CANTERBURY IN 1862.
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CANTERBURY IN 1862.
NEW ZEALAND ISLANDS.
THE Colony of New Zealand is situated about 1,200 miles to the eastward of Australia, between 35° and 47° south latitude. It consists of three islands, called respectively the Northern and Middle Islands, and Stewart's Island. The area of the Northern Island is about 49,000 square miles, that of the Middle Island 72,000, and of Stewart's Island 1,800 square miles; the aggregate being rather greater than the area of the British Isles.
The outward sea route is by the Cape of Good Hope, and the length of the voyage by the class of ships now commonly employed in the trade, varies from 90 to 105 days. The passage though long is generally safe. It rarely happens that a ship suffers damage by bad weather, and a total loss is hardly ever heard of.
The colony was founded in 1840. Its progress was slow at first, but it has grown rapidly within the last few years. The population at the end of 1860 was about 80,000 Europeans, and 55,000 Natives. ALl the natives, with the exception of about 2,000, are in the Northern Island. The imports in 1860 amounted to £1,500,000, the exports £590,000, and the revenue £464,000.
For purposes of government, the Northern Island is divided into four provinces, and the Middle Island into five; those in the North Island being named respectively Auckland, Wellington, Taranaki, and Hawke's Bay, and those in the Middle Island, Nelson, Canterbury, Otago, Marlborough, and Southland.
The colony is governed by a General Assembly, consisting of the Governor, the Legislative Council, or Upper House, the members of which are nominated by the Crown, and the
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House of Representatives, which is elected by the people. But each province has besides, a separate government, consisting of a Superintendent and Provincial Council, both elected by the people. A property qualification is the basis of the franchise, but it is so low, as to include virtually every freeholder and householder. The General Government deals with all subjects which concern the colony, and in which uniformity of action is necessary, as the laws relating to property, the administration of justice, customs' duties, postal arrangements, and many others. The provincial governments are of the nature of municipalities, but with legislative powers in local matters, and a larger jurisdiction than is accorded to similar institutions in England. Each province has virtually the control of its own waste lands, and of the revenues arising from the sale or leasing of them; and, subject to the charges imposed by the General Assembly for the purposes of the Central Government, it has also the disposal of the revenues derived from customs and other sources. The Provincial Council of each province determines annually the appropriations for the maintenance and extension of roads and other public works, immigration, education, and other purposes. It has also power under the "Constitution Act," subject to certain exceptions already indicated, and in some cases to the veto of the Crown, to make laws--to quote the words of the Constitution Act--for the "peace, order, and good government" of the community. The Superintendent is the chief administrative officer, and has the control of the local establishments, as public works, surveys, land department, police, &c., &c. Both the Superintendent and the Council are elected every four years.
The Law Courts are: the Supreme Court, which has jurisdiction both in law and equity, and the Appeal from which would be to the Privy Council; and the Magistrates' Courts, which have civil jurisdiction up to twenty pounds, with appeal in some cases to the Supreme Court. There is a Resident Judge at Auckland, another at Wellington, and another at Canterbury. The Circuit Courts are held in each province every three months. There are one or more Stipendiary or Resident Magistrates as they are called, in each province, who alone have jurisdiction in matters in which natives are concerned, and who are generally assisted in such cases by
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native Assessors. Justices of the Peace act as in England, in cases which concern Europeans only, in the absence of the Resident Magistrate.
There is steam communication between all the principal ports once a fortnight, by a line of boats belonging to an English Company, called the Inter-colonial Mail Company, subsidised by the New Zealand Government; and a monthly mail service by the same Company with Sydney, to meet the Australian and English Mail. The arrangement between the Government and the Company was made several years ago, and was based upon a lower estimate of receipts from passenger and other traffic than has since been realised. The Steam Company have virtually a monopoly of the trade, and their passage rates are excessive. Canterbury and Otago have lately joined in subsidising a separate monthly service with Melbourne for mail purposes, the consequence of which is, that they get the mail fully a week earlier than they formerly did when it came by the Inter-colonial Company's boats from Sydney, via Nelson and Wellington. The course of post with England, is now a little under two months.
The Union Bank of Australia has had for many years branches in all the principal towns in the colony. The Bank of New South Wales has recently established branches in Auckland, Wellington, and Canterbury; and information has just been received of the institution of a Local Joint Stock Bank, with a capital of half a million, subscribed by a New Zealand proprietary. Steps were being taken to bring it into immediate operation in the several provinces. A Marine Insurance Company has existed in Auckland for a year or two past. This institution is also extending its business to other provinces; and has opened a London Agency, by which insurances are effected, with the option to the insured of the settlement of claims either in the colony or in London.
DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY IN CANTERBURY.
The Province of Canterbury occupies the centre of the Middle Island, and is bounded on the north by Nelson, on the south by Otago, and east and west by the sea; and contains about 12,000,000 of acres.
Half of this area on the western side of the island is
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mountainous country, the higher ranges of which toward the west coast are under perpetual snow; the lower ranges on the eastern side are covered only in winter, and with the valleys and low country amongst them, are occupied as sheep runs. Toward the northern boundary of the province, the off-shoots of the western ranges extend across the island to the eastern sea-board, and are broken up into downs, flats, and hills of a moderate elevation.
From 3,000,000 to 4,000,000 of acres on the eastern side of the island is, with the exception of Banks' Peninsula--a mass of hills covered with forest--an open plain having a general inclination from the sea toward the western ranges of from 10 feet to 40 feet in a mile, and intersected at intervals of from 5 to 15 miles, by rivers running out of the mountains to the sea on the eastern coast. This plain country is about 120 miles long and from 30 to 60 miles wide, destitute of wood, with but few exceptions not worth mentioning, and generally well grassed. The mountain ranges when covered with snow are a beautiful feature in the landscape, and the plains, unbroken and seemingly endless, look inhospitable and uninviting. On the other hand, the mountains, beautiful as they look, are of no use to anybody; and the plains, bare and cheerless as they appear, offer facilities for cultivation, road-making, and occupation generally, which a broken or wooded country could not supply. However inconvenient and expensive it might be to cart timber and firewood twenty miles, as some of the settlers are obliged to do, those who know what is meant by clearing bush-land, would consider this a small price to pay for the advantage of an open country into which the plough can be put without preparation.
From Double Corner on the northward to the Waitangi, the south boundary of the province, a distance of about 150 miles, the coast is a continuous line of shingle and sandy beach broken only by Banks' Peninsula, and by a small headland forming the Timaru roadstead, the surf more or less heavy of the South Pacific always breaking upon it. The country on the coast is rough and often sandy for a mile or so inland, and immediately inside this is a belt of rich alluvial land varying from 5 to 20 miles in breadth. Some of it is swampy, and must be drained before any use can be
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made of it; there is however dry land enough to serve the purposes of the settlers for many years to come, and while this is unexhausted it is not likely that much attention will be given to the draining of swamps. Much of this country shows signs of having been recently timbered; trees are dug out of the old water-courses--or creeks as they are called-- in the low lying land, and roots of trees are constantly met with in ploughing. There are also blocks of fine land of thousands of acres, further back from the coast toward the mountains. The extent of country adapted for agriculture is estimated at from a million and a half to two millions of acres, not a tithe of which has yet been disposed of. These lands consist generally of a vegetable loam entirely without stones, from 8 inches to 18 inches in depth, on clay in the wet lands, and on sand in the drier parts, the whole overlying a substratum of sandy clay and pebbles of various sizes, the depth of which nobody knows. Wells have been sunk from 60 to 100 feet in depth in the higher parts of the plains, and no other strata have ever been found. The remainder of the fiat country consists of river-bed, stony plain, and light dry sandy soil, all more or less grassed, admirable for sheep feeding, but not worth using in any other way. The plains, both the best and worst parts of them, are everywhere intersected by creeks and old water-courses. These creeks are useful in the low lands as outlets for surface drainage. In some cases they are streams constantly running, and in others are dry in the summer. All the low country is well watered; if there is not a stream at hand water can generally be obtained by sinking from 10 to 30 feet.
The bulk of the population is confined to that part of the agricultural belt lying to the northward of the Port Hills, and considering that the transit of goods to and from Lyttelton-- the shipping port--is by water only, the most convenient inland shipping places have become in their turn the centres of population. Christchurch, about nine miles from Lyttelton by land, was the first of these centres; then Kaiapoi on the Waimakariri, eleven miles to the northward of Christchurch, and latterly a town has been founded at a point on the Ashley, ten miles still farther north, called the Saltwater Creek. Population spreads from these centres, and the towns grow as the country adjacent to them is settled, Christchurch is sur-
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rounded by above 100,000 acres of settled country, Kaiapoi by 20,000 to 30,000 acres, and within the last two years a similar extent has been purchased, and is rapidly becoming occupied, in the vicinity of the Saltwater Creek. All these are shipping places, and are about the same distance from Lyttelton, as to the time occupied in the sea passage. Timaru is the only shipping place now used to the southward of Banks' Peninsula.
The plains can never be made to look pretty as a landscape; they may, however, be rendered less monotonous in appearance, by enclosure, the growth of hedges, and particularly the planting of trees. This last is being done now very generally in Christchurch, and by the older settlers in the neighbourhood; and, already the appearance of the country is materially improved by it.
Lyttelton, the principal port town, is situated on the north side of the harbour of the same name, about five miles from the Heads. The harbour is pronounced by competent authorities to be a very good one, is easy of access, and may be entered by a stranger without difficulty. The town contains about 1,000 inhabitants; and among the principal buildings, are the custom house, banks, post office, gaol, hospital, police office, &c., &c. There are also merchants' warehouses and offices, wharves, several hotels, and plenty of retail shops. Its population is engaged chiefly with the shipping, and in carrying on the commerce of the place. Lyttelton possesses the only stone church in the province.
Christchurch, the capital, is on the banks of the Avon, about nine miles from Lyttelton by land, and two miles from the river Heathcote, where the steamers and small craft engaged in the carrying trade with Lyttelton, discharge and take in their cargoes. It contains now about 2,000 inhabitants, and is large enough for a much greater number. Here are the provincial government offices, the council chamber, the land and survey offices, and others, forming together an extensive and imposing range of buildings; the supreme court, immigration barracks, banks, the club-house--one of the most handsome buildings in the town--the college, the Bishop's residence, &c., &c. All the merchants have offices and warehouses here; and there is a weekly market. There are also hotels, boarding houses, livery stables, stores, and
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tradesmen's shops of every description; lawyers, doctors, and other professions; an iron foundry, attached to which is an agricultural implement manufactory; a malt-house, several breweries, most of which brew indifferent beer; a pottery, which promises to be a highly useful institution; several extensive nursery gardens; flour mills both in the town and in the neighbourhood. Altogether its progress has been remarkable, considering its inland position, and considering also that it has grown up from nothing within the last ten years; as indeed the entire settlement has, by its own natural capabilities, without the aid of commissariat or other foreign expenditure, like that which the principal northern settlements have enjoyed.
