1980 - Sewell, Henry. The Journal of Henry Sewell, 1853-7. Volume I - EXAMINING THE ASSOCIATION'S ACCOUNTS, p 445-510

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EXAMINING THE ASSOCIATION'S ACCOUNTS

Found on my arrival a letter from FitzGerald returning me the Association's Accounts with some unimportant queries, and remarks. 1 Also my Church Trust Bill, with some (also unimportant) variations. A letter from Jacobs expressing entire approval of the principles of my Bill, which he says the majority of the Church Committee will agree to!! Mirabile--FitzGerald proposes some small changes, (which are in fact only laborious trifling; but I shall humour him by adopting them as far as I can.) FitzGerald troubles himself too much with mere Clerk work. (I am afraid his real calibre does not go much beyond this, and that not of the best kind.) I am looking (in vain) for some practical demonstration of governing power in the way of vital necessaries--Labour and Road Making, the former only attainable by Immigration and the latter by Money--which he could get without difficulty from the Bank; (but he quibbles and quirks about the power of the Provincial Council.) No one would stand more stoutly than myself upon the rights of the General Assembly but there would be no inconsistency in borrowing a few thousand pounds, on the credit of the Province for matters of pressing urgency. The labour question is becoming serious indeed. In another year it will not be a question of wages, but of hands. And as to Roads if nothing is done to them now, next year

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they will be impassable. No doubt it is very scandalous of the Governor to leave us in such a mess but what is the use of complaining? At all events, do not let that hinder us from doing what we can ourselves.

Friday and Saturday [3 and 4 February 1854]. At home at work about Accounts and Bills for the Provincial Council. Mr Le Cren tells me that Brittan begs hard for a week's delay about removing the Stock of the Land Office for sale to Melbourne. I half suspect (some trick and) that he is really waiting for positive orders from Sir George Grey to seize and appropriate our property without payment. That would be embarassing and lead to more inevitable litigation which I want much to avoid in the Colony, but I must run the chance. I have an offer for our Stock of powder at 6d a lb about 1/3rd of what it costs at Sydney. The offer comes from Speculators who mean to ship it to Sydney for sale. I must accept it unless FitzGerald can be induced to buy it for the Government, which he ought to do. Bowler tells me the Government will be obliged to give 2s 6d a lb. for it when they want it. I must also ship the Iron piping and pile driver to Wellington as FitzGerald declines buying any thing. This is a grievous loss both ways. To us because we sell at a sacrifice. To the Provincial Government who will want these identical things as soon as any works are begun. It will however be seen from this, that my first apprehensions about Brittan seizing the property under the Governor's instructions have not been verified. I believe that my threats of law have deterred them, but then the Governor's orders are disobeyed. Brittan declines for the present paying rent for the Land Office; telling me that he waits instructions from Auckland. I conclude that Sir George Grey, who ((whatever his faults may be)) has hardihood enough for anything, will hold his ground, and fight it out. I earnestly hope that when he gets home he may receive his reward.

An offer for the Jetty and Tolls at £40 per annum. I think I shall accept it. The present Wharfinger is a drunken fellow with whom I have difficulties.

More demands on the Church Account, and I cannot get Simeon and Matthias to apply the money sent by Godley by way of aid. I shall sell a small quantity of Church land to make up the deficit. If I can get a good offer for the Church land I shall sell maugre the remonstrances of the Church Committee.

Sunday [5 February 1854], After the Communion Service, two pastoral letters from Bishop Selwyn were read. One of old date 1851 (why now evoked does not appear) relating to the establishment of Missionary Boards; the other to Church organisation. 2 (I did not

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like either of them.) The Missionary one purported to be an apology for the Bishop undertaking the charge of New Caledonia and other Islands in the Pacific. 3 The apology was unsatisfactory and amounted to nothing but simply that the work was a good one and he had undertaken it. (We who are smarting under the want of a Bishop (as other settlements also are doing) do not admit the plea. There are a thousand good works to be done, but people have no business to neglect their appointed duties for mere fancy work.) The Bishop tells us how he had brought away from those Islands 9 young boys who had learnt some English; and taught something of their own languages, at St John's College. 4

The practical Commentary on this was given by Mr Dudley who told us that he had prepared between 40 and 50 young persons for confirmation, who were all disappointed for want of a visit from the Bishop. He said not this by way of complaint. On the contrary he was greatly laudatory of the Bishop. But the half education of 9 young savages of New Caledonia is a poor set off against the privation of Episcopal Ministrations here in the Bishop's own Diocese. The truth is he does an immense deal of work, but not in his proper field. Here at Canterbury a single visit from him might have set matters right. (He however leaves us to ourselves, in what I cannot but think is a spirit of prideful resentment against the Association. Equally displeasing to me was) the second pastoral letter proposing a Scheme of Church organisation, and suggesting meetings of laymen for considering such scheme. (According to the light that is in me this document was full of unsound principles. First)--to refer such questions to public Meetings of miscellaneous laymen, of whom the immense majority must be wholly ignorant of the subject and utterly incapable of offering opinions, is I think altogether wrong. The Church Government is Episcopal. We do not want the Church organised by a lay Convention, much less by an aggregate of petty lay Conventions; not one of which can carry the

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smallest moral weight with it. There is to be a meeting next Tuesday here in Lyttelton to consider the Bishop's proposed scheme. I do not think I shall attend--But who will attend it? (All the mob of the place. Is that a proper body to decide such a question?) Then again, the Bishop proposes to go to England to get the Head of the State or Parliament to organise a Church Constitution for the Colonies. Setting aside the uselessness of such an appeal, one (positively) revolts at the idea. But that matter has been already decided by the fate of the Church Bills in the last Session. I quarrel also with his (whole) scheme of Endowments. First, he imagines a General Convention, collecting inexhaustible Subscriptions, and then Parishes contributing large Sums to a common Stock, out of which they are to receive double the ordinary rate of Interest. The whole plan is (so) crude and unreal at least as far as I can gather (as to be beyond criticism). But the principle of putting every thing into common stock so as to throw aside the motives which practically operate on Men's minds in making liberal endowments is against reason and experience. Men in general will not give largely to a common Stock, although great numbers of people will give liberally to special objects in which they have a local or personal interest. Charities for the most part grow out of individual idiosyncrasies. The vast land Endowments of the Church of England owe their origin to this source. It is a principle of human nature. Also subscriptions are not the true form of Ecclesiastical Charity. The duty of tithes ought at least to be preached (by a Bishop). I mean voluntary tithes. Few people will it is true acknowledge and act on that principle, but the doctrine ought nevertheless to be preached, whether men will hear or whether they will forbear. I hate the principle of the subscription list with its unavoidable accompaniments, the platform, the Exeter Hall meeting, the Bazaar and Fancy Fair. But all this I must keep to myself; nothing I could say would have any weight, and I have no doubt the Bishop's proposal will be adopted (thoughtlessly and in ignorance.) 5

{Thursday, 9 February [1854]. On Monday [6 February] a good deal of conversation with Bowler, about matters between him and Cookson, unsatisfactory, but not suitable for Journal. The rumour is prevalent of separation between them which I will prevent if possible.)

Tuesday [7 February]. FitzGerald came in. Went through the Church Bill with him and his observations on Accounts and the replies thereto. Settled them finally, and handed them to him to be laid before the Council. Tried to persuade him to keep the Powder and Blasting apparatus &c., but without success. Offered to give

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any reasonable credit, (but he is timid and over-cautious). I told him what I know to be the feeling growing up that there is inertness about his Government. Nothing is being done for Immigration, nothing for public works. As to the latter, he answers plausibly enough that to commence public works without more labour, so drawing off the ordinary labour to new employments would be an evil instead of a good. There is some truth, (but more of error) in this. Just now at Harvest it would be impossible to take labour off without injury; but Harvest will be over in a month or so. Besides the demonstration at least is necessary to satisfy people that something is doing. But says FitzGerald we cannot borrow money. (That is nonsense.) He can borrow to a certain extent. The Bank is overstocked with Money. But I am not one of the Government and not responsible, (and I see plainly there is no disposition to bring me into council. In truth FitzGerald no doubt feels that to do so would be to obstruct his own self action). I shall not obtrude my opinions where they will do no good.

Sunday [12 February 1854]. The Kaka came in from Wellington with an English Mail via Sydney. News to the end of September. Only one letter from England (from E. Kittoe). I wish people would write by the Australian Mails regularly. A letter from the Colonial Secretary [of New Zealand] acknowledging my letter to the Duke of Newcastle which he says shall be forwarded. 6 (So at all events, liberavi animam meam [I have released my spirit].) I anticipate no real good from it. Sir George Grey will palaver to the Colonial Office and I take for granted persuade them that the General Assembly had better not meet, at all--and so there will be an end of the Constitution. 7 This is the general belief. The misfortune to me personally is that there is just enough of doubt to unsettle all my plans. If I knew that there would be no General Assembly, I should patch up my affairs as I best can and return to England--re infecta [without accomplishing the matter]. But the Governor's reticence leaves everybody and everything in suspense. Nothing in any way connected with public affairs can be fixed till this main question is settled. I am sick, weary and disgusted to a degree almost intolerable.

A letter from Wakefield about Wellington Politics. There the Provincial Government is falling into blunders as much in the way of excess as this Government is the other way. He tells me that he has done his utmost to allay and prevent the mischief (but Featherston's people seem to be immoveably headstrong). He says

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almost every one of their laws ought to be disallowed for illegality, but I take for granted that nobody will trouble themselves about them. Indeed there is practically no General Government to do so. I begin to be fearful about the experiment of responsible Government in these Provincial bodies. They are I fear too small in proportion to their powers. At Wellington there is a Council of which Featherston has got a bare numerical majority of blind supporters, who vote any thing he pleases; and there is little or no public opinion to correct them. Here I see the whole governing power is fast lapsing into the single hands of the Superintendent. (There is no Executive but himself, and the Government policy therefore only expresses his individual opinions, which have no settled or consistent aim.)

News from Otago. (Old) Cargill comes out decidedly against the Governor, but there seems to be a want of political aptitude about his Government and Council. I hear that parties at Otago are at daggers drawn with each other. Cargill and the party in the ascendancy seek to maintain the exclusive class settlement principle which is impracticable.

At Nelson matters do not seem to be much better. Stafford seems unable to carry his measures. Dr Monro 8 the opposition leader is Anti-provincial and seeks to lower the Provincial Government to a mere Municipal Corporation. He carried measures through the Council against the Superintendent on this principle.

(The sum of all is, that I am heartily weary of it and wish I were back.) The thing is altogether different from what one expected. Settlement divided against Settlement; no uniform policy--no General Government--a confused, troubled, unsettled, precarious, and most unsatisfactory state of public affairs.

The Church Meeting came off on Tuesday evening [7 February] at the Emigration Barracks, and ended as might have been anticipated in a blind adoption of Bishop Selwyn's proposition. There were some counter opinions expressed but they are hardly listened to. 9 I did not attend (and am heartily glad I did not). Any thing I might have said would have roused objection and suspicion. The main point of controversy on Tuesday was, whether the New Zealand Church is to pledge itself to inseparable identity with the Church of England, as if the Australian Church now under the Headship of its own Metropolitan were not as much sui juris [of full capacity] as the

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Convocation of Canterbury or York. I shall insert here the Propositions and Counterpropositions debated.

[Printed pages from Lyttelton Times, 14 February 1854, p. 7, stuck into Journal.]

General Principles proposed by the Bishop 'as the Basis of a Constitution for the Church in New Zealand'.

1. That the Bishops, Clergy, and Laity, shall be three distinct orders, the consent of all of which shall be necessary to all acts binding upon the Church at large.

2. Subject to the foregoing principle, that each order be at liberty to conduct its deliberations separately, or to unite with the others, at its own discretion.

3. That provisionally, till a definition of Church Membership shall have been agreed upon by a General Convention, every person shall be deemed a member of the Church of England, who shall make a written declaration to that effect to the clergyman of his parish or district.

4. That every adult Church Member, who shall have been duly registered, be entitled to vote at the election of lay representatives at the first General Convention.

5. That it shall rest with the General Convention to decide how and by whom all patronage shall be exercised; and in what manner all persons holding Church Offices shall be removable from the same; and also to fix the amount of all salaries, fees, and other allowances.

6. That it is necessary that the Church body, constituted as above, should be legally incorporated; and that all sites of churches, burial grounds, schools, and lands for the endowment of the Church, &c., should be vested in the General Incorporation.

7. That, in order to maintain the Queen's Supremacy, and union with the Mother Church, a draft of the Constitution proposed for the Church of New Zealand be submitted to Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies, and to the Archbishop of Canterbury, through the Metropolitan Bishop of Sydney, with a petition that Her Majesty would be graciously pleased to direct the necessary steps to be taken, whether by Act of Parliament, or by Royal Charter, to secure to our Branch of the English Church the liberty, within certain limits, of framing laws for its own government.

8. That neither the doctrines, nor the ritual, of the Church of England, nor the authorized version of the Bible, shall in any way be subject to the decision of the General Convention.

9. That the Bishop of New Zealand be requested to embody the above Resolutions in the form of a Petition, and to take such steps as may be

[added by hand] adopted.

necessary for carrying into effect the wishes of the Memorialists.

Variations suggested.

1. That the Bishop, Clergy, and Laity in each Diocese, shall be three distinct orders, the consent of all of which shall be necessary to all acts binding upon the Diocese at large.

2. No variation proposed.

3. That every adult male communicant, being a layman, and duly registered, and who shall have signed a declaration that he is a member of the Church of England, and of no other religious denomination, shall be entitled to vote at the election of lay representatives to the Diocesan Convention, such representatives to be also communicants, and to have made the same declaration; but that such election shall be by parishes, though it shall not be necessary that the representatives elected by each parish shall be persons residing within that parish.

4. Omitted and incorporated with No. 3.

5. That it shall rest with each Diocesan Convention to decide how and by whom all patronage shall be exercised within the Diocese; and also to fix the amount of all salaries, fees, and other allowances within the Diocese; but that the duty of determining the manner in which all persons holding Church Offices shall be removable from the same shall be reserved for a Provincial Synod.

6. That it is desirable that the Church body thus constituted, should be legally incorporated, if possible, by the Local Legislature; but that sites of churches, burial-grounds, schools, and lands for the endowment of the Church, &c., should be vested either in the Diocesan Corporation, or in parochial corporations, according as the Diocesan Convention shall determine in the case of each particular property or site.

7. That measures be taken to maintain and preserve, to the utmost, union with the Mother Church, due regard being had to the independent action of the Colonial Church.

8. That neither the doctrines of the Church of England, nor the authorized version of the Bible, shall in any way be subject to the decision of the Colonial Church; but we are of opinion that to meet the exigencies of the Church in the Colonies the power of altering and adapting the ritual should reside within her body.

9. That the Bishop of New Zealand be requested to take such steps as may be necessary for carrying into effect the wishes of the Memorialists.

rejected 10

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What is the meaning of a General Convention? Does Bishop Selwyn really mean to supersede the Government of the Church by Bishops and lodge it in a general Convention for the most part lay? If so we must look elsewhere for the fundamental basis of a Catholic Church. What are to be the functions of this general Convention? What the relations between it and the Diocesan Councils; or between it and the respective Bishops &c &c.

About Church matters--I think they begin to be better understood than they were. At the Church meeting at Christchurch Jacobs spoke very well and soundly against Bishop Selwyn's scheme. 11 By degrees it is beginning to be perceived that there is an Australasian Church as well as a Church of England. That of Australasia having Sydney at present for its Metropolis. I propounded (to Jacobs) the other day the dropping altogether the name of Church of England, and adopting that of Australasia. By and bye when we get a Metropolitan of New Zealand there will be a New Zealand Church. (Does Bishop Selwyn mean that there shall be a Provincial Church without a Metropolitan?)

A letter from the Superintendent asking me for the use of the Association's Seal compels me to take proceedings against Brittan to give it up. (This gentleman is impertinently obstructive.) He will not give me up the Seal. He tells me he is afraid I may make an improper use of it. I rejoin that the danger is the same whether it is in his hands or mine--and as the Association have chosen to make me their Agent it is fitter that the custody should be with me who am responsible than with him who is not. Such is the kind of treatment I am subjected to (from men who were creatures of the Association whilst it lasted). So I have been obliged to proceed against him in the Resident Magistrate's Court. 12 The case to be heard next week. He retains Dampier.

On Friday, 10 February 1854 went to Christchurch to settle accounts &c. with Cridland. Walked over for the Cart from the Ferry. An agreeable fresh morning. About noon came up a S. Wester without rain--heavy squalls of wind cold and dusty. A little thunder over Lyttelton whilst I was at Christchurch.

