1851 - Hursthouse, C. New Zealand: the Emigration Field of 1851. - The Canterbury Association and the Canterbury Settlement, p 153-169

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THE

CANTERBURY ASSOCIATION,

AND THE

CANTERBURY SETTLEMENT.

It would far exceed the legitimate compass of this little work, to discuss, at length, the nature of the Canterbury Settlement, and the peculiar system on which it is founded; but in respect of its being the "great fact" of the day in emigration matters, and the grandest colonization project ever conceived, some notice of its general character and chief peculiarities is essential, in any work treating of New Zealand as the colony of 1851.

As an emigration field, the Canterbury settlement may be viewed under three phases:--

1st, As being the most complete and practical embodiment of the Wakefield system of colonization which has yet been attempted.

2d, As being a religious class settlement; made so, by the exclusive domination accorded to one form of religion.

3d, As being a settlement endowed or not endowed with certain intrinsic natural advantages, such as good position, climate, soil; and power of producing exports.

1st, A wide difference of opinion exists as to the "Wakefield System;" it is a subject of fierce discussion among contending political economists and opposing colonial writers. An army of books, reports, pamphlets, and platform speeches, characterises the "Wakefield Sys-

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tem" as about the perfection of human wisdom; whilst a rival host represents it as a most pernicious theory--utterly subversive of sound colonization, and a complete stumbling-block to legitimate emigration.

It must, I think, be admitted that the opponents of the system have, with some plausibility, shown that, on the whole, it has not worked well in the Australian colonies; but their further argument, that the system has failed, and will continue to fail, in New Zealand, breaks down in point of fact, and is not remarkable either for honesty or penetration.

The most superficial acquaintance with New Zealand affairs must satisfy any one, save the wilfully blind, that the personal ruin of the early settlers, and the general retardation of the colony, arose from causes with which the Wakefield System, as a distinct theory of colonization, had no more to do than Animal Magnetism or Electro-Biology. The Pandora's box of Land Sharking, Church Missionary Intrigues, Native Protectorships, the Shortland and Fitzroy dynasty, Land Claims versus Native Rights, would have swamped and annihilated a system of Colonization conceived in Olympus and carried out by demi-gods. And, if New Zealand, after its first decade, numbers less than forty thousand settlers instead of half a million (which it might have numbered, had things gone well and smoothly) we are not to wonder at the shortcomings of the Wakefield System, but rather at the intrinsic natural advantages of New Zealand, which through such an ordeal, should have preserved for it any inhabitants at all.

Had New Zealand been a Port Natal, a Swan River, a Nova Scotia, or a Western Prairie, subjected to similar treatment, the probability is, that instead of exhibiting, as it does even now, about 40,000 prosperous settlers, half a dozen flourishing towns, with shipping in every bay, corn fields, flocks, and herds, extending on every side, and troops of industrious, well-clad, corn-fed native workmen,--it would have relapsed into pristine desolation; with the fern and wild grass in its streets and fields, the settlers vanished into thin air or fled to happier lands, and the natives, under protectorate hot-house treatment, dwarfed into a handful of ragged savages.

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wandering through deserted clearings, and miserably subsisting on precarious potatoes and uncertain "clams."

Now only, for the first time, the founder and talented expositor of the "Wakefield System" will have the satisfaction of seeing his great theory fairly tried in New Zealand. A fine climate, a large extent of available land, accurate surveys, clear valid land titles, an efficient staff of officers--veterans trained in the wars of the New Zealand Company--have all been secured for Canterbury. The Government of New Zealand is administered by one, of whom it is scarcely sufficient praise to say, that he is just the antipodes of his predecessors. The painful experience of the past ten years in the old settlements, will point out to the directors of a new one many a shoal to be avoided, many a safe shore to be hugged. The Canterbury scheme is launched, too, at a time when free-trade levellings and upsettings are signally favouring the emigration of the better classes; whilst it presents itself before the public backed and accredited by an array of good and noble names, in itself a strong evidence of the soundness of the great principle at stake, and a guarantee that such principle will be fairly and effectively carried into execution.

