1842 - Mangles, R. How to Colonise - How to Colonize [text] p 1-50

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HOW TO COLONIZE.

IT is well known to all who have any practical acquaintance with the state of society in Great Britain, that the difficulty of what is called settling children in the world is extremely great, and is constantly increasing. This difficulty is not confined to one class, nor to any particular professions or trades. It embarrasses all but the few among the very rich who are not prevented by entails from providing sufficiently for their younger children; and the many at the other extreme of the scale, who have no hope or thought, with regard to the future lot of their offspring, but that of handing down to them their own wretched inheritance of ill-paid labor. It affects not only all that are commonly denominated the middle classes, but many also of those who are above them in wealth and station; as well, on the other hand, as the whole body of respectable yeomen, farmers, and tradesmen.

If proof of this statement be needed, a few undeniable facts will afford it. There are thousands of gentlemen, the clergy of the Church of England, into whose ranks fresh hundreds are crowding every year, upon the education of each of whom thousands of pounds in frequent instances, and many hundreds in all cases, have been spent, whose labours often, --to their honour be it spoken--most arduous and unremitting, are requited by stipends the amount of which would scarcely be sufficient to pay, feed, and clothe a menial servant. Yet it is vain to lament the low

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remuneration of those who are called "the working clergy." The rate of that remuneration is regulated, together with all matters of a like nature, by the relation of the supply to the demand; and as long as the extreme difficulty of finding eligible employment for the annually increasing numbers of the educated classes, entering upon manhood, shall combine with other motives to bring forward more candidates for curacies than there are curacies to fill, so long will the employers of curates be able to command their services at the present inadequate rate of salary.

It is the same in all other callings. The commander-in-chief's list contains the names of many hundred aspirants for permission to purchase commissions in the army; though we all know that the military service, however honourable, is far from a profitable one, and that those who enter upon it are often obliged to submit to many sacrifices, and to undergo great privations. It is still more difficult to obtain a midshipman's berth in the navy, where the expenses for many years greatly exceed the pay. It is notorious that there are hundreds of applications for every vacancy in public offices, and even for clerkships in the counting-houses of private individuals, situations under rail-road and other companies, and the like. Every department of the law and medicine is alike overstocked, yet nevertheless there is a progressive increase in the number of probationers for those professions. In many parts of the country, there is said to be the same eager competition for farms.

The mischievous consequences of this state of things cannot be described in a few words: it demands, indeed, some thought to follow the evils which spring from it through all their pernicious effects upon our social system. Its primary consequences are a general reduction of profits; a constant struggle against difficulties and impending ruin on the part of vast numbers of the most useful and important classes; and the subjection of all those who

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have children, or other dependents to establish in the world, to acute and unceasing anxiety. But there is another evil, resulting from the condition of society which I have described, equally prevalent, and doubtless productive of still wider and deeper misery. I allude to the compulsory celibacy to which the expense of maintaining a family, and the extreme difficulty of providing for children, in England, condemns so many of the young people of both sexes.

It has been said that a man has no more right to marry a wife, than he has to set up a coach and four, until he can afford it. This is quite true in one sense; and the more so, because the man who makes an improvident marriage inflicts, generally speaking, far more misery upon others than he who is guilty of ordinary personal extravagance. On the other hand, inability to keep a coach and four is certainly a very tolerable privation; but it is a grave question whether the state of things which contravenes the laws of nature by prohibiting early marriages to all but a very few, and which practically sentences very many, of both sexes, to a life of celibacy, be not productive of more vice and suffering, among the classes which are especially subject to the deterring motives which I have briefly described, than all other causes of misery, arising from social circumstances, put together.

The consequences of this unnatural restraint, as respects our own sex, need scarcely be told. The theatres and the streets of London exhibit, nightly, thousands of its victims; the mischief re-acts, in frequent instances, on those who must be regarded as its creators; but no record of misery would be so fearfully dark as that which should simply relate the lives and deaths of the wretched class of females to which I have alluded. The lot of those who are the more helpless and far more innocent and patient sufferers under the trammels of our vicious social system,

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is powerfully described by the author of 'England and America.' "There is not in the world," he truly says, "a more deplorable sight than a fine brood of English girls turning into old maids, one after the other; first reaching the bloom of beauty, full of health, spirits, and tenderness; next striving anxiously, aided by their mother, to become honoured and happy wives; then fretting, growing thin, pale, listless, and cross; at last, if they do not go mad or die of consumption, seeking consolation in the single pursuit of that happiness in another world which this world has denied to them."

Who is there who cannot bear testimony, from his own observation, to the melancholy fidelity of this picture? Yet philanthropy, so busily engaged in ministering to the wants and woes of distant nations, or in attending to diseases in our body politic comparatively but skin-deep, has hitherto seemed to feel too little sympathy for that enormous and spreading social cancer, which owes its origin and its malignity to the unhealthy state of overcrowded compression that prevents the further development and free exercise of those energies which have brought us so rapidly up to this point of comparative stagnation, and for which the Anglo-Saxon race is pre-eminently distinguished above all the families of mankind.

Happily, however, we are not so pent up within these little islands, as to be compelled to submit to all the evils which result from the peculiar state of society. It has been finely said that the sun never sets upon the British empire. We have been endowed, by the blessing of Providence on the enterprize of our forefathers, with colonies, where those who have sense enough to know that a wise man possesses in his own breast the sources of his own happiness, and spirit enough to pursue this conviction to its practical issue, may find physical advantages of climate and soil superior to those enjoyed by our native

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country, and a state of society not only free from those impediments which, in this country, so mischievously shackle the exertions, and often disappoint the most justly-founded expectations, of the highest, the best directed, and the most untiring energies; but where children, whose education and settlement in life are here almost always causes of anxiety, and often of positive privation, are really what God intended them to be, "as arrows in the hand of a mighty man,"--a source of strength, and wealth, and happiness.