To my amazement a new move. Mr Brittan as Crown Commissioner is about to advertise and sell the Town Reserves at

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Christchurch--part of our own property--bought and paid for by the Association and appropriated to it by Deed, which is now in the Registry Office. 13 (By the bye the inefficiency of that Office is beyond bearing. I am told that it will take a month to get my three or four Deeds registered--to say nothing of making me pay 7 or £8 for a process utterly valueless.) Mr Brittan's advertizement of the intended sale appears in the Lyttelton Times of this week. At first this threw me into a state of intolerable rage. The insolence, wanton defiance of law, the indecent attack on the Association, the gross disrespect to the Provincial Government, just at the moment when I am in negotiation with them, and have made them an offer of transfer which is pending--(this Man) steps in under the Governor's authority to sell our property without the courtesy of the smallest previous communication with me or the Superintendent. This matter is so fresh that I can hardly form a judgment as to the effect of it. I shall have to write about it fully. My great difficulty is to keep myself quiet. Is he acting under instructions? I conclude so. He would hardly venture on such a step otherwise. The misery is that there is no remedy and no redress. He will sell and people will buy, and the Governor will issue Crown Grants--all in defiance of law. But that they do not care about, and we shall have to embark in a wretched interminable litigation or else to abandon our rights. These Town Reserves are the most valuable part of the Association's Estates. They are worth at least £10,000.

Returned from Christchurch in the Cart. (Bowler and his daughter, my compagnons de voyage. Had a good deal of talk with Bowler about his affairs with Cookson. It is clear that unless he can get a good trustworthy partner to join them here he must separate. I have (with Bowler's sanction) propounded the idea of a partnership to Hamilton, the Collector of Customs, who I can see is not indisposed for it.)

Monday, 20 February [1854]. The more there is to journalize about the less time one has to do it. This last week brings the Meeting of the Provincial Council, with the initiation of my Church Bill; and business of the Accounts. 14 Both are now before the Council. The Church Bill will no doubt go through without difficulty. About the accounts there will be some squabbling; some petty objections and cavillings about items, and a substantial acquiescence in them; at least such is my hope and belief. They are

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referred to a Select Committee--Packer, Tancred, Hall, [Samuel] Beal[e]y and Hamilton. 15 I am going over today to begin work upon them tomorrow. Of the proceedings of the Council I have not time to write much. They have been hitherto dull and decorous, very respectably businesslike--altogether showing the aptitude of the people to manage their own affairs ten thousand times better than under the Downing Street System.

On Saturday [18 February] came in the Eliza from Sydney via Wellington with the Duke of Portland's Mail. Letters from England. (Lord Lyttelton, the children, Robert and my Sisters (though very little indeed from the latter).) All satisfactory--nothing very new. The same Mail brings from Auckland the important fact of the Meeting of the General Assembly summoned for the 24th of May. 16 Letters from Wakefield urging me and Elizabeth to go up to Wellington, and to go overland to Auckland, which is a thing to think about--the main items of calculation being, time, money and fatigue. We shall see about it--Then again, yesterday morning early, looking out of window, a vessel rounded the point. It was the Government Brig! on its way to Otago to fetch up the Members, intending to call in again here on her way back for Members from this place. I shall if possible go up in her, though it is intended to make a second trip just before the Meeting of the Assembly.)

(A) Doctor Knight, 17 the Auditor General came down in the Brig. He is supposed to be on a fishing excursion, I mean political fishing. Ostensibly to look up the Provincial Accounts. Really to feel the pulse of the Provinces and to learn which way the cat is likely to jump in the General Assembly. He is, of course, identified with the old Official Colonial Office Government System which doubtless has all his sympathies. Letters from Wakefield as well as my own speculations lead me to believe that Col. Wynyard [the acting-Gov-ernor] and the Officials will attempt a continuance of the old System, which of course will lead to a battle with the House of Representatives. How it will end Heaven knows. We are all now in a commotion. This is what I call one of the Earthquakes. It is always either a dead calm, or an earthquake here. I forgot to mention that on Thursday my affair with Brittan about the Seal came off before the Resident Magistrate, and a Bench of Justices. Whereupon Judgment was given for me for Brittan to deliver up the Seal, or to

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pay £20. 18 I shall take out execution for the Seal when lean be sure of laying my hands to the Seal upon new ground. Before, the objection was that I had no sufficient authority. Now, he objected that his power of Attorney was still in force, which is all nonsense. The landselling powers having ceased, the power to execute Conveyances dies, and the Seal ought to be restored to the Association. In truth Brittan's proceedings are a mere bit of (wanton) obstructiveness. It is all of a piece. Sometimes I am worried by these perpetual vexations. Sometimes there is an excitement in the continual battle.

(Dampier is a -----. I do not like to use disrespectful terms of a brother professional man but it is really distressing to have to fight such absurd crochets as he propounds for law. But the people are obliged to listen to him, and they swallow what he says just as if it were all true.) This is the misery of a law-ridden Country, where any thing which any lawyer says, is as good as any thing which any other lawyer says with the common people; and there is no way of teaching what is right and what wrong. The people put no faith in me or any opinions I offer. Perhaps it is presumptuous in me to suppose that they ought to do so, (but in such a dearth of legal power any body of ordinary calibre ought to be listened to. I cannot help attributing this in some measure to the general depreciatory tone of public opinion here about myself arising from long habit.)

Tuesday, 21 February [1854]. To Christchurch to attend the meeting of the Provincial Council. The Account Books had been sent forward. There are two businesses in hand with the Council; the Committee on the Accounts and the Church Trust Bill. 19 A charming day, warm, but with an agreeable fresh breeze from the N.E.. Met a good number of people coming in to attend a Funeral. One of the Merchants of the Port died suddenly of apoplexy on Friday. 20 He was much liked, and people came from a distance to the Funeral. One of the old Shagroons, Mr Caverhill, rode from a considerable distance beyond his Station at Motunau, about 130 miles in 24 hours, but was too late. He came in to the Royal Hotel rather fagged with his journey, but nothing remarkable. This is a specimen of a squatter's riding. He did it with three Horses.

The Council met at 4 this afternoon. Got the first reading of our Church Trust Bill. There is a talk of adjourning the Council for a fortnight, which disgusts me. It will stop business just when we want to expedite it. Here is the Government Brig now on her way to

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Otago, to give notice to Members of the General Assembly. She will return to Lyttelton, and we may go up to Auckland in her. It is meant to send her down again, a second trip, to give the Members a second chance of getting to Auckland, but unless we take advantage of the opportunity now the chances are ten to one we shall be too late for the beginning of the Assembly. It would be folly to run the risk. Unless we are at Auckland a week or fortnight before the Assembly meets, we shall do little good. We want to know the feelings of parties and to organize measures. FitzGerald wants to put off going till the last, but his arguments are weak. He says it is best not to organize beforehand, for fear of rousing jealousies, as if previous organization were not the only way to prevent that. As matters are no one can tell what turn things may take. There will be no Government to lead, no community of interest, no mutual acquaintanceship with persons. There will be local jealousies as between North and South, between Province and Province, between partizans of General Government and of Provincial Government. Then there will be personal jealousies, and small ambitions &c. &c. In short, every possible influence at work to disorganize. In the meantime the Official party will look on hoping to take advantage of our internal dissensions to keep the old broken down machine still agoing. Nothing but a previous good understanding of Members between themselves and a policy agreed on beforehand can save this. Then it is cruel to put all this in jeopardy by pottering over small measures here, spinning them out by adjournments--measures which in my opinion had better be let alone. Here is a Trespass Bill now before the Council which to my mind is full of faults, both in principle and in details. 21 Trespass is one of the great questions. Every body's Cattle trespasses on every body else's land. That is a great evil, but how to prevent it? Legislation will not prevent it, because it is inherent in the nature of things. You can only put a stop to it by putting a stop to Cattle themselves. Here is a vast unenclosed Country--four millions of acres--only 7000 fenced in, and all the available strength of the Colony could not do more than double that quantity of fencing in the next 2 years. In the meantime all the unenclosed land is being grazed by Cattle and Stock of all kinds very indifferently herded, because there are not enough herdsmen to take real care of them. What is to be done? As Mr Allen says, one third of the time of the Colony is taken up necessarily in looking after stray animals. Now they are going to pass a law to give all occupiers of unenclosed land swing[e]ing damages for trespass by Cattle or Stock of any kind. A shilling a

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head per day for large Stock--6d for small Stock. At that rate the most profitable thing going would be to have your land overrun by your neighbour's Stock. The natural pasture is worth nothing, and 6d a head per day is a severe rent for feeding stray Sheep upon it. They seem to me to forget the true principle of trespass law--or what is equally wrong they want to set up an exceptional principle, in order if possible to put a forcible stop to a necessary and inevitable evil. If a man takes proper precautions to guard himself against trespass by fencing his land property he is entitled to protection. If his neighbours' Cattle break in upon him let him recover damages. So also if owners of Cattle neglect the ordinary and practicable means for preventing them from straying they should be punished for the neglect. But how to determine this seems mighty difficult. Are we to assume as this new measure does, in an open unenclosed country, the bare fact of trespass as a ground for inflicting damages? That seems to me monstrous. Occupiers of land in such a country must take their holdings with the risk. I cannot tell what ought to be done, but I object to this. If the measure really comes into operation it will sicken Stockholders. It is intended to apply to remote runs as well as to Suburban land. The details of the Bill appear to me not well considered; (but FitzGerald has invented it and forces it on. And there is not strength enough in the Council to correct its faults.) I stand by and cannot meddle. They do not ask my opinion and it would be unwise in me to volunteer obstructions to their Legislation whilst my own business is in hand. These are the sort of blunders these Provincial Councils will make. Are they a sufficient objection to the Councils themselves? Not at all. They are the stumblings of children learning to walk. It is best that they should start ambitiously. They will be soon checked. Better this than the opposite fault of timid inertness. Nevertheless at present it would be wise to withdraw this and all such like bills. They use a queer argument for going on with it. They say the present law is so bad that they must make a new one. Very wise that, if they are sure of making a better--but that is the point.

The Committee on the Accounts met on Tuesday. I put all the Accounts into their hands and attended the Committee to explain the nature of the Books, how the Accounts had been kept &c. &c. There I have left them for the present. They will spell them through and make their own notes, and then ask me for explanations, which is all very well. I shall be very plain and open about every thing, the rather because there is nothing to conceal. One might no doubt shut up all enquiry by saying the Government Auditor has examined and allowed them, but after all the abominable calumnies against us this would be impolite and would hinder, perhaps prevent, a Settlement.

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Wednesday, 22 [February] 1854. Returned into Port. At the foot of the Bridle Path met Dr Knight returning from Mr Cookson's. We walked together up the Hill. (I am not in love with the Auditor General, though) he seems sensible and business like. He is attached to Sir George Grey, whose Doctor he used to be in South Australia. He has no notion of a possible change which may alter the whole arrangement of official appointments. He considers himself settled for life, and perhaps he may be as good a man as any other for that appointment, but he doubtless represents the general state of the official mind. (Wakefield with his deep diplomacy has evidently conceived the idea of converting the Doctor to his Creed of responsible Government--but it is all Moonshine. His mind is utterly unpolitical. He cannot believe in any thing but a Governor. He abuses the opposition party at Auckland,--says complimentary things about this Settlement, but he evidently does not let us know half his real mind. So I have not let him know any of mine.) The Doctor and Hamilton drank tea with me. I was alone. Elizabeth had taken advantage of my absence to abscond up the Country with Raven to take farewell of Mrs Raven before we go to Auckland, and to return on Saturday.

(Thursday, 23 February [1854]. Grave talk with Bowler who is still here, about his relations with Cookson, which are in the highest degree unsatisfactory and will evidently end in a separation which is painful, both in itself and on account of the circumstances which lead to it; but Bowler is right, continuance of the partnership would be too perilous. Hamilton declines the offer of joining the Firm. Bowler propounds the notion to me. What shall I say to it? At present I have given him no idea of my entertaining it; but it offers much matter of serious deliberation. I have told him I must go home to England under any circumstances. That he says might be an advantage. The pros and cons of this question are not the proper subject for Journal.)

I have made my financial arrangements (with him) so as not to be put to inconvenience. As to these my great difficulty is the realisation in present money of disposable assets. If these were turned into money I should be at ease. Brittan who takes his cue from the Governor holds me at arms' length. I have unhappily in a spirit of unsuspecting confidence allowed him to have the use of our property at the Land Office with the building and these he now holds setting me at defiance. He tells me he has written to Auckland for instructions. This may be a mere ruse to get the Governor's specific instructions to take and hold the property by force, which instructions he will then comply with putting forward as his apology the plea of public duty and so forth. I spoke to Dr Knight

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but he partakes evidently of the same spirit. He will not interfere. He can undertake no responsibility. I must needs confess that I have been taken in. (I thought that in dealing with a Government I was dealing with persons at all events of common honesty, and good faith--but the morale of Government seems to be at the lowest possible ebb and I am obliged to treat them all as I should treat a band of pickpockets who had got possession of my handkerchief and purse, recover them if I can, if not indict them.) The Theodolites and Surveying Instruments are I hear sent up the Country to get them out of my reach. Brittan is said to carry the Seal to bed with him every night for fear of process of law wresting it from him. We had a great laugh the other day at the possible consequences. What if the Seal should come up with its device changed. An impression of Brittan with his (horrible) moustache, instead of the Angel--tout au contraire.

I am obliged to temporize trusting to the General Assembly and the chance of a new Governor to set matters right. Our Title Deeds are in the Registry Office, and I am led to fear some hostile movement against them. I parted with them with fear and trembling, knowing the people I had to deal with, but still trusting to the rules of a public Office to get them back in due time. They have been there a month and upwards. I apply continually. They are not ready--will not be ready for another month--evidently shewing such intentional delay that I am seriously apprehensive that they will be made away with or impounded. I have complained to the Superintendent but he tells me he can do nothing to help me. In short I am in the midst of unscrupulous enemies who have possession of the Strongholds, and fighting as they do under the Governor's sanction I am almost powerless. The help which I might get from law in England is wholly wanting here. Still I believe we shall bring it right at last. The General Assembly is called--that is one consoling fact. In the meantime I stumble on in hope of a better day. At all events the Accounts are before the Council and I really believe they are disposed to do what is right.

Friday [24 February 1854]. To Christchurch again, to see how matters are getting on. The Church Trust Bill read a second time--to go into Committee on Tuesday. Mr Hall wants an alteration--he wants me to extend the benefit of the Trust to the whole Province, outside as well as inside the Canterbury Block. 22 I say I will make no such proposal myself, but if the Council choose to introduce it I shall not object. I think it wrong in principle and that it will work badly in practice, but on such a question the

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Council as representing the Colonists may judge for itself. Some other alterations proposed--not important enough to quarrel about, but which will damage the Scheme. I shall state my objections and then leave it as long as they do not alter the essentials. The Committee do not want me yet about the Accounts. I find the question about adjourning the Council undecided. Tancred is obliged to go away for a week, but I think they will go on with business. The present matter for consideration is whether the Members shall go up to Auckland at once when the Government Brig returns from Otago this trip, or whether we shall wait and take our chance afterwards. I strongly urge the former. FitzGerald I think gives way, and will go up with Wortley and myself. A long talk with him on Saturday about general policy. (He is an unsatisfactory person. I cannot tell what his fixed opinions are upon the great questions. He does not seem to have fixed opinions. He veers about.) He has now given up the notion of completing the Sumner Road, (of which he was the immoveable advocate before)--and talks of a Tunnel to accomplish which he has a plan of offering land to English Navvies as an inducement to come out as labourers. 23 I cannot offer an opinion on its feasibility, but the total change of opinion shews uncertainty of purpose about FitzGerald. He doubts the practicability of establishing responsible Government, and thinks the General Assembly need not meet oftener than once in three or four years, but this is a loose opinion which he will alter. (FitzGerald evidently aims at leading the Assembly which he is not fit for. He is clever enough--honest, except so far as he is warped by vanity, ambition and jealousy--speaks well enough to the ear, but wants soundness-has a smattering of legal and legislative knowledge, but nothing solid. In short is deficient in all those qualities which are essential to leadership. Stafford though far less clever suits my fancy very much more. [William] Fox also might do. 24 Wakefield will be the great moving power behind the scenes, but will not do for ostensible leadership. I shall not commit myself to any part or party. It may be that there may be nobody but FitzGerald. I am a nobody myself being only a chance comer and on the wing--even if I were fit for it, which I am not. I could help a party, but could not lead it--and I have no ambition.)

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Saturday, 25 [February 1854]. Returned to Lyttelton with Elizabeth who came in from the Raven's. The Government Brig and the Dispatch both gone.

Note. The weather uninterruptedly fine. Now and then days of oppressive heat but altogether of undeniable quality. The Thermometer has been up to 90° in the shade, and to some inconceivable altitude in the Sun--scarcely a drop of rain for months, and the Country begins to suffer from drought. Potatoes threaten to give out. Harvest almost in and very good. It is pleasant to see broad fields filled with standing shocks of corn a l'Anglaise. The Harvest is being got in better than might be expected, but Harvest wages are not less than 10s a day.