If, with these advantages, at such a time, under such auspices, it should be found, some ten years hence, that the Canterbury settlement has more tub orators than exports--more churches than villages--more shepherds than sheep--more schools than scholars--more Corinthian ornaments than Doric pillars--more rapid tandems than straight-going ploughs--more silks and jewelled hands executing Meyerbeer than neat merinos doing plain-stitch and nursing the baby--then, and not till then, may Mr. Sidney and the Sydney heathen exultingly exclaim--behold, at last, a splendid failure! and all of us, sadly crest-fallen, admit that the Wakefield System of Colonization was a beautiful theory, (like the atmospheric railway, perpetual motion, O'Connor's land scheme, "liberte, egalite, and fraternite"), failing--only when tried in practice.

Secondly--As a Religious Class Settlement, of Church of England principles, Canterbury of course appeals only to members of its own numerous and influential persuasion. By a fundamental principle of its foundation, one-third

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of the entire proceeds of the "Land Sales" is appropriated to religious and educational purposes. That is, every purchaser of land must pay what may be termed a tax of 33 1/3 per cent., on the amount of his investment, for the erection, endowment, and support of Church and strict Church Schools.

It is reasonable to suppose that Dissenters from the Established Church, as a body, would not do this; they would make choice of other settlements, offering equal natural advantages, and where they were not compelled to pay so heavily for objects of which they actually disapproved. But, on the other hand, it is equally reasonable to suppose that intending emigrants--members of the Established Church--would gladly pay such a tax for such a purpose.

If Canterbury can offer a fine climate, fertile land light of cultivation, and easy of access to good markets, at three pounds per acre--with labour at reasonable rates, efficient religious establishments, excellent schools, and really good society--hundreds of excellent families, of strong Church principles, contemplating emigration, will most assuredly make choice of it (thousands ought to choose it) for their future home.

To such people, it is idle to hint, ad captandum vulgus, at one-third of the land sales being too much for School and Church; at rubicund Rectors, more bibulous than biblical, and College Dons dozing by the dozen in snug retreats, in learned ease, abstracted from the hum and bustle of the vulgar crowd. One pound per acre on the land sales is probably not too much to accomplish the really excellent objects which the founders of the Canterbury settlement have in view; and even if it were, the emigrant Churchman who looks to the training and education of his children, will not be disposed to criticise, in a carping or harrow spirit, the exact apportionment of the proceeds of the land sales, when the great fact is before him--that at Canterbury he can actually buy the "fee simple" of an estate for about as much as he would pay for one year's rent of it in England; this Canterbury being a type of England, or rather of England as it ought to be--England in summer dress, without crime or pauperism, and not the country of "Palaces and Pig-styes."

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It would be an idle dream, however, a vain delusion, to suppose, for a moment, that Canterbury will long remain an exclusive Church of England class settlement, recruiting its ranks solely from quiet, pious, Church of England English families. 1

If it succeeds, if money is to be made there, it will become famous throughout the entire range of the South Seas, and will inevitably draw to itself, from the neighbouring colonies of the Australian continent, and from various quarters of the Pacific, divers money-hunting, go-a-head, restless spirits; merchants, traders, colonial speculators, roving professionals, sea-going mechanics, wandering Jews, vagabond cosmopolites--id genus omne--a heterogeneous crowd of every belief and no belief. Men who will not, it is true, follow the plough or tend the flock, purchase much land at £3 per acre, or contribute much either to the support of Church or Church Schools; but who will become dwellers in the towns, builders of sectarian chapels, subscribers to the "Lyttleton counter Times," perchance irreverent jokers at the constituted authorities of Church and State; and who will assuredly shake down, subside, and settle into a large, active, and enterprising portion of the Canterbury community.