It is the object of this pamphlet to draw public attention to a system of colonization in relation to one of those noble possessions of the British Crown, hitherto but ill understood, and therefore regarded with much unjust prejudice, even by those who are not altogether ignorant of the admirable outlet which our southern colonies afford for the capital and enterprize of Great Britain, --alike denied a sufficient field at home.

I refer to the islands of New Zealand, and to the plan of colonization, which proposes to ensure the essential combination of land, capital, and labour, by selling, instead of giving away-- as was commonly done in past times, 1 --the waste lands belonging to the Crown, and by applying the proceeds of such sales to the carrying out of laborers from Great Britain.

But the object of insisting upon the payment of a price for all waste land is not merely to provide a fund for the supply of labor, without which land and capital at the antipodes are utterly worthless, but to effectuate two other most important ends. The first is to deter capitalists from appropriating, with that shortsighted greediness inherent in human nature, more land than they

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can cultivate or tun to any good purpose, in the selfish hope that the outlay of others will give value to that which operates directly and strongly to deprive all such outlay of its due reward. For this appropriation by individuals of large tracts of wilderness which they are unable or unwilling to reclaim, interposes a barrier between settler and settler, which precludes all useful co-operation, and which will sometimes, doubtless, have the effect of turning the progress of clearing and cultivation from its natural course to a less eligible direction. 2 The second object is to prevent persons of the laboring class from becoming proprietors of land, before they have acquired the means of occupying it with advantage to the community or to themselves. The evils of encouraging the growth of a class of proprietors or occupiers of land without capital, and consequently without resources to fall back upon, in the event of any considerable failure of crops, are great and palpable enough even in long-settled countries, such as Ireland and India. In new colonies, where labour is scarce, the mischief resulting from the existence of such a class may be less in seasons of calamity, but it is not confined to such seasons. In the most prosperous times, they raise only sufficient for their own subsistence; they contribute nothing to the wealth of the community; and by their withdrawal from the labor market, they add most mischievously to the cost of that element of production, and often greatly hinder, if not absolutely prevent, the profitable employment of the means of the capitalist.

Upon these principles of colonization, --so modified as to accommodate them to tie circumstances of an association in whose views private are necessarily combined with public objects, and

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the members of which seek a reasonable return for the capital, time, and labor which they have expended in establishing an intimate connexion between Great Britain and the most favoured islands of the southern hemisphere, --the New Zealand Company has acted and continues to act. I proceed to state in what manner the Company has practically carried out the principles in question; and to show that the position in which it is placed renders its interests entirely accordant with those of the public.

The first point cannot be better exemplified than by the scheme on which the Directors have founded their second settlement, called Nelson.

The land comprising that settlement has been offered at 30s. an acre; and when the whole has been thus disposed of, including the price of one hundred allotments reserved and paid for by the Company, the aggregate sum realized will be £300,000.

This sum will be thus disposed of:--

£150,000,.... to the exclusive purpose of emigration to this particular settlement.

£50,000,.... to defray the expenses of the Company in selecting the site and establishing the settlement. Any surplus of this fund to be added to

£50,000,.... devoted to public purposes, with a view to render the settlement commodious and attractive. To these ends, it is intended to apply £15,000 to religious uses and endowments for colonists of all denominations, £15,000 to the establishment of a college in the settlement, and £20,000 as a bounty for the encouragement of steam navigation, for the benefit of the settlement.

£50,000,.... to the Company for its expenses, as the price of its land, and as profit on the use of its capital.

£300,000

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It is evident from this statement, that though the purchasers of land at Nelson ostensibly pay 30s. an acre for their land, five-sixths of that sum is not really so expended, but is, in fact, a subscription realized by the instrumentality of the Company from such purchasers, for purposes indispensable to the prosperous establishment and rapid advancement of a new settlement which could not be adequately effected by the detached efforts of individuals: namely, the provision of a supply of labor bearing a certain relation to the capital of the Colony (as measured by the quantity of land purchased), and, secondly, the early attainment of some of the most valuable ends of wealth and civilization. As regards, therefore, £250,000 out of the, £300,000 paid by the founders of Nelson to the New Zealand Company, the Directors of that body are merely the trustees of the colonists, accountable to them for the due application, to the stipulated uses, of the funds raised by their instrumentality.

I have stated what those uses are, and a consideration of them will shew that they have for their object the concentration and forcing, as it were, of the means of colonial prosperity, in a manner which can be effected solely by such absolute union or efforts, and combination of capital, as a company alone can ensure. It would be impossible, for example, for a number of co-equal individuals, bound together by no stronger bond than that of merely temporary association, and acknowledging no authority or subordination, to agree in the selection of the site of a town on any given spot of the untrodden wilderness of New Zealand; in the steps--involving the organization of a large establishment, and great expense, --necessary for the survey of such a site and of the adjacent country; or in the subsequent allotment among the settlers of the several subdivisions of the lands so selected and surveyed. Nor, if even such accordance of sentiment and the carrying of it out were practicable,

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could such a body as I have supposed command in any thing approaching to the requisite degree, the confidence and co-operation of capitalists in this country; with such results, for instance, as have followed the negociations of the New Zealand Company with the Union Bank of Australia for the establishment of branches of that institution at Wellington and Nelson respectively.

On the other hand, the New Zealand Company, incorporated by Royal Charter, recognized by the Government as a powerful and legitimate agent for the colonization of these beautiful islands, and already the proprietor of vast tracts of land there, possesses in its constitution, and in the intelligence, experience, and interests of those whom that constitution invests with the management of its affairs, such a degree of power, and such means of concentrating, upon deliberately selected objects, its own resources, and the energies of those who are led to associate themselves with it, for the purpose of settling in New Zealand, as have never yet been directed to the great national end of systematic colonization. Its position, and the credit which it has already obtained with the public, enable it to devote to that end not only its own capital, but--as exhibited in the case of Nelson--the funds entrusted to its administration by very numerous parties intending to proceed personally to New Zealand, as well as by another class of persons regarding the purchase of land there as a profitable investment of their money.