One of the features of the Country at this Season is the burning of the land. We have had great fires blazing in all directions, spreading for miles. The dried fern and grass is thus burnt off, and young grass comes up. The effect is very striking at night, not unlike the coal and iron districts in England. As the fire spreads along the tops of the mountains it gives them a coronet of flame. This practice has danger as well as picturesqueness, and ought to be put under regulation, and not allowed to approach too near inhabited places. The wooden buildings would burn like tinder.

Mrs Simeon has another boy and is doing well. People always do well here. (Domestic matters keep him away from his duties as Speaker which I think he undervalues and neglects, so that he would not be re-elected which is a pity. Mrs Simeon is in a fever to return to England. He evidently does not see his way clear. He is Resident Magistrate and Provincial Treasurer with £300 a year--inadequate pay, but better than idleness and nothing at home. They speak now and then as if they had sustained some wrong by coming out, which is nonsense. He was disappointed about income but no one was to blame, but I wish I could see him easier and happier.)

Tuesday, 28 [February 1854]. To Christchurch early, to attend the Council. The Church Trust Bill in Committee. 25 About 8 members present. This is a full average, and not one third of the proper number for a legislative body. Hall presses his alterations. He says people want the Bill extended to the whole Province--that is to make a body capable of holding Endowments outside the Block. I say if the Council choose to pass such a bill I do not object; but that would be rather a public than a private bill; but we, the Association, can only transfer our Endowments for the benefit of the Settlement, i.e. the limits of our Charter. That is agreed to. Then he proposes to give the new board of Trustees power to extend the

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benefit of our Endowments to the whole or any part of the Province. I say, if the Council so wish I shall not object. Give them that power, subject to certain conditions, as to notice, number of consents &c. so as to ensure the concurrence of the Colonists generally in the change. He urges me very much to alter the plan for electing Trustees. I propose to have a Parish Meeting of Communicants once a year to choose Trustees like Church Wardens on Easter Monday in England, and fix that by the Bill--at all events to have some plan defined, not left vague. The Constitution of the Board unless established by law in a clear way exposes all their Acts to question, and may lead to litigation. There is a (settled) habit here of undervaluing lawyers' opinions simply because they are a lawyer's. This arises partly from an excessive spirit of self-reliance, partly from the (exceeding) bad quality of the law which they get here. So they look and smile at me as much as to say 'We know best'. I submit, telling them my mind. They must have their own way. It does not matter as far as we are concerned and the mistakes which will probably be made may be corrected hereafter. This spirit of self reliance (amounting to presumptuousness) though an evil is a fault on the right side, and in such a country is absolutely essential to progress.

To the Council at 4 o'clock. (By the bye they meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4 and Wednesdays and Fridays at 11 to suit the Lyttelton Members about going and returning.) I do not know whether I have described the Council room. Its externals are shabby in the extreme. A lone desolate looking wooden tenement, 26 all by itself in a potatoe garden, a quarter of a mile at least from the inhabited part of the town, approached over an open trackless common covered with fern and tussock grass, barely passable in dry weather, and miserable in wet. The interior has been disguised neatly enough, but in a flimsy way, with canvass, papered oak pattern, scarlet moreen covering the seats which are of iron hardness. A respectable dignified chair for the Speaker, such as one sees in Masonic Halls. A plain table covered with papers, at which the Clerk sits, in front of the Speaker, with the English Statutes ranged imposingly in front so as to give a legislative look to the place. A side partition shuts off the public and there is a small space at the end of the room for the bar; but the building is so out of the way and incommodious that nobody ever attends, which is an incalculable evil. The Gallery of the House of Commons is an essential part of the British Constitution. It is a conducting medium between the out of door public and the Legislature. It is the more

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needful here, from the want of a good press, and full reports. The Chaplain reads prayers (a short form) before they begin business, all very decorous and proper.

In Committee, Dampier, (who is a very empty person,) got up to oppose the Bill altogether. He objected that the Council had no power to create Corporations. That he said was the Prerogative only of the Crown. As if the Legislature had not equal power at least with the Crown. He missed one point which might have told and which seems open to question--whether these small legislatures ought to have the power of creating bodies only corporately responsible and with no individual liability. Corporate bodies in each Province will have transactions elsewhere, and this question of liability is important. But the possible risk on the one side is nothing compared with the immense convenience on the other-indeed if the Provincial Councils had no power of incorporation they would lose half their value. Every board of Commissioners is a Corporation i.e. a body politic, and without such boards public business could not be carried on.

Dampier however was not listened to, and the Bill proceeded. Nothing was said of consequence till we came to the clause empowering the Association to transfer their property to the new Trustees, and also empowering the Trustees 'to give the Association such Releases and indemnities as should be agreed on'. This was a battle field. 'I object' said Mr Dampier (prompted by Mr Matthias who sat behind) 'to giving the Trustees power to discharge the Association from liabilities which they may have incurred to individual Land purchasers under' (what he wrongly termed) 'the Trusts of their Charter. That would bar private persons of their remedy for possible malfeasance.' All this argument such as it is, is founded upon a mistake. The Association is a public body compellable by the Crown to administer its funds properly. It is under no liability to individual Settlers. It is not a case of Trust, but of Duty. I was not before the Committee, (by the bye, a great inconvenience which I tried to get remedied by pointing out that they ought in Committees on private Bills to allow the same practice as before Select Committees in the House of Commons) so I could say nothing, till presently they agreed to call me to the bar to explain what I proposed. This was done. 'Do you mean' said Mr Dampier, 'to give the Trustees power to absolve the Association in full?' 'Certainly', I said, 'that was the object. I should not part with the property without getting a release. But', I said, 'it is absurd to suppose that the Trustees, an elective body, representing the Church community, will give an improper one. The Bill rightly provides that such releases shall be given as may be agreed on.' I

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think this would have sufficed, but Hamilton who is crochetty and (has a little learning (that most dangerous degree)) started another hare. Said he, 'If the new Trustees give a Release from all liabilities they will take them all on themselves.' This was absurd--but I could only say 'No'--and people do not believe what I say, (and there is nobody in the Council who can put down such crochets.) So they resolved to refer the Clause back to me to reconsider. The rest of the Bill went through. I talked the matter over with Hall in the evening and on Wednesday morning, and decided that I would either have the Clause as it stood, or leave the power of release out altogether. I would not take it in any qualified form. 'But then' I said to Hall, 'Observe when we come to transact the transfer, I will not make the transfer unless I can see my way clear to a release either actual or virtual--and if you, the Trustees, have not power by law to give such release, that may be an impediment for which I will not be responsible.' I said, 'it is as much matter for your convenience as for my safety.' I added one or two clauses to indemnify Trustees to meet Hamilton's objections. So on Wednesday morning when the Committee met, Hall stood out for the Clause as originally framed; Hamilton was satisfied with my indemnity clause, and waived his objection--the understanding being, that the Transfer would not be perfected till the Governor had allowed the Bill.

I omitted to mention one thing. The Bill gives the Bishop a power of disallowing the Trustees' Acts within six months. Matthias who is obstructive (and mischievous) presented a petition from himself as the Bishop's Commissary, praying that he might have the like power in the Bishop's absence. This would be intolerable. The power of disallowance in the Bishop is very great; it would be monstrous if vested in anybody else. Nobody supported the petition, and Matthias is very angry and threatens to put us all into Chancery. Hamilton objected that such power of disallowance would suspend all dealings with property for 6 months at least which would be a great injury. I provided for this by a new clause to the effect that the power of disallowance should not extend to Sales, Leases &c of property actually completed. This was adopted. I am rather afraid of objections by Bishop Selwyn. This scheme is different from his notions. He wants the whole Church Endowments to be a common fund and Hamilton said (I suppose on Dr Knight's authority) that he had actually refused endowments at Auckland on account of their specific and local character. But the Bishop's views on this point meet no sympathy here. There is not a single dissentient opinion here upon the desirableness of keeping to the English practice of specific and local Endowments. (Bishop Selwyn is suspected of autocratic tendencies in temporals as well as

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spirituals, but) we will agree that in temporal matters the laity ought to have the largest share of power.

Matthias and Dampier are concocting an assault on the Association. Matthias writes me letters of the most irritating and offensive kind which try my patience to the uttermost. At last (after the rejection of his petition by the Council,) he announces his intention to carry the Association and me and the Church affairs into the Supreme Court. He refused to apply Godley's money 27 towards the payment of Clergy and Schoolmasters leaving me to overpay the Ecclesiastical fund by £400, (which in truth comes out of my own money, i.e. out of the miscellaneous fund which owes me the money, leaving me absolutely bare). I have paid every body except himself, and I say to him, 'You have the money, pay yourself.' 'No,' says he 'I will not. I will not pay myself or any body, but I will charge you with bringing the Church into a state of bankruptcy, and I will go into the Supreme Court.' This may be a brutum fulmen [empty threat], but in his state of mad (and blind passion) it is impossible to say what mischief he may do. (He has put himself into Dampier's hands and is sure to be misled.) To me personally I think this will do good. It will open people's eyes, and rouse public opinion against him, for now his hostility will be as much against the Colonists, and Provincial Council and the new Trustees, as against me and the Association. I shall send home his correspondence and make a complaint of him through Lord Lyttelton to Bishop Selwyn. (The truth is that so long as Matthias is in authority the Church suffers. He must be removed. Every body I talk to agrees in this.) Amongst (Matthias's insane) attacks on me he now charges me with having induced him by misrepresentation to give up his preferment in England. This is a mere hallucination.

On my way to Christchurch on Tuesday met Woolcombe 28 (one of the squatting interest who has a station up the Country, beyond the Canterbury Province in that district which has been cut off and so absurdly assigned to Nelson). 'Have you heard the news?' 'What news?' said I--'£40,000 worth of land sold and the money paid. One Mr Moore, 29 an Australian Squatter, has bought up a whole

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district.' This was important intelligence. Poor Woolcombe was in a sad fright. His station and all the Stations were in jeopardy. They would all be ruined, (by the Governor and cheap land). In fact it was a case of panic. I bid him be of good heart. The General Assembly is called, and something may yet be done to stay the plague. At Christchurch I found that the matter was a little overstated. Not £40,000 worth, but 40,000 Acres of land had been applied for and the money deposited, partly at 10s per Acre, partly a deposit of 5s to go through the form of an Auction. £14,000 in money had been paid. This is the beginning of the great question between cheap land and the Squatting Interest and it must be looked at seriously. This purchase has destroyed the value of Sidey's run, and damaged two others. Sidey is away at Sydney to bring back Stock and when he arrives here he will find his run bought over his head, and he himself nowhere. Tua res agitur paries cum proximus ardet ['You are at risk when the next-door wall is on fire'--Horace, Epistles, I. xviii. 84]. At 5s per Acre there will not be an inch of available land which the Speculators will not lay hold of. I was told (I will not vouch for it) that the value of Stock has in one week gone down 25 per cent. (Mr Adams (the same young gentleman who came out with us in the Minerva and who is now with Mr Raven) told me that he had just bought heifers at £2 a head less than he could a week before, but this may be accident.) The language is, 'we must sell up and be off.' In fact the case is one of cruel hardship upon the present race of Squatters--men who have been pioneers and in great part given value to the Country, but who have small capitals and are quite beaten by the Australian millionaires. (Long Clarke, 30 a well known Port Phillip Croesus is now at Wellington, and is coming down here with unlimited credit to buy nobody knows to what extent.) In short the poor Stockowners are like a flock of Sparrows watching an incursion of Hawks. Now there are two sides to this question; Sir George Grey will say,--'This is a grand thing--see, there are heaps of money for you; there are all the plums in the pudding and you may eat them up at once.' To be sure with a little patience and good management we could make six times as much of the land, and give us the power and we will borrow all that we

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require for present needs. Also, whilst we are pocketing the gold we must not forget that we are (doing cruel wrong,) ruining our Stockowners, and destroying pastoral enterprise, our real source of wealth. In ten years' time with proper encouragement our pastoral capital would return us 2, or £300,000 a year. We are putting that in jeopardy and placing the whole race of future Colonists at the mercy of Australian jobbers. As to Stockowners buying their runs for occupation that is absurd. No man could afford to give 5s an Acre for his run. All this is against Sir George Grey and his Land Regulations. On the other hand it must be confessed that the Squattocracy is trying to get too much advantage. FitzGerald (who is at heart one of them) is proposing new Land Regulations. He would keep the price at £2 per Acre, and also give the Squatter a pre-emptive right. I dislike the pre-emptive right. It virtually shuts up the Land Market to all but one class of customers, or if it does not, then it is a mere delusion as a protection to the Squatter. The matter requires fuller consideration than I think has been yet given to it. What we want is time, but how to stave off these most mischievous regulations, that is the one question at present which every body here seems to be agreed on. Even the few people who have preached cheap land, begin to be frightened and say, they do not want any more of it. They open their eyes. What if the regulations had been brought into operation within the block? Within three months we should have had all the available land swallowed up and we might have gone to sleep for the next 20 years.

Monday, [6] March [1854], Tancred came into dine and drink tea. He objects to Brittan's name as one of the new Church Trustees on the score of his attacking the Title to Church property. If we had selected the names of the Trustees ad libitum [at pleasure] I should have agreed. I think the Crown Commissioner assailing the Association's Title is not a proper Trustee to defend that Title against himself, but it would be too invidious to exclude him under the circumstances. The Trustees are taken from the Church Committee. If I use any discretion of my own, as to choosing one and excluding another, I shall get into a mess. (Matthias for instance ought to be excluded, for he is simply bent on making mischief and will do so to the utmost of his power, but I cannot make that a ground of personal exclusion.) The thing must take its chance.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, [6-8 March 1854]. Accounts--Agreements for Church and Lyttelton Trust lands--correcting proof of Church Trust Bill, making arrangements for one's absence at Auckland for the next six months--this has been my occupation. The Government Brig expected back now any day. The Prima Donna in from Sydney; and [an] old letter from England via

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Wellington (from Mary Ann Elwyn). 31 No additional news. The Wellington Spectator has Sir George Grey's speech at his parting dinner at Auckland, which here, we agree in pronouncing odious, vapid, egotistical, (empty, false,) giving no intelligible account of any thing past, and nothing suggestive for the future--the merest Pecksniffian clap-trap. 32 The Bishop of New Zealand's speech at the same dinner is also displeasing, its whole contents being a poor apology for being there, and a very mal apropos commentary on the virtues of Sir George Grey's predecessors, especially Capt. Fitzroy. (Poor Sir George must have writhed under such compliments to Capt. Fitzroy, seeing that Sir George's great political stock in trade, particularly in his early days, was antagonism to Fitzroy and his policy. 33 However upon the whole it was not a very much worse exhibition nor very different from such occasions in general. Dickens has got several specimens of the after dinner eulogistic style of the same sort. The celebrated Cricket dinner in Pickwick, at the great Match between All Muggleton and Dingley Dell. The parting Theatrical dinner in Nicholas Nickleby--Sir George's speech would have been an admirable bit for Dickens.) 34 Some expressions from some of the speakers evidently point at the General Assembly as an enemy. No doubt this will be the spirit in which it will be first met. (But Col. Wynyard has a fair reputation. He is said to be a gentleman, and an open sincere man; so I do not despair of better things.

(To Christchurch on Thursday Morning, 9 March 1854, with the Church Trust Ordinance; printed-read a third time, and only waits FitzGerald's assent to be law. 35 Tancred raised the objection on the third reading to Brittan's name. Hall opposed him, and made a half attack on Tancred. Both were wrong--but nobody seconded Tancred, so Brittan's name continues. He cannot do much mischief even if he is [so] disposed. I doubt whether after all Brittan means any thing more than the indulgence of a silly inflated notion of his own importance.)

Friday Morning, 10 March 1854. Settling accounts with Cridland.

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As I cannot get any help for Church funds from Godley's remittance or from FitzGerald, I have instructed Cridland to sell 100 Acres of Church land at Papanui in about 10 Acre Sections. We shall get from £5 to £6 an Acre for it; and it will do good as beginning to create a neighbourhood there. We have a good deal of land close by, which will receive an increased value from planting a small Colony there. As to Finance I stumble on somehow, and do not mean to break down. (Bowler has helped me upon my personal credit--but I cannot help feeling very bitterly the combination of persons and circumstances to thwart and worry me. N'importe--we will get through after all. In all my talk with people now, I find an universal disclaimer of all idea of repudiation. The prospect of a large Land Revenue inspires liberality, and I have really no fear of the result.)

I have forgotten to notice an important matter. Brittan has withdrawn the Notice of the Sale of the Town Reserves--'in deference' he says, 'to the Resolution of the Provincial Council'--that body having come to a Resolution strongly disapproving of his measures. FitzGerald has written him a very good letter of remonstrance, which no doubt had its effect. I have published a cautionary notice and shall without hesitation proceed against any body who meddles with the property. 36 I hope when we get to Auckland we may set these matters straight.