So much the better for Canterbury. Such new blood would infuse new life and vigour. True, it might bring something of party quarrels, political broils, and sectarian acrimony; but as Canterbury is not paradise, these would creep in, yea, even the latter, without this "new element;" whilst its introduction would assuredly do this much:--It would give greater breadth, tone, freedom, and elasticity to Canterbury society; which, otherwise, might remain tinged with the villagers' "Squire Worship," tainted with the frigid stiffness, the grim formalities, and cloister-like propriety, so excruciating in certain circles in the old country. It would be a wholesome corrective to certain fine airs and silver fork

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notions which young Canterbury, in its weaker moments, is apt to play off, in sport perhaps to itself, but which may prove cruel death to some of the "Jeames de la Plushe" members of society. And it would tend to keep down any little manifestations of Puseyism, the mediaeval age, scarlet hose, and such Jesuitical designs, which sagacious colonial Mr. Spooners tells us do lurk in the dark recesses and secret conclaves of the Canterbury councils.

In short, this forced amalgamation of the "Sea Rover" with the "English Emigrant"--the dashing vivacity and colonial astuteness of the one, built up on the steady courage and moral massiveness of the other--should produce a race admirably fitted for the requirements of colonial life--a race which would conduct the press, fill the pulpit and the Professor's chair, navigate the seas, subdue the wilderness, tend the flock, and, if need be, "set the squadron in the tented field," with equal vigour and success.

The great social features of the Canterbury Scheme, and the natural advantages of its field of operation, will secure for it the necessary "motive power" to be found only in an immigration of large numbers of trained, orderly, English families, led out by certain archigoi [Greek], and men of high birth and large capital. These will form the mass; and if the mass is leavened and rendered more digestible by light and frothy matter, cast up by the seas, the high tone and substantial respectability of the Canterbury settlement will still be preserved virtually intact.

Third.--The natural advantages of a new colony, capabilities of soil and climate, the power of producing marketable exports, may be termed the "first condition" of its success. Without the intrinsic power of producing marketable exports, a settlement built up by twice the ingenuity and astuteness, rank and wealth, of the founder of the Wakefield system and his disciples, would be a settlement founded on sand. It is, therefore, gratifying to find that, in these essentials, in this great cardinal requirement, Canterbury will bear the closest scrutiny.

The Times, of May 9, in an article on the Canterbury settlement, prophesies, but regrets, in language at once cruel and condoling, that Canterbury will prove a failure

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The "Thunderer," or "Blunderer," prophesied that the Crystal Palace would prove a transparent failure, and headed the rabble of prominent dolts who denounced the bright idea. Let us hope that the felicitous pre-science displayed by the Times in the one case, will find a match in the other; and that when Canterbury, like the brilliant beauty of the Park, is built up in strength and symmetry, full-finished, and crowned with men's applause, the Times will bring its brick, and industriously begin to finish the completed work.

Lord Lyttleton made so good a reply to the Times, touching the morale, the spiritual part of Canterbury, that it would be as supererogative as presumptuous in me to meddle with this part of the question; but as the noble Peer and colonist seems to have passed over (probably as beneath criticism) the Times' speculations on the "material" of Canterbury, its natural capabilities, &c., I may perhaps venture to jot down my notions; especially as the question raised really affects, not Canterbury alone, but New Plymouth, and every settlement in New Zealand.

With that singular infirmity which oft makes the best of men and journalists blind to the merits which they really do possess, and fond of parading virtues which they do not possess, the Times seems to plume itself less on its facility of language, chamelion capabilities, powers of imagery and invention, than on its plain facts of figures and statistics. With a jauntiness peculiarly afflicting in a paper of such oppressive profundity, it commits this passage on Canterbury exports:--

"Nor do we know upon what commodity for export the colony relies to provide itself with the necessary products for which it must for years to come be dependent upon other countries. The Australian colonies grow wheat for themselves. England will not always be foolish enough to keep three thousand troops to consume the flour of New Zealand; and all other markets are too remote. When men and pigs have eaten all they can the surplus will remain a drag."

The Australian colonies do not grow wheat for themselves; 2 England does not keep three thousand troops in New Zealand, and colonial pigs never do eat all the wheat they can. But, passing over these little trips

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and recommending the Times to read up and improve itself in colonial statistics, and the domestic economy of the stye, let us briefly glance at the exports which Canterbury, in common with New Zealand, is certainly capable of producing.