Of the practical effect with which the Directors of the Company have availed themselves of these advantageous circumstances to further the interests of the parties who have thus connected themselves with it, -- which, as we have already stated, are identical with its own, -- an extract from the official papers recently presented to Parliament, and published by that authority, affords a remarkable proof. The passage in

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question occurs in a despatch addressed by Sir George Gipps the Governor of New South Wales, to Lord John Russell under date the 6th October, 1840, and relates to the arrangement into which he had entered with the colonists at the Company's first settlement of Wellington: -- an arrangement subsequently over-ruled by the agreement effected in this country between the Colonial department and the Directors. The following is the language in which Sir George Gipps speaks of the terms which he accorded, --terms far less favourable to the settlers, as compelling them to take the whole of their land in one unbroken block, than those which they obtained in the first instance from the Company, and which were eventually ratified by Lord John Russell.

Yet this statement of Governor Gipps, however substantially true, involves a very gross, though, of course, unconscious, fallacy; whilst the real facts of the case, cleared from the mystification of this blunder, afford the most conclusive proof of the soundness of the principles of colonization on which the Company has proceeded. Doubtless, the territory to which the Governor refers might have been sold by auction in New Zealand for a larger sum than the settlers paid for it in England, --a sum which included the cost of their own passages, and of the emigration of a very

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considerable number of laborers. But then, a sale to realize such results must have been made after the time when the measures of the Company had established on the shores of Cook's Straits a numerous population, comprising both laborers and the employers of labor, agriculturists of all classes, merchants, shopkeepers, artizans, and mechanics; and had also drawn down thither, by the attraction of such immigration, not a few of adventurous capitalists from the neighbouring colonies of Australasia. A month before the first ship chartered by the Company entered the waters of New Zealand, no one would have given a corresponding number of pence for the 110,000 acres of wilderness immediately surrounding Port Nicholson. It was just the carrying out of the scheme of the Company, resulting in placing capital and labor in combination, and in a position to wage successful war upon that wilderness, which gave the high value to the land which Governor Gipps, in depreciating that scheme-- as he does still more markedly in other places--seems to regard the land as possessing intrinsically, and irrelatively to the great expense at which the capital and population, which alone gave it any worth, had been conveyed thither. It is this fallacy, in one shape or another, which pervades half the misunderstanding that exists as to the nature of the operations of the New Zealand Company; as well as the objections--like those of Sir George Gipps--which are raised by prejudice against a sound system of colonization.

One word more as to that part of the subscription--in the shape of an enhanced price of land--which is applied to carrying out to the settlements laborers of all descriptions. It may appear, at first sight, that this is an operation which each capitalist might best perform for himself, choosing not only the sort of workmen most suitable to his own views with respect to the employment of his means in New Zealand, but particular individuals whom he has known, or

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whom he can, from any circumstances, rely upon. But it is obvious that those who should act upon this plan, and incur expense in taking out laborers, would not stand upon an equal footing with capitalists who had gone out with the intention of hiring, on the spot, whatever labor they might require. The rate of wages would necessarily be regulated by the local demand: there could not be two rates; and the individual who had expended large sums in carrying out laborers, would have to pay precisely as much for their services as his neighbour who had contributed nothing to that end. The scheme pursued by the Company, which compels every purchaser of land to contribute equally--in proportion to the land purchased--to the emigration fund, places all capitalists as nearly as possible on an equality in regard to the colonial price of labor; and as regards the selection of individual workmen, the scheme of the Company permits the purchasers of land to nominate laborers for free passages, provided, of course, they come within the prescribed terms of eligibility, in respect to age, calling, &c.

I have declared that the position in which the Company is placed renders its interests entirely accordant with those of the public. The truth of this statement admits of the easiest proof.

The Company is possessed by purchase, in the first instance, from the natives, subsequently ratified by its arrangement with the Government, of large tracts of land in New Zealand. Of a part of this--about a quarter of the whole --it has already disposed, reserving to itself, however, certain lands (chosen by lot, in the same manner as by individuals), in the settlements of New Plymouth and Nelson. But, as I have shewn, in commenting upon Sir George Gipps' remarks, land in a wilderness, unless both capital and labour are available to reclaim it, is of no value: the converse of the proposition--that the value of land

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rises in exact proportion to the wealth and numbers of those who are settled in its vicinity--is equally true. Independently, therefore, of all public-spirited and benevolent motives, in addition to all the better feelings which stimulate men to promote the welfare of those who have cast in their lot with them in reliance upon their kindliness and integrity, the Directors of the Company have the strongest and most direct interest in furthering to the utmost of their power the prosperity of the settlements which they have founded. As those settlements advance in wealth and population, the value of the Company's lands in their neighbourhood must rise; and the gain of the Company, in this respect, will not be acquired by the loss, or at the expense, of any other party, but will simply result from the circumstance (so ill understood by Sir George Gipps), of the juxta-position of the lands in question to a flourishing community. Consequently, it is the interest of the Company to use every means, within the bounds of moderation, to cause the communities which they have established in New Zealand to advance rapidly and permanently in opulence and civilization; and with this view to afford them all the assistance and encouragement in their power, to watch over, protect, and foster them. On the other hand, those settlements cannot remain stationary, still less decline, without inflicting severe loss both on the pecuniary interests and on the credit of the Company. Acting upon these convictions, the Directors have recently empowered their Principal Agent in New Zealand to inform the Colonists that, as soon as by obtaining municipal charters from the Crown--which the Governor is authorised to grant--they shall have placed themselves in a position to give corporate security, and to assess the community for the interest or the liquidation of loans, the Company will be prepared to advance money, with the sanction of the Government at home, or of the local Government, for the con-