Kaiapoi, a small town on the "Waimakariri," is the centre and shipping place of the district between that river and the "Ashley," and contains hotels, warehouses, tradesmen's shops, &c., sufficient for the trade with the farmers and others in the neighbourhood. There are several hundred acres of bush near the town, from which large quantities of firewood and sawn timber have been supplied to Christchurch and the surrounding country. The presence of sawyers and others engaged in that trade, has caused the town to grow more rapidly than it would otherwise have done. Prior to last year all the wool from the northern country, was shipped at Kaiapoi for Lyttelton; but the navigation of the Saltwater Creek, on the Ashley, was established last year, and all the wool from the country north of that river was shipped at the latter place. The development of this navigation has led to the erection of warehouses, &c., at the shipping place, and the settlement of population in the vicinity.
Akaroa is a small town on the harbour of the same name, on the south side of Banks' Peninsula. The harbour is good, but is cut off from the inland country by high hills.. There is a small population, engaged chiefly in the timber trade with Lyttelton and Christchurch. Whaling ships come into Akaroa occasionally to refit, but with these exceptions, the harbour is not used at all by large ships. The climate is milder than that of the plains, the country richly timbered, and the scenery very beautiful. There are several bays and small harbours on the peninsula, all of which have a small population, consisting of dairy farmers, sawyers, boatmen, and
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others, who carry on a trade in timber, &c., with the plains.
Timaru is an open roadstead, about 100 miles south of Banks' Peninsula. It has been used hitherto only for the shipment of wool and the landing of stores for the neighbouring stations. There is a wide extent of agricultural land round about it, and a considerable breadth has been purchased. Moorings for heavy ships have been laid down in the roadstead. Those who are interested in the district, say that it is a perfectly practicable shipping place; and if the conveniences for landing were made as good as they might be made, it would be used generally at all seasons of the year. Others doubt it. If this point were established beyond question, the district would soon become the seat of a large population. In the meantime it is occupied almost entirely by sheep-farmers.
There is no river nor any part of the coast of Canterbury, north of the Ashley, where shipment can be done. It is possible that some of the rivers to the southward between Banks' Peninsula and the Waitangi; might hereafter be found to be available, like the Ashley, for small craft or steamers; they have never been carefully examined with reference to their capability in this respect; the general opinion, however, so far as it goes at present, is against the supposition.
Most of the houses throughout the country are built of wood, a framework of timber on piles, covered outside with weather boarding, and plastered, or otherwise finished inside, according to the taste of the owner. Latterly in the towns, foundations of stone and brick have become common, and in a few cases brick buildings have been erected. There has been a large improvement, within the last two or three years, in the design and character of buildings generally. The gardens, too, improve, as people have time to give to them; and the fruit trees come into bearing. Indeed the settlement is becoming every year a more pleasant, or as ill-natured people might perhaps choose to put it, a less unpleasant place to live in.
CLIMATE, NATURAL PRODUCTIONS.
A great deal of nonsense has been written about the climate
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of New Zealand. We have heard of the balmy air, the beautiful blue of the sky, the perpetual greenness of the landscape, and other equally pleasant elements, found only in novels and fairy tales. Not a few who have gone to the colony, have been grievously disappointed at finding that it can blow as hard, and rain as heavily there as in less favoured countries. This sort of over-colouring is very foolish as well as very wrong. Apart from considerations of truthfulness and honesty, the consequence of it frequently is, that people are discontented with that which they would have been satisfied with, if they had not been led to expect something better. The country, and the climate too, are as good, all things considered, as perhaps any other part of the world; certainly as good as any other English colony, and much better than many of them. It is neither very hot nor very cold, notoriously healthy, and entirely adapted to the English constitution and habits.
The colony has a range of 12 degrees of latitude; there is therefore a considerable difference between the extreme north and the extreme south, but the same general observations will apply equally to all parts of the Middle Island, excepting the mountains, and perhaps the southern sea-board. Referring to the English climate as a standard, the summer in the plains where the people live, may be taken to be very similar in temperature, with 50 per cent, more of fine days, and the winter shorter and much milder. There is plenty of snow among the hills, but it falls very seldom on the plains, and when it does, it disappears in a few hours. It often freezes at night, but never severely enough to remain in the ground through the day, and in frosty weather the days are invariably bright and clear. Everything that grows in England flourishes there, and many plants, shrubs, &c., grow there, which would be killed by an English winter. The variations of temperature are more frequent and sudden, but the difference between the extremes of heat and cold is less wide than in England. The spring may be said to begin in the early part of September, and for six weeks or two months the weather is showery, like an English April, but warmer. Towards the end of September and throughout October, the grass and indeed everything else, grows rapidly. The weather becomes drier and more settled towards the middle of November; and
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with December summer may be said to commence. The summer lasts from that time to about the end of March, and then follows usually six weeks or two months of most enjoyable weather. Nothing can be more delightfully fine. Anybody whose stay in the country had been limited to a month at this season of the year, might be pardoned for any amount of laudation. After the middle of May, the days become sensibly colder, and signs of winter appear. June is more or less wet, with fine days and frosty nights, for a week or ten days together, between the rains. July is the wettest, and in every sense the most miserable month in the year. The early part of August is often no better; towards the middle of the month it improves, and leads gradually into spring. The seasons vary considerably as between one year and another, but this sketch may be taken as applying to an average of years. The annual fall of rain is as great as in many parts of England, but it does not rain so often: the weather is generally of a decided character; when it does not rain, the sun shines.
The most unpleasant feature in the climate, is the frequent winds. It does not blow harder than in England, judging from the fact that chimneys are never blown down, and houses very rarely damaged about the roofs, but it blows hard oftener. It may be that these winds make the country more healthy than it would otherwise be, but one is sometimes tempted to wish for less of it, and chance the consequences. In fine weather there is generally a sea breeze from the N. E., which begins about 10 or 11 o'clock, freshens toward the afternoon, and ceases in the evening. This is the prevailing wind for nine months of the year. In the winter months southerly and south-westerly winds prevail, and it seldom rains at any time of the year from any other quarter. There occurs occasionally in the summer, what is known as a nor'-wester--a warm dry wind, not unlike the hot wind of Australia in a mild form. It is the sea breeze on the west coast, which parts with its moisture in passing over the mountains, and is afterwards warmed by passing over a large extent of heated plain. The barometer is always low, and the thermometer ranges from 70° to 85°. The wind is not hot enough to affect vegetation in any way, as it sometimes does in Australia, but the air is dry and unpleasant, something like
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what is breathed in an English house in winter, when a hot-air apparatus is used in warming it. This wind is gusty and often strong upon the plains, and it is furious among the ravines and gorges of the mountains. It generally begins about 11 or 12 o'clock, and goes down at sunset; sometimes it continues for several days in succession, at other times it does not occur at all for a week or two. The rivers are generally at their highest in heavy nor'westerly weather. It is frequently succeeded by a sudden shift to the south-west, accompanied sometimes by a heavy rain for a few hours. One consequence of this, and it is an important one, is, that the country is not liable to droughts. It is not dry long enough together to make the grass burn; and there is generally rain enough from time to time through the summer, to keep it growing. The Provincial Government has lately engaged the services of Dr. Haast, --a colleague of Dr. Hochstetter, the geologist of an expedition which was sent to the South Seas, by the Austrian Government about three years ago--for the purpose of making a scientific exploration of the province; and it appears from discoveries which that gentleman has already made, that the country is richer in mineral resources, than it was previously supposed to be. What the population would do for fuel, when they could no longer get wood, is a question which has been always regarded as one of importance. The existence of coal about the eastern base of the mountain range, has been known for several years past, and it has been dug at various points. The neighbouring stations have used it, and it has been brought down to Christchurch at times in considerable quantities. The workings have been carried on at random by individual enterprise, and have been confined to the outcrop of the several seams. The quality of the coal produced hitherto has been inferior, and, though it was thought that it would become better as the workings became deeper, it was still doubted whether it would be so far applicable to general purposes, as to supersede the necessity for importations from Sydney or England. This difficulty seems now to have been entirely disposed of. Recent advices from the colony report the discovery by Dr. Haast, of coal in large quantities, of a very excellent description, suitable for steam and every other purpose, about forty miles from Christchurch, and accessible by a sound level road,
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over which, a railway might be laid down, if necessary, with little or no preparation. The Government has reserved a site for a town, in the vicinity, which there is little doubt will soon become the centre of a populous district. The exploration is still proceeding, and promises to be fertile of further important results. Limestone and building stone in large quantities, and indications of iron and copper, are also reported. There is as yet no information of the discovery of gold; there is little doubt, however, that it exists. It is found in Nelson and in Otago; and the geological characteristics of Canterbury, which lies between the two, are precisely similar.
There are large forests about the base of the mountains, and on Banks' Peninsular, and there are patches of bush on the Port Hills, but, with the exception of a few hundred acres of bush at Kaiapoi, about twelve miles north of Christchurch, and some other smaller patches, those portions of the plains which are the seat of the population are entirely without wood. The southern country about Timaru and the neighbourhood is better off in this respect. There is no fear of a want of timber for building purposes for an indefinite length of time, nor even for fuel; but the cost of carriage in the matter of fuel is large in proportion to the value of the article, and it becomes very expensive to the consumer. Sawn timber varies from 14s. to 18s. a hundred feet in the bush, the cost of carriage would depend upon distance, say 3s. or 4s. per hundred feet for not more than ten miles, at any time of the year when the roads are tolerably passable. Firewood in the bush is from 8s. to 18s. a cord, according to quality and locality, that is, 8 feet long, 4 feet high, and 4 feet wide, and the carriage of a cord of wood, costs as much as a thousand feet of timber; so that firewood sells in Christchurch at from £2 to £3 a cord; Lyttelton is supplied from Banks' Peninsula, the cost there being from £1. 10s. to £2. a cord. There are sawyers and others engaged in this sort of trade in all the bays of the peninsula, and at Akaroa. There are also steam saw mills at Harewood Forest and in Pigeon Bay. The carriage both to Lyttelton and Christchurch from the peninsula, is by water.
There are no native wild animals, or noxious reptiles of any kind; dogs and cats are occasionally found in a wild state,
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and in some parts of the province, pigs in large numbers. Wild ducks of different kinds are abundant, and there are pigeons and other birds in the woods, and quail in the open country.
All the New Zealand forest trees are evergreens, and many of the varieties grow to a large size. The distribution is somewhat singular. Some varieties are found only in particular districts. The Kauri pine, for example, is confined to the northern part of the North Island. There are other kinds which are common in the North Island generally, but which occur rarely or not at all in the Middle Island, and vice-versa. Most of the timber is well adapted for building purposes, if ordinary care he taken in seasoning it before it is used. The varieties common in Canterbury, are the black and white pine, so called, although not coniferous, and the Totara. Both the black pine and Totara are more durable than the white pine in the ground or exposed to weather, and are used generally for piles, fencing posts, framework of houses, &c. The white pine lasts very well in the dry, or if painted. It is a fine grained free working wood, and is used chiefly for floors, weather boarding, joinery, &c. The foliage of most of the trees is a dark green, and appears massive and heavy from a distance. Some of them, especially in the North Island, flower abundantly in the summer; and the forest scenery at this season is very beautiful.
SETTLEMENT, &c.