They may perhaps be classed under two divisions:--First, Grain Exports, and their concomitants, springing from the cultivation of the soil--such as flour, seed-corn, wheat, barley, oats, pressed clover hay, malt, hops, beer; barrelled potatoes, onions, and apples; articles described by Loudon as cultivated on a limited scale for various arts and manufactures, such as flax, hemp, oil, and dye-plants, mustard, tobacco, &c.; with dairy and other small produce of a farm, such as butter, cheese, hams, bacon, honey, lard, &c. &c.

Secondly, wool, tallow, hides, live-stock, ship provisions, preserved meats, salt beef and pork; whale oil, and bone, cured fish, Phormium Tenax, raw and manufactured, &c. &c.

In estimating the exporting resources of Canterbury, as springing from the cultivation of the soil, we must allow due force to the fact, that New Zealand is not only a great agricultural country per se, but that it is so in comparison with any country south of the equator. The Cape Colony, parts of South America, and the Australian continent are capable, under certain conditions, of producing wheat; but, with one single exception, they are essentially, by nature, non-agricultural countries. This exception is South Australia, which may perhaps be capable of producing a ton of flour as cheaply as New Zealand. Van Dieman's Land may be named, but the cultivable portions of this comparatively small island are of very limited extent (see Maculloch), and in a question of supplying the markets of the Southern Hemisphere with bread-stuffs, Van Dieman's Land must be considered as the kitchen-garden not the farm.

The climate of the country, rather than the soil, stamps its producing character; and it is to climate that New Zealand owes its great natural superiority as a corn-growing country. Neither droughts nor wet harvests ever occur; there are no excessive rains; whilst

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the frequency of those moderate but golden showers, described by Loudon as real sources of fertility, is the predominant feature of the climate. Violent storms, blights, rust, and mildew, so fatal in many countries to grain crops, are here unknown.

To these signal advantages of climate, add, that water-power, of easy application to thrashing and other farm purposes, is most abundant; that no winter provision is necessary for stock; that there are no destructive animals or birds, and but few insects; and that the soil, for the most part, is a light, friable loam, of the easiest cultivation, certainly capable of yielding an average of thirty bushels of fine white wheat per acre. In short, it is no exaggeration to say, that there is no colony, perhaps no country in the world, where a bushel of wheat or a ton of flour could be produced cheaper than in New Zealand or Canterbury; perhaps none where it could be produced so cheaply.

The question of food exports and markets, however, is one on which some little mystification exists--a question which is made unduly prominent. Many appear to think that the first point which is to claim the emigrant's attention is, how to dispose of his produce--he may rely upon it that the first point for consideration should be, how to produce it. In all new countries, under the most favourable circumstances, the work of feeding the first colonists is a work of considerable time; the first and second generation of settlers generally manage to eat all the food they raise.

In the case of New Zealand, we have to bear in mind that the 100,000 natives are rapidly changing into large consumers of flour and farm produce. 3 Satisfactory indications exist that the colony is in a fair way of becoming the "favourite emigration field" of the day; and a large increase of population may be expected by immigration from the mother country, swelled by draughts

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from the better portion of the Australian population, and by numbers of ex-military and Indian invalid families dispersed over our Indian empire, who will be drawn to New Zealand by the beauty of its climate, and the tone of society. And further, we have to recollect that a large portion of the New Zealand population will undoubtedly be engaged in trade and commerce, in the fisheries, and in pastoral and other pursuits; and will, therefore, be consumers, and not producers of grain crops and general farm produce.

The Canterbury emigrant, now going out to engage in the cultivation of the soil, may rest assured that for all the wheat he will ever grow, a five shilling a bushel "home market" will be open to him; whilst if he be inclined to speculate on the future, or to trouble himself about his descendants, he may equally rest assured that New Zealand, by climate, soil, and position, is destined to become the "Granary," the "Store-house," of the Southern hemisphere. Her power of producing cheap food will enable her to carry on an extensive and lucrative trade with the non-agricultural continent of Australia, with our possessions in India and China, Ceylon, and the Mauritius; with California and the ports of South America, and with various tropical countries of the surrounding seas, all within easy sail of her own shores.

