of the same sort now – but that we so positively announced that we should have them; and to that criticism there is no answer, except that we were oversanguine. We thought we should make, all of a sudden, a colony large and wealthy enough to demand these things, and that we should have means available to supply the demand; and we have neither. Upon the ecclesiastical endowments there is, in candour, something more to he said. The committee made, in my opinion, a very serious mistake when they invested the whole of their ecclesiastical funds in wild land. There are many objections to this, but the chief is that, as all practical colonists know, wild land in a new country cannot be relied upon for producing an annual income. No doubt, in process of time, the ecclesiastical lands in Canterbury, which have been very carefully selected, will become extremely valuable; but they bring in very little now. The association has engaged to support the clergymen and schoolmasters now regularly employed by it for five years, and if there be not sufficient funds of a public nature to discharge this obligation, it will, I doubt not, be met by individuals. But after that time the support of the Church will depend on the rents of the Church lands, and that is, in my opinion, far too precarious a source of income to be properly relied upon. I have now said nearly all that I have to say about the state of the colony. I do not wish to depict it as a Utopia, either physically or socially; but I say that, taking it as a new country, and comparing it with other new countries, it is, on the whole, the best and most desirable I have seen or heard of. It is always a misfortune to be obliged to emigrate, but if I were obliged to emigrate myself I would go to Canterbury, and it is the place to which I should always recommend any one in whom I had an interest to go if compelled to leave England. He will find a healthy, though not always a very pleasant climate; agreeable society; most, if not all, of the essential elements of civilization; and – I have no doubt whatever – the best investment for a small capital now to be had in the world. I repeat that, taking the rate of profit and the absence of risk together, a capital of from 1500l. to 5000l. cannot in my opinion be so advantageously invested in any other way as in dairy-farming, or sheep-keeping on the plains of New Zealand. I will now make a few remarks on the part which I took in the politics of New Zealand, especially as I understand that in some quarters I have incurred blame for it. While I was at Wellington, waiting for the means of prosecuting the Canterbury enterprise, Sir George Grey came from Auckland, and published a bill which he contemplated passing into a law for the establishment of municipal constitutions in the provinces of New Zealand. These were intended to be the preparation for and basis of a permanent central constitution founded on similar principles. It became, of course, a most serious question whether the colonists should accept this measure, in satisfaction of their claims, or refuse to have anything to say to it, and endeavour to get something else. I will not detain you by stating my reasons for objecting to the measure – for considering it, in fact, a mere mockery of freedom. It is sufficient to say that I did so consider it, and that therefore, as an honest man, deeply interested in the welfare of New Zealand in general, and of Canterbury in particular, I could not refuse to raise my voice against it. Accordingly I strongly advocated its rejection. The colonists of Wellington took the same view; they refused the bill. Subsequently the other settlements pronounced in the same sense. The Governor practically withdrew it, and wrote home, recommending a different and far more liberal measure; and finally, thanks to the energy and liberality of Sir John Pakington, we obtained the constitution of last year, which has been so joyfully and thankfully received in every part of New Zealand. Now, there is not one individual in the colony, or anywhere else, who believes that if the measure which we resisted had been carried into successful

operation, and if the colony had acquiesced in it, there would have been a chance of getting any improvement on it for an indefinite time to come; indeed there would have been in that case no reason or excuse for a change; and therefore I cannot but regard with the liveliest satisfaction the course which I, and those with whom I acted, took, and the result to which its adoption led. I now look on the political future of New Zealand as assured. The colonists have obtained not only a large measure of actual power, but also the inestimable advantage of being able to express, with authority, their own opinions as to further political improvements. And now, will you pardon my presumption, if I, on the ground that I am half a colonist, and have made colonial affairs my special study, venture to give, even to such men as I see around me, men so superior to myself in ability and position, one word of advice on the subject of colonial policy? Many of you have the power of exercising, directly or indirectly, great influence on the affairs of British colonies. May I earnestly and solemnly impress upon them the one great fundamental maxim of sound colonial policy – it is to let your colonies alone; not chiefly because your interference will probably be of an injudicious kind in this or that particular matter – still less because it will be costly and troublesome to yourselves – but because it tends to spoil, corrupt, and to degrade them, because they will never do anything or be fit for anything great, so long as their chief political business is to complain of you, to fight with you, and to lean upon you; so long as they consider you as responsible for their welfare, and can look to you for assistance in their difficulties. I protest quite as much against subsidies and subscriptions as against vetos and restraints; indeed more, for the poison is more subtle, and the chance of resistance less. I want you neither to subsidize their treasuries, nor to support their clergy, nor to do their police duty with your soldiers, because they ought to do these things for themselves, and by your doing it all, you contribute to making them effeminate, degenerate, and helpless. Do not be afraid to leave them to themselves; throw them into the water and they will swim. Depend upon it the greatest boon you can bestow upon colonies is what Burke calls 'a wise and salutary neglect.' To this rule the Canterbury colony is no exception. It is fortunate for it that the association's career has been brief as well as effective; now it must go alone. It has been called into existence, it has been given its opportunities, it has been started on its way; henceforth it must work out its own destinies. The Canterbury Association has done its work and passed away. Its memory may be unhonoured, its members reviled; they care not; they have done their work – a great and heroic work; they have raised to themselves a noble monument – they have laid the foundations of a great and happy people. [The honourable gentleman, who had been frequently applauded in the course of his speech, resumed his seat amidst loud and prolonged cheering].