I cannot get the Committee to move about the Accounts. (The truth is as Packer said to me on Friday,) they made a great piece of work about them, and then when they have got them they will do nothing with them. There is very little to do in reality. But the charm of quarrelling (with the Association) is gone, and the dry business has nothing interesting about it. (Packer promises to stir the matter before I leave for Auckland. Hall is the only Member of the Committee who is likely to give me trouble.)

FitzGerald refuses the Governor's offer to dispose of the Land fund for the present according to the Association's plan--giving 1/3rd to the Church. As a mere temporary arrangement waiting the action of the General Assembly, I cannot see any reasonable objection to this. To the Church the gain of funds by continuing the £1 an Acre for another year would be very great; would probably put Church matters quite straight. It is a pity that FitzGerald throws away the opportunity. He does it upon ultra Constitutional grounds; (a mere fancy). I cannot but hope that he will reconsider this. The Church would get 3 or £4000 probably of present funds, by Sir George's proposed arrangement. I am sure that nothing would serve the best interests of the Colony half so much. It would

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save me altogether the necessity of selling Church lands, which are so fast rising in value.

[Saturday,] 18 March 1854. A week of Ships. The Prima Donna from Sydney, the Admiral Grenfell do. do., the Waterwitch do., the Tory and the Gazelle, one of the latter (I don't know which) from Melbourne. The Harbour is quite gay. They mostly bring Stock. Mr Spowers the Banker, tells me we have as much Stock now as the Colony can afford. The Capital intended for that investment has been exhausted. Some of these latter importations must be held over for want of a Market. This I think an advantage. The great rise in price had begun to encourage speculation which will now be checked. Spowers seems a judicious man who has benefitted the Settlement by cautious banking avoiding the mischiefs which have occurred elsewhere from too great facility to Speculators.

I noted last week a great sale of land. Now the dam is broken down and we are about to be inundated by Australian Speculators. Last week instructions came by the Waterwitch from Sidey to buy 240,000 Acres outside the Block. Another 40,000 besides is applied for and it is apprehended that in the course of another two months the whole of the lands outside the Block will be bought up. The unhappy Stockowners in that District will be a ruined class. (Poor Lee (Mr Paul's son-in-law), one of the doomed, called the other day in a state of depression. Perhaps he exaggerated a little in saying he saw nothing left but to go upon the roads. In truth the case is one of cruel hardship and being as it is in violation of law and constitution, it fills one with indignation. I do not care a fig for what Herman Merivale 37 says about the Proclamation being law. I say it is not, and I will stand by that in the General Assembly, and elsewhere in case of need.) The unfortunate victims are the most valuable class of Settlers (at present), and the great benefactors of the Colony. (But it is useless to complain; only one cannot help indulging one's longing to inflict retributive justice upon the Governor.)

But there is another side of the question. With all one's horror of the enormity of thus sacrificing this meritorious class, one cannot be insensible to the advantage of money. Already our Revenue is bigger than that of any other Settlement. 38 Indeed the fear is that it will grow so big as to excite the cupidity of other Settlements and so raise a

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difficulty in the way of Provincializing the administration of the waste lands. There is an alarm here on that point, I think an unfounded one. The General Assembly is but the aggregate of Provincial Interests, and all the Provinces alike want to manage their own lands. Now comes the question how to spend the money? The feeling is like that of Schoolboys very flush. We hardly know which of the (pieman's) delicacies to begin upon. Shall it be a Tunnel? or a great Immigration Scheme? or a Railroad? or arterial drainage? My own opinion (but then it is a crude one) is, that we ought not to spend in public works of any kind for the present more than between 15 or £20,000, i.e. until we have a great accession of labour. We ought to capitalize the surplus. There is a probability of our having 2 or £300,000 to deal with. 200, or £250,000 would give us a capital with Income enough to do by degrees all which the Colony could require or indeed bear for years to come. To spend the corpus would be mischievous every way. It would be to squander a vast portion before as yet we know how best to employ it; and the money would find its way into the pockets of jobbers. Besides the unnatural stimulus of a great outlay of Capital would be sure to bring reaction in due time. If we had an Income of 20, or £30,000 a year, we might do all that is necessary. I also think that with such a capital, part might be advantageously employed in assisting private enterprise, such as drainage, fencing, &c. as the Government does in Ireland. 10 per cent can be got without difficulty for all money lent for such improvements; people can afford to give that rate of interest and make 20 per cent profit besides for themselves. All which is wanted is labour. To the English labourer this place is a perfect El Dorado, a sure and rapid fortune, I mean proportionately to his present circumstances. He may be sure of 5s a day permanently. (I mean this as an advertisement.)

A lamentable accident has just happened. (The eldest of the Revell family) is drowned, crossing the Waimakariri in a punt during a freshet. We heard it only today (Sunday, 19 March 1854). We have heard nothing of or from the family to whom this is a terrible blow. Drowning is the death of the Colony. The Rivers are dangerous, the people are venturesome, and the Craft used in crossing good for nothing. (N.B. Since writing this, I hear that the unfortunate man was not young Revell, for which we are really thankful.)

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Another calamity. Saturday week (the 11th March 1854) it blew a gale from the N.W. and Lyttelton Church has suffered. The whole building is shaken and unsafe. This is no more than was to be expected. We have moved the Service back again to the Barracks and fitted up one of the rooms which makes a decent Church for temporary use. A Committee of Architects sat last week on the damaged building and are to report next week. I collect their opinions to be that the Building can be made safe with some outlay, say 3 or £400. To take it down would be difficult and expensive; the materials would not pay the cost. On the other hand, nothing can make the building as it is either sightly or substantial and there is a heavy item for repairs yearly to be added to the cost. Some talk of pulling it down and building a small Church of Stone. Next week I hope to get the Architect's report, and will then call the old Building Committee together. I foresee that 3 or £400 will be wanted from Association funds, which I must manage to find somehow. I am determined if possible not to break down till we have finally rid ourselves of our charge of Church affairs. (Matthias and his clique) are anxiously expecting and endeavouring to expedite such a breakdown. I trust I shall be enabled to disappoint him.

There has been a fault somewhere in the building of this Church. One of the Architects 39 tells me it has never been properly braced together and it is a wonder it has not come to pieces before. The design of it is (very) pretty on paper; but it is impossible to make a Gothic Cathedral out of brick nogging and boards, with walls not much thicker than pasteboard. The roof must come off at all events. The Slates are too heavy, and it must be shingled instead. With all its faults and they are enormous, I had a regard for the Church and groan over its possible downfall.

That N.W. Gale of Saturday week was the heaviest from that quarter since we arrived. Poor Miss Dicken 40 (that unprotected female whom I have heretofore described as our fellow passenger per Minerva) crossed the Mountains from Akaroa in it. Her adventures are worth recording as illustrative of Colonial life. She drank tea with us on Thursday and told us all about it. To enjoy it properly you should know her. She is an elderly female about 50 or thereabouts; the sort of person designed by Nature to live in a Country Town upon an Income of £100 a year--to be a District

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visitor, a Sunday School Teacher, the old Maiden Aunt of the Parish--to go about to tea drinkings in a hood and pattens, to eschew Railroads, to have been in London thirty years ago, and to mean never to go again; a good tempered, motherly, kind hearted body. I have no doubt that in England she wore spectacles and used to read at night with a green shade before her eyes. To think of such a body circumnavigating the Globe, and sleeping upon Mountain tops, is the climax of contradictions. In person she is an active middle sized body, but of an age when the figure becomes a bundle instead of a shape. She wears a false front (at least that is my belief) curled all along the forehead. I describe her in detail because it is so strange that she should be here, and because she is a wonderful instance of what that class of persons can go through. On board Ship she was the victim of misfortune. The Sea came into her Cabin and swamped her bedding. Her boxes were smashed in the hold. She was all but taken into custody on landing by the Custom house people on a charge of concealing Gunpowder in her Cabin. (I suspect there was some foundation for the charge. She comes out to take care of a brother and I think the powder was meant for his use not hers.) The same destiny has pursued her since. She brought out a lot of watches by way of mercantile adventure, but the poor old lady was nearly drowned in going in a boat from Lyttelton to Pigeon Bay, and the watches got damaged. She found her Brother located in one of those charming spots which I have described in Akaroa Harbour--a place comprising every thing that is lovely in nature--Mountain, Forest, and a land locked Harbour like a lake. But alas! the charms were merely those of Nature. The (poor) brother (who seems to be but a silly body,) was dwelling in a wooden tenement in a state of thraldom to a Labourer, his wife and 7 children, all of whom he had brought out with him that he might be sure of having faithful and attached domestics. The labourer, the wife and the children of course took up all the house, keeping their unfortunate Master in a condition of the most servile subjection under fear of their leaving him in absolute solitude. The night of Miss Dicken's arrival there were two Frenchmen besides in the house, casualties. Poor old Lady--she begged she might be allowed to sleep under the Hayrick, but this idea shocked her brother's fraternal hospitality. So she sat up all night and the next day had a warre [whare] constructed for her the other side of the Creek. A warre you must know is a hut built of sticks like an extemporized pig stye. Elizabeth asked her whether such a prospect did not make her despair. 'No', said she gravely, rather solemnly, 'It did not, I saw it was going to be better.' I mean to make a proverb of that saying. She used to sleep in the warre till one night she was frightened out of it by a concourse of Cows

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surrounding her lonely dormitory which she mistook for robbers come for the watches. About ten days ago she started from Akaroa for Lyttelton over the mountain to Pigeon Bay. I have described that part of the journey which is all plain sailing enough. At Pigeon Bay she intended to take boat for Lyttelton but there was no boat to be had, so she had to take the overland route. Now between Pigeon Bay and Lyttelton there are tremendous hills, full grown Mountains in fact between 2 and 3000 feet high, one between Pigeon Bay and Port Levy and another between that and Rhodes' Bay. The mountain between Pigeon Bay and Port Levy is a desperate undertaking. I only know it by hearsay. How poor Miss Dicken managed it is a wonder. She describes the ascent as safe enough except one part just on the top, where you creep round in the face of a rock on a ledge wide enough for a goat track with a horrible profundity below. Hereabouts the N. Wester assailed her with that tendency which winds have to invert the order of female habiliments. Her companion (that Mr Knowles of Pigeon Bay) urged her to clasp the rock with her hands, but decorum forbad. The struggle between the sense of the perilous and the proper must have been painfully ludicrous. However, she managed to get to the top, and thence down into Port Levy, where she sojourned for the night. Next morning another hill of difficulty to be crossed, the N. Wester blowing more furiously than ever. The top was reached, but here the gale blew so, that to proceed was impossible. It was Saturday midday. All that afternoon, and all Saturday night the unfortunate elderly lady was encamped on the top of the Mountain. Rain came on and soaked her through. She was carrying a small parcel and descending the next morning into Rhodes' Bay, finding the way perilous and that it was absolutely necessary to have her hands at liberty, she threw it before her; I thought to myself, said she, 'I shall surely catch it again.' But alas! no-the falling bundle rolled and rolled, till it tumbled into unfathomable depths, there to remain a possible object of curious speculation to future Antiquaries. She got down however at last in safety and describes her adventures in a spirit of solemn contentment wonderfully edifying. 'Such is life' as Mrs Gamp says.

[Tuesday,] 21 March 1854. Lyttelton Church is pronounced repairable, but at what cost? 41 That is the question (which has to be answered). Will it ever be reckoned safe? That is quite as important. People must be satisfied, and I doubt their being so. The old Barrack

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room lined and made quite decent, serves for a very respectable Chapel pro tem, and is I think preferred to the Church itself.

The Mail of the Stately brought up from Otago by the Clutha, but no letters, except one of September from Lord Lyttelton; a month staler than the one by the Duke of Portland.

The Government Brig may now be expected back every day. She was to leave as yesterday, but the wind is against her. We may reckon ten days' reprieve from the Auckland voyage. I doubt FitzGerald going up in her. His Council is nearly over. Its legislative work this Session frightens me; and I begin to tremble seriously about the experiments. They pass crude measures badly put together, without check, and involving interests of the greatest magnitude. Here is a Bill now rapidly going through its stages to appoint District Commissioners for public works, to be elected by Occupiers, with power to raise assessments without limit (so at least the Bill stands) for any public works of any kind (the terms are, 'useful or necessary', words wide enough for any thing) without check or appeal; the Rate to be paid by the occupier (if he can and will pay) who is to recover half from the Landlord; but if the rate is unpaid after a certain time the Landlord's property is to be sold, without further notice than a 14 days' Advertisement in the Gazette. 42 The Bill is aimed at Absentees, and certainly if it should ever come into practical working it will speedily abolish Absenteeism by the simple process of confiscation. The primary conception of the Scheme is taken from the English System of Parish and Local Ratings, but it is a monstrous parody of it. Think of the House of Commons delegating to a Parish Vestry or rather a Select Vestry the power of undertaking public works of any magnitude, of rating people without appeal to an unlimited extent and of selling the freehold to pay the arrears of occupiers rates without any adequate notice. Really whilst I write the thing seems to me so monstrous and incredible that it will hardly be believed. I have said in a quiet and friendly way all which I can venture to say in the way of remonstrance but without avail. Nobody in the Council really takes a serious interest in the matter. All objections like mine are met with 'Oh it will put a stop to absenteeism'. So it goes on and I have no

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doubt will become law. Poor Sir John Pakington, if he could see his Provincial Councils playing such pranks! but the bad machinery of the Bill will I foresee make it practically useless, and so harmless; unless indeed it comes out from Committee in a very different shape from the original; and I think one fundamental vice in it will be fatal, namely that it includes Native lands in its operation (i.e. does not except them), which is contrary to the Constitution Act.

The Anti Absentee spirit of the measure is a phase of the Colonial mind. This Settlement is not worse than others in this respect. They all have in a greater or less degree the same animus furandi [spirit of thieving] as regards Absentees' lands. No doubt Absentee property is an evil, and for certain objects of a very peculiar and strictly defined nature, and with the utmost possible caution, and with every kind of guard to secure the rights of property, I would not say that the Legislature might not enforce taxation by sale of the Freehold, but such cases would be rare exceptions. The rule forbidding such invasion of property is based on every principle of morals and policy. The evil is a thousand fold less of leaving interspaces of waste land for a time unoccupied and profitless to the community, than of rendering all property insecure--in fact striking at the root of property itself. As to the feeling against Absentees as a class, I mean independently of the inconvenience of their Land holdings, there is a good deal of narrow minded jealousy about it. (It is a colonial vice.) 'They are none of us' is the language, although when money is wanted or help of any kind, these same Colonists are as ready to solicit Absentees, as if they were their best friends.

The practical effect upon me is to decide me upon selling all my property here before I leave, and I recommend all Absentee holders to sell as fast as they can. It is useless to resist. The Colonists will sooner or later seize the property, and it will be best to turn it into money whilst one can. The general impolicy of this measure, apart from its confiscation principle is glaring. It delegates in effect to petty subordinate bodies the work of the Provincial Council. The right of taxation is entrusted to the Provincial Council and it is their duty to watch over its application. 'Oh' but says Tancred 'Parish Vestries make rates.' 'Yes' I answer 'they do, but for objects strictly defined, and under special limitations.' Parish vestries are in fact little more than ministerial bodies. Church wardens and Overseers in Vestry make poor rates, and there are like machines for Highways, Churches, Sewers, and so forth. But who would dream of giving a Parish Vestry the power of cutting a Canal, or making a Railroad, or of investing such a body with an unlimited right of taxation and of selling up the Freeholder?

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Another conclusion I am led to; that these Provincial Councils as at present constituted are unsafe. But how to mend them? Two things may be done. Enlarge their numbers, and give them a second Chamber. The difficulty is, where and how to get men. If that difficulty cannot be surmounted, I would needs turn to the other alternative of abridging their powers. But I would try the other first.

[Sunday,] 26 March 1854. Another week of nothing particular. The Government Brig not arrived. Heavy weather from the N.E. and a tremendous swell in the Harbour. Just before it came on the Admiral Grenfell went out, with Mrs Paul and her daughter and appurtenances in the shape of a Baby. Poor things they will have had an awful tossing, and the thought is suggestive of all sorts of horrors to ourselves in our trip to Auckland. Now it comes to the point, we both of us agree in longing to stay at home; and for myself individually, I know that the moment my back is turned mischief will begin. On the other hand, without the action of the General Assembly in a right way we cannot wind up our affairs. Also the Church Trust Bill may be disallowed, in which case I must get it confirmed by the General Assembly. FitzGerald besides is going up to the Assembly, and nothing could be done in the meantime. So upon the whole it is best that I should be there doing something, rather than loitering about here, doing nothing.