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struction of the most primarily useful public works. 3 Other modes of expediting the development of the great natural resources of New Zealand are in contemplation. At present, for example, intelligence from that remote southern colony is often brought most rapidly through India and Egypt! Passengers are ordinarily four or five months on their voyage out or home. The Directors are prepared to encourage, by way of bounty, the establishment of a regular line of packets between New Zealand and the Pacific side of the Isthmus of Darien, to communicate with the Post Office steam-vessels, which already run to Chagre, on the eastern coast of the continent. By this route, it is calculated that letters and passengers will reach England from New Zealand, and New Zealand from England, in less than seventy days; and New Zealand, instead of being the most distant, will be practically the nearest of our colonies in that quarter. But all the settlements of Australasia would benefit greatly, though in a less degree, from the proposed line of rapid inter-communication.

By measures such as these, requiring the command of a large capital for their execution, and promising no immediate or direct return commensurate with the outlay, and therefore not likely to attract or to reward the enterprize of individuals, the Company will add greatly to the value of its possessions in New Zealand, and will find in that circumstance a sufficient inducement to undertake them. The community will derive their full proportion of benefit from the effects of this stimulus to operations of public utility.

The same motives which lead the Company to undertake

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measures tending to hasten onwards the prosperity of the settlements which they have founded, operate, of course, with equal force, to deter those who administer its affairs from any steps which, upon a large view of the whole matter, appear calculated to damage the colony, or the Company which is identified with it, in public opinion. Without giving credit to its representatives for any thing beyond an intelligent apprehension of their own interests, the Company has by far too great a stake in the permanent welfare of New Zealand, as a British colony, to render it worth their while--even supposing no other deterring motive --to impose by misrepresentation upon any individual or number of individuals. Their object is not to sell a few thousand acres of land at the highest possible present price, in recklessness about the future; but to create, as I have stated, such flourishing communities in New Zealand as must necessarily give, in the course of a few years, a far higher value to every acre of land that they possess there than could now be obtained for any part of it. No profit that could possibly be made during a brief season of delusion could compensate for the sacrifice which such a course would involve--from disgust and reaction --of the certain advantages which must result from the steady and consistent pursuance of an honest course of policy.

These considerations impress me with the conviction that such a body as the New Zealand Company is the best possible instrument for working out the prompt and effectual occupation of a new field of colonization. I have already shown in what consists its superiority over a fortuitous association of individuals, seeking to settle in a new country; it is just as certain that no stipendiary agents of the Government can be equally fitted for such a business as the Company has undertaken. All experience proves that, as a general principle, interest is a much stronger stimulus to exertion than bare duty. A body of

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interested individuals works not only more zealously, but more economically, than a public functionary. It combines the knowledge, the invention, and the judgment of many: it is not shackled by embarassing responsibilities; --it has no responsibilities, indeed, with few exceptions, but those which affect and ought to affect individuals. Its administrators are free, without dread of misconstruction, to hold out any inducement which they may deem expedient, to any person or class of persons whom they may desire to lead to settle in the colony; and, generally, to make any arrangements--at their own judgment, with respect to the relation of the expense to the object--to render their settlements attractive. They can make advances of money for objects of the nature indicated in a foregoing passage, upon calculations of probable future--it may be remote--advantage, which would not justify a public officer in risking public funds, even if absolutely at his own disposal. If such an officer were placed, as he assuredly would be, in subordination to other authorities, there must be hazard of difference of opinion, and a certainty of delay, in every reference for the sanction of expenditure. A Company can raise subscriptions, through the medium of an enhanced price of land, not only to form a general fund to defray the expense of the emigration of laborers, but (as the New Zealand Company has done in the case of Nelson,) for the purposes of religious worship, of education, of encouraging steam-navigation, and the like. This could not be so properly and effectually done, even if it could be done at all, by a public functionary. There can, indeed, be no complete security against jobbing in either case, but any one conversant with the world must know that there is no jobbing like the jobbing of an executive government, when it stoops to such conduct; and that it is at least as likely so to degrade itself as the Directors of a Company. It is obvious,

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too, that the Directors of a Company are a check upon each other; and that, as a body, they could scarcely expect to profit sufficiently by any job to countervail the serious risk of personal loss to which they would subject themselves as share-holders in the Company, by the employment of an incompetent person in any important post, or by measures directed to narrow selfish ends. There is no such restraint upon the colonial patronage or expenditure of the Government. All that an administration stakes, when it causes or connives at the mismanagement of colonial affairs, is the loss of a certain amount of character in the estimation of the comparatively few who know or care any thing about the matter; and it is notorious that this hazard has been frequently incurred for very petty objects of private advantage or patronage. The public is further secured, in the case of a Company, by the identity of its own interests with those of the body which it employs as an agent of colonization; for the Company cannot realise any great and lasting profit, otherwise than by carrying forward with rapidity and success the work in which the community have so deep a stake. The larger the gain of the Company, the greater the benefits reaped by the public; because the former must necessarily be the effect of the latter, and cannot possibly accrue otherwise. It is the object of England to people New Zealand with her children as quickly and completely as possible: it is the interest of the New Zealand Company to exert itself to the uttermost to effectuate that end.

For these reasons, it is clear to me that public functionaries, however selected or denominated, cannot be such efficient agents of colonization as a Company with a capital adequate to the operations which it is likely that it will be called upon to undertake; and, --which is still more essential, --whose affairs are administered by persons of known responsibility, and in

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whose sagacity and judgment, as well as uprightness of intention, the public is inclined to place confidence.