Lord Monteagle said that, under the mild despotism that prevailed at a convivial meeting like that, he rose to discharge an obligation which they were all bound to respect; otherwise he should not presume to occupy any portion of their attention, however short, or to intrude himself upon their notice. They could not fail to recollect that their watchword that night was "Welcome to Mr. Godley" (hear). And here they obtained an exemplification of what had often been said, namely, that out of evil good had been realised; for if there had been no farewell there would have been no opportunity of welcome. Mr. Godley had called their attention to those great and leading principles without which a colonial empire became an encumbrance and not a glory, became a sphere of contest and of quarrel, instead of a sphere for the performance of duty and for the privilege of creating happiness. They were glad to have their old friend amongst them again; and in the interchange of sentiment which had taken place that evening, it must almost have occurred to Mr. Godley that his case was like that of the man at the Horse Guards, who thought that he saw on duty there

the very same sentry as he had seen on an anterior visit (a laugh). He hoped that Mr. Godley, on his return to this country, found the same friends in the same sentry boxes, intent upon the same objects, and pursuing them with the same earnestness (hear, hear). Every day's experience tended to strengthen the ties between the colonies and the mother-country; for there were few amongst them who, in their private circles, had not either friends or relations in the colonists. These ties were being daily drawn closer and closer by means of steam communication, by the electric telegraph, and by the other improvements that were being rapidly introduced; but it behoved the mother-country to be cautious in abstaining from using these very means of improvements as instruments for a more frequent and vexatious interference with the internal affairs of our colonial subjects, and to leave, as far as possible, in their own hands the powers of self-government (hear, hear). But all this had been better said to them by Mr. Godley himself, whom they were glad to receive, not only as a friend, but as a messenger for good, in communicating to them the principles upon which his experience taught him that the colonies of England ought to be governed (hear, hear). But passing from Mr. Godley to the colonies themselves, and above all, to that most interesting colony of which the Canterbury Settlement formed a part – New Zealand – he was happy to have the opportunity of proposing "Success to the Colony of New Zealand," coupling with it the name of Mr. Chapman, a gentleman of great colonial experience, who had not disdained to be a theorist, because he felt that a theorist rightly understood could best become a practical man.

The toast was drunk with applause.

Mr. Chapman, in acknowledging the toast, said that he had personally visited and inspected the settlement which had been the scene of his friend Mr. Godley's exertions, and he was able to endorse almost every word of that gentleman's account of the position and prospects of Canterbury (hear, hear). With regard to the situation of the Australian colonies generally, no two measures could be more calculated to advance their prosperity and strengthen their loyalty and attachment to this country than, in the first place, the steps which had been taken to confer upon them representative institutions; and next, the steps which were about to be adopted to abolish the transportation of convicts (hear, hear).

Sir W. James, in proposing the next toast, said that he believed in his heart and conscience the Canterbury Association had nothing to conceal (cheers), and he felt quite sure that, before long, the public would be made acquainted with all that it had done, and would fully appreciate the zeal, the energy, and the many noble qualities which had been exhibited by the noble lord who was at the head of that body (cheers). He did not deny that they had been blamed; and perhaps in some cases they had been justly blamed; but he was quite certain that whatever faults Lord Lyttelton might have committed had been faults of disinterestedness and patriotism – they had been errors of the head, and not errors of the heart (hear, hear). The honourable baronet concluded by proposing "The Canterbury Colonists," coupling therewith the name of Mr. Cholmondeley (loud cheers).