My main occupation this week has been putting the old Barrack room in order for a temporary Church, vice the new Church dilapidated. We have really made it look very neat and Church-like, by lining the building with calico, and distempering the woodwork. It will cost about £50. People seem well contented with what is being done, and will wait patiently till we can decide what to do with the damaged fabric. I have called together the old Committee for Tuesday next to meet the Architects. 43 But the Committee are very shy of meddling farther, having the fear of more money to pay. I have offered to pay them the old Debt by Sale of Land; 3 of them have accepted my offer, and I am to give them 1/4 of an Acre of Kaiapoi Town land and 4 Acres of rural land a piece as representing £30--that is £10 for the quarter acre Town Land, and £5 per Acre for the rural land. The other Committee men decline taking their money, so it is in the nature of additional contribution. Lyttelton Church therefore, such as it is, is our Church, and it can no longer be said that we have not built one Church in the Settlement.

I have also been occupied in preparing perfect Rentals of our Church lands. When complete I shall send a copy home. It shews a most satisfactory result, and is a complete and triumphant answer to

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all the captious objections made against our Church policy. The calculations in my Church Dispatch of May last have been largely exceeded. Our present rental is about £350 (exclusive of Town lands at Kaiapoi and the Bush there which we are selling out and out, the former at £40, the latter at £20 an Acre). But next year the rents begin to rise, and there will be an increase of £170--making £520. Then in 1860 another rise takes place of £370, making it about £890. But in addition to this, we may fairly average a sale of 10 Acres of Town land at Kaiapoi, and ten Acres of bush. The total quantity of Town land at Kaiapoi is nearly 200 Acres, and upwards of 100 Acres of Bush. But we have only let half our rural land, and scarcely any Town land in Lyttelton or Christchurch. If it were only decided to give purchasing clauses every Acre would be taken at £5 an Acre for rural land, and £60 an Acre for Town land, giving a yearly additional income of from £800 to £1000 a year. In truth if there be one thing more than another for which we may reasonably take credit, it is this matter of Church Endowment. Out of a Cash surplus, not exceeding at the outside £4000, we have created permanent Endowments worth at least in 7 years' time £2000 a year, and at present £1000.

Let me note in passing that Jacobs' Establishment [the Collegiate Grammar School] is greatly increasing. We have been obliged to enlarge his House. I have no doubt if the College were in existence it would get immediately 30 Students who could pay at least £50 a year. It is a great mistake to say that such an institution is premature, or would be unsuccessful. I believe it to be the one thing which can alone restore the prestige of the Settlement.

(I have at last made an arrangement with Simeon about Godley's Money. He is to let me have it taking a Security upon Church lands for its repayment. This result came out of a conference I had with Spowers the Banker. I shewed him my financial position and explained to him about Godley's Money and its unattainableness, with the consequent necessity of selling land coute qui coute, to make up the deficiency, unless he (Spowers) would help me. He quite agreed that Godley's money ought to be made applicable and recommended me to make a fresh application to Capt. Simeon with a reference to himself. I took his advice and at my suggestion Simeon talked the matter over with Spowers (who is a sensible, practical man) with a satisfactory result. This will be a great relief. It will enable me to pay Matthias' arrears, 44 to repay the Miscellaneous fund a part of the overdraft, out of which I can get rid of sundry outstanding claims, leaving me pretty clear of all claims though very

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THE ASSOCIATION'S ACCOUNTS

bare myself. I shall however still have to make provision for whatever may be requisite to the damaged Church. As regards myself, I shall bring matters straight eventually but I foresee that I must wait till the affairs are wound up, stumbling on in the meantime. I have repaid such of the Gladstone people as have chosen to take back their deposit for the projected Town; 45 and I have intimated my readiness to repay every body.)

I am happy to say the Provincial Council have thrown out that most objectionable measure (of FitzGerald's) for confiscating Absentee property. 46 This is creditable to them, but it is an awful risk when such measures are decided by chance votes in a Legislative Assembly with 6 Members present. Now I shall agitate to get something done here to these Roads, and Streets in Lyttelton, which have never been finished and consequently in wet weather are mere quagmires. It is a pity people do not study the importance to a Colony of first impressions. Landing after a Sea voyage at a neat comfortable little Town, decently paved and lighted, and with some approach to English comfort, would keep doubtful Settlers, and prevent much of the unfavourable gossip which goes home to England from newly arrived Colonists.

Wednesday, 29 March 1854. A Meeting yesterday (at Dr Donald's) of what ought to have been the old building Committee to deliberate as to the dilapidated [Holy Trinity] Church--Mountfort, Cridland, and Dobson present. The result eminently unsatisfactory. The case is a dilemma out of which I see no way of escape. To repair it so as to ensure safety would cost £500 and we have not the money. If we had, people would disapprove of such an outlay for there is a general prejudice against the building. It is besides doubtful whether there is building power in the settlement to do the work. To lay out less than the whole would they say be throwing money away, for any part left undone would endanger the whole. To pull it down is scarcely possible so as to save materials; and if possible, the cost would be at least as much as they would be worth. To let it stand without doing any thing is not safe. One recommendation was to burn it to the ground, but this would be a miserable end. I know not what to do. If £200, or even £300 would have sufficed, I would somehow or another have screwed the money out, but £500 beats me, particularly as after all the building would be incomplete, and to finish it and make it sightly will cost at least £3000. My private practical conclusion is, to do nothing myself; to make the Barrack room comfortable and decent and to leave the

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solution of the difficulty to those who are to come after me. Sure I am that whatever I do will be cavilled at. Even now, merely making the temporary Church decent I am quarrelled with for spending money and doing too much. I do not care about that. It must be 6 perhaps 12 months, perhaps longer, necessary to keep to the present building; quite long enough to make it incumbent on us to make a decent place of worship. More I shall not affect. So I am having the roof whitewashed, the walls lined with calico (to be distempered), the crimson cloth hung round the Sacrarium, and the supporting pillars and cross timbers distempered dark wood color and varnished. It will cost about 30 or £35. People like it very much, all but a few grumblers.

(FitzGerald did not come near our Committee Meeting, though we fixed it specially for him, it being his day to be in Port. I am angry at this. He ought not to run away from a difficulty which by ail accounts was very much of his creation; throwing all the responsibility on me.)

I am getting into a fretful dissatisfied state of mind, disposed to quarrel with every thing. All seems to be going wrong in the way of Government. The new Land Regulations 47 (proposed by FitzGerald to the Council and) partially adopted have stopped our lettings of Church lands. 48 Here is practical proof of the mischief of the leasing plan; Government as a landlord undersells every body else, so damaging private property in which lettableness is a main ingredient of value. (As to the reduction of price from £3 to £2 (i.e. cutting off the Church Ll) no one can give a good reason for it.) I urged FitzGerald to propose suburban reserves to be sold at a higher rate. It is idle to throw away land intrinsically worth £3 and more at 2/3rds of its value. This is a la Sir George Grey. (Apropos of Sir George's Proclamation, that Mr Moore who has bought 40,000 Acres to the North at 10s an Acre, says (as I hear) that he would have bought the same quantity at 30s. This agrees with what Sidey told me. We shall at this rate lose £40,000 by that bargain; thanks to Sir Geo. Grey.) As to FitzGerald's Resolutions, I (strongly) urged Tancred, (who is Prime Minister) not to bring them forward. They are crude in themselves, and many points are objectionable. But I object most of all to pledging the Provincial Council beforehand to a scheme which is as yet but a mere abstraction. Till they have the management transferred to them it is idle to be wasting time on theories. I wished Tancred to confine the Provincial Council to two simple points--1st. That the Council desired not to have Sir George Grey's

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Regulations. 2nd. That it wished to have the management transferred to itself, with a supplementary request that ad interim, matters might continue as at present. That would have been more prudent than for the Council to risk its reputation upon an abstract scheme which has palpable faults, without the smallest practical good.

This thing displeases me. Also I am fretted at a (mad) project which is on foot for a railway and tunnel to cost they say between 1 and £200,000, and intended simply to go as far as Christchurch. The prospect of these Land Sales has turned their brains. Here is a Commission sitting (a small parody of a Royal Commission) to report on the best way of conquering the Hill. The Commissioners all busy on the Railway and Tunnel Scheme. 49 If we had thoroughly satisfied ourselves about Coal, I should not quarrel with the notion of a Railway and Tunnel even at a cost of £150,000 but without Coal, as to which the information is very loose and unsatisfactory the idea is mere moonstruck madness. Cridland (one of the Surveyors, abjures it, and goes counter to the others). This will end in nothing, and the result will probably be the completion of the old Sumner Road at last, upon the original plan. (But these visionary Schemes will damage FitzGerald and his Government. People begin to laugh at them.)

(This morning I completed the transaction with Simeon about Godley's money. I have deposited with him 3 Land Orders by way of Security. As the first fruits of the money I have paid off the arrears of Matthias' Stipend, Simeon's Salary, and the Loan from the Pasturage Deposits.) 50

There is a question mooted (between Simeon and myself) about the pasturage deposits. People when they took runs made deposits with a condition that if the runs were not stocked within 9 months the Deposits should be forfeited. I find about £250 still standing to this Deposit account, and all according to the strict letter forfeitable. The question is, what ought to be done. Simeon and I discussed the matter with Spowers, the Banker, this morning. Spowers and I agreed that where parties had bona fide used proper efforts to get their runs stocked, but had been prevented by the circumstances of the Colony (such as difficulty of getting Stock &c.) it would be equitable to waive the forfeiture, but otherwise not. (I have expressed to Simeon my decided opinion on this matter, and I am afraid have caused an uncomfortable feeling on his part. I cannot help it. He has no right from mere good nature to nullify the

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conditions of deposit, except under special circumstances constituting an equitable ground for relief.)

[Saturday,] 1 April, 1854. We are still here, expecting the Brig back from Otago daily. I have not a particle of interesting matter to add. About the Church, I am thinking of calling a Meeting of Contributors to learn the general opinion. From all which I hear the Building is hopelessly condemned.

There is a Newspaper Controversy going on about the Town Reserves. Dr Barker takes the field against the Association, though even he does not mean repudiation. In truth he is a good-natured honest (simple minded) monomaniac on this one point. (Matthias is suspected of being another assailant under the pseudonym of Jacob Faithful.) Tancred writes a sensible letter in this week's paper as a 'Member of the Provincial Council' and Charles Bowen pokes fun at Dr Barker as X.Y.Z. This is all play work but it has its use. 51 It lets out the suppressed venom and the course which the discussion takes leads people generally to assent as a matter of course to the principle of adopting our liabilities. The controversy about the Title is under such circumstances idle and objectless. Suppose they prove our Title defective--what then? As they don't mean to repudiate all which they gain is a loss, namely the liability to pay over again to the New Zealand Company an additional quota of Land Sale Money. The great misery to me is the protraction of an affair which is spinning one's life out. If the Government would but address itself to the practical questions--whether they are satisfied with the accounts--whether they mean to pay, and how much, and how, and when, the whole thing might be virtually wound up in a month. If we have a good Title to the reserves well and good, and if there is any doubt about it we have but to ask and we are sure to get the doubt set at rest by the Crown. I think there is a secret desire to shew us up (me in particular) for a blunder about these reserves. They don't mean to be dishonest or to repudiate, but they would like a whip to beat us. They would pay and flog us if they could. (Government and all have this feeling. It is part of the old leaven. It is not very amiable or very high minded, but if I can help it they shall not have even that poor satisfaction.)

The Council have voted £1000 for Education, the Money to be expended according to the old Education Ordinance. 52 £250 is I believe meant for Christchurch, and the like sum for Lyttelton. What FitzGerald means to do with it I don't know. He proposed an

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Education Ordinance but postponed it. It seemed to me objectionable as virtually Prussianizing Education, ignoring the Religious bodies as an Educating power and placing the control of every thing in his own hands. He has withdrawn it however; I have no doubt finding it likely to rouse controversy and opposition. But the vote for Education remains. How is it to be expended? I have written to him semi-officially asking whether he will help the Association Schools, and upon what terms. I do not see any thing wrong in the terms imposed by the existing Education Ordinance. Religious teaching and industrial training are made essential. The only doubtful condition is, that children whose parents wish them not to receive religious instruction, shall not, so guarding the consciences of Dissenters. Talked the matter over with Mr Dudley. He sees no objection to the conditions. (There is to be Government inspection which I think is a good thing.) Now if we could really work this Education plan into a right form we might do great good. First--we might plant really good Schools at Christchurch and Lyttelton. At present they are in a very unsatisfactory state. I cannot raise the Stipends so as to attract or keep the best Masters and Mistresses, and they consequently go off to Wellington or elsewhere leaving us only second best. The present School constitution is bad. I am a temporary accident, but as I hold the purse strings people look to me as having authoritative control. In vain I try to set up the local Committees. As they have no real power they take no interest, and the management drops away to nothing. (Mr Dudley who is sadly deficient in tact displeases people.) Nobody but Elizabeth attends. I look in now and then. (Simeon and his wife have both utterly abandoned them.) This is a bad state of things and will grow worse. Indeed when we are gone I do not know what will become of them. About Christchurch I know little, but as far as I can understand the Committee there is a sham. The talk about Education is for the most part cant. People in general are too selfish and self engrossed to think of expending time and thought on anything unremunerative. Again, the Education given is of inferior quality; and Parents do not care about sending their Children. That fosters the natural spirit of Colonial independence which extends itself to the children. If the parent does not care whether the child goes to School or not, the child soon finds that out and demeans itself accordingly. There are stories of children flouting out of School in a huff. Another evil is, that children's labour is so valuable. That is frequently alleged as an apology for the thinness of the School. After this long drought the excuse is that the Children are wanted to fetch water &c. &c. If I can in conscience rid myself of the School responsibility I will. It would so relieve the Church funds

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as to leave us perfectly at ease about other matters. It would take off £350 a year of cost. That would go to improve the Stipends of the Clergy. But I wait till I hear from FitzGerald.

[Sunday,]9 April 1854. Another week gone--a week of excitement and full of matter. Education business--Steamers--Church building--filled up with the ordinary work of accounts, preparing Rentals, settling Leases &c. Last Sunday after morning service news came of the Government Brig being off the Heads. Walked up the Sumner Road and saw our floating prison which was to be anchored off Adderley Head, not able to get in with an ebb tide and no wind. In the afternoon she rounded the point and the passengers landed. Stuart Wortley returned with the batch of Scotch Members from Otago; (to wit Messrs Cutten, 53 McAndrew 54 and Cargill), to whom I am slightly introduced. (They seem outside but so so. I hear that Cutten is a forward vulgar and talkative Auctioneer, McAndrew a keen Scotch Storekeeper, and Elder of the Kirk, Cargill a much nearer approach to a gentleman but with nothing considerable to him.) Wortley's account of Otago is (highly) unfavourable; the country inferior to Canterbury in soil and climate; the Society unbearable, people at daggers drawn with each other. The Settlement poor and in a condition of (absolute) dependence on one Johnny Jones, 55 the Millionaire of the place--the same whom I have elsewhere mentioned as one of the Sydney Forty Thieves, an old whaling Chum of Bruce of Akaroa. Johnny Jones lends the Otago people money, and makes them do or not do what he pleases. (He is reported to have threatened the Members not to lend them the needful to go up to the Assembly, but that perhaps is scandal.) The Otago Council is described as working badly. Looking hastily at their Ordinances I see no particular fault in them. They are certainly not worse in construction than ours, or those of Wellington. They have boldly assumed the power of regulating the waste lands, and passed an Ordinance to that effect--of course good for nothing in point of law but meant to paralyze the General Government; a measure of policy not of law. I hear through other channels that

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Wortley did not demean himself popularly at Otago, and that the Scotchmen do not like him. (He is clever, and has something in him, but he would be thinking scorn of the people and letting it be seen.) The Scotchmen seem mightily inclined to fraternise with us, and we shall no doubt pull together. Bellairs is coming up as a Peer. 56 He asked Wortley whether his Patent had come down!! We are thinking of sending him down a gingerbread coronet. He is of course a thorough going Greyite and Cheap land man, and will therefore have not the smallest influence at Otago. Dr Knight who seems to be Commander in Chief of the Brig arranged to stay here till Wednesday the 12th so as to give FitzGerald time to meet the Council to decide something about the road and adjourn. The Council meets again on Tuesday the 11th. Mrs FitzGerald and the children are going up. On Monday I went on board the Brig to look at our accommodation which is decent, but not sufficient to make a long passage otherwise than miserable. She is about 200 Tons; has a neat Cuddy carpetted and comfortable, with side Cabins partitioned off with bunks just big enough to lie down in. But she is not meant for ladies, and that is the terrible perplexity. I selected a Cabin, making up my mind to be off at the time fixed.