The Settlement of Canterbury was founded in 1850, by an association of gentlemen in England, incorporated by charter under the style of the Canterbury Association. It was a class settlement in plan, and addressed itself to members of the Church of England. The land was sold at £3 an acre, and one-third of the entire land fund was applied to ecclesiastical and educational purposes. It did not attract such general attention as the promoters had hoped, but so far as it went, it was successful. The results as regards the special feature of the plan are:-- the endowment of a Bishopric, and the creation of a landed estate, the proceeds of which are applied in aid of the maintenance of Church institutions, as well as the founding of a college, which ranks among the
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first educational establishments of the colony. The estimation in which it is held, may be gathered from the fact that a considerable proportion of the students come from other settlements. In 1853, when the Local Government was constituted, the Association transferred its functions to it. The Local Legislature reduced the price of land to £2 an acre, and discontinued the application of a fixed proportion of the Land Fund to ecclesiastical purposes; but it has since voted £10,000 for the building of churches and schools, and has for several years past appropriated £2,500 annually in aid of schools. It is proposed to increase this grant to £5,000. The expenditure of both these funds is in the discretion of the heads of denominations, subject to the approval of the Executive Government, the distribution being based upon the census. At present the Church of England, represented by the Bishop, receives from the Education Grant £1,700 a-year, and the Wesleyans and Presbyterians £250 a-year each. This recognition of the value of religious and educational institutions, is one of the best evidences of the character and general intelligence of the community; and it is perhaps a matter of some gratification to the original promoters of the Settlement, that the colonists are continuing so fully what they so well commenced.
It would be out of place here to discuss the operation of the peculiar form of government, which has been created in New Zealand by the "Constitution Act." It is in some sense an experiment. There are those in the colony who think lightly of the provincial authorities, who find a pleasure in quoting their mistakes, and who believe, or affect to believe, that the general interest would be better served, if not by sweeping them away altogether, at least by curtailing their authority, restricting their functions, and converting them into respectable parish vestries. Others take the opposite view, and would invest the provincial legislatures with much larger powers, and more extended jurisdiction than they now possess. The truth lies somewhere between these extremes. There are some questions which concern the colony as a whole, and call for uniformity of action. These belong properly to the Central Government. There are others which concern communities respectively, and which are better dealt with, because the special considerations which surround them are better understood by the local legislatures, than they
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could be by a distant authority. Whatever may be the objections to provincial organisations, as at present exhibited, and however true it may be that particular provinces have made mistakes, there is little doubt that the colony is far better off with them, than it could have been without them. Neither Canterbury nor Otago would now have been what it is, if it had been governed from Auckland. The principle is sound, although its application might occasionally have been faulty, and the aim of the central authorities should be to amend those defects, rather by preventing the abuse of the powers with which the provincial governments are entrusted, than by limiting their functions, or reducing their jurisdiction.
The table at the end will best exhibit the rate at which the population and commerce of the Settlement have increased. It could be wished that it had been more perfect, but it is as full as the data at command will admit of.
INLAND COMMUNICATION.
Small vessels engaged in the coasting trade with Wellington and other parts of the colony, sometimes load at Christchurch Quay or at Kaiapoi, and sail direct from the river; but all the merchandise imported over-sea, and the wool, and other produce, in the transport of which large vessels are used, passes through Lyttelton. The harbour of Lyttelton is surrounded on all sides, except towards the sea, by a range of steep hills, varying from 600 feet to 1,800 feet in height on the north side, and on the south side much higher. How to connect the Port with the inland producing districts, is a question which, from the foundation of the Settlement, has engaged the anxious attention of the colonists. At present pedestrians and horsemen get over the hill by means of a bridle path, the gradients of which vary from 1 in 3 1/2 to 1 in 7, the height to be surmounted being over 1,100 feet. The Canterbury Association began to make a cart-road over the hill, and spent several thousands of pounds upon it. The Provincial Government subsequently continued the work and spent as much more, and a road such as it is has been formed, and is used occasionally for light cart traffic. This is the Sumner Road so called, which has been alluded to in almost every book or paper that has been ever written about Canterbury. The
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majority of opinion is against the expenditure of further sums on this work. From the rocky nature of much of the ground in which it must be formed, and from the fact that several miles of it is side-cutting, in the face of steep slope and occasional precipice, it would be costly to complete as well as to maintain.
Up to the present time the only communication which can be regarded as practicable between the Port and the producing districts is by water, and the transit of goods inwards and produce outwards has been, and still is, effected by means of small steamers and coasting craft, plying between Lyttelton and the various shipping places of Christchurch Quay, Kaiapoi, Timaru, the Saltwater Creek on the Ashley, &c. This water service serves the purpose in fine weather, but it is occasionally suspended for weeks together in the winter months, and can never be otherwise than uncertain. It has long been foreseen that the time must come, when the increased trade of the province would call for the adoption of improved means of communication between the shipping port of Lyttelton, and Christchurch--the principal town of the inland country. Plans for improving the navigation, proposals of various lines of road over the hill have been from. time to time discussed in the Provincial Legislature, and in their turn abandoned as inefficient, and a railway through the hill at length presented itself as the only satisfactory solution of the difficulty. The whole subject was referred some two years ago to Mr. George Robert Stephenson, and he reported in favour of a railway direct from Lyttelton to Christchurch, the length of which is something under six miles, of which rather more than one-fourth is tunnel. His estimate of the cost of the work, exclusive of railing, stock, and stations, was £235,000. The Provincial Legislature determined upon taking steps to carry out the work in accordance with Mr. Stephenson's opinion. Powers were obtained from the General Assembly to raise a loan for the purpose, of £300,000; and in the early part of the present year, a contract was made for its execution. The ceremony of turning the first sod by His Honor the Superintendent, was reported a few months ago, and a strong staff of men are now employed on the work. From the height of the hill through which the tunnel has to be driven, the excavation can be carried on only from
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the two ends, and it is expected that it will occupy at least five years. This, in fact, is the period within which the contractor has undertaken to complete it.
There can be no doubt, that if the railway connecting Lyttelton with Christchurch were completed, extensions in different directions on the plains would soon follow. The surface of the country is so regular, that the formation of the roadway would cost next to nothing. The Local Government have, in anticipation of such extensions, very wisely laid out main lines through the province, and reserved the lands over which they pass from sale.
Having got into the plains, there is no difficulty in getting about the country, either on horseback or in vehicles. The natural surface is so dry and sound generally, that formed roads are unnecessary in the pastoral country, where the population is scattered. The first settler who went into the interior, steered by compass over the plains, and was followed by others, until a well beaten track was established; and, as there are no fences to stop him, the traveller may, if the track is cut up as it frequently is in the winter, go as much right or left of it as he chooses. The great rivers form the only difficulty, and these are thought much less of now than they were formerly. They can be readily forded when the water is low, but are quite impassable when flooded. There are public houses on all the principal rivers, and ferries over several of them, which are available for horsemen and foot passengers, except when the flood is at its highest; but carts and drays are sometimes detained for several days. The freshes generally come down suddenly, and often subside as rapidly.
As population spreads, and the country becomes enclosed, and vehicles are confined to the reserved lines of road, it becomes necessary to form them, and lay on metal. There are several trunk lines through the settled districts, connecting the various centres of population with each other and with the different shipping places, to the extent, taken together, of some 70 or 80 miles, which have been so formed and metalled; in addition to subordinate lines in every direction, to give access to individual properties. These latter are of necessity less perfectly and expensively formed, than the principal lines; but enough has generally been done to render them
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available for all the purposes, for which they are intended. The facilities of this nature which have been afforded to the colonists for getting about the country, have been one main cause of the rapid progress, which the Settlement has made. It will hardly be expected that even the best of the roads are like turnpike roads in England; it may be sufficient on this point to say, that for two-thirds of the year, a ton weight may be taken over many of them with a moderately good horse; in the winter they cut up, and become heavy, especially in the flats and low lying grounds.
The colonists have never yet had occasion to resort to direct taxation, for these or any other purposes. The land revenue has hitherto furnished funds for the making and maintaining of all the roads, bridges, and other public works; and will continue to do so while the sales proceed at the rate at which they have done for several years past, and are supplemented by an annually increasing income, derived from the pastoral districts.
One of the leading objections to the present water carriage is its uncertainty. The merchant who buys grain on the plains to be shipped at Lyttelton, has to take into account the possibility of his ship being detained, and the chance of a market elsewhere being lost, by reason of the river craft not being able to bring it round; the bar may be impassable or the wind contrary; and it not unfrequently happens in the winter months, that these small vessels lie for days in Lyttelton, waiting for a chance to get into the river, with merchandise on board for the Christchurch dealers, which their customers are in want of, and they are unable to supply. The expense, too, of the water carriage is very heavy. It costs, one way and another, half as much to get goods from Lyttelton to Christchurch, as to get them from England to Lyttelton. Railways would alter all this, and would do for the colony what nothing else could do for it. It is impossible to estimate the advantages which would follow from an expeditious and certain connection between the shipping port and the interior; the increase in the value of property, the stimulus that would be given to agriculture and production of all kinds, and the saving of time and money to all classes of the community. The feeling of the colonists on the subject, and they are better able to judge than any body else, may be
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gathered from the fact that they are incurring the large outlay already stated, for the purpose of effecting this object.
LAND REGULATIONS.
With the exception of reserves for towns and for special public purposes, all the lands in the province are open for sale at £2 an acre. There is a limit as to the form of the sections, to prevent an undue monopoly of frontage, but none as to size from twenty acres upwards. The purchaser chooses his land wherever he pleases, describing it at the Survey Office with reference to some features or objects indicated on the map; and upon payment of the purchase money, immediate possession is given by means of what, is called a "License to Occupy;" a surveyor is sent to lay off the section as soon as possible afterwards, and the Crown Grant then issues. This instrument conveys in a few simple words the land in question to the purchaser, "his heirs and assigns, for ever," is issued by the Governor under the seal of the colony, and constitutes a title free from every possible doubt or difficulty.
Until applied for to be purchased, the waste lands may be rented from the Crown for pasturage purposes. The rent is almost nominal, the maximum amount for a 20,000 acre run being £62. 10s. per annum. All the land known to be available for these purposes, has been long since taken up in runs varying from 5,000 to 50,000 acres, and is stocked with sheep and cattle. The pasturage licenses are renewable from year to year until 1870, until which year the Waste Lands Ordinance provides, that the terms of the holding shall not be altered. The license gives no kind of title to the soil, and, with the exception of small blocks of land from 50 to 250 acres, upon which the run-holder may have erected buildings or other improvements, a purchaser may at any time buy wherever he pleases; over these the run-holder has a pre-emptive right for six weeks after the application to purchase has been made by any one else, and if he does not exercise this right within that period, the first applicant may take it.
The interests of the agriculturists and the run-holders are
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distinct, but they do not conflict. The latter holds the country pending its being required for the superior purposes of cultivation, and the terms upon which he holds it do not interfere with the acquisition of it by others for those purposes. In the meantime it is turned to valuable account. The wool export of Canterbury was about £20,000 in 1855, in 1860 it reached £180,000, and it is increasing at a larger rate every year. This is so much clear gain to the colony, and has contributed more than any other influence to its advancement; it represents so much money imported every year, and the community is so much the richer. It is hardly worth while to inquire, what would have been the present condition of the colony, without the wool export. This much is certain, that it would not have been as wealthy as it is, if agriculture alone had been depended on: and it is equally clear that it would have been neither so wealthy nor so populous, if sheep farming only had been engaged in. Each interest is benefited by the existence of the other, and so far from either the run-holder or the farmer regarding the other with suspicion or jealousy, it is the wisdom of both to concur in that course which, as far as the case admits of, will advance both these interests, rather than that either should attempt to secure special advantages to the prejudice of the other.