But though public functionaries be not so well qualified as an association of individuals to be the immediate instruments of colonization, the Government has most important duties to perform in relation to that great national work. It is stated, in the third report of the Directors of the New Zealand Company, that "the duty of the Government is to guard jealously the public domain from appropriation in any manner that will not simultaneously furnish means for supplying the colony with a commensurate amount of labour; to provide for the efficient administration of justice; and to give the necessary authority for the establishment of municipal, administrative, and legislative bodies, at the time, and in the manner, which the necessities of the several settlements may dictate." But these are only a part of the real obligations of the Government; though even this part has never, in any instance, been adequately fulfilled, and has often been utterly neglected or abused. The times, however, imperatively require that the Government should take a far more active part than it has ever yet done in furthering, in its proper sphere of action, what I have called, with much truth, the great national object of colonization. This country does not merely possess the elements for peopling New Zealand at a rate much more rapid than has ever yet been attained in colonizing a distant possession; but the state of things in England is such that emigration on a great scale, and embracing every class of persons, would confer the greatest benefits both upon those who go and upon those who stay. There are tens of thousands of skilful and industrious laborers and mechanics starving or half-starving here, who could earn high wages, and bring up their families with comfort and respectability in New Zealand; there are thousands of the middle and upper classes,

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who are just able, or not able, with constant wearing toil and anxiety, to live and maintain their position in this country, who, if single, dare not marry, and, if married, look forward with fear and trembling to the education and settlement of their children, who, nevertheless, have means enough to be considerable capitalists and employers of labour in any of our colonies at the antipodes. Members of both these classes not only relieve the existing pressure by leaving England; but they further and greatly benefit those who remain at home, by creating the best of markets, in what was heretofore a howling wilderness, for the products and manufactures of Great Britain. And neither of these classes can advantageously emigrate without the other: the several members of the human body can no more exist independently, than laborers without the employers of labor, or the employers of labor without laborers.

The national importance of emigration being so great, -- especially at a time when our foreign markets are, to say the least, in jeopardy, --what is the duty of the Government in relation to it? To provide means, either by gift, or by loan, or by public guarantee, for conveying our miserable unemployed workmen, with their families, to our southern colonies, as has been so often solicited by Scotch and Irish proprietors, seeking to relieve their over-peopled estates at the public expense? By no means: in the present state of our finances, especially, no adequate amount of public funds could possibly be appropriated to such a purpose. And it would avail nothing, it would be a mere shifting of the scene of distress, with a probable aggravation of it, and with no ulterior advantage to Great Britain, to ship off laborers to New Zealand, without at the same time associating in the emigration the employers of labor.

How, then, are the funds necessary for the conveyance to the antipodes of a large number of persons, utterly unable to defray

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the cost of their own passage, to be provided? In truth, there is not the smallest need of any pecuniary advance or risk on the part of the Government. What is wanted is not money, but knowledge and confidence. Those essential elements of colonization on a scale commensurate with the existing necessities of the country, it is the duty, as assuredly it is the interest, of the Government to supply. They need cost the public nothing beyond the exercise of a little common sense and public spirit on the part of those who administer our colonial affairs.

In spite of the pressure upon trade and manufactures, there is in this country an absolute plethora of capital. If proof of this position be required, the great number of years' purchase at which land is bought, notwithstanding the hazard of a change in the corn-laws, will afford it. There are thousands of persons, some just entering upon life, some struggling with its countless difficulties, with capitals of from £1,000 to £10,000, whom the low rate of interest which money yields in safe investments, the enormous price of all necessaries and comforts, and the over-fulness of all professions and trades, combine to keep in uncertainty or anxiety about present employment, and to deprive of all cheerful anticipations of future competence. Meanwhile, capital is of extreme value, and the interest of money proportionally high, in our southern colonies, especially in New Zealand. I have at this moment a letter before me, written in January last, by a gentleman at Wellington, to his brother in this country, in which he says:-- "I am confident that, if I had £3,000 or £4,000 at hand, I could treble it in less than three years, and that without what may be called gambling speculations, but by genuine business. The fact is that capital is so scarce in all these colonies that with it you may do almost what you please. I will give you an instance of the sort of business I mean: when we arrived, a vessel was here from Chili, with

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flour, which she offered at £20 per ton. Only one person had spirit and capital enough to purchase any, and she was suffered to take the greater part away. Flour is now £35 per ton. Instances of this sort occur every week. Besides this, money itself is so valuable that it will fetch 20 per cent, with good security; so that this alone would pay any person who had it to spare."

Now, all that is necessary to colonization, on a grand scale, is that the parties described in the foregoing passage as possessing capital altogether inadequate for their comfortable settlement in this country, but abundantly sufficient to place them in the high-road to competence, wealth, and consideration, in New Zealand, should know and believe, as thoroughly as those who are well informed on the subject know and believe, that the state of things which I have endeavoured to depict has a real substantial existence; and that it is an easy matter for any person possessed of the requisite pecuniary qualifications, and with a moderate endowment of energy and resolution, to become a participator in all its advantages.

The Government need do no more than disseminate and sustain this knowledge and this confidence. It is time that men in office should get rid of the absurd notion that it does not become them to collect and publish authentic information relating to the different provinces of our vast colonial empire; that it is not proper for the Government to avail itself in any manner of the concurrent stream of private enterprise; and that it behoves them to hold themselves prudishly aloof from all those who, having a private interest in colonial matters, and having also the power greatly to promote the interests of the public in relation to them, are yet disposed to approach the heads of the department by the front stairs. The morbid fear of committing themselves, or of being over-reached, must also be overcome, and the habitual attitude of repulsion changed. The

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existing pressure upon the country, and the possibility of relieving it by large measures of colonization, are circumstances for which, in the words of Burke, "the file affords no precedent;" and they demand a corresponding exercise of spirit and energy by the Colonial Department.