FitzGerald came in on Monday [3 April] but as usual in a prodigious hurry, and I only had a quarter of an hour's talk with him about Education. His mind seemed undecided what to do. At first he thought nothing could be done till he came back from Auckland. I urged immediate action. I said I saw nothing objectionable in the conditions of the grant; that if we got aid from Government we might establish a Grammar School here at Lyttelton which is much wanted. Here are a parcel of big boys above the lower class learning nothing but mischief. I talked of an old plan of fixing Mr Cotterill (of Sumner) 57 here as Master of the Grammar School, giving up the other Schools to the Government. Our conversation broke off, but I arranged to go to Christchurch on Wednesday to discuss the matter officially.

All day Tuesday, 4 [April], busy with Leases of Church lands gathering rents &c. &c. Wednesday to Christchurch by Bishop's Cart. The Bridle path is improved and the roads generally are being mended, so that they will be passable in the winter. At Christchurch had a talk with my old friend Packer, the Chairman of the Committee on the Accounts. He mentioned some points on which they desired information, but the principle seems conceded of

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paying whatever is right. Then to FitzGerald who was unsettled in his plans, (and apparently had no fixed view.) A long and interesting discussion with him ending satisfactorily. He spoke sensibly and co-operatively. He had an idea of appointing a paid Inspector of Schools (either Sir Thomas Tancred or his brother). I strongly dissuaded him from that. It would have too much the appearance of a job and waste a large proportion of a small fund. Let the heads of the Educational Institutions at Lyttelton and Christchurch visit the adjacent Schools, they themselves being visited by the Superintendent, or someone on the spot who would work gratis. We went to Jacobs' and continued our discussion, the result being that FitzGerald expressed his preference for not undertaking the Schools himself, but giving our Schools a Grant in aid. £150 for Lyttelton and the like for Christchurch--we to manage as heretofore only subject to inspection, and the condition about the children of dissenters. I returned quite happy in my mind to Lyttelton. Thursday--After a talk with Mr Dudley I determined to walk to Sumner to see Mr Cotterill and learn his views. Elizabeth and I started about one o'clock. Clambering along the pathway which indicates the line of the intended road, a laborious and in places very awkward operation. Elizabeth had never been to Sumner before. The day fine and fresh, with a North Easterly breeze. We agreed that the road if completed will be very fine; winding up by a gradual ascent along the face of the steep rocks which overhang the Bay, then crossing the ridge and twisting down a gorge in the hills to the Sumner flat. Found Mr Cotterill at home, (if such a place as he lives in deserves the name; but) he is building a decent sized house. Propounded our ideas which he entertained, and agreed to meet us on Friday in Lyttelton. Returned home, Elizabeth heartily tired with the walk.

Friday morning, [7 April] I got together a sort of extempore Committee of people most interested in such matters; Spowers, Dr Donald, and two or three others. (I wanted Simeon to join us, but he has lately taken to being huffed (I do not know what about) and is in a quarrelsome frame of mind.) We met at the Reading Room; Simeon looking in at the door saw the three or four people assembled, whereupon he exclaimed loudly against the impropriety of publicly discussing such a matter. 'It was a matter for the Executive Government; he was a Member of the Executive Council; he should have nothing to do with it.' All which was absurd. I am sorry that Simeon should get into this mood which is to me quite unintelligible, but I cannot help it. We went to work without him, discussing and contriving how with £150 we could make both ends meet to establish the Grammar School; keeping the present Schools

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on foot. In the midst of our counsels the door opened and in came FitzGerald stately and solemn with a cloud on his brow and rather agitated. I saw immediately the state of the case. (Simeon had been priming him to explode a petard upon us, as a nest of Conspirators.) We received him cordially--asked him to sit down and give us counsel; whereupon he drew himself up officially. 'He had no counsel to offer. If we were desirous of doing any thing ourselves we were welcome to do so, &c. &c.--His plan was not to give a Grant in aid, but to take the Schools under Government.' Then he produced a budget of what he had done the day before with the Executive Council. It seems that after his talk with me and Jacobs, he altered his mind and planned a general Scheme for all the Schools including Lyttelton and Christchurch; taking them all under charge of Government except Jacobs' School which remains with the Association. His plan seemed unobjectionable, and financially it is a great relief to me, easing me of the expense of all the lower Schools. I assented, not caring about forms, and having no desire to keep the Schools on the hands of the Association, if I can properly transfer them. Then FitzGerald smoothed his ruffled plumes, and we had useful practical talk ending in a satisfactory arrangement. Government to provide £200 a year for a Head Master--£110 for a second Master, £80 a year for a Mistress, subject to the Association providing School rooms for which rent was to be paid at £70 per Annum; but some alterations to be made in the buildings. All this was settled. Mr Cotterill was present, and expressed his readiness to take the Head Mastership, but he is to come in again on Monday with his final answer. The present reading room with the adjoining rooms were to be his residence, the Colonists' Society and Reading Club being turned out. Other provisions must be made for them. So we went and looked at another of the vacant Barracks, and I opened a negotiation with the Choral Society to become tenants of that, to take it at £40 a year, certain alterations to serve as a public room for Balls, Concerts, Meetings &c. The alterations are estimated at about £85. I agreed for the Association to subscribe half a year's rent (£20) towards this, which is a good thing every way. It gets the building tenanted and at the same time provides what is greatly wanted, a public room for all sorts of purposes. The people seem (mightily) pleased with all this; but unhappily in proportion as I am satisfying people in general, I see the Cloud settling upon other brows. It is curious to watch the progress of opinion and the development of feeling. So our Barracks, which have been a trouble to me, are all appropriated; one for a Reading room, public room &c., one for a boys' and girls' School, one for a Grammar School and residence for a Master, and one for a temporary Church--to be hereafter applied

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to its original use as an Emigration Barrack. All this is a great movement ahead.

Whilst looking over the School buildings on Friday afternoon [7 April], about 4 o'clock a shout from a parcel of boys announced the arrival of a vessel of some sort, and presently there was a cry of 'A Steamer'. Looking to the Harbour there was the thin line of vapour indicating a Steamer round the point blowing off her Steam. A veritable Steamer the Nelson actually come as a matter of business for passenger traffic. A great event. The opening of a new era. She came from Nelson via Wellington making the passage from the latter place in 24 hours. You can imagine the excitement. 58 It was the first creaking of the hinges of Prison doors opening. People flocked to the Pier, and presently a boat came alongside with Dillon Bell from Wellington, and one Mr Fell of Nelson, 59 a Merchant who had the vessel in charge. I took it for granted that she had come for us Members; and my first question was when does she return? Dillon Bell said at first Monday. That is impossible, I said; FitzGerald has to meet the Council on Tuesday. He cannot go before Wednesday. 'Oh yes,' said Bell, 'it will be Wednesday. FitzGerald is gone on board to make arrangements.' So I went off well pleased. Instead of a voyage all round the North Cape, possibly a month or longer at Sea, our difficulties were solved. To Wellington in 24 hours. Thence to Nelson about the same time. Thence to New Plymouth ditto and ditto to Auckland by way of Manukau Harbour, which it seems is now available for Ships. To Paean ['Hurrah! Triumph!'] to say nothing of the superior comfort (to use such a term about Ships in any form) of a well appointed Steamer. Went home rather in a flurry. In the Evening a Meeting of the Colonists' Society to consider the best way of improving the Town which needs improvement sadly. Here is a controversy. What ought Government to do? What the people themselves? And how are things needed to be done at all? Nobody has clear notions. FitzGerald's (preposterous) measure for providing 'useful and necessary works' of all kinds of Rates, has been thrown out. Some people want Government to do every thing. FitzGerald wants people to do every thing themselves without Government help, keeping the Money for main Roads and for immigration. Here is plenty of Money in the Government Chest, and heaps more expected. The natural tendency of private persons in such a case is to protect their own pockets. FitzGerald is half right and half wrong; but at present he is in

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dudgeon at the rejection of his plan, and makes foolish speeches about 'he will do this' and 'he will not do that' which makes people angry. I get into ill favour both sides, because I agree with neither. The question how to provide for public works, is a question of circumstances. Where the immediate benefit is private, things should be done by individuals; footways and pavements are always considered of this class, adjuncts to Houses. In England they are generally made in the first instance at the expense of the adjoining Proprietors, and afterwards repaired by public rate. Roads are matters of public concern. I do not know exactly what line to draw here. If there were an old established liability as that of Parishes in England, or if the Settlement were subdivided as in England into Parishes, Counties &c., it would not be difficult to make the liability local-but as yet there are no divisions and no fixed rates. Besides the question here is complicated. Under the Association's terms of purchase there was an express condition that part of the purchase money should be expended on Roads &c. This gives rise to a sort of claim by each individual to have his own particular roads made. Then there is the circumstance of the two Towns of Christchurch and Lyttelton with all their roads laid down, being put forward as part of the general scheme of the Settlement, constituting a kind of contract with the Settlers. It may be said that the present Government has nothing to do with such engagements made by the Association--that the lapse of authority from the Association to the Government has put an end to them. That I cannot assent to. Qui sentit commodum, debet sentire et onus ['Who feels the benefit should also feel the burden']. If there were (which may be contended) a contract between the Association and the Settlers to lay out and complete the Town roads, that liability has devolved on the Government which succeeds to the whole benefit of the work done by the Founders of the Settlement, and in particular to the Land revenue. It may be said that making a paper plan of a Town, marking out lines of roads, and selling allottments, does not necessarily imply a contract to complete roads. Perhaps not as far as time is concerned. There is no contract to complete the roads in any given time, for it would be preposterous to expend £500 on a road to a single allottment. But people did undoubtedly buy with the vague notion that the roads would be made somehow, and when the time is clearly arrived for their completion that is when particular lines of road or street are fully occupied, I think the liability rests on Government to finish the work in the first instance, leaving it to be afterwards repaired by local rate. At all events if the burthen is to be thrown on local proprietors it should be by borrowing on the security of rates, with a limited time for paying off the debt. As to

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main lines, these should be Tolls to help the repairing fund. Undertakings involving profit and loss should be left to private enterprise with (in some cases) aid from Government. In connection with this subject, we want a well digested plan of Municipal Institutions for the Towns. All these questions want to be thoroughly discussed; and the principles applied to the respective cases with proper discrimination. This is an episode--not an immaterial one--for I foresee that FitzGerald will run himself into difficulties about it, (from inconsiderateness and want of experience.)

Well, to our Meeting--which was fully attended. I proposed that we should set to work and make the footways ourselves, each proprietor being expected to bear the cost to the extent of his own frontage. I urged that this was the only practical way of getting it done. One road Government ought to help,--viz. up to a Bush which supplies firewood to the Town; and where a lot of poor Tenements have sprung up on the College Land; the wattle-and-dab District as Elizabeth calls it. But there was a general demand for Government to do the whole; and a Memorial agreed to accordingly which will end in nothing. I said I was sure that Government would do nothing for our footways, and in my opinion rightly. Mending the footways is all we can do at present. 60 The roads must remain in their state of pristine mud. There is not labour in the Colony to do all which is required without withdrawing it from ordinary employment at great loss and inconvenience.

Saturday Morning [8 April 1854]--While looking over the Schools and contriving alterations, I was startled at seeing the Blue Peter hoisted on the Government Brig. Presently came Dr Knight and the Scotchmen hurrying down to the Pier. Was she off? What was the meaning? I went off to enquire. Met Capt. Deck 61 travelling at great speed and in a mighty excitement. He stopped and accosted me. 'So I suppose you are going to abandon me as well as the rest.' 'Certainly' I said, 'I prefer the Steamer.' Then he began to declaim about the hardship &c. to himself; how he had laid in provisions, and reckoned upon passengers, and should lose £30, or £40, all his passengers declaring off for the Steamer. I said I should be quite ready to pay my proportion of any loss, but I preferred the certainty of twenty four hours to the chance of a week's misery. At this time I was under the belief that the Steamer was to sail on Wednesday; before which it would be impossible for me to leave, and under that

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belief I told Capt. Deck that I preferred the Steamer to the Brig. But no sooner had I left him than I heard that the Steamer would leave on Monday, maugre all entreaties to the contrary. I soon found this to be the case. How it came about I do not know. FitzGerald had somehow or another upset the plans. The Brig was off in a pet three days before her time, and the Steamer would wait for nobody. She did not come for the Members, only for regular passenger traffic, was engaged to return by a fixed day &c. &c. It was a case of tumbling between two Stools. Several people were in like plight with ourselves. We are in great wrath. The Brig it seems was sent down with the Government Auditor not with the smallest reference to the Members of the Assembly who as far as Government is concerned may get to Auckland as they can. Some people surmise a plot--a deliberate intention to suppress the Southern Members. That I do not believe. I have no doubt it is owing merely to careless indifference, a neglect not an affront, but neglects in such cases are affronts. The Steamer however promises to return for us in a month's time, just in time to take us up before the Meeting. Of course this depends on circumstances. If she is punctual well and good,--better so than to kick one's heels about in Auckland, besides losing valuable time here. If not, and we Southern Members are not at Auckland in time for the Meeting, I have written to Wakefield to urge him to obstruct business by perpetual adjournments. So here we are safe for another month--at least till the first week in May, if not longer.

Saturday Evening [8 April], A Meeting of Members of the Church to consider what to do about the unhappy Church. A full meeting ending in unanimous condemnation of the damaged building. So it is to come down. By way of putting it to the test, I moved that the Repairs be done as recommended by the Architects, but could only get it seconded pro forma. A Committee formed to confer with me about the necessary steps. 62 There is a great desire for a stone Church. 63 Nobody seems to like the present building or to think it worth while to spend money on it. For my own part, with all its faults, I grieve at the necessity for pulling it down; but I think the conclusion is right. FitzGerald, Simeon, indeed every body agrees. I have written to Dobson the Architect to consult him. People say he is the best in the place, (but in truth there is nobody to rely on.) Objections are made to a Stone building on account of Earthquakes;

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but they are building a Stone Gaol at Wellington secured by iron bolts or braces which they declare to be Earthquake proof, and Wellington is many degrees more Earthquaky than this place. I have not noticed a single shock since I have been here but smart ones each time at Wellington. But how to get the Money? Say it shall cost £1000. There are the old materials, but it is doubtful whether the cost of pulling down will not swallow up the value of the materials. Every thing is at present in a haze about it. One thing we may congratulate ourselves on, namely a decent comfortable building for temporary use.

I ought to have noticed a tremendous hail storm last week. Monday [3 April 1854] I was sitting at work; a black Thunder cloud gathered up from the South West, the weather still and rather sultry. Presently a rushing sound, and a furious wind drove across the Harbour followed by what seemed to be a white vapour. As it reached the Town there came rap-rap--as if pebble stones were being flung at the House, and in a few minutes such a storm of Hail! The stones at least ten times the size of any I ever saw before. I examined some which must have been an inch in diameter. As to windows, it was a case of general smash. Luckily our wooden tenement of a house has a verandah, and we had only one window exposed which of course all went. The storm lasted not more than 10 minutes. I went out into the town. Glass had risen at least 50 per cent, and the Glaziers were already at work. I should say that 2/3rds. of the glass in the Town on the weather side was destroyed. 150 panes in the Church. Such Storms they say are unusual; indeed this is the worst within memory; but it is a lesson as to building with verandahs. 64

Monday, 10 April [1854]. The Steamer departed punctually at her time; so far a guarantee for punctuality of return, and now the Harbour lies vacant of Ships, excepting only the Duke of Portland rolling about in a swell, having lost all her hands but three. In the evening however, a new arrival in the shape of the Ackbar from Sydney, bringing Mr Wilson, 65 an Indian, with a retinue of Coolies, and intended to bring all sorts of animals--Antelopes, Hares, Deer &c., but unhappily most of them died on the voyage which was singularly long and bad. As yet we have seen nothing of the new

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arrivals. I am sadly afraid that the Indian Nabob will be grievously disgusted, and carry back evil reports to India, whither he is to return.

On Tuesday last (4 April 1854) there was a Meeting of the new Church Trustees--a Meeting called, without any previous communication to or concert with me. 66 Indeed nobody seemed to know what it was about. It is perfectly understood that I cannot hand over the Endowments till the Ordinance is allowed, or the time for disallowance has gone by. Elizabeth says it is the case of children anxious to handle a new toy. I hear that at the Meeting they quarrelled with me for what I had done about the Church here, about Riccarton Church &c. Of course the spirit of the old Church Committee has transmigrated into the new Trustees and I shall have trouble with them. But I do not care about that. It will all end rightly, though they will grumble and quarrel with me to the last. FitzGerald writes to me a complaining letter about delay, and uncertainty, and ignorance of accounts and the expediency of putting the New Trustees into action immediately, all of which is unpractical and simply vexatious. He knows perfectly well that I cannot make the Transfer immediately, and till I can do so things must remain as they are. 67 In the meantime the Church property is rising in value, and prospects generally are improving, and with a little forbearance all things would come right. A letter from Jacobs which reached me on Wednesday [5 April] evening conveyed an official request that I would immediately (that is in time for an adjourned Meeting fixed for the 10th) furnish the Trustees with particulars of the Church property, and the conditions of Transfer. A modest request! I have been now a fortnight and upwards engaged in preparing these particulars in the shape of Rentals &c, and as yet they are incomplete for I cannot get Cridland to attend to me. I have answered Jacobs that I am sorry it is impossible to comply with his request--that I am engaged in preparing particulars and will before I leave for Auckland put them in a state for general information. 68 I added that I earnestly hoped they would forthwith organise the

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Parochial System so that I may make my arrangements finally with a Representative body of the Church instead of the present Trustees who are Nominees only.