It might be objected that the run-holders have, in the high price demanded for the lands, an undue advantage as against the intending agriculturist; and further, that Canterbury compares unfavourably with other parts of New Zealand, in some of which land is given away to those who undertake to occupy it, and in others is sold at from 5s. to £1 per acre. These objections appear weighty at first sight, but they admit of answers.
The present price is undoubtedly prohibitory of landjobbing on a large scale, and so it was intended to be; and in this sense it is protective as regards the run-holder, but this is an advantage rather incidental to it, than intended by it. It is protective also in another sense, as regards all future purchasers. The rate was determined by the colonists themselves through their elected representatives, each interest being fairly represented; and the object was to make it high enough to hinder the purchases of large blocks for purposes of speculation, and at the same time to make it low
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enough, to admit of its acquisition by those who required it for bona fide occupation. The general opinion in the colony now among all classes is, that the price was properly and wisely settled. There is abundant evidence that it does not operate to prevent the labouring man from acquiring as much land as he can use profitably; and it does operate to prevent the capitalist from buying it up, and so keeping the labouring man out. It is believed that in no colony is there so large a number of freeholders in proportion to the population. It might be expected, that if a desire for a lower price existed at all, it would be among the labouring men; but even among them it is generally recognized that their interests, remote as well as present, are better served by a high price than by a low one, and that they have more to lose than to gain by a change in this direction. The working man would be able to get his 20, or 30, or 50 acres of land sooner, if it was to be had for 10s., than he is now that he pays £2 for it; and it would be an advantage in the first instance to the larger farmer, if he paid out of his limited capital, £100 instead of £400 for his 200 acres; but the advantage is more apparent than real; and if even it were possible to restrict the sales to intending occupiers, it is by no means clear that the general interests would be better served by a low price than by a high one.
But those who are acquainted with the subject in detail, know that if 10s. an acre instead of £2 had been the price originally fixed, half the agricultural land in the province would before this time have passed into the hands of speculators, and the community would now be suffering the greatest curse--it is a strong term, but not too strong--to which a young settlement can become subject, a large absentee proprietary. The intending farmer would in such a case have to deal with the land-jobber, who has no purpose to serve or interest to study but his own, instead of with the Government the trustee of the national estate, whose object must be taken to be the greatest good of the greatest number; he must pay an arbitrary price instead of a fixed one; or, if he bought from the Government, he must go farther inland, and take something which the speculator had not thought worth buying.
But there is another important point to be noticed in con-
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nection with, the question of the price of land, and it affects both the objections already alluded to. The Land Fund is spent by the Government, for the direct benefit of the purchaser. If the purchaser--not the first purchaser in the case already supposed, but he who buys for occupation--pays the higher price to the Government, it is spent for some public object, in which he as one of the community shares; but if he buys of the speculator, what he pays goes into the speculator's pocket. The first charge upon the Land Fund is the surveys; the remainder is spent in the making of roads and other public works, and in immigration. Both these classes of expenditure are indispensable, if the land is to become of any value to the owner; he cannot get to it without a road, and he cannot use it without labour. The Government has no other funds than those arising from the sales of land to apply to these purposes. If the lower price held, the Land Fund would pay for the surveys and very little more; and the land owner must manage, both with regard to his road to market and to his labour, as he best might. In the present case, that is done by or through association which individual action could not, if it did it at all, do nearly so well. The Government of Canterbury is now expending a larger sum on roads and public works, than is done perhaps in any other province in the colony; and it has kept up for some years past, and is still continuing, a stream of assisted immigration from England. The other provinces cannot do this. Auckland is endeavouring to increase its population by the offer of land for nothing to those who pay their passages there. It is difficult to get at the actual results of the experiment; one of the local newspapers frequently alludes to it as a triumphant success, while the other as frequently states that it is a failure. Wellington, which adopts the low price, borrowed money some years ago for immigration, and spent it, and nothing has since been done. Nelson has until recently been selling its land at a low price, and has now made it somewhat higher, but it has done no immigration for some years past. Otago has done more than either of the other provinces, but much less than Canterbury; its price was until lately 10s., with some special covenant for further outlay in improvements, which has somehow proved incapable of enforcement; and it has now made it £1 an acre, with, it is believed, no such conditions.
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The writer has no desire to exalt Canterbury at the expense of other provinces. There would be no purpose served by it. Canterbury can stand very well on its own merits, and has nothing to gain by disparaging its neighbours. His object is to state facts; and among others it may be noticed, that while Auckland and Wellington respectively doubled their population in round numbers between 1854 and 1860, Canterbury in the same time rather more than quadrupled it. He has no doubt that the high price of land adopted in Canterbury, has been productive of better results than could have followed the use of the lower price current in other provinces; and his allusions to them have been made for no other purpose than to illustrate the argument.
AGRICULTURE, &c.
It was believed by many practical men when the Canterbury Settlement was established, that agriculture could not be regarded as a permanent business in the colony; that the production of grain must be limited practically by local requirements. It was said that although Australia might be compelled to import grain for a few seasons, in consequence of the large and sudden increase of its population which followed the gold discoveries, yet in a very few years at most, the balance of local production and consumption, which held been thus temporarily disturbed, would be restored; and that Canterbury could not therefore reckon upon Australia as a standing market for its surplus produce. There is an appearance of soundness in this reasoning. Australia was self-supporting in respect of bread-stuffs before the establishment of the gold diggings, and could export them occasionally to New Zealand if an inducement offered. There is an unlimited extent of land in both Victoria and Adelaide, capable of growing grain. The agriculture of the country might, if it had been commercially profitable to do it, have been increased long before this time, to an extent fully equal to the local requirements. But it has not been done. Australia has latterly imported bread-stuffs more or less every year. Canterbury has found a market for grain at paying prices in Melbourne and Sydney, ever since it had any to send there; and the quantities which Canterbury has been able to supply
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have been very insignificant, compared with the importations from other countries. It is impossible to say how long this state of things may continue; but there is no greater probability of its early cessation, than there was five years ago; and considering that the non-producing element in the Australian population is largely increased every year, and considering also the risks to which agriculture in that country is liable, from the uncertainty of the seasons and other causes, it may reasonably be expected that for many years to come, some portion of its bread-stuffs will have to be supplied by other countries.
But supposing that Australia ceases to require foreign grain, and that Wellington in the Northern Island of New Zealand, no longer furnishes a market, as it has hitherto generally done at some part of the year, the Canterbury farmer may take to dairy farming. Dairy produce will command a market in Australia for all time; and it is believed by men in the country that dairy farming, when provision has been made for it by cultivation, fencing, and the creation of English grass paddocks, will be even a more profitable pursuit than agriculture. Cheese, butter, bacon, &c., are and will continue to be imported into Australia from England; the New Zealand grower may therefore reckon upon English prices for these articles, and something more, because the expenses of transport are rather less. Canterbury--or as it is there called Port Cooper--cheese has a good name in the Australian market, and is saleable at prices which enable the merchant to pay the grower, from 7d. to 9d. per pound for average qualities.
Sheep feeding might also be done, if the farmer preferred it to cattle, and perhaps with equally good results. There has not been time yet to try the experiment, but there is no doubt entertained of its success among men of experience in the colony. The larger farmers generally look to sheep or dairy farming, or it may be both together, as an ultimate pursuit. Five hundred acres of land near to a market, sub-divided into paddocks, and laid down in English grass, would yield a better annual return than any 10,000 acre run in the back country. But the preparation for it is a work of time. The farm must be enclosed, and subdivided by live fences; and if good pasture is to be made, ploughed two or three times
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before the grass is sown. This would be done more economically at the rate of 50 or 100 acres a-year, than it could be if done at a more rapid rate. A smaller capital would suffice, because the establishment need not be so large; and those parts of the farm first treated would have begun to yield the return due to their improved condition, and so assist in supplying funds for later operations. One grain crop might be taken, if the land had been selected within a practicable distance from market, the grass seed being sown with it; and it would be better, having regard to the pasture, not to diminish the strength of the soil, by taking more than one grain crop. Some are of opinion that it would be still better not to do even that. The cost of laying the land in pasture, including fencing, &c., would vary with reference to its situation, the degree of clearing and preparation required for ploughing, and other conditions; so that it is not possible to say what it would be, and no two farmers in the country would think exactly alike on the subject. It is not, however, too much to expect, if a commonly good selection of land has been made, with reference to distance from market, facilities for use, &c., that the value of the grain crop will cover the cost of these preparations, and of the grass seed; assuming that the farmer has, as it is obvious he ought to have, his own stock and plant, and has to hire only men's labour. This is a style of farming to be attempted only by those who look to ultimate rather than to immediate results, and who have sufficient capital to purchase not only the land and outfit of working stock and plant, but for personal and working expenses for say a couple of years until a return has accrued, say £3,000 for 500 acres, or £5,000 for 1,000 acres, if the lesser quantity should be thought insufficient. The return would be small at first, but it would increase every succeeding year. It is impossible to say what such a property would be ultimately worth in a young and rapidly growing country, but there is no doubt that it would realise a very handsome profit on the investment.
The preceding observations suppose a command of capital, which but few men, who are engaged in farming in Canterbury, possess. Most of the farms are of much smaller extent, and the farmers men who came into the country with money enough to set themselves going with 50 or 100 acres of land,
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or as labourers with no money, and who have worked up from that position into freeholders; the majority numerically are of the latter class. These have, as the phrase is, bettered their condition in a greater degree than any others; those have used what they brought with them to advantage, have turned scores of pounds into hundreds; these have created something out of nothing, have exchanged a position of servitude and dependence in the old country for that of independence and competency in the new one. Farm-workmen who came into the country ten years ago, and worked for wages, are now land-owners, in business for themselves, and employing, instead of being employed. These cases are not exceptional, the exception is the other way. The degrees of advancement differ, as they must do, according to the character and qualities of men. Some exhibit greater energy and shrewdness than others, and therefore rise more rapidly, but it would be difficult to find a case in which an individual, who had been commonly industrious and prudent, had not immensely improved his condition. Every industrious, steady man finds himself at the end of the year something better than he was at the beginning of it; whether it be the workman who has just come to the country, or the small farmer with his 30 to 50 acres of land and a pair of working bullocks, and who employs his leisure time in odd jobs of carting for his neighbours, or the larger one with twice that area in crop, and his correspondingly larger establishment with work enough of his own to employ it. Every year men who have hitherto hired their services to others, become owners of land or tenants, as the case may be, and work on their own account. Capitalists, greater or smaller, may and do improve their circumstances every year, but labouring men and those who are rising above that position, do so relatively in a far greater degree. There is practically no limit to this sort of thing. There is room for any number who are likely to find their way into the country within the next fifty years, and every new man may, if he pleases, do what others have done before him.