The course to be taken is a clear one. Let the Government exert itself to dissipate the delusion generated by the state of things in this country, (where labor is superabundant, and, consequently, cheap, and land, from causes beyond the return which it yields, enormously dear,) that land, wherever situated, must necessarily be cheap, because purchased for a small number of shillings. Let it undertake to teach the community that land in our Southern or North-American colonies may be cheaper at £5 per acre, if labor be available for its cultivation at a price moderate in relation to the value of the produce, than land of similar natural advantages, at five shillings per acre, without labor sufficiently abundant to turn it to profitable account, or without a concurrent and compactly located body of employers of labor, to sell to, to buy from, and to aid reciprocally in framing and working the essential machinery of society. The government can best inculcate these important truths, --can alone, perhaps, do it effectually otherwise than by the slow process by which reason wins its way against prejudice, --because the government alone cannot be suspected of advancing such doctrines from interested motives. Again, let the Government satisfy itself that the intersts of such bodies as the New Zealand Company are, as I have asserted, identical with those of the public; let it also satisfy itself that such associations possess the power, both in respect to the soundness of their plans, and to their pecuniary means, of rendering substantial service to the country by effectuating emigration on a scale proportionate to the

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public exigencies, or, at least, to an extent unattainable by other instrumentality -- and then let it make a large and confiding use of their agency. The power of that agency would be increased a hundred fold by the confidence which the declared countenance and co-operation of the Government would create. Let the most searching investigations precede the conferring of gifts, which, though they would cost the public nothing, might possibly be most mischievously abused. Yet what agency powerful for good is not capable of being perverted to evil; and what wisdom is there, in the moral, more than in the physical, world, in refusing to avail ourselves, with due precautions, of any combination of forces that may promise to be most readily and extensively effectual for compassing great national ends? If it be found that those ends may most speedily and certainly be secured by rendering it the interest of private associations to further them, -- always under the control of the Executive Government, --in the name of common sense, let that course have a fair trial. If it be objected, --as, doubtless, would be the case, --that the countenance and co-operation of the Government would enable the New Zealand Company, or any other such body, to realise very large profits; let it be remembered that such profits can only result from the successful issue of operations which must confer thousand-fold advantages upon the public; that they are, in fact, the price paid for the agency of the Company; and that, by the hypothesis, better agency, or equally good agency, at less cost, cannot be obtained. If no better means can be devised for effectuating the desired end, it would be mere childishness on the part of the Government to refuse to avail itself of the agency of the New Zealand Company, solely because the Company will derive great benefit from being employed by the Government. The proposition, --the importance of which I earnestly desire to impress upon those who

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administer our colonial affairs, -- is a very simple one: -- the confidence which the Government can alone inspire is essential to the emigration, to any very considerable extent, of the employers of labor; the emigration of the employers of labor is the only means by which the expense of the emigration of laborers, in any sufficient numbers, can be defrayed; and the association of these classes, and their settlement upon the fertile soil of New Zealand, now a wilderness, is all that is needed for the creation in those magnificent islands of a new, excellent, and constantly increasing market for the manufactures of Great Britain. Knowledge and confidence are alone wanting to ensure the immediate departure of hundreds of small capitalists for New Zealand; and if that class could be led -- to their own vast benefit, -- to emigrate in sufficient numbers, under a sound system in respect to the sale of land, we should hear nothing more, except from incorrigible jobbers, of advances of public money to depopulate the Highlands, or of parishes raising loans upon the mortgage of the poor-rates. If the Colonial Department act wisely and energetically, it may establish, in the course of a year or two, a system under which the expense of conveying laborers from our over-stocked market to our Southern as well as to our North American colonies will be defrayed by those who will crowd out thither to employ them; and emigration, once fairly started upon these principles, will assuredly proceed in a constantly accelerating ratio. 4

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Better proof cannot be given of the satisfactory working, --as far as it has yet been tried, --of the system of colonization pursued by the New Zealand Company, upon the principles and in the spirit above described, than is afforded by the following extract of a dispatch from Colonel Wakefield, the Company's principal agent in New Zealand, relative to the first settlement of Wellington, dated 20th February last:--

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* * * * *

* * * * *

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This testimony, however, may be thought liable to question, as being given by an officer of the Company. But it is entirely corroborated by the Hon. Henry Petre, in his account of the first settlement of the New Zealand Company, recently published, who quotes the dispatch at full length, with this attestation of its truth and value:-- "The progress, however, of the Company's settlements, down to the time of my departure, is so fully and accurately described in a letter from Colonel Wakefield to the Company, of which I was the bearer, that I cannot do better than print it here."

The following extracts from Mr. Petre's work amply bear out the judgment which he has passed on Colonel Wakefield's dispatch, and contain much interesting information. He describes his work as a "brief sketch of what came under his own observation, and what he could gather from authentic sources during his residence" in New Zealand, and adds his trust that his readers "will make indulgent allowance for his deficiencies as an author,

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in consideration of the accuracy of his statements." Mr. Petre proceeds, --"Upon the latter point I venture to speak with confidence. With respect to my very favourable opinion of New Zealand as a field of emigration, I have to offer as a proof, at least, of my own sincerity, the statement that I have revisited this country merely for the purpose of making arrangements required for carrying out my plans of settlement in New Zealand, whither I am about to return as a colonist."

In the passage quoted below, Mr. Petre refutes the mis-statements that have been so recklessly made as to the want of provisions at the Company's first settlement; and corrects the errors and prejudices still more widely prevalent, with respect to the savage habits and dangerous character of the natives.

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Mr. Petre furnishes the public with the following valuable information on the "soil, climate, and productions" of New Zealand: --

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* * * * *

* * * * *

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There is little doubt that flax will be the great staple export of New Zealand, as wool is of Australasia. Produced at the price at which it appears probable that the colony will be able to export it, the markets of Europe would take an almost unlimited supply. Mr Petre quotes the following statement as having been drawn up by a gentleman at Wellington, who had made the subject his study for some time, and who, he believes, had been engaged in the growth of flax in Ireland. He adds that, though he had no means of verifying the calculations, as he himself had neither made, nor witnessed the making of, any experiments, he believes that such experiments have been conducted with care; and that, due allowance being made for the imperfect state of existing information, the statement is entitled to confidence.