Mr. Cholmondeley, in acknowledging the toast, said they perhaps might have failed in bringing out the kind of colony which had been contemplated, but they had got together a great and noble body of men from every part of England, who had been furnished with all means and appliances – with churches, schools, a post-office, magistrates, and other officials; and although the company had not done all it wished to do, yet it was entitled to claim credit for what it had been able to accomplish (hear). On his return from the colony, he was surprised to hear that such extraordinary misapprehension existed, and he could not conceive how such slanders had arisen. As a person holding a considerable interest in Canterbury – as a farmer – as a magistrate – knowing almost every person in the colony, he must

say that, if ever a colony had been established, the colony of Canterbury had been established (cheers). It had been established politically, socially and economically (cheers). In proposing "The Health of Lord Lyttelton," he must be allowed to say that his lordship's name was most highly appreciated in the colony, and it was almost impossible to describe the manner in which it was received in every part of New Zealand, for the people felt that they had in every respect a most faithful, zealous, and noble supporter (loud cheers).

Lord Lyttelton said he was the more sensible of the honour which had been conferred upon him, because he felt that the Canterbury Association and himself were not the most prominent subjects on the present occasion; but as it could be only in connexion with that Association that his name could be noticed, it was incumbent on him to make a few remarks relative to that Association (hear, hear). That Association and himself had at one time been the subject of more praise than they deserved, and perhaps they were now the subject of undue attack. He had been told that he ought to avail himself of every opportunity of defending himself against the attacks which had been made, but he had never been able to bring himself to that opinion. The present was not an opportunity of his seeking, nor did he wish to avail himself of it for the purpose of making a detailed defence of the Association. There was only one public point of view which gave him some occasion to pause. It had been said that the obloquy to which the Association had been subjected might operate as a discouragement. To that he had but one answer to make, which he believed would be assented to by all who had a knowledge of the facts – that whatever faults or errors the Canterbury Association might have committed, they had been committed not in pursuance of the principles on which the Association was founded, but through the misapplication or neglect of those principles (hear, hear). He might venture to note a few points in the existence of the colony. The colonists of Canterbury had had given to them a site unsurpassed, if not unequalled, in Australasia (hear, hear). No colonist had had a moment's delay or difficulty about the title of his land (hear, hear). The colonists had had given to them a survey as complete as ever was presented to a colony; and he believed that no colonist, since the landing of the first body, allowing for a few exceptional cases, had had half a day to seek for any office of the church he desired to attend, or, from an early period, a school suitable for his children (cheers). That could not be said for any colony founded within the last 150 years. It had been said that the scheme in its peculiar feature had failed. He could not argue against that assertion; but he must say that he believed the success of the scheme in its essential feature was not lost, but only deferred (cheers). He did not attribute to the matters which he had recapitulated the success of the Canterbury colony. He attributed it to the character of the people themselves. That they should be people of that character was in no degree owing to the exertions of the Association, but to the exertions of others not now present. He would not dwell further on that subject, but would simply say that the success of the colony was owing to the people themselves (cheers). Although he had been disappointed, he should never regret the part he had taken in the promotion of that settlement (cheers). The noble lord concluded by proposing "The Health of the Chairman," which was responded to most heartily.

The Noble Chairman, in returning thanks, expressed the peculiar pleasure he felt in presiding on that occasion, connected as he was with the colony of New Zealand by links of affection and interest. It afforded him further satisfaction to attend there that evening to evince his gratitude to Mr. Godley, in whom, in many colonial matters, he was happy to say, he had found a guide, a philosopher, and friend. The proceedings of that memorable evening would not easily be forgotten; and should the future success of the Canterbury Settlement correspond with the augury which their excellent friend had given of it, that assembly would

not only haver done justice to their own feelings towards Mr. Godley personally, but would have marked an era in the annals of the colony itself (cheers).