The lands in dry situations are covered generally with grass only, and no preparation worth speaking of is required For ploughing. The flats and low lying lands have patches of flax, more or less: the plant is peculiar to New Zealand, and not at all like the English plant of the same name. This
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so-called flax has to be chopped up with a spade or an adze, before the ploughing can be done, and the cost of clearing varies from 5s. to 15s. an acre. The necessary clearing being done, the ground breaks up as easily as an English clover ley; some farmers use bullocks, others a pair of horses; the use of the latter is becoming more general every year. A common mode of treating new land is to plough it in the spring or early summer, then in the autumn run a harrow over it once or twice, and cross-plough it and harrow wheat in, or let it lie up rough through the winter for spring corn. There is among the indigenous growth nothing which is not killed by being buried, so that this process generally suffices for getting rid of the old growth. The soil is every where friable, and if the first ploughing has been shallow, and the second a full furrow, the harrows break it down readily, and give ample tilth for the seed. Forty bushels of wheat per acre may be reckoned upon in an ordinary season from land treated in this way, if sufficient gripping is done to keep it free from surface-water through the winter. Some farmers plough a third time for the first crop, and get a heavier yield, but they get also a heavier growth of straw, and by so much exhausts the soil. It might not be an objection if the straw were converted into manure and returned to the land, but this does not happen. The stack is generally made in the field, the thrashing machine taken to it, and the straw burnt when the thrashing is done. Fifty and sixty bushels of wheat to the acre have been frequently grown, even seventy bushels has been reported, but this is of course exceptional. Oats are as productive as wheat, but the yield of barley is smaller. A laid crop is seldom seen, the straw for some reason grows stiffer and with less flag to it than in England. A considerable breadth of wheat and oats are sown every year on new land once ploughed, by men who are beginners, and who are anxious to get a return of some sort at the earliest moment, and with the least outlay; the yield in such cases is of necessity much smaller than as though two or more ploughings had been done. Still from twenty to thirty bushels per acre is often obtained even by this mode.
It would be scarcely practicable to observe an established rotation of crops. Men grow that for which there is the readiest sale. The article for which there is the most certain
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demand in the foreign market, is wheat. It is always saleable at some price. Oats are saleable for export, sometimes at prices which pay very well for growing them, say 4s. or 5s. a bushel; less than that is considered low; barley is also in limited demand; but neither oats nor barley can at all times command a foreign market. Potatoes have occasionally brought high prices in Australia, but the demand is uncertain and the article perishable. Wheat is, therefore, the safest crop to grow, and there is always a greater breadth of it than of any other kind of grain.
It might be doubted, whether farming could pay with labour at something like three times the English rates, and produce about English prices. The answer would seem to be, that men are every year found abandoning hired employment at those rates for the sake of going into it. They can make more by working at it for themselves, than by working for others at from 6s. to 8s. per day. Such men are in a somewhat different position from others who invest money in it as a business, but of the latter there are very few who are not well satisfied with the results of their enterprise. The difficulty with the farmers has hitherto been, not so much the high price of labour, as the impossibility of obtaining it at any price to more than a limited extent. The scale of operations has been determined by the available labour for harvesting, and if any one man had ventured upon 150 or 200 acres of grain, there would have been the chance of his losing, more or less of it for want of men to gather it. This is being remedied progressively every year by the introduction of machinery; but the demand for labour is generally in excess of the supply, notwithstanding the immigration which has been regularly carried on from England for several years past, and which is still being continued. It must be borne in mind that the rent of land is nominal, 5s. an acre perhaps, and there are no rates, tithes, or taxes; no farm-yard manure to be carted, and no artificial manure to be purchased. But it may be said that this system of farming cannot be long continued; that the soil will become exhausted; this is quite true. Four or five years' cropping without rest is as much as the best of it will bear. But another mode of restoration must be resorted to, at least as long as the present fates of wages continue. Every farmer, whatever may be the
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scale of his operations, must have land enough to admit of its being laid down in succession, and fed for a few years. It will pay the farmer as well on the whole to grow milk as to grow grain, and he will do well not to take too much out of the land before laying it down.
Apart from the improved value to landed property which is given to it by cultivation, and the outlay which the owner may make in permanent improvements, there is also another element, rather incidental than direct, and which accrues irrespective of any effort on the part of the owner; that is the position value arising from the increase and spread of population. The rule holds in England as every body knows, but there are essential differences in this respect between an old country and a new one. In the one case the application of the rule is partial and exceptional, in the other general. The old country may grow in numbers and wealth, but the signs of it are apparent only from comparisons made at considerable intervals of time. The new country lives a life in a year. Progression, development, expansion, are its prominent characteristics. The Settlement, or as it is now the Province of Canterbury, will bear comparison in these respects with any other New Zealand community, and probably with any other colony, regard being had to its extent, and the scale upon which it was established. And this growth is legitimate, the bulk of the population are producers, not traders, and the capacity for production indefinite. It would seem, therefore, that retrogression, or even standing still, are conditions which no conceivable causes could bring about.
SHEEP FARMING.
The business of sheep farming was introduced into the Middle Island about fourteen years ago: like every other branch of enterprise in the colony it has grown up from small beginnings. Ten years ago there were not 10,000 sheep in the whole Canterbury Province. A "run" might be taken by anybody who could show that he had the means of stocking it. Now the number of sheep in the province is not much short of 800,000, and the runs have all been taken up long ago. Country back among the hills, which seven years ago would not have been looked at, now bears a saleable value.
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Every part of the province to the eastward of the main snowy range, which men could anyhow travel over, has been explored, and everything worth calling "run," and more than a little not worth calling "run," has been seized upon with an avidity, only accounted for by a persuasion that sheep farming was a most profitable business. The western side of the range has never been explored, but it is known to be generally heavily timbered, and there is sufficient reason for believing that no pastoral country worth mentioning exists on the West coast. The same kind of thing has occurred also in Nelson and Otago. It might be assumed then, by any person who proposes to go into sheep farming, either in Canterbury or the other provinces, that he will be obliged, in order to get a run, to buy out some existing licensee. The selling value of the licensee's interest or goodwill varies with the situation of the run, its carrying capacity, and other considerations. For the last two or three years it has ruled from £50 to £100 per thousand acres for the goodwill alone, and irrespective of the value of any buildings or improvements upon it. Last year, a 40,000 acre run, certainly one of the best in the province, with a mixed flock of between 4,000 and 5,000 sheep, sold for nearly £11,000, including plant and other matters worth under £1,000. In other words, between £4,000 and £5,000 for the goodwill of the run; and any other equally good run would, it may be supposed, find a purchaser upon equally good terms. Seven years ago, when the run might have been had for applying for it at the Land Office, an establishment of the same dimensions, might have been founded for little more than half the sum at which it is now saleable, and the rule holds generally throughout the country; and this, notwithstanding that the leases under which the runs are held, expire in 1870, and however favourably the interests of the run-holders are regarded, and they deserve to be favourably regarded, the least that can be expected is a considerable advance of the rents under which they are now held from the Crown. It follows that the existing run-holders have made very handsome profits indeed, if those who go into the business now and sink something like twice the capital in it, are to make more than ordinary interest on their outlay. There is no doubt that the sheep farmers have generally made handsome profits, and the best
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possible evidence of it is, that they admit it. What the per centage has been, is a question upon which the experience of scarcely any two men would agree. Mr. Weld, who is one of the largest sheep owners in the colony, and who has written the most reliable book on New Zealand sheep farming that has ever been published, says, on this point, "I believe the profits of most sheep and cattle farmers, over the last ten years, calculated at the end of the period, have been more nearly 20 than 10 per cent, on their original outlay." Mr. Weld is, doubtless, within the mark, especially taking into account the value which has accrued to runs. It is obvious that this latter element of profit is accidental, and will not occur in nearly the same ratio in the case of a capitalist who might now go into the business. Taking Mr. Weld's estimate of results, and having regard to the increased capital required now for a given scale of operations, as compared with what was required when the run might be had without paying a premium for it, it would seem that prospective profits might be more nearly 10 than 20 per cent. Mr. Hunter Brown, a sheep farmer in Canterbury, writing in 1855, puts down £3,000 as the capital required for establishing a station with from 1,200 to 1,500 ewes, and states that the business cannot be done economically with a smaller number than that. Mr. Weld is of the same opinion as to the number of sheep required, and his estimate of the capital required is rather lower than that of Mr. Hunter Brown. Both the estimates appear to suppose that nothing is paid for the "goodwill" of the run. It seems, therefore, that from £4,500 to £5,000 would be required to do now what £3,000 would have done then; and that a person beginning with a less capital must either do it on a scale so small that the working expenses would bear an inordinate ratio to the gross income, or that he must begin in debt to a mortgagee, or get into debt with his merchant, or perhaps both. These calculations assume the run to be not less than 20,000 acres, and with less than that it would be scarcely worth while to go into the business.
There is another point for consideration, and it is an important one, especially with reference to the runs in the best parts of the country. This inferior kind of occupation--for such it must be considered--of land available for agriculture,
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is a matter of time. The country is limited, and is being rapidly peopled. As population spreads, such land will be purchased, sooner or later. The run-holder, if he is to hold his own as against this sort of invasion, must lay himself out for making parts of his run freehold, enclosing them, and laying them in artificial grass. One acre in that form would be equal in carrying capacity to from five to ten acres as used now. Let him buy according to a pre-determined plan, not detached bits here and there, in the hope of securing permanently a large area, (somebody will be sure to buy the interspaces) but with reference to the ultimate acquisition of so much of his run in a compact form, as it appears prudent, all things considered, to attempt to acquire, and make up his mind to let the rest go. There are very few of the runs, perhaps none, even in the best parts of the country, all of which is worth buying for cultivation; and the run-holder may count upon holding the inferior portions for an indefinite period, as against purchasers. In the back country among the hills, the proportion of land worth buying is generally less than on the plains. The risk of disturbance is therefore less; still the same principle should guide the run-holder as to the acquisition of the freehold. These observations apply especially to Canterbury, and are based on the assumption that the present price of waste land will be maintained. While this is the case, land will be bought only for cultivation; it would not pay to buy it at £2 an acre to depasture sheep upon, according to the present plan of farming. them: it would pay to buy it for such a purpose at a much lower price. In the Northern Island, where pastoral lands are sold by the Crown at 5s. an acre, no holder of a run worth having is safe, unless he can command at any time money enough to buy his run, as against a capitalist who may "put it up" for sale. These considerations help to explain why it would not be wise to begin sheep farming with a small capital; and the writer has dwelt upon them, not in disparagement of sheep farming, far from it--it is as profitable a mode of investing an adequate capital as the country supplies--but because he is led to believe, from the many inquiries which have reached him, that in England the subject is frequently misunderstood. It is not uncommonly believed that people may, "in a colony," with next to nothing, "go into sheep," and make a fortune in
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no time. Even with, such a capital as £4,000 or £5,000, it would be better for the intending sheep farmer to go into partnership with somebody who has another such a sum, than to go into it alone. The ratio of expenses is always greater in a small establishment than in a larger one, and they would be able to do together what neither of them could do singly.