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Mr. Petre comments upon this statement in the following terms:--

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Mr. Petre adds, --"there is no limit to the extent to which flax may be raised by means of cultivation."

On the important subject of coal, Mr. Petre states, --

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Mr. Petre's testimony to the salubrity of the climate is most satisfactory. He states, --

The temperature throughout the year is stated to be "singularly equable;" as the following table, which exhibits the results of observations made at Port Nicholson by Mr. Revans, will evince.

STATE OF THE THERMOMETER AT PORT NICHOLSON, FROM APRIL, 1840, TO APRIL, 1841.

STATE OF THE THERMOMETER AT PORT NICHOLSON, FROM APRIL, 1840, TO APRIL, 1841.

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The following extracts display Mr. Petre's opinion of the past proceedings of the Company, of the identity of its interests with those of the settlers and of the public, and of the capabilities and prospects of the colony.

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Mr. Jameson, whose recent publication is well worthy of the perusal of all persons interested in the colonization of Australasia and New Zealand, 7 fully substantiates, as far as he has had means of judging, the evidence of Mr, Petre. Mr. Jameson did not visit Port Nicholson, and his personal knowledge is confined to the northern portion of the northern island; but his statements respecting the climate and soil of the districts which he visited are most satisfactory; and I shall presently give proof, from the testimony of a gentleman

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who has travelled extensively in New Zealand, and from his botanical and other knowledge is well qualified to form a comparative estimate, that the country further south is at least equally favoured by nature. 8 "Regarding the agricultural capabilities of Port Nicholson," Mr. Jameson quotes what he calls "the cautious testimony of Mr. George Duppa" (a gentleman settled at Wellington), referring to ascertained facts, in the following words:-- "I hope soon," he says, "to be able to prove that the soil and climate are such as I, very shortly after my arrival in the colony, stated them to be, viz., such as every English farmer would pray for; it is similar to that met with in Italy and the south of France. I then stated that two crops could be realized in the course of the year off the same piece of land; and a year's experience in the colony has merely strengthened this opinion; for some wheat, which was sown by Mr. Sinclair in May last, was reaped the following January, and he has at the present moment potatoes in his garden which were sown about the middle of February, and are now fit to come out of the ground. So that it is practically proved that a white crop and some succulent crop can be got off the same piece of land in the course of twelve months. But we may shortly expect to see a new style of farming introduced, and which, too, will only be second to the cotton-farming in the West Indies, --viz. the flax plant. We may hope soon to see large quantities of this valuable production shipped for the mother country, which will be another source of wealth, such as none of the sister colonies can boast of. A machine for the preparation of this plant is in the course of erection by our brother colonist, Mr. Earp, which I feel confident will prepare it at a paying rate; and I feel assured myself that, even should it not answer as a primary process, it certainly will as a secondary

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one; and as soon as we can accomplish this one object, from that moment we may date the prosperity of the colony. It has been objected by many that there is no extent of land at Port Nicholson; let those persons start off on the Porirua road, and take a two days' walk towards Otaki, on the coast, and they will have some cause to change their opinions by their return; for finer country I never witnessed in the course of my life, or better fitted for the purposes of agriculture. The land in the immediate neighbourhood of Port Nicholson is certainly heavily timbered; but the expense of clearing it is not only made up for by the richness of the soil, which consists of little else than decayed vegetable matter, but its immediate vicinity to the town will enable the persons who cultivate it to send a variety of produce to market--poultry, eggs, butter, vegetables, &c. which will amply repay for any outlay incurred in the clearing of the land; and he who begins first will have the best market."

But the part of Mr. Jameson's work which relates to New Zealand is chiefly valuable on account of the well-coupled benevolence and candour with which he investigates the character and capabilities of the native population, and the apparent justice of his decided conclusion. "There exists in no part of the world," he says, "a more inviting field for the exercise of practical philanthropy than New Zealand; no where can we find a race more susceptible of improvement, if placed under the control of a wise and benevolent government, able to instruct, protect, and control." * * * * "That the New Zealanders are endowed with strong capacities is clearly indicated by the comparatively advanced state of civilization to which they have already attained. 9 I have elsewhere noticed

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the large numbers of them that have learned to read and write, nor will they remain long ignorant of the secrets of money-making; in proof of which, a native of Port Nicholson, by his influence among his countrymen, obtained an absolute monopoly of pigs, potatoes, and agricultural produce, which he re-sold to the Company's settlers at his own price. One New Zealander has risen to the responsible situation of chief officer of a whaling ship; and has acquired the reputation of unusual skill and good conduct in the discharge of his duties. Colonel Wakefield, the Reverend Mr. Marsden, and other gentlemen of intelligence, have expressed a very favourable opinion regarding the natural intelligence of the New Zealanders, and of their becoming proficients in various departments of industry. Throughout these chapters, numerous instances are recorded from which the same conclusion will be derived. Not only, then, as the original inhabitants and owners of the soil, but as thinking and reasoning men, these people possess the strongest claims upon the attention and the protection of the British Government."

It is evident from the foregoing and other passages, that Mr. Jameson has far more apprehension that the English colonists will encroach upon and oppress the natives, than that the natives are likely to injure the colonists. That notion, indeed, he scouts throughout his work; and he speaks strongly of the benefits which the missionaries have conferred upon the native population, and of the progress in general knowledge and civilization, as well as in religion and morals, which the latter have made under the instruction of their Christian preceptors.