A country or colony that is essentially agricultural, is essentially, intrinsically, powerful. No Californian mines, no Manchester looms, no extent of wool-producing plains, can compensate for food-raising deficiencies. A country which can supply both itself and other countries with the first necessary--food--will supply itself on easy terms with everything else. Agriculture may be regarded as the great substratum of national prosperity to which every other source of wealth should be subordinate; and great as by nature may be the pastoral, commercial, or manufacturing capabilities of New Zealand, it is the surpassing agricultural resources of the country which renders it so desirable a field for present emigration; and which will, in all human probability, make it the key of the Pacific, and the future England of the Southern hemisphere.

Of the second division of exports, sufficient has been

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said in a former part of this work 4 to show that New Zealand is a country of singular pastoral capabilities. In fact, paradoxical as it may sound, New Zealand is naturally more a pastoral country than Australia. Australia's claims to be considered a pastoral country rest solely on her possession of immense plains. In heat and aridity of climate, poor and scanty herbage, scorching droughts, and scarcity of water, she is the very reverse of a pastoral country. Sir George Grey, the former Governor of South Australia, and no mean judge, declares that the pastoral capabilities of the middle island of New Zealand are superior to anything he ever saw in Australia; an opinion corroborated by many, in fact, I believe, by all, "practical men" who have actually visited both colonies.

The Canterbury colony will certainly not export so much wool as the Australian colonies, inasmuch as a lake is not so big as the sea--but what then! The Canterbury colonists will surely find a good English market for all the wool they do grow. The question whether wool is to be produced in Canterbury at as low a cost as in Australia, is one which experience has certainly not yet decided; but there is every reason to believe that it will be produced even more cheaply. At least, the Canterbury grower will have these advantages over the Australian:--1st, A climate most favourable to the full development of vigorous animal life; leading to a faster increase in his flock, both by births, and by the comparative absence of many diseases so fatal to sheep in Australia. 2nd, Droughts, and a consequent failure of grass, will never decimate his flocks; nor will he suffer from the depredations of the dingoe and the native. 3rd, He will have plenty of water for washing, no burs, and pasturage of such superior quality that, instead of requiring about four acres to feed one sheep, he will probably feed four sheep on one acre. 4th, There is no reason to expect that labour will be any dearer in Canterbury than in Australia; whilst the more compressed system which this richer pasturage will allow the Canterbury colonist to adopt, will enable him to manage with less labour, and to exercise a closer personal attendance over his flock. Moreover, this com-

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pressed system, placing him much nearer the coast or shipping port, will save him the heavy expenses of the long inland carriage to which the Australian wool-grower is subjected.

It may be urged that the Canterbury wool will not be so fine in quality as the Australian. The result of the last London sales of New Zealand wool, makes even this doubtful; but if it were not so fine, it would be longer in staple, and coming to market free from burs, clean, and well-washed (which latter, from the abundance of water, it always might be), it would probably command nearly as high a price per pound as the Australian wools. Moreover, we have to bear in mind the pregnant fact, that whilst the Australian fleece does not average three pounds, the New Zealand fleece, of the same breed of animal, has been found to average nearly four pounds; so that if the price per pound were rather less, the value of the fleece would probably be rather more.

From the enormous quantity of wool which the immense extent of the Australian plains has enabled the Australian colonies to send to the English market, Australia has come to be regarded, par excellence, as the "wool-growing" country of the world--an idea fondly hugged by the colonial writers in the Australian interest, who can regard New Zealand only as a hostile rival colony.

Juster notions and truer estimates are, however, gaining ground; and practical men who have seen both colonies are pretty well agreed that in everything, save extent, New Zealand is about as superior to Australia in pastoral or wool-growing capabilities, as Australia may be to the great desert of Sahara.

But after all, if, contrary to present appearance, it should prove that the Canterbury colony cannot export wool so cheaply as Australia, it may be questioned whether the merits of Canterbury, as a field for the higher sort of emigration, would be much weakened or impaired thereby. The production of cheap wool and tallow, although in itself a most meritorious achievement, and a fair object of ambition to a certain order of minds, is not exactly the first consideration which would sway an educated English family in the choice of a new home. To such, the delightful climate, good society,

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and extraordinary social advantages of Canterbury, with fifteen per cent. profit on sheep-farming, would probably be far more attractive than the summer broilings, the mud hut, the isolation, and the semi-savage style of Australian sheep-farming, even with a profit of twenty per cent.