Another mode of dealing with a small capital, say £1,000 or under, which is acted upon to some extent, is to buy breeding sheep, and let them at a rent to some run-holder who has not as many sheep of his own as his run can carry. Formerly a common arrangement was, the retaining by the run-holder, as his rumuneration for taking care of the flock, of half the wool and a third of the increase of the flock in equal moieties of males and females. Now, the more common practice is, for the run-holder to pay the owner of the flock 2s. or 2s. 6d. a-head in respect of the wool, and to guarantee 40 or 45 per cent, of increase. Taking the first cost of breeding stock at £1. 5s. to £1. 10s. a-head, some approximation may be arrived at of the profits of the investment, but it will be only an approximation, because the selling value of sheep varies, and is governed by circumstances which cannot be foreseen. When the runs are fully stocked, and the annual production of sheep exceeds largely the annual local consumption of mutton, the market price of mutton must come down. Indeed, the ultimate value when the boiling-down point has been reached, will be, as in Australia ten or fifteen years ago, the worth of the wool and tallow. When this point will be reached, it is utterly impossible even to guess. Ten years ago it was supposed that before this time, a depreciation would have taken place; but the gold discoveries in Australia, which virtually stopped for a time the importation of sheep into Canterbury, changed entirely the aspect of the question. Instead of the Canterbury Province being now fully stocked, as there was then reason for believing that it would be at this time, there is not in the country more than one-third perhaps of the stock which might be fed upon it. The prices of wool have been of late years so good, as to make it profitable to the run-holders to keep their male stock, rather than to sell them for mutton; and this, taken in connection with an annually increasing population, has tended to maintain the market price of
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wethers. The depreciation alluded to might, for anything which can be shown to the contrary, be as far off now as it seemed to be years ago. Canterbury may have a gold-digging people of its own, or the exportation of fat stock to Australia might be established. This latter may appear at first sight an extravagant notion, but it is regarded as a more than possible contingency by men who understand the subject much better than the writer pretends to do. But in calculating the prospective results of such a form of investment as that last referred to, over a considerable number of years, regard should be had, in order to be on the safe side, to the possibility of a reduction in the value of sheep, as well as to the probability that, as runs become more fully stocked, there will be a less disposition on the part of the run-holders to rent sheep on the present terms, and finally when they shall have bred up to the carrying capacity of the country, it will not be possible to let them at all. The owner would in that case have a flock of sheep, and no country to feed them upon. New Zealand, every part of which may be said to be known, is totally different from Australia, whose pastoral resources are virtually unlimited; and value will in the case of New Zealand, attach ultimately to country rather than sheep. It might be supposed that this is looking a very long way a-head: perhaps it is; but every contingency which has been alluded to is impending, and may be realized within the next twenty years.
Further, with regard to the manner of using a small capital. Mr. Weld says--and the writer of this pamphlet agrees with every word of it, premising that the cost of the establishment which Mr. Weld assumes as a minimum, and which he puts, down at from £2,000 to £3,000, would not now be less in Canterbury and probably in Otago, than from £4,000 to £5,000 --"But, though the large capitalist will at length necessarily become (and if he understands his true interests, soon becomes in several parts of the country) a cultivator, I wish now, even more especially, to point out to the small capitalist, especially of the yeoman class, that under the altered state of the colony it may probably be best for him, particularly if he have a family, and his capital is under £2,000 or £3,000, to buy a few hundred acres of really good open land not far from some settlement, with a view of laying it down in grass.
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Let him not think so much of the first cost price of the land, as to see that it is good land for the cultivation of grasses, that it has good land or water carriage, and is in other respects suitable to his purposes; let him year by year lay this down in grass, his proximity to town will generally give him an advantage with his fat stock, and even with his butter and cheese over the large run-holder. He will enjoy many advantages in a social point of view, which he must forego if living in 'the bush;' and of course, if he pays more for land, so on the other hand will his land, if judiciously selected (being in a comparatively settled district), rise in value much more rapidly than if he had acquired a property larger, but more distant from a nucleus of civilization. I will add for his encouragement that there is much land in New Zealand, that when cultivated, grassed, and fenced, will keep eight sheep to the acre all the year round, and also that it is proportionately good for cattle."
A detailed description of the economy of a sheep station-- how far it might be judicious to breed in enclosed English grass paddocks the fine woolled merino sheep which are now universally grown on the runs, or whether a larger kind of longer-woolled sheep would be preferable; and generally what changes it might be prudent to contemplate in connection with a change of the system of sheep farming--are matters not within the scope or incidental to the objects of the present pamphlet; and further, the writer, though he has lived among sheep farming for the last ten years, has never been a sheep farmer, and he does not pretend to know what he does not know. There have been various essays of one sort and another written on the subject, some of which are worth commending to the attention of the capitalist who is going into the business for the first time; but his best course by far would be to spend a year or two on a station, and if he has "pluck" enough to do it, take part in every thing that has to be done, shepherding and shearing included, never mind dirtying his hands or wetting his feet. If he knows how to do every thing, he knows when it is properly done.
A practical acquaintance with details would save him from mistakes and losses which, without it, he would be sure to fall into however largely he might have read, or however intensely he might have studied the subject.
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Men will be influenced, and properly so, by tastes and inclination, in determining between the different forms of investment which have been already alluded to, as well as by prospective profits. Although it may be true that agriculture, if carried on upon the plan referred to in one of the paragraphs of the preceding section, will be ultimately more profitable than sheep farming in the present form where the capital is but moderate, yet there are other reasons why the latter would be preferred sometimes. The former business is one of constant labour and attention to details. Every month and every day brings its work; there is no such thing as leisure. In the other case there is a great deal of it. There is less difficulty, too, on the score of labour supply. It is of vital importance to the farmer that he should get his grain cut as soon as it is ripe. It is not, in the same sense, as important to the sheep farmer that he should get his sheep shorn at a particular time. The question of whether he gets it done now or a month hence, may be one of convenience but not necessarily of absolute loss. This labour difficulty is diminishing every year, but it still exists in a degree which might well deter an inexperienced person from embarking largely in cultivation; again there is not the same degree of aptitude or training required for the other business as for this. The sheep farmer need not go far wrong if he is commonly prudent; the agriculturist frequently discovers that something done six months ago, was not so well done as it might have been. But having regard to ultimate results, and supposing ordinarily good management, it might be pretty safely predicted that the farmer with his improved freehold, would be able to show a better balance sheet in ten years' time, than he could have done, if he had put his limited capital into sheep. The experience of the past fully warrants such an expectation.
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.
Every colonist has in some sense a personal interest in encouraging emigration, his property, whatever it may be, increases in value with the growth of the country. And every such person writing about his own particular colony or settlement, is liable to be suspected, more or less, of a prejudice for it. That he should prefer his own is reasonable, he
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has chosen it because he preferred it; but it does not follow that he should exaggerate its advantages, or seek to exalt it by the disparagement of others. Still less does it follow that he should advise every body to go to it. It is not every body who is fit for a new country. The general interest is not served by the presence of numbers merely, but by the success of those numbers. Men who are likely to "do some good for themselves," cannot fail to be useful to the community, and only such men are wanted. The colonists are by no means ready to endorse an opinion, which is sometimes acted upon--less perhaps now than formerly--that anybody will do for a colony. They do not want well-connected young men, distinguished for tastes and qualities which lead their families to desire their absence; or those of other classes who are helped to go away, because they have always been a burden to their friends, and whose idleness or improvidence threatens to lead them into pauperism whenever that assistance shall be withdrawn. Neither do they appreciate highly those universal geniuses, who not having any particular calling, are prepared to "do anything" for no better reason than that they can do nothing well.
If it is asked, what sort of people ought to emigrate? it might be said generally, that anybody who has to make his way in the world by his own exertions may do it better in a new country than in an old one, if he has health and strength, as well as self-reliance enough to determine upon a pursuit, and energy enough to stick to it, and supposing also that his tastes and abilities fit him for the pursuits which are open to him. It is not certain that such a man will select the most profitable speculation, or adopt the most prudent course having regard to pecuniary results; however energetic he might be, his judgment might be at fault, but he will not be likely to attempt anything the feasibility of which he is not satisfied of, anything which does not appear to be attainable in the nature of things; and within those limits he may do almost anything that he determines to do. It may be that he has arrived in the colony with some settled plan of procedure in his mind, and finds that the conditions upon which his plan was based are not present. There is nothing for him that he has been accustomed to. He must have courage enough to face the position, and take what he can get, if he
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cannot get what he would like. These qualities are, more or less, essential to success, whether the individual proposes to live by his hands or by his head, by his labour or by the use of his money.
The first settlers in Canterbury had to bear far more of the nature of hardships than people meet with who go there now. Then there were but two houses on the plains, the people had to build them, and were obliged to live, until they had built them, in tents, V huts, or some other extemporized shelter. Now there are hotels and boarding houses for single men, and houses to be hired for families. Then men going "up the country," might if they pleased take a tent with them, but they oftener went without it, and contented themselves with a couple of blankets on the lee side of a flax--bush. Now there are accommodation houses, and stations all over the country; and sleeping out of doors, unless when exploration is being done, is seldom necessary. But new comers often grumble nevertheless, and not uncommonly those among the working men, whose former circumstances were the poorest, exclaim the loudest against the fate that has led them to such a wretched country, and what would they not do or give to get out of it. The older hands regard this sort of affliction as among the inevitables, and have about as much sympathy for it as they would have for sea-sickness. The others get over it presently, as a matter of course, and when they have shaken down into their places, would be as unwilling to leave the country as they were once anxious to do it. It is very doubtful whether a score of working men could be found who are worth calling working men, and who, having been twelve months there, would be willing to go back to what they left in England, if passages were given them.
It has been already said that agricultural and pastoral pursuits constitute the staple business of the community, and that there is no assignable limit to the profitable use of money in the business of production. It would be scarcely worth while for a man with money to go to the country, if he did not intend to enter, sooner or later, upon some branch of this business. He may, it is true, lend his money on mortgage at 10 to 15 per cent., or he may buy land speculatively. In the one case, the return is immediate in the shape
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of interest, and it maybe immediate in the other case also, in the form of rent; but the profitable pursuit of either money-lending or speculative land-buying is limited by the number of eligible borrowers, and eligible tenants; and such a business could be transacted almost as well by an agent as by the principal. The young man with his few hundreds, who wisely determines to spend a few years in training, or the man who has a family to establish, and as wisely determines to go leisurely about it, and whose capital is more than he requires for present purposes, may use money temporarily in some such manner as this, care being taken that it shall be realisable when it is wanted; but either of these cases supposes an intention of entering ultimately upon the business of production.
Referring to the working classes as the phrase is popularly understood, the men for whose services there is virtually an unlimited demand, are those whose vocation is immediately connected with some branch of the business already referred to; the farmer's man in the English understanding of the term, not amateurs who fancy they know all about it because they have seen haymaking, or who, having done something else all their lives, intend now to "take to farming." People of this description are worse than useless: employers will not be at the trouble of teaching them; they can get nothing to do, consequently grumble, and consequently are a nuisance. This is the machinery by which the resources of the country are developed, and by which the community makes money. It spends it in merchandise, house building, lawsuits, and a thousand other things. Hence professional men, merchants, shopkeepers, mechanics, artisans, non--producers of all descriptions, are required only as this development goes on.