[Wednesday,] 26 April [1854]. I date the Journal which shews a gap of a fortnight, one of more hard work and worry than we have had since we have been here. As to the work, Cridland who is a man of disorder (though bustling and shrewd,) leaves me to digest the rent roll and settle all the leases, from mere scraps and fragments of information. Night and day I may almost say we (i.e. Elizabeth and I) have been toiling to get leases &c. ready before we leave. What with Lyttelton Trust and Church lands, and Kaiapoi Town Conveyances there are between 80 and 90 separate transactions. I have no Clerk but Elizabeth and am obliged to do the hand as well as the head work. My object is to finish up the business and leave behind me a perfect statement of the condition of Church property. Not loose guesses and estimates which nobody trusts but exact details, totalled up and arranged methodically. In a case like ours any thing short of this is worse than nothing. It leads people to suppose that we are dealing with crude estimates and approximations to results, which may be true or false, not what the world asks for, facts.

Then we have to consider soberly the terms of Transfer to the Trustees. The Estates are differently circumstanced, some held for general, some for specific purposes-as Endowment of the College, the Bishopric &c. Then there is the Bishopric fund with the quibbles about title hanging over the Security--altogether it requires careful and business like consideration.

This is a preface to the history of the last fortnight. First of all, about a fortnight ago, FitzGerald rushes in to me like a high wind--'I want to talk to you about several things. I want you to give me your opinion upon some points.' (What they were he never mentioned). 'Now' says he 'what you must do, is to prepare immediately deeds of Transfer of the property, and arrange every thing, so that the instant we come back from Auckland there may not be a moment lost in handing over the property to the Trustees.' 'Why' said I, 'what do you mean by preparing deeds of Transfer? the Ordinance is not allowed yet. I have not got the particulars ready and am hard at work as you may see', (shewing him large heaps of unfinished leases, rough rent rolls &c.). We talked I suppose about three minutes or thereabouts to this effect; and away he went to carry his high wind elsewhere, and to upset the apple-stall of somebody else's arrangements. (What a pity it is that such inconsiderate flightiness should spoil many good qualities. Qualis ab incepto ['As from the beginning'--Horace, Ars Poetica, 127].)

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I did not pay much heed to it at the time; however on the 6 April 1854 I received that letter from the Trustees in the 'stand and deliver' style. Now the question is, whether the actual arrangement and final transfer of property ought to be made with the present nominated Board who were the old Church Committee selected in order to do the preparatory work. I think it highly desirable on all accounts that such transactions should, if possible, be completed with a Representative not a nominated body, being in fact in the nature of a compact, by which the Colony is hereafter to be bound. I have expressed my opinion that the existing Board had best organise the Parochial divisions, and convene the elective body of Trustees as quick as possible so that the arrangements may be completed with them. That would be very simple. Whilst we are away at Auckland all this work might be prepared, and by the time we come back the new body might be called into action. This is the general wish of people, all but the Trustees themselves.

When I received the formal demand for immediate Transfer, I coupled my reply with a courteous suggestion to this effect, not dreaming of offence being taken; not putting it as matter of stipulation, but an expression of earnest desire on my part. In fact I have no intention to make it matter of stipulation. The Trustees ought to decide the point for themselves. At all events, I wish to place on record my views.

I am particular about this because it is to be a handle of attack upon me, (FitzGerald leading the van. The cidevant preacher of Representative principles, and anti-nomineeism, takes up the cudgels against me for wishing to act on his old doctrines.) The form of attack is by seeking to make out that I want to delay the Transfer. (The truth is that finding me not ready to give way to his rash impetuosity, he now deals blows at me through the Trustees who I believe to be a mere machine of his.)

I have stated the substance of my first reply to the Trustees. It is all in the Lyttelton Times of the 22nd inst. so I need only refer to that. I go on with my work being in fact busy almost night and day, in getting all the information about Church property into a business like shape to hand over as soon as I possibly can. Whilst I am about this comes out the Lyttelton Times of the 15th inst. with an attack upon me in the shape of an Advertisement from the Trustees announcing to the public that they have received an 'unsatisfactory reply' from me. Of course the Colony pricks up its ears. I go to Mr Shrimpton, 69 the publisher of the Lyttelton Times, who tells me that

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he is very glad to see me, and particularly to see the Correspondence, as he was seriously alarmed. An 'unsatisfactory reply' about such a matter of business means anything. Some people fancied it meant something wrong about the funds, and so forth. Indeed poisoned as peoples' minds have been against us by the dark inuendoes about sacrilege &c. they are ready to believe anything. (Shewing Mr Shrimpton the correspondence, he agrees that such an Advertisement is unwarrantable.)

During the following week (i.e. last week) I was able to put together the whole work, and transmitted a full and complete rent roll of the Estate with minute particulars, and a letter (published this week in the Lyttelton Times) giving a full account of the whole state of Church affairs. 70

Meantime the Trustees are not idle--without saying a syllable to me they call together their body, and through their Secretary, Mr Conway Rose (my old enemy) they indite me an Epistle in a true Lawyer letter style, begging an instant account, and that I will immediately prepare the Deeds of Transfer--(in short repeating FitzGerald's wild talk). This I receive on Friday Evening a reply being demanded by the following Monday.

Here is a state of war, (all brought about by FitzGerald's rashness, and that rushing at things without thought or care merely for the indulgence of impulses. One of these is a great notion he has of his talent for a fussy kind of industry. He will meddle with every thing. He knows a great deal more about law and a great deal more about Church matters than I do--he can manage property much better than I can. He can build Churches much better than Architects whom he pronounces ex cathedra fools or knaves. He can construct Railways and make Tunnels putting Engineers to shame. But it is all for play; and like a child disappointed at not getting its new toy, he turns spiteful and breaks out on me with a bitter attack in private letters of an exasperating kind, charging me with being the cause of all the dissent in the Colony; with 'paralyzing the Church'; with producing a state of 'heart sickening suspense'; with 'concealing the state of Church affairs'--and with 'putting the keystone to the failure of the whole Church plan'--and such like. Qualis ab incepto ['As from the beginning'--Horace, Ars Poetica, 127]. It is over again just the kind of matter which we used to receive from the Colony in times past, when the child could not

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immediately get to play with its Constitution Toy. I hope I shall be pardoned for venting myself in this way in my Journal. I am in a boiling rage, and yet I am obliged to suppress it all. I preach to myself and I hope I practise forbearance to the utmost limit of patience. The great satisfaction is, that people are contented with my statement of the affairs. I refer to such men as Spowers, the Banker--Wormald, the Lawyer, Mr Dudley, the Clergyman here &c. In fact I have not heard a contrary opinion. Every body sees that the Church question is beginning to clear itself. I believe that in his heart FitzGerald does not really desire this; at least not till he has got hold of the affairs. Then no doubt he would like to come out with eclat; and the darker the colour on our side the brighter he would look. This is human nature. Perhaps I am writing too bitterly, but it is impossible not to feel bitterly in such a case. I feel it and think it, but I do not speak it or write it except here.)

Now that the matter of Church income is beginning to get right a new point of attack is to be made. FitzGerald and the Trustees are going to have a tilt at me, for selling under any circumstances, or for any purposes, Church land. People not conversant with such questions, and who do not think carefully, have a leaning that way. The idea is connected in their minds with spoliation and Henry 8th. They have a superstitious fancy that land once made applicable to Church purposes has a kind of sacredness of character, like the Church itself. Such scruples are respectable, and must be treated with gentleness. And the question ought to be placed on its true footing. The principles applicable to Church property are the same as to other kinds of Eleemosynary property. Property given to any legitimate eleemosynary purpose whatever ought not to be diverted therefrom; but then the form of it may be changed. If a Rector of a parish wishes for convenience sake to exchange his glebe; who ever doubted the propriety of such a transaction? though thereby the glebe is made secular and vice versa. Again if an Ecclesiastical body wished to build or endow a Church in one place, who would object to their selling a farm in another to supply funds for the purpose? The destination of the proceeds to a like object satisfies the religious scruple. That being satisfied the question becomes one of prudence and property not of conscience. But if that be so in a general way, how much stronger is the case when the very terms on which the land is held contain this express condition. The Charter which enables the Association to hold this property expressly enables it also to sell, alienate &c. The only condition implied is, that whatever may be its form it shall be applied to like purposes. And the nature of the case makes such a latitude of dealing indispensable. We were founding a Colony and planting a Church establishment.

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Who could say beforehand the exact way in which each item of property should be dealt with.

I distinguish the case of special Endowments for particular objects. Take the Dean and Chapter Lands--these are set apart for a specific purpose. 71 Not that I should if acting on my own judgment scruple to sell or exchange them, applying the proceeds to the like specific purposes, not to others. I shall not however meddle with that question. I shall not touch the special Endowments.

Applying this to the present case it cannot be doubted that sale of Church lands to provide for Churches or (what is the same thing) to pay the debt contracted in building Lyttelton Church or to pay the Balance overdrawn in necessary outlay on Church Establishments, is quite legitimate, and I mean to act on that principle. FitzGerald and the Trustees quarrel with me; I cannot help it. I must stand firm. Otherwise I foresee that no provision whatever will be made for Churches, and there will be perpetual scandal against the Association--not without ground. Many people at Christchurch have told me that they will not subscribe a penny for a Church there, till the corpus of the Church property is made available to a fair extent, and they are right.

Another point is likely to come to issue. Shall the Church funds be made available for outlying Districts, and even beyond the Province? There is need of missionary Clergymen for the outlying stations.--Granted--but ought these Endowments to provide them? I do not pretend to decide that point. It is one for the Churchmen within the present limits of Settlement to decide; for the Money is theirs by all the rules of property. If it is to be made available for such extraneous purposes, it must be with their consent; and I have made stipulation to that effect in the Ordinance. Some of the present Church Trustees are exclusively in that outlying interest, and have a leaning to their side of the question. Meantime Lyttelton Town is in an unhappy plight. There have been 6 or £700 spent on the present Church which is unserviceable, and of course there is ground for objecting to more being done for this place whilst other claims are unsatisfied. The Lyttelton people are very jealous of Christchurch, and Christchurch of Lyttelton. The case of Capulets

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and Montagues. The Lyttelton folk dislike the present Trustees. They fix their meetings at Christchurch and will not hold any at Lyttelton. The Lyttelton people will not go over the hill; and when they do complain that they are outvoted. In general there is a good deal of jealousy of the Trustees, and they are not popular.

All this is apropos to the case between me and them. What they want is an instantaneous and hurried Transfer of every thing to themselves unconditionally. They do not want the Representative body to decide such questions. They seek to rush in and anticipate them if they can, and in so doing they will produce endless confusion and discord. (Also no doubt they would like to shirk the question of) the outstanding debt of £2000 odd. (Now) I mean to have that settled as a matter of business. Whatever individuals may choose to do hereafter voluntarily and of grace, is one thing. I have no business to speculate on other people's liberality. Sure I am that if all the debts are paid the Colony will not be left without provision for its reasonable Church wants.

To return to the story. I noticed last the official letter from the Trustees, requiring me instantly to hand over the property. To that I have replied. I (still) publish every thing, so I need only refer to my letter; the substance being, first a gentle complaint of their proceedings; then showing why I could not comply with their request, with my reasons for preferring to deal with a representative instead of a nominated Board; at the same time leaving it to them to decide that point, assuring them that I would not on that account delay the Transfer, and that I desire to co-operate either with one body or the other. Monday the 24th they met. I have heard not what passed, but the result comes to me in the form of a dry repetition of their former request--so giving sign of war.

(Tuesday Evening, [25 April 1854]--we went to Mr Spowers' the Banker's to drink tea, and talk over matters. He agrees in the propriety of my course of proceeding.

(Wednesday morning (yesterday) I had a long talk with Shrimpton of the Lyttelton Times. He entirely sides with me, and tells me that public opinion will be with me, and that such will be the line of the Lyttelton Times. However we shall see. 72 I do not quite see the issue yet.)

Monday afternoon, A cry of a Ship. Looking out one was rounding the point. A strange unexpected vessel--the Balnaginth bound for Auckland and this place. Auckland first, but putting in here for want of provisions and water. We get a Godsend in the shape of a batch of labourers all meant for Auckland but kidnapped

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here. That is the inevitable result. Whatever may be the first Port is sure to get the supply of labour. A Mr Read, a Lieut, in the Navy, stops here with a party who had meant to go on. They all pronounce the Balnaginth a most filthy and detestable affair--(a sad falling off from Association Ships). They had a bad passage, losing some of their topmasts &c.

Letters from England to the 23 Dec. From home and the children, meagre and uninforming, except upon the main point that they are all well. (No letter from Robert, and only short notes from Elizabeth and Janetta, which vexes me.) I wish people knew how intensely one longs to know every thing. A very kind letter from Sir Walter James, confirming my proposal to apply £500 of his Money for a Church at Christchurch, and asking what he shall do with the other 500. I will write to him about it. I am thinking of our poor Church at Lyttelton. A long letter from Lord Lyttelton--as usual extremely kind and thoughtful and with important intelligence--the Crown debt paid. This is hard upon the people who pay, but to me it is a relief. 73 The Crown debt was one uncomfortable fact in my proposed arrangements. I have little doubt that we shall get paid in full in due time. This is a point which I am afraid I cannot make clear to people in England. They should understand that every thing is flourishing here, and now there is even a prospect of ready money. At all events the credit of the Colony with a Revenue of £25,000 a year at least (land fund included) is ample to bear our debt, especially as the property to be given up will pay a large portion of either principal or interest. The public Securities of such a Colony are as good as any others of the same kind--as good as Canada Debentures &c. especially as the monied people in England are volunteering help in the London Money Market. Why should not Canterbury Debentures be as good as any others--paying too a high rate of interest--say 6 per cent? I do not wish to be thought over sanguine. I take a practical business-like view, though one perhaps not distinctly intelligible to those whose ideas of sterling value are limited to Bank of England notes and current coin.

A letter from Mr Adderley--very kind but preaching the impossibility of getting any more money from England. I do not suppose it practicable to get another shilling from thence. My views are limited to local resources. When the money is paid here, and

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every body is indemnified, I think then the stream of liberality which is now dammed up will flow again. That is what I tell the people here. They must expect nothing more whilst so many thousands are already due. But then they all declare their readiness to pay the moment they have the power, i.e. the moment they have the control of their land fund, and the power of dealing with their own Revenue. This the General Assembly is sure to give them. There will not be a dissentient voice I am confident in either House. Why then are we to shut up and say that every thing must come to an end? The future is full of hope and more than hope,--though there are still black clouds with a good deal of wind in them. The better understanding, and better prospects of Church matters, are likely to produce salutary effect every way--soothing bad feelings, and predisposing people to be honest, even if they had not such intentions. When all is wound up a very moderate amount of help in Church matters, from sources supplied by the Colony itself, will I feel persuaded, reverse the whole tone of opinion about the Association.

(Several of the letters ask about myself, and how I get on with my own affairs. I can only answer--somehow. I pick up scraps and make both ends meet as I best can. We live as economically as can be, where all things are very dear. I brought a little Money with me from England--I have a little coming in from rents here. I get a trifle from surplus rents after paying the Church its £600 a year. 74 I have sold odds and ends of loose property.) If the General Government had not behaved disgracefully, (and the Provincial Government shabbily) I should have done very well. The General Government has got possession by a kind of fraud of all the stock of our Land Office, which it refuses to pay for. It has got possession of the Land Office for which it refuses to pay rent; and it endeavours to deprive me of other rents, by putting out threatening notices, cautioning people not to rent our lands--see Lyttelton Times--with the Crown Commissioner's Advertisement about the Town Reserves. Nothing can be more scandalous or illegal. I hope to set matters right at Auckland. FitzGerald will I believe help me in that--(but then FitzGerald himself behaves shabbily. He will not comply with my moderate request for the proportion of the Pasturage fund for the current year; and he will not buy a lot of things worth 3 or £400 which really ought to be kept, and which I am obliged almost to throw away by shipping them off for sale elsewhere.) Maugre all this I rub on. (Bowler has been very kind, and has made me an advance of £300 in anticipation of proceeds of property when

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realised.) In case of absolute need I have saleable property of our own for which I might get 7 or £800. And in short I mean to get on somehow, in faith that it will come right at last. (I have about £100 now to my credit with the Bank; I hope to get 50 or £60 more before I leave for Auckland; and I have an untouched credit for £200, out of Bowler's £300, which will cover all our expenses at Auckland, and I hope for the next 6 months. By that time I cannot but believe that things will be put straight. But the Miscellaneous Fund owes me at this moment about £1000 for Salary &c., and the Church fund about £100. I shall charge interest on this as a matter of business.) 75

[Friday,] 28 April 1854. My mind is now full of this miserable Church work, (which FitzGerald has managed to throw into confusion. He writes me a letter in a spirit of petulant annoyance, which but for circumstances would necessitate an open rupture. Not being able to get his own way about the immediate Transfer of the property to the Church Trustees, he sets to work to break the machine to pieces. He influences the Trustees against me and resigns his office. I expect all the rest to follow his example. The one sole object is to harass and embarrass me. Think of his seriously telling me that he looks 'with indescribable sadness upon the prospect of Church affairs'. This is mere affectation, put on for the purpose of worrying me and abusing the Association. Other people of common sense on the contrary say that the prospect is extremely encouraging, and that they are agreeably disappointed.)