Wheat and wool have been specially alluded to in connexion with Canterbury exports, as the standard productions of two great branches of colonial industry, indicative of other exports; and as that combination of soil and climate which is eminently favourable to the cheap production of wheat and wool is eminently favourable to the cheap production of almost every other article enumerated in the two divisions under which I have classed Canterbury exports, it is unnecessary to discuss each of these articles in detail; especially as my space is limited, and allusion has already been made to them in other parts of this little work.

Next to arable farming and wool-growing, the cultivation and preparation of the finer sorts of the Phormium Tenax, the provision trade, the curing of beef and pork for the shipping of the South Pacific, the Whale and other fisheries, will probably be the leading pursuits in Canterbury; and, as the colony advances, other sources of wealth, besides those I have indicated, will probably be opened up, and go to swell the long fist of valuable exports which Canterbury, in common with New Zealand, is so signally capable of producing.

The history of commerce warns us not to be too hasty in limiting the resources of any new country, or in deciding against the value of any new article which may be tried as an export. It is stated that the gentleman is now living in South Carolina who assisted in packing the first bag of cotton sent to Liverpool from the United States. The consignee of this lone bag informed the merchants who sent it, that he could not sell it, that it was valueless, and advised them to send no more. America now exports to this country some two millions of bags of cotton every year. The accidental upsetting of a dray, on a rough hill road, in South Australia, revealed a "sparkling ore," and induced researches leading to the discovery of almost unbounded mineral wealth, which raised the colony from a state of great languishment and depression to one of great vigour and prosperity.

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The intending emigrant who may be satisfied with, the "social features" of the Canterbury colony, may safely rest assured, not only that its soil and climate will enable him to produce a great variety of valuable exports; but that the geographical position, fine harbours, and shipping facilities of New Zealand; the improvements effecting in screw steam-navigation, and general sea transit, will, year by year, tend to bring within his reach new and excellent markets for such exports.

TERMS OF PURCHASE OF LAND AND PASTURAGE IN THE CANTERBURY SETTLEMENT.

The conditions on which the Association offered land for sale and pasture-licences were altered from time to time, according to circumstances. After the passing of the statute, it was necessary to revise them, and they were finally consolidated and issued on the 27th September, 1850, as follows:--

"1. With the exception of such land as has already been, or may hereafter be, selected by the agent of the association for the site of the capital town, and of harbour and port towns, and of such land as may be reserved by the association for works of public utility under the present or any other terms of purchase, all the lands shall be open for purchase as rural land. The association has resolved not to exercise the right of selecting the sites of towns beyond the site of the capital; and in case Port Lyttelton should not be selected as the capital, then of one port town.

"2. Any quantity of land may be purchased as a rural allotment not being less than fifty acres. Any person desirous of purchasing land in distinct allotments, may do so by separate forms of application, each allotment not to be less than fifty acres. The extent of a town allotment shall be one-half acre; and in the port town, if any, one-quarter of an acre.

"3. The rural land shall be sold at £3 per acre, including the sums contributed for special purposes.

"Town allotments may be sold in the colony in the following manner:--An allotment of half an acre in the

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capital at £24, and an allotment of a quarter of an acre in the port town, if any, at £12; but no such allotments shall he sold upon the foregoing terms without being first put up for sale by auction, at upset prices of those amounts respectively.

"4. All land for the time being remaining unsold shall be open, under licence, for pasturage purposes, at the rate of 20s. per annum for every hundred acres. And until 100,000 acres, being the quantity of land originally appropriated to the first body of colonists, shall be sold, every purchaser of rural land, and no other person, will be entitled to a transferable licence for pasturage, renewable by such purchaser from year to year, in the proportion of five acres of pasturage to one acre of land purchased.