It is by no means intended to imply that gentlemen who have never worked at all, or educated men accustomed only to some light duties, are necessarily unfitted to make their way in a colony. On the contrary, gentlemen are infinitely the best where they take to it kindly. They have more pluck and spirit generally than those below them in antecedents. Canterbury experience furnishes many a bright example confirmatory of this conclusion. Education before ignorance, here as elsewhere. The only danger is, that they will break down in training, and assuming this question to be satisfac-
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torily settled, they may venture upon colonial life, if they have a taste for it, with perfect confidence.
Working capital has always been in Canterbury, excepting perhaps within the first year or so of its existence, in excess of the labour supply. That the agriculture of the colony is not three times as extensive as it is, is due, not to the inability or indisposition of men to go into it, but to the want of workmen. A stream of immigration from England has been maintained for years past, and there is as little probability as ever of the supply overtaking the demand; the tendency of this continued supply appears to be rather to stimulate the demand than to diminish it. Farm workmen got 7s. or 8s, a-day five years ago, and they get it now, and are likely to get it. Women servants from £20 to £35 a-year, and sought after rather than having to search for engagements.
It is only by supposing that people of this class who have never lived out of England, entirely misunderstand these matters, that an explanation can be suggested of the indifference to emigration proposals, which prevails amongst them. Those who are familiar with a New Zealand Colony, and who have seen what such men do and become there, are inclined to say, "What fools those people are, who stay in England and labour all their lives for bare subsistence." It might be said, that labour of this kind is better paid in England than it was a few years ago; which means that it is worth 12s. or 15s. a-week, instead of 8s. or 10s. But even so, it can be but subsistence merely. A man with such earnings, if he has a family, and the chances are five to one that he has, exists; and that on food of the plainest. He has in prospect, what he has in possession, as long as he is able to labour, and after that--the parish, or what is the next thing to it, the kindness of friends. By that time his sons will have entered upon the same walk of life with the same prospects, and his daughters will have married 15s. a-week. What a pity it is that such a man cannot perceive that the same measure of persevering industry which furnishes him here with bare life, and entitles him ultimately to "the parish," would there give him present competency and prospective independence. The man's master may be a fifty-acre tenant farmer, in which case his position, though superior in name and appearance, is not much better in reality. A tenant at
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will, working as hard as his servant works, and may have notice to quit this day six months. In the meantime rates, taxes, tithes, and other kindred inventions are pressed upon his attention about once a fortnight, and, independently of occasional bad crops or low prices, he is cleared out of cash or thereabouts in April and October of each year; the variety of coin in which the rent is paid, supplying evidence of the scraping and contriving that there has been to get it together; he is now just where he was this time last year, the only difference being that he is one year older. The writer admits that he has drawn upon imagination for these details. He has no experience of such a situation, and he does not intend to acquire it.
The general experience of those who are engaged in conducting emigration from England is, that those classes who have the most to gain by it, are the last to avail themselves of it. Advertisements, lectures, pamphlets, and every other device for attracting attention to the subject have been tried, and generally with but partially satisfactory results. The observation applies especially to England. Both the Irish and Scotch appear to have a far clearer perception of the resulting advantages than Englishmen exhibit. It is hardly possible in these days of newspapers and extended reading, that the subject can be generally unknown or unheard of; and if men do read what is written about it, it must be supposed that they do not believe what they read. The writer has occasionally the funniest questions addressed to him by inquirers. Whether they are bound to work for the Government, or for some individual for a particular time? Whether they may go to any part of the colony, or whether some restraint is to be put upon their personal liberty? Whether the inhabitants are savages, and there is any danger of being eaten? And many other questions, which would be amusing if they did not exhibit a deplorable want of enlightenment on the subject. Here is another train of thought: Why should these people press their favours upon us so affectionately, if they had not some selfish end to serve? There is some trickery about it, depend upon it. "They will get us away if they can into them foreign parts, and then there's no knowing what they'll do. Them agent fellows get so much a-head for all they can catch." And
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Solon, satisfied that he has exhausted the subject, shakes his wise head, and flatters himself that he is too old a bird, &c. If it were pretended that any kindness was meant, that the colonial community was influenced by considerations of benevolence, there would be good ground for suspicion; but nothing of the kind is professed. The colony in expending money in importing working men, is influenced by considerations precisely similar to those which would lead an individual to import a reaping machine. He wants it, and it is worth his while to pay for it. The colony has an extensive estate, and money to work it, and it wants men; and considering that it cannot get as many men as it wants in any other way, it offers them assistance to get to the country, and when they get there, they become incorporated into the body politic, and have a share in the national estate; and presently they join in doing that for others which is now being done for them. It is purely a matter of business, and those to whom the assistance is afforded are not regarded as laid under the smallest obligation.
The last census of England disclosed an excess of females over males. In the colonies the relations are reversed. Canterbury is not an exception in this respect. The relative numbers at the present time cannot be stated precisely, but it is known that there is a considerable excess of males over females. One of the leading grievances of the ladies is, that they cannot get servants. Send us single women, is repeated every mail. When an emigrant ship arrives, they are the first to be sought after, and it seldom happens that a single woman, if she is at all presentable, is disengaged three days after her arrival; and it as seldom happens, that she is not married within a year, not to 15s. a-week but to 7s. or 8s. a-day, and a farm in prospect. Difficult as it is to find in England suitable men, it is still more difficult to find suitable women, and there are several causes which would seem to contribute to this result. First:-- Single women are afraid to leave England, unless they go with friends; and however groundless in reality the apprehension of difficulty from being alone may be, it is intelligible and excusable. It is not easy to persuade such that there is not something alarming in a three months' voyage, and something very dreadful at the end of it; and it is only now and then that women are found who
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are plucky enough to venture upon it. Those who have done it know, that if common prudence is exercised, women are in every way as safe as they are at home, both on the voyage end after they get to the colony. Again, the young women especially desired are country girls. Servants in farm houses and middle-class families, skilful in butter, plain cooking, and general house work; and these probably find engagements in England more readily than any other class, though very poorly paid as compared with a colony. Referring to Canterbury, there are not many establishments in which more than two or three women servants are kept, so that the sub-division of labour common to large English establishments is not practicable; moreover, there is something in the nature of such service which unfits those who have been engaged in it for any other kind. Town-bred girls, too, are on the whole unsuitable; they do not take kindly to the country, they cannot look out into the street, or chat with a friend next door, or admire the milliners' shops, and they are dull therefore and dissatisfied. This is not of course universally the case, but it happens very often. The description of young women with which England seems to be especially overdone are governesses, dressmakers, and others who go for light employment, and these are less wanted in the colonies than any others. Referring again to Canterbury, it may be said that these classes among women are represented in respect of their chances of employment, by clerks, shopmen, and the like among men; and while farming and general labourers among men, and general servants, dairymaids, &c., among women, may depend upon finding immediate engagements at any time, and in any numbers in which it is likely that they will ever arrive, half a dozen shopmen, clerks, gardeners, and in-door servants, or the same number of governesses and dressmakers coming at one time, could not be certain of doing so.
Judging from what is sometimes heard from new-comers, it would seem that very strange notions are, more or less, current in respect to life in the colony. The conditions under which people live, the relations that subsist between them, and their behaviour towards one another, must of necessity differ so widely from the practice of the mother country, as to constitute an entirely new state of existence. With some
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working men, and with some women too, it means high, wages, short days, equality with their employers, and general independence; and with others, from whom better things might be expected, it is a primitive rude sort of life, to the level of which they will have to let themselves down. This and that, and the rest of it, is "colonial" they suppose, a phrase by the way used only by new-comers, and rather resented than otherwise by the older residents. There are really no essential differences between life at home and life there within the same limits. Rank and intelligence are recognised, not servilely but respectfully, and the prescriptive usages, the unwritten proprieties which regulate society so called, are observed as fully there as here. Gentlemen of refined minds and correct tastes are not less refined and correct there. Ladies are quite as ornamental; and to their honour be it said, a little more useful on the average, (let nobody cynically suggest that baking and scrubbing, cooking and the rest of it, are among the accomplishments which their husbands most highly appreciate,) they consort together in their several sets, study the Paris fashions and the last novel, make calls and give parties, after the manner of the best society. In many families, although the scale of the establishment is smaller, the table is as well appointed, and the drawing room as tastily furnished as that of an English gentleman with a similar income. But there are differences not easily defined by words, though appreciable nevertheless. The better classes are all that they are at home, within the same limits of station, wealth, &c., and something more. Life is less artificial, there is less consideration about appearances, in fact none at all; and it would be useless, everybody knows everybody, and men and women, too, are estimated rather by what they are than by what they do. In that sense there is a freedom, or whatever it may be called, which is pleasant in a variety of ways, and at the same time nothing by which the strictest sense of propriety is offended.
There are about 18,000 people in the province: about 1,000 of these are in Lyttelton, twice the number in Christchurch, 800 more perhaps in Kaiapoi and Timaru, 1,000 or 1,500 are spread about over an area of 150 miles by thirty or forty on the sheep stations, and the remainder live within the settled districts, of which, as has been already explained,
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the towns are the centres, and these are generally farmers. Many of the sheep station proprietors and larger farmers are men of good birth and education, gentlemen in every sense of the term, who had more or less capital to begin with; the others have risen from the ranks by well directed industry. Both Lyttelton and Christchurch have their local newspapers, the former the "Lyttelton Times," published twice a week, and which has always held a foremost place among the colonial press; and the latter the "Canterbury Standard," and the "Press," a paper commenced about six months ago. Both these towns have also their mechanics' institute, and circulating library and reading room. Christchurch has its concerts, and very creditable expositions they are, the instrumental element especially. Cricket matches, which by the way is a favourite amusement, and balls occasionally, at the best of which from 60 to 100 ladies are usually present, who would be in every respect up to the mark in a county assembly in England.
The farming districts are something like an English province in a flat country would be, if the houses were of wood, if there were no trees, and but few hedges; the landed gentry and paupers, the insignia of rank and the insignia of poverty, being struck out. But here again there is a difference scarcely realisable by those who do not know the country. The one is old, and looks old, not worn out, but at its best as though it had been what it now is for the last any number of years; the other looks new, young, and progressive, and is an interesting study.
ASSISTED EMIGRATION.
The Canterbury Government has during the last seven years appropriated annually a portion of its revenues to assisting emigration from the United Kingdom, and within that period about 7,200 souls have been by these means added to the population. The conduct of it has been always entrusted to an agent specially appointed, and who is personally acquainted with the colony.
The assisted passages are granted to men of good character, who are going to the colony with the intention of working for wages. The selection is regulated as to calling, by the con-
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siderations alluded to in the preceding section. Agricultural or general workmen, shepherds, and women servants constitute the largest proportion. Artisans of different descriptions are taken sparingly from time to time, as they are wanted in the colony. The plan adopted is, to receive from the emigrant whatever he can afford to pay towards the cost of his passage, and to advance the rest; part of it, viz.:-- a sum equal to the amount which he pays, as an absolute gift, and the remainder on loan, repayable in the colony upon easy terms, e. g.: The passage costs £17. If the emigrant pays £5, an equal sum is given by the Government, making £10, and his promissory note is taken for the balance. It follows then that the most economical way of getting out, is to pay half the passage money, £8. 10s.; the other half is then given, and the emigrant is franked.