FitzGerald threatens me with the Supreme Court for daring to repay the debt on Lyttelton Church. His vivacious impetuosity (which stands for energy and industry) will give me immense trouble. The solid opinion of the Colony will be with me; but the noise and bustle will be on the side of the Trustees. I pray the people in England not to be deceived by any appearances of this kind; and that they will be assured that I will use forbearance to the utmost limits of patience, and even beyond it, rather than jeopardy the work. (In the meantime FitzGerald is destroying his own position. Observations reach me from all quarters to this effect. In this Church matter he will run his head against the post.

[The following page and a half--two pages in the MS--are crossed out.]

(His variableness is a burlesque. My Letter to Lord Lyttelton of the 10th May [1853] : 76 When I read it at Christchurch to the Church Committee last year, FitzGerald was there. Not a word of objection

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was uttered. It was received in fact with sullen acquiescence, but the following day FitzGerald met me on the Sumner Road, and amongst other things declared emphatically that he quite approved of every word of it, except (credat Judaeus) ['let the Jew believe it'--Horace, Satires, I. v. 100] that he was sure the Colony would carry on the Church principle of the Canterbury Scheme. Now he tells me for the first time that my letter was universally condemned!! All untrue, but it serves the purpose of attack. Any stick to beat a dog with. Next week perhaps we shall hear him solemnly affirming that my letter is full of unparalleled wisdom.

(Here is another specimen--about Lyttelton Church. First of all, he meets Mr Dudley and tells him that he is satisfied the Building must come down; and he will subscribe £25 for a new Church, but nothing to repair the old one. Then I get the Architect's report and a rumour gets abroad that I am going to pull the Church down. Then FitzGerald writes me a letter cautioning me against doing so, and making a claim upon the building in respect of his contribution. Simultaneously he stimulates Dr Donald and Capt Simeon to put forward similar claims, and threatens proceedings if I meddle with the Building. Then he comes into Lyttelton and makes a personal survey of the building himself, and having plummed the walls, and satisfied himself that it has gone out of the perpendicular, he suddenly wheels round and announces that the Church must come down. So Mr Dudley at the next meeting quotes FitzGerald's authority and pronounces the doom of the poor Church irreversibly with all sorts of lamentations and so forth. Well it was so settled and Mr Dobson was called in to superintend the funeral obsequies in a decent way, preparatory to building a new one.

(He recommended us on no account to pull it down without either building again (which is impossible for want of funds, for which time must be given) or without bargaining with the Contractor to take the materials, which will otherwise be damaged by careless pulling down, and wasted by lying about. It was of course meant to begin a new Church as soon as possible, and to apply whatever might be got for the old materials to that object. This was agreed to unanimously apparently, whereupon in steps FitzGerald again. He comes over to Lyttelton with Mr Luck 77 the culprit builder, and makes more measurements &c., and thereupon declares that the building shall not come down. To me he holds out indirect threats of law--says he and the Committee are part owners,

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or have a lien on the building and that I am to touch it at my peril. Then he draws a pretty plan on paper of what could be done to mend it as it stands. An apse--a transept or two--a bell tower--flying buttresses &c. The repairs necessary to make the building safe, he estimates at next to nothing. The Architects are all fools or knaves--what they reckon as costing £475 may be done in effect for £120. So £120 is to be spent this year, and £150 next, and £200 next and so on; so that in 20 years' time the whole shall be completed. Then we counted up the total which amounted to £2920--i.e. in round numbers £3000. (All this took place in Simeon's Office last week.) I looked in whilst FitzGerald was working out his fancies, and when it was done I asked Mr Luck 'Now Mr Luck if you had £3000 would you spend it upon the present Church, or build a new one?' He hung his head on one side for a minute of two thoughtfully, and then with a knowing look said, 'Build a new one.' Still FitzGerald persisted in pursuing the phantom and left Lyttelton to devise plans and specifications with Mr Mountfort and Mr Luck, the old delinquent Architect and Builder. I must decline under these circumstances to meddle further.) I am not going to involve myself in law, and I really care for nothing except to get a good Substantial Church built somehow. So I told the people at the next meeting, and we set to work to get Subscriptions for a new Church at all events; every body declaring that they will give nothing to the present one. 78 There the matter rests. (A hundred to one next week FitzGerald comes in with some plan for pulling down the Church, and building another. Is not this worrying past endurance.

(Then he picks up another stone to throw at me.) This unhappy Church is an interminable cause of quarrel. It was built by subscription. The Association gave £500 and some materials. Others gave more or less. Now touching this building of Churches by subscription. The question was first mooted before the first body of Colonists left England. There was at that time a prevalent notion that paying £1 an Acre for Ecclesiastical and Educational purposes was a perpetual release from all farther claims for those objects. That was an error in the extreme on the one side. In Lord Lyttelton's minute of May 1850 there was a passage which seemed to favour that prevailing error. 79 And in order that the Association might not stand

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pledged to so false a principle as that nothing was to be expected hereafter for Church purposes from voluntary liberality, I remember proposing at one of our meetings a resolution, (I do not remember the exact terms) but in substance affirming the propriety of receiving voluntary help to aid the Association in building and endowing Churches &c. I always maintained the same principle, but I certainly did not suppose that any such abstract opinion, merely intended to guard against the opposite error, would ever be quoted against me in support of what was done in the particular case of Lyttelton Church, and as if I had maintained as a rule that all Churches should have been built by Subscription. As to the Churches of Lyttelton and Christchurch, from the first it was always considered that they ought to be built by the Association. Private persons might properly subscribe if they pleased to help a good work of the kind, but the Association and that alone, was always looked to (at least in England) as exclusively responsible for those two buildings. That was the language of letters to and from the Colony. When therefore it was first heard by the Committee in England that there was a plan of building Lyttelton Church by subscription, it excited a strong feeling. Lord Lyttelton objected strongly, but at a distance of 16,000 miles, and with a year's interval of time, such objections must needs be unavailing. What was actually done was this. The necessity for a Church became imminent. Lyttelton was supposed to be increasing at a prodigious rate--the temporary building was insufficient. It was a case of need. Godley told the people he had no funds; and that the utmost he could do was to subscribe £500 and some materials. The Association could not, and would not do more. 80 (That statement about absolute destitution of funds was in some sense true, and to some extent inaccurate. True, Godley had no specific funds available for that particular purpose, and the Association generally had overspent themselves. But then the Ecclesiastical Fund was in credit several thousand pounds. And Godley had available in case of need a credit of several thousand pounds with the Union Bank of Australia. I mention these as facts, not seeking to draw inferences therefrom.) The people of Lyttelton thus told (by Mr Godley) that if they wanted a Church they must build it themselves, reluctantly and with much grumbling, set about it. (I say confidently that it was done grumblingly, for almost every body (except FitzGerald) with whom I have conversed, has spoken of it in a tone of complaint.) The dissatisfaction thus excited became reflected in England. And one of the great occasions of scandal against the Association has been, that

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it utterly neglected its Church work--wasted its funds--and compelled even the Lyttelton Church to be built by subscription.

According to established rule a Committee was formed, I may take for granted that the Members knew the extent of their legal liability, though I have no doubt they never meant to incur any, but to keep within the limits of their funds. People always mean that, and are always taken in. They were horribly dismayed when they found that they had to pay £300. (But this Committee was in fact little more than Godley and FitzGerald. 81 Those two ruled every thing. The rest looked on; for the most part silent and acquiescent. The plan (as I am told) was fixed on by them with hardly an appearance of consultation. That fact is not very material except as placing the Association in still more invidious light.) The people of Lyttelton in general would not help. They complained that they were not consulted. They disapproved of the building, and I am told that not more than £1000 could be collected from the inhabitants beyond the Committee themselves.

When I arrived in the Colony amongst the innumerable grounds of quarrel against us I found this. The debt of £300 hung about the necks of the Committee, many of whom were put to some straits to pay the money. (Poor) Mr Dudley, the Clergyman. Bayfield, (the Chemist,) a very respectable man, who landed here with a young family and £5 in his pocket, and just getting his head above water, and others more or less in straitened circumstances. A demand of £30 a piece was a grievous hardship; particularly as they had already subscribed definite sums to the extent of their ability. The legal liability was admitted, but always coupled with an under murmur, the justice of which it was impossible to deny.

Seeing this state of things, in my general review of Church matters in May last, (see my dispatch to Lord Lyttelton, of the 10th May, published in the Lyttelton Times, Saturday, May 6th, 1854), 82 I included as one of the claims of the Association this debt on the Lyttelton Church. In my opinion, I hold it to be morally if not legally the debt of the Association contracted by the Committee on their account in building a Church upon their property, and which the Association must deal with and claim as its own. Having embodied my views in that dispatch of the 10th May, I took it over to Christchurch to a full meeting of the Church Committee, read it to them, received their silent assent--received afterwards from several individuals (FitzGerald included) their hearty approval of

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it--and have since received Lord Lyttelton's adoption of it--and upon the strength of all this have proceeded, telling the Committee men that I meant to pay and would pay their debt by selling an adequate portion of Church land. 83 A short time back having mentioned this to (Bayfield) he expressed his willingness to take land in lieu of money; he wanted some land at Kaiapoi, would pay the full price &c. To the Association it is indifferent whether they sell land and get money to pay the debt or sell to the parties themselves, paying the debt in account; of course dealing upon the same terms as with strangers as to price. Practically by this means the debt will be discharged in a very easy and cheap way. 1/4 of an Acre of Town land at £10--and 4 Acres of rural land at £20 (i.e. £5 an Acre) pays each man his £30, in other words 4 1/2 Acres of land which cost the Association £8 10s satisfies the claim for £30. Granting that the debt was to be paid, no one can doubt the prudence and advantage of paying it in that form.

No sooner is my intention announced than FitzGerald writes me letters perfectly rabid. I am guilty of breach of trust--of jobbery--of sacrilege. He will put me into the Supreme Court &c. To all which I am obliged to reply by dry letters of business; simply telling him that what is done is done, and that I mean to complete the engagements I have made. So far as people in general concern themselves with the question I think they approve of what I am doing; but really they care little about it. By way of adding to the difficulty so soon as I propose to do any thing with the dilapidated Church, FitzGerald steps in and claims an interest in the building by virtue of his unpaid debt, the debt which he refuses to be paid.

Monday, 1 May [1854]. Walked to Christchurch to keep an appointment with Cridland to settle accounts. Saw Packer who tells me that the Christchurch people know nothing and care nothing about the quarrel between me and the Trustees. He says Matthias tells him I want to delay handing over the Endowments, and that I have managed somehow to get wrongfully hold of Godley's £300 applying it nobody knows how. I am sorry to be obliged to say hard things of Mr Matthias, but the fact is, he is utterly careless of his words, and when his passion is excited he scruples at nothing.

Had a half friendly talk with Jacobs, and with Hall, who are reasonable men, but the constant reiteration of ill words about me obviously affects them; and I am hopeless of getting any cordial co-operation with the Trustees. I must therefore steer my way as well as I can.

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(My financial settlement with Cridland is unsatisfactory. He has a balance (not an inconsiderable one) nearly £100 in hand, and there are between 100 and £200 of outstanding arrears. I want if possible to get £100 to carry with me to Auckland and to pay a few odds and ends of claims of trifling amount. If I could get this money in, I should manage tolerably well for the present. The worst of the Colony is, that the Aes ['cash'] is never in presenti, but always in futuro. But I shall not be in absolute need.)

Here is a new trouble about the Jackson Estates. 84 Mr Jackson has given a power of Attorney to Bishop Selwyn, and Bishop Selwyn has delegated Mr Matthias simply to take possession of the property, and keep it, doing nothing with the money. This takes away about £50 a year of available income, which in law, equity, and common honesty as well as prudence, ought to be applied for the current Ecclesiastical and Educational service. I must for the present individually make up the deficit (out of my own pocket) or else cut down the stipends of the Clergy and schools. Bishop Selwyn is a good man, and I do not mean to say any thing against him, but his notions of business are Episcopal, and not according to secular rules. The property which he thus intercepts is the property of the Association, of which Mr Jackson became a nominal Trustee, having collected subscriptions for the Association, just as he might have collected them for the S[ociety for the] Pfromotion of the Christian] G[ospel]. Part of the property (one third of the whole) was bought and paid for by the Association. Of course the Supreme Court would set all this right but I cannot file a bill against Bishop Selwyn. This case is almost ditto to Sir Geo. Grey seizing the Land Office. The fact is that the Association has been so befouled that any body thinks himself at liberty to say and do what he or she likes. Sacrilegious body which has squandered its Church funds; and reduced the Church to a state of beggary!! It received from the public at the outside £27,000. It is now about to transfer to the Colony property which I do not over estimate as being worth £40,000. (Thus-[crossed out in MS]

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I think by the time I return from Auckland I shall have an offer to take all the Lyttelton Trust Lands (those held for the Guarantors). 85If I can make a bargain for them upon safe terms to cover the money they represent, I shall do so.

On Saturday, [29 April 1854] came Mr Dobbs, who took a lease with a purchasing clause at £5 an Acre, of 120 Acres of our Kaiapoi land. He tells me he is retailing it at from 15 to £40 an Acre. Kaiapoi is fast growing into importance.

The Town hall is progressing--actually begun to be sufficiently in readiness for the Queen's birthday Ball. Meetings about this and the Church, and the Roads, have been the main business of the week-filled up with accounts, leases &c.

I should note that on Tuesday [2 May] there was a meeting at which I was requested to advertise for designs for pulling down the present [church] building and erecting a new one. 86 The mind of the people is resolutely fixed against keeping the present building and it must come down, but I shall not be able to do any thing till my return from Auckland; and then perhaps I may rid myself altogether of the affairs.

About the Town Roads--nothing will be done. The people grumble (at FitzGerald), I think in this case wrongly. He offers as much from Government as the inhabitants will raise themselves, and that is fair. I try to persuade them to accept it gracefully and get the

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roads mended. But the Government is getting into bad odour, and the foolish people prefer walking through the mud, for the sake of pelting him with a little of it. FitzGerald or his Secretary wrote a foolish letter twitting the people with rejecting his District Commissioners bill, and this makes them angry.

Auckland, [Wednesday,] 24 May 1854. What has been doing since I last wrote journal? A sea voyage or rather a succession of sea voyages--perils by land and by water. Visits to Wellington, Nelson, a glimpse of Taranaki, and now Auckland as the finale, with the first motions of the General Assembly.

To keep order I must go back to where I believe I left off at Lyttelton--where Church matters were on the tapis. (Just before our departure Mr Matthias sent me an abusive letter 87 of which he tells me he has sent copies to Lord Lyttelton and the Bishop of New Zealand. There is not a syllable of truth in his statements. Lord Lyttelton knows the facts well enough to dispense with my repetition of them; and as far as Mr Matthias himself is concerned he is not worth a reply. I will not publish the letter or take further notice because I am sure that my so doing would bring scandal on the Church. Let me assure people at home that not ten men in the Colony agree with or would countenance him; and the universal sentiment about him is one of deep regret that he should officially as Bishop's Commissary have a weight, of which personally, he is quite unworthy. In his letter he repeats his old statement about the £400 a year promised him by me! If I publish the correspondence I must publicly convict him of a wilful untruth which for the sake of avoiding scandal I will not do if I can help it. Lord Lyttelton will be able to refer to the Dispatches, and he will find some of Matthias' letters which will sufficiently prove the falsity of his statements.) But enough of this (man) at least for the present. I must drop the scene at Lyttelton and open it with the General Assembly and its circumstances.

Between the 5th and the 9th of May we expected the arrival of the Steamer according to promise, but the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th came and went and no Steamer. Looking out of window when we got up on the morning of the 10th we saw her in the Harbour, punctual within a few hours, but then instead of giving us 48 hours warning for preparation, she allowed us only 36. She would be off the next day coute qui coute. Thereupon began the usual bustle-packing portmanteaus and boxes--last words of business--putting money matters in order &c. &c.

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END OF VOLUME I