Mr. Adderley, M.P., said that they had met chiefly to congratulate themselves on the return to this country of the hero of that evening, after what he (Mr. Adderley) was bold enough to call the successful completion of a great enterprise, and he himself might claim a large share of the sympathy which that toast had elicited from that assembly, having had the fullest opportunity, perhaps, of any man present, of appreciating the varied claims of Mr. Godley to any man's friendship. But they must bear in mind that they had not only toasted that honourable gentleman, but the colony, the success of which he had inaugurated. They had offered the first libations, votive of success, to that last and new-born daughter of England, who bore the nearest impress of the features of the parent – the Canterbury Settlement; and he felt it was not taxing too much the proverbial fairness and generosity of Englishmen, to ask them to look with indulgence upon the errors that might have been committed by a body of their fellow countrymen in conducting a great undertaking, which had been conceived with public spirit, carried on at no time with the sordid motive of mere gain or profit (hear, hear), and managed throughout with manful energy and personal sacrifice; and therefore it was not unreasonable for them to ask to be guarded against any incidental loss which might have been incurred in what he would call a national enterprise (hear, hear). But he confessed that he should not have had the heart to enter into the enjoyment of that evening, and he would have blushed even to propose success to this colony, if the colony had still presented itself to them as the slave and dependent, instead of the daughter and sister, of this empire – if it had still been deprived of its civil and political rights, and remained crippled in its own resources, and a burden upon the resources of this country. Five years ago he (Mr. Adderley) met Mr. Godley at Charing-cross, in the first committee meeting, for the purpose of discussing the principles of colonial self-government and representative institutions in connexion with the Canterbury Settlement; and Mr. Godley had the pride and satisfaction of returning to this country, as no man had returned to it since the days of Baltimore, of Sir W. Raleigh, or of Penn, and found that the great principles which he had advocated had been at length recognised by every statesman of eminence. Constitutions had been given, and a renovating spirit had been breathed into every colony in the southern hemisphere, since Mr. Godley left this country. Lord Grey had had the honour – he would not say the merit – of recognising the constitutional rights of the Australasian colonies; and in the following year Sir J. Pakington had conferred upon them the representative institutions to which every community of free-born Englishmen were entitled; but, not wishing to monopolise the credit of so good a work entirely to himself, the right honourable baronet had left to the Duke of Newcastle the credit of doing justice to the claims of South Africa. He only mentioned this in that mixed assembly, as it indicated that Mr. Godley had friends among all political parties; but he must congratulate Sir J. Pakington upon having the gratifying recollection that taking office, and manfully filling it as he did with patriotic feelings, he had embraced the opportunity of not only recognising the rights of British citizens in New Zealand, but of granting representative government to other colonies, and also giving to Australia the control of its own lands, and of the precious metals that had been discovered there, and which, up to his advent to office, had been withheld from those colonies. The right honourable baronet had shown a largeness of principle and a statesmanlike mode of dealing with difficult questions which entitled him to the amplest honour on an occasion like the present; and he had therefore much pleasure in proposing, "Success to the Constitution of New Zealand," coupling with it the health of Sir John Pakington (drunk amid loud cheers).

Sir J. Pakington expressed the deep gratification which he felt at the kind expressions

of his honourable friend, relative to the success of the constitution of New Zealand. When he was at the head of the Colonial department one of the most pressing questions was the granting of free institutions to New Zealand, and he determined that no exertions on his part should be wanting to fulfil the hopes that had been held out. By the aid of Parliament he succeeded in his attempt, and it was gratifying to him to say that his attempt had not been unsuccessful (cheers). He should be more than rewarded for any labour he had gone through, by the recollection that he had been instrumental in any degree in bestowing upon the colony of New Zealand those free institutions and powers of self-government, without which our fellow-subjects must feel themselves deprived of all the privileges which they ought to exercise as their birthright (cheers). New Zealand was one of the most interesting dependencies of the crown, and within the last few days he had received a private communication, giving him the gratifying assurance that the constitution had been readily accepted in the colony, and that every part of the colony was increasing in material prosperity (cheers). He was glad to hear that Canterbury was no exception to the general rule, and trusted that it would continue to share in the prosperity of the other parts of New Zealand (cheers). He felt satisfied that Mr. Godley had conferred the greatest benefit on the Settlement, and had accepted with the greatest pleasure the invitation to pay to him that honour which he so justly deserved (loud cheers).

The party then broke up, and returned to town by a special train, which had been provided for the occasion.

SIR JOHN PAKINGTON'S SCOURGING DESPATCH.

SIR JOHN PAKINGTON'S SCOURGING DESPATCH.

(From the "New Zealander" of 26th March, 1853.)

SIR, – I am directed by Secretary Sir John Pakington to acknowledge your two letters of the 31st of August, one providing certain correspondence with the New Zealand Company, the other stating that the Association had resolved on discontinuing operations in this country on and from the 30th ult., and on transferring, with the least possible delay, their powers and authorities to the colonists.

2. And that with reference to this intended step the Committee of Management suggest that instructions should be sent to the Governor of New Zealand, enabling him to stipulate on behalf of the New Zealand Company for such terms to secure their interests as her Majesty's government may think just and fair.