With the exception of single men, who are expected to pay at least £5, the sum demanded from the emigrant is in the discretion of the agent, and he is guided as fully as he can be by the degree of eligibility of the applicant. An individual offering a smaller sum is sometimes taken, and another offering a larger sum declined; and this because the one appears to be a more suitable person than the other, and his services are in greater request in the colony. To put it in plain words, he is better worth buying at the larger, than the other is at the smaller present outlay. Hence, single women or families, consisting chiefly of daughters, are taken, if necessary, for a smaller present payment than any other description of persons, and agricultural workmen for less than mechanics. It has been already explained that every pound paid by the emigrant is virtually £2. It is to his own advantage, therefore, that he should pay as much as he can, up to half the passage-money.
The passage is the ordinary third-class or steerage description with open berths. The ship provides rations, cooking and medical attendance, and the emigrant provides his bedding and a few other articles; the rations, fittings, &c,, being subject to the approval of Her Majesty's Emigration Officer, appointed under the "Passengers' Act." For the information of those who know nothing of the arrangements on ship-board, it may be mentioned that the sleeping berths are in the. 'tween-decks, those of the single men being placed
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in the fore-part, the married couples in the middle, and the single women next to them towards the stern end; and each compartment is separated from the other by a partition running across the ship, the single men haying access to the deck by the fore-hatchway, and the married couples and single women by the main-hatchway; and whenever it can be so managed, each class has its own way up stairs, but it is of little consequence which of these modes is adopted. The different classes do not therefore see each other except on deck in the day time. The single women's compartment is put specially in charge of a matron, whose berth is in it, among whose duties is that of keeping an eye upon them during the day, especially when they are on deck, and locking them up at night.
Each emigrant is required to provide himself with at least a certain quantity and kind of clothing, and it would be well that he should add whatever he can afford to that which he is required to bring with him. The clothing required on the voyage are articles of winter wear for two-thirds of it, and decided summer clothing for three weeks or a month; and if provision is to be made for the colony, he may take, both for summer and winter wear, what he would use in England. If he is a mechanic, he should by all means take his tools with him; if an ordinary labourer, it would not be worth his while to encumber himself with spades and such like. Everybody should take bedding if possible; those whose means admit of it, might take with advantage a small quantity of crockery and hollow-ware, if they know how to pack it, so as to save it from being smashed. Everything of this kind can be purchased in the colony at an advance on the English price, varying with its bulk, its liability to breakage, and it may be added the conscience of the storekeeper. Crockery is at least three times as dear as in England; ironmongery and hollow-ware twice the English rates. Clothing from 50 to 75 per cent. on English prices. Twenty cubic feet of space in the hold of the ship is allowed, free of charge, for every statute adult; all luggage over that quantity is charged for at from 1s. 6d. to 2s. per cubic foot. Furniture maybe omitted, except in the case of a gentleman who has a good assortment, and will require it for his own use in the colony. Good furniture is dear, because it has to be imported, but common
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articles are made there. It is not advisable that persons should take out goods with them for sale. It would be better that they should take what money they may have as money, or by a bank letter of credit payable in the colony, than venture upon a speculation in merchandise with the risk of finding, as it is very likely they would find, that they had put their capital into goods which were not immediately saleable.
The Provincial Government do not, as a matter of bargain, undertake to find employment for persons on their arrival, although practically it is done. The Emigration Agent in London transmits to the colony by the overland mail next following the departure of the ship, a list of names and descriptions of the persons who have sailed. This list always reaches the colony before the ship does, and is published in the local newspapers. When the ship arrives, people in want of servants send on board, and it often happens that a large proportion are engaged then, and go direct from the ship with their employers; those who are not engaged, go if they please, into the immigration barracks, and are provided for until they get employment. This is always the case with women; with men it is less necessary, except as a very temporary measure, because there are always public works going on, upon which they can get employment if they like to take it. The emigrants are sent out generally from London about 150 at a time, every six weeks or thereabouts.
Information relating to Assisted Emigration as well as to other matters of general interest, may be obtained by applying either personally or by letter to the Agent, at 16, Charing Cross, London.
STOCK, MARKETS, RATES OF WAGES, &c.
The horses and cattle bred in the colony are the produce of female stock imported chiefly from Australia, and entire horses and bulls from England. Among horses, the "Clydesdale" is the description generally used for the breeding of draught stock, and there are some eight or ten entires of this breed in the colony, most of them prize animals at home. It would be too much to say that the draught stock come up to the average show at an English fair; but they are not so far below it, as to render the importation of mares from England
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either necessary or commercially profitable. Those bred in the colony are worth from £35 to £70 for geldings, and from £40 to £80 for mares, and even higher rates are paid occasionally for superior animals. Among the thorough-bred entires there is some of the best English blood, and the consequence is a marked improvement every year in the character of the produce. Saddle-horses are somewhat cheaper than draught stock.
The cattle are generally of the Durham and short-horn varieties. Some breeders breed carefully and improve their herds by the introduction of high class English bulls, the cows are milked, and the calves reared after the English fashion. This is the case generally with the farmers who have but a small number. Some of the run-holders pay less attention to their herds, the animals are left to multiply as they will, the cows suckling their calves, and the herd rarely driven into a yard, except for branding, or sale to the butcher; the result is a wide difference in the character of the stock, and consequently in their selling value; but a person wishing to establish a dairy farm, would find no difficulty in getting together a herd of cows, good enough for all purposes. The cattle are never stall-fed, some farmers give them a little hay or turnips in the winter, but the majority are kept on the natural pasture only, and many of them fatten up to 10 or 12 cwt.
The following are the prices of stock, produce, &c., and the rates of wages current in the colony in the latter part of last year (1861):-- Dairy cows £8 to £16 each. Heifers £7 to £12. Steers fit for breaking in, about the same rates. Mixed cattle from a run counting everything over six months old, £4. 10s. to £5. 10s. a-head. Working bullocks, well broken, £30 to £45 a pair. Newly landed horses £20 to £45 each. Ewes deliverable after shearing, £1. 10s. a-head. Wethers £1. 3s. to £1. 8s. Wheat, first class samples for seed, 6s. a bushel; ordinary 5s. to 5s. 6d. Oats and barley for seed, 5s. 6d. to 6s. 6d., and scarce. Flour £16 a ton. Potatoes £3 to £3. 10s.
Retail Markets Flour 18s. to £1 per 100 lbs. Bread 10d. to 1s. per 4-lb. loaf. Bacon 1s. 3d. per lb., cheese 1s., ham 1s. 6d., butter 1s. 10d., beef 5d. to 9d., pork 9d., mutton 6d. to 8d., eggs 1s. 3d. per dozen, fowls 6s. a couple,
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pigs (small) 8s. to 10s. each, porkers 15s. to £1. 5s., store pigs £1. 5s. to £1. 15s. Timber £1. to £1. 4s. per 100 feet. Shingles £1. 5s. to £1. 10s. per thousand. English coals £5 to £6 per ton delivered. Sydney ditto about £1 per ton less. Firewood £2. 10s. to £3. 3s. per cord delivered.
Rates of Wages:-- Married couples with rations, £65 to £80 per annum. Shepherds £45 to £65. Bullock drivers £45 to £55. Ploughmen £50 to £60. Gardeners £45 to £60. General servants £20 to £35. Dairymaids £30 to £35. Nursemaids £15 to £25. Day labourers, without rations, 6s. to 8s. a-day; blacksmiths 10s.; carpenters 10s. to 12s.; bricklayers 10s. The working day is eight hours. The rates of wages vary from time to time; within the last two years they have ranged from say 10 per cent, below to 5 per cent, above those now quoted.
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STATISTICS RELATING TO THE PROVINCE OF CANTERBURY.
* The Nationality of the Population stood as follows: --English 61.32 per cent., Irish 4.62, Scotch 6.37; born in the colony of European parents 21.61 per cent., Australian and other colonies 2.54; other nations 2.94. And the Religious Denominations:-- Church of England 72.88 per cent., Presbyterians 10.67, Wesleyans 8.26, Roman Catholic 4.08, and other denominations 4.11 per cent.
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CUSTOMS DUTIES
CHARGEABLE UNDER THE "CUSTOMS DUTIES ACT, 1858,"
IN ALL PORTS OF NEW ZEALAND.
|
|
|
|
s. d.
|
| 1.
|
Ale, beer, cider, and perry, in wood
|
per gallon
|
0 6
|
|
|
Ale, beer, cider, and perry, in bottles
|
ditto
|
1 0
|
| 2.
|
Cigars and snuff
|
per lb.
|
3 0
|
| 3.
|
Coffee, chicory, cocoa, and chocolate
|
ditto
|
0 3
|
| 4.
|
Cutlery, hardware, plated ware, hollow-ware, ironmongery of all sorts, and candles
and soap of all sorts
|
per cwt.
|
3 0
|
| 5.
|
Fire arms of every description
|
each
|
5 0
|
| 6.
|
Gunpowder
|
per lb.
|
0 3
|
| 7.
|
Manufactures of silk, cotton, linen, and woollen, and all articles manufactured
therefrom; drapery, haberdashery, hosiery, millinery, furs, hats, boots,
shoes, confectionery, bottled fruits, dried fruits, mustard, olive oil, pickles,
preserves, sauces, spices, and oilmen's stores of all kinds,
measuring outside the packages
|
per cubic ft.
|
4 0
|
| 8.
|
Spirits and strong waters of every kind, sweetened or otherwise, of any strength
not exceeding the strength of proof by Sykes's hydrometer, and so on in proportion
for any greater strength than the strength of proof
|
per gallon
|
9 0
|
| 9.
|
Sugar, raw and refined, of all kinds, and treacle and molasses
|
per lb.
|
0 1
|
| 10.
|
Tea
|
ditto
|
0 4
|
| 11.
|
Tobacco
|
ditto
|
1 6
|
| 12.
|
Wine, in wood and bottle, containing less than 25 per cent, of alcohol of a specific
gravity of .825 at the temperature of 60 degrees Fahrenheit's thermometer
|
per gallon
|
3 0
|
| 13.
|
Anchors and chains, and rod, bolt, bar, sheet, hoop, and pig iron and nails,
sail cloth, cordage, twine, cotton yarn, bags, sacks, and wool packs, spirits of
tar and turpentine, tobacco for sheep wash, nuts of all kinds, powder fit only for
blasting purposes, and all unenumerated goods, wares, and merchandise
|
Free
|
|
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POSTSCRIPT.
THE LYTTELTON AND CHRISTCHURCH RAILWAY.
The scheme which was adopted by the Provincial Legislature about two years ago for carrying this undertaking into effect, provided for the borrowing of the whole of the capital (£300,000) at the rate of £50,000 a-year, and for the payment of interest, while the work was in construction, out of the local revenues. There appeared no doubt that the revenue would be able to bear this charge, and at the same time provide for roads and other public works, immigration, and the general necessities of the province; but nobody ventured to predict that it would be able to supply any part of the capital. The revenue from land sales has, however, increased within the last six months in a degree which could not be foreseen two years or even twelve months ago, and information has been received by to-day's mail that the Legislature has determined to supply the first £50,000 of the capital out of local funds, and has directed that this amount of debentures be destroyed.
16, CHARING CROSS,
16th March, 1862.