"5. Holders of pasturage licences under the last condition will be entitled to a pre-emptive right of purchase of the lands comprised in such licences, subject to the conditions herein contained, applicable to the purchase of rural land; except that, instead of applications for purchase being made to the secretary of the association, and the purchase-money being paid to the bankers of the association, such applications may be made to the principal agent, at the land office in the colony, and payment of the purchase-money may be made to him.

"6. Lands held under pasturage licences may not be purchased by any persons other than the licensees until after one month's notice, in writing, given by an intending purchaser at the land office in the colony, stating the intention to purchase, and specifying the lands proposed to be purchased; the intending purchaser being required, at the time of such notice, to deposit his full purchase-money at the land office. Pasturage licences will confer no right to the soil.

"7. Subject to the foregoing conditions, all lands included in such pasturage licences will be open for purchase in like manner as other unappropriated lands.

"8. Applications for the purchase of rural land must be made according to a printed form, which may be obtained at the office of the association, 9, Adelphi Terrace. Before any application can be received, one-half of the purchase-money must be paid to the bankers

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of the association, Messrs. Cocks, Biddulph, and Co., Charing-Cross, and their receipt produced. Land-orders will not be issued until the purchase-money shall be paid in full.

"9. The selection of land in the colony will be made according to the order in which land-orders shall be presented at the land office of the association in the colony. But if it should ever so happen that two or more persons should apply at the same time for the same allotment, the preference of selection between them shall be determined by lot.

"10. Every allotment of rural land must be selected of a rectangular form, so far as circumstances and the natural features of the country will admit.

"11. Every allotment fronting upon a river, road, lake, lagoon, or coast, must be of a depth from the front of at least half a mile.

"12. Every allotment not fronting upon a river, road, lake, lagoon, or coast, must be not less than 300 yards in width, and not less than half a mile distant from a river, road, lake, lagoon, or coast.

"13. Each section under a pasturage licence must be in one block, and of a rectangular form, as far as possible.

"14. The intended application of purchase-money is as follows:--One-sixth part to be paid for the land; one-sixth part for miscellaneous expenses, including surveys, roads, &c.; one-third part for religious and educational purposes; and one-third part for emigration. Subject to the regulations of the association with respect to the selection of the emigrants, every purchaser will be entitled to recommend emigrants, proportioned in number to the amount of his contribution to the emigration fund; but not more than ten shillings per acre will be allowed towards the passage of the purchaser and his family.

"15. The association reserves to itself the right of selecting, and appropriating, and obtaining a conveyance to itself, for public use only, of all such lands as may be required for streets, squares, roads, sites of churches, churchyards, schools, parsonage-house, wharfs, landing-places, jetties, or other objects of public utility and convenience.

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"16. The association reserves to itself the right of making such modifications in these terms as experience may prove hereafter to be expedient or desirable for the general benefit of the settlement, and as may be consistent with the conditions under which the land has been reserved to the association.

"No rural land will be sold in the colony until after due notice to that effect. Subject to the engagements which the association has made by previous terms of purchase, town land may be sold in the colony at any time after the date of these terms of purchase. And the foregoing conditions shall (so far as they properly can) apply to such town lands, except that, instead of applications for purchase being made to the secretary of the association, they may be made to the principal agent of the association, at the land office in the colony; and instead of the purchase-money being paid to the bankers of the association, the same must be paid to such agent."

Further particulars as to land, sailing of ships, &c., may always be obtained by writing to H. T. Alston, Esq., Secretary, Canterbury Association, 9, Adelphi Terrace, London.

OTAGO.

The remarks which have been made on the class character, social features, and natural capabilities of the Canterbury Settlement, apply, in a great measure, to the Scotch Free Kirk Settlement, Otago.

The chief difference in the schemes of the two settlements is, that in Otago, the price of land has been fixed at £2 per acre, instead of £3 as in Canterbury; consequently, in the former settlement, the fund for emigration, religious and educational purposes, is not so large as in Canterbury.

Full particulars as to the terms of purchase of land, pasturage, sailing of ships, &c., may always be readily obtained by communicating with J. M'Glashan, Esq., Secretary of the Otago Association, 27, Hanover Street, Edinburgh.

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