3. Sir John Pakington will not here enter on the question whether or not the contemplated cessation of proceedings by the Association, before any body is in existence to which the transfer of its functions can be made, is in legal accordance with the terms of the agreement and acts of parliament under which they subsist. He assumes that the Committee of Management have satisfied themselves and the Association on that point. But he is bound, on the part of her Majesty's government, to state that if legal, such a course of proceeding is by no means what was contemplated on their part; when, at the strong instance of parties representing the Association, this power of transfer was introduced into the recent act for the government of New Zealand, Sir John Pakington was fully under the impression that the power of transfer was intended to be exercised with due deliberation, and not until the body, to which it was to be made, was actually constituted, and its composition and character known. Had not such been his impression, it would have been impossible for him to consent to the introduction of such a power into the bill, least of all had he been aware that it would be exercised pending litigation with the New Zealand Company as to the extent of the Association's liability to that body.

4. It is, therefore, impossible for him now to make her Majesty's government parties to any such transfer, as they would become by issuing the instructions asked for to the Governor; but he is bound to state, in addition, that he does not believe such a course would be attended with any advantage. In the present state of affairs between the Company and the Association, it is very improbable that any terms insisted on by the Governor could be acceptable to all parties concerned, and certain that, by insisting on unacceptable terms, the local government would become involved in differences to which it is, in his opinion, very important that it should continue a stranger.

5. And, in the next place, it appears from the correspondence now before Sir John Pakington, that the directors of the Company have distinctly refused on their part to assent to any such transfer, unless certain specified liabilities are first discharged by the Association. Without prejudging the questions at

issue between the Association and the Company, it appears to Sir John Pakington that it would not be just, on the part of her Majesty's government, to make themselves parties to a transfer which the latter regard as prejudicial to their interests as actual litigants.

6. Being therefore obliged to decline the proposal of the Committee, it becomes necessary for Sir John Pakington to state the course which her Majesty's government have to pursue.

7. That course was already indicated in Mr. Elliott's letter of the 11th ult., as correctly quoted in your present communication.

8. I am, therefore, to request that you will inform the Committee, that Sir John Pakington feels it necessary to call upon them for payment of the amount due to the Crown, in respect of the 1s. 6d. received by the Association on land sales. A formal notice to pay this sum by a specified time will be duly addressed to the Committee, and on failure to make such payment, Sir John Pakington will feel it his duty to exercise the power placed in his hands of putting a stop to the land-selling functions of the Association, or of its delegates in the colony, while it will be necessary, at the same time, for her Majesty's government to take such steps as they may be advised for the recovery of the debt.

9. I am to remind you, that this is a determination which Sir John Pakington is compelled to adopt, in consequence of the refusal of the Association to fulfil a condition of their constitution. Not being able to accede to the terms on which you propose to make the payment, he has no resource but to require it unconditionally. He has been advised by the present law-officers of the Crown – fully coinciding with their predecessors – that while the right of the Crown to this sum is undoubted, the Crown is equally bound to pay it over to the New Zealand Company as soon as received, in reduction of the debt created by the 10th and 11th of Victoria, chap. 112.

10. And this being the case, he must distinctly warn the Committee that if the result of these proceedings is the termination of their functions, this consequence is wholly attributable to themselves, and is not voluntarily brought on by her Majesty's government; to avert it, the Association having nothing to do but to make payment of a debt, which they have repeatedly acknowledged to be due. They do not contest the right of the Crown to the sum in question; they object only to the manner in which the Crown – acting under legal advice – feels itself bound to apply it.

11. If, on the other hand, the Committee of Management make the payment in question, then, while they in no degree prejudice the alleged right of the Association in its present litigation with the New Zealand Company, the Committee will place it out of the power of her Majesty's government, as it is certainly against their inclination, to interfere with the Association's lawful proceedings. Sir John Pakington has already expressed his own opinion as to the time and circumstances under which the Committee of Management propose to make their intended transfer; it was necessary, for the purpose of this letter, that he should do so, but his disapproval could in no degree arrest the Association in taking the course which they consider right and expedient. It rests with themselves to say whether, by paying their admitted debt to the Crown, they will place themselves in a position to go on with a scheme which they appear to regard as so essential to the prosperity of the settlement under their charge.

12. If they should persist in their refusal to do so, it only remains for Sir John Pakington to state that although, under other circumstances, he could not but have greatly regretted the termination of a scheme in which so great an interest has been taken by eminent friends of New Zealand and promoters of British colonization, yet he will be better reconciled to it at present from his conviction of the great improbability of its long continuance, in combination with

the powers intrusted to the general legislature of New Zealand over the public land of the colony at large.

13. Every attention will be paid, in the event of this termination, both to the interests and the convenience of parties engaged in land-purchasing negotiations with the Association, and Sir John Pakington will be obliged by any suggestions which may be made on this behalf in addition to those already convened by your letter of the 2nd ult.

I have, &c.,

H. MERIVALE.

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