I make one more quotation from Mr. Jameson's book, with a view to show that, in the course of time, when they have been brought more closely and generally into contact with civilized men, and have learned from them the advantages of labor, as measured by what it will buy, the New Zealanders will become no inconsiderable customers for English manufactures.

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The deficiencies of Mr. Jameson's information, arising from his not having visited the country south of the river Thames, are supplied by Mr. Bidwill's "Rambles in New Zealand." That gentleman, after examining the northern and central districts of the northern island, in 1838, --penetrating to the great lake Taupo, --returned from Sydney last year, and "resided for some time at Port Nicholson and its neighbourhood." 10 After describing the great plain watered by the Waiho, or Thames, Mr. Bidwill proceeds:-- "There is no doubt in time this will be a fine country, but I cannot help thinking the land around Port

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Nicholson offers far greater advantages; it is true, round the valley of the Hutt, the land will cost labor to prepare it for cultivation, but it is undoubtedly very rich, and will make good and speedy return for the outlay upon it. Now the land on the Waiho, which will not cost much money to work, is not better, perhaps not so good, as the bare hills to the south of Port Nicholson, and the swampy lands of the Waiho will cost almost as much to drain as heavy timbered land to clear; and it is well known bogs do not immediately become useful land, but that several years must elapse after they are reclaimed, before they will bear crops of grain. 11

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The statement annexed exhibits the number and tonnage of the vessels which have entered Port Nicholson from the date of the formation of the settlement to the 10th April 1841. The number and tonnage of those not chartered by the Company demonstrate that the infant settlement has already considerable commercial intercourse with the neighbouring colonies. The

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latest letter which I have seen, dated in July last, states that the colonists were then expecting four vessels with cattle from Sydney.

The recent appointment of a zealous and enlightened Clergyman, as Bishop of New Zealand, and the measures which have been taken, in connexion with that arrangement, to supply the spiritual wants of the very large proportion of the settlers who are members of the Established Church, will contribute, essentially, to the well-being and prosperity of the colonists. The Bishop contemplates--with the co-operation of the Company--the establishment of a Seminary, at Wellington, upon the plan of the Poor Law Commissioners' school, at Norwood, for the education and general training of the children of the natives, in order that they may be enabled to march in an equal rank of knowledge and conduct with their cotemporaries in the corresponding classes of the emigrants. They will thus, it is hoped, be preserved from that collision which might otherwise take place, to the grievous loss and suffering of the weaker party, between the rude violence of the aboriginal tribes and the giant-strength of a civilized community. Other arrangements will be made to provide the congregations, at Wellington and Nelson, with clergymen. A due proportion of the funds which have been set apart in the latter settlement for religious uses and endowments, as stated at Page 7, of this pamphlet, will be immediately available to further the benevolent designs of the Bishop, and to afford to all the founders of the new community--whatever their several tenets--the opportunity, at least, of participating in the blessings of religious ordinances and ministrations.

A few words will be sufficient to wind up my remarks. I have stated that the benefit which those who leave Great Britain for Australasia, or New Zealand, confer upon this

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country, is not limited to the diminution of the high-pressure competition in every branch of labor or employment of labor which distinguishes the times in which we live. Removed to the Antipodes, they are transformed from jealous competitors into the best of suppliers of raw produce, because the best of customers for our manufactures. This is no vain hyperbole. Whilst the millions of France and Russia purchased, in 1840, no more than £2,378,149, and £1,602,742 worth of our products respectively, the few thousands of our Australasian colonists consumed to the value of £2,004,385. The faster we can increase their numbers, the more rapidly we widen our market. They have English tastes, habits, and wants; the demand which obtains in this country for their wool and oil, supplies the means of gratifying them; and years must elapse before it can even appear to be their interest to imitate the absurdity into which rival nations have been betrayed, in following our false steps, in manufacturing dear and bad goods at home, instead of importing good and cheap articles from abroad. The only doubt which can arise, to qualify our calculations of corresponding benefits from New Zealand, is whether the settlers in those fertile islands will be able to raise, to a sufficient extent, any articles, the demand for which, in the markets of Europe, is adequate to the amount of their wants of British manufactures. It will not answer, of course, to clear their heavily-timbered lands with a view to compete in the production of wool with the vast natural sheep-walks of Australasia; and the character of many parts of New Zealand, doubtless, indicates that agriculture will be the most profitable employment of its inhabitants. But it seems equally clear that it has extensive plains upon which sheep might be depastured in great numbers; and it is probable that its superior fertility, and the far greater certainty of its seasons, will enable it to command much of the wool of its sister colonies in exchange for its corn, potatoes, and

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cured pork, --the two latter of which have for some time been exported, in considerable quantities, both to Sydney and Port Philip. It is better suited for the whale-fishery, both as regards the present haunts of the animal and the homeward voyage, as well as for the cheap victualling of the vessels employed, than any of the colonies of Australasia. But, far beyond all these sources of probable profitable interchange of commodities with England, it seems to me as certain as any proposition not tested by experience can be, that it possesses in its vast indigenous growth of flax, --which may be increased, by cultivation, to an indefinite extent, and, doubtless, at the same time, improved, --an article for which there is already a great demand in this country, and which, when produced at the low price to which competition and better means of preparing it for the voyage are likely to bring it, will probably be applied here to many new uses, and, consequently, consumed in much larger quantities. Mr. Petre, indeed, supposes that the profits of growing flax will be so large as to prevent the investment of any considerable amount of capital in any other agricultural pursuit. However that may be, I cannot doubt, from all the evidence before the public, but especially from the fact of there having been, for some time past, a regular exportation to Sydney, that the more stimulating demand of a much larger market, acting upon the far higher intelligence and more abundant capital with which recent emigration has furnished the colony, will ensure the growth and preparation of an adequate supply of flax, at a price which, whilst it will afford an ample return to the producer, will induce an increased consumption of the staple of New Zealand in the manufactures of Europe.

THE END.