The Emigrant's Manual. New Zealand, Cape of Good Hope and Port Natal [NZ sections only]

John Hill Burton

First published by William and Robert Chambers in 1851

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

Epub © 2013 Early New Zealand Books Collection

ISBN 978-1-927279-82-3

[TITLE PAGES]

THE
EMIGRANT'S MANUAL

NEW ZEALAND
CAPE OF GOOD HOPE
AND PORT NATAL.

[Page ii is blank]

[CONTENTS]

CONTENTS.

NEW ZEALAND –

General Account of the Islands, 1

Scenery and Climate, – – - 2

Influence of the Climate on Health, 4

History, – – – 6

Material Progress, – – - 8

The Original Inhabitants, and their Progress, ...10

Their Property and Industry, ..... 15

Capabilities and Inducements to Settlers, .... 16

The Timber, .... 17

Indigenous Food Productions, ....18

Agricultural Capacities, ..... 19

Question of Agriculture and Pasture, 20

Minerals, .......21

Wages and Prices, ...... 21

Arrangements for Disposal and Occupation of Land, .... 22

The various Settlements, ..... 24

The Northern Settlements, ...... 24

Auckland, ..... 24

New Plymouth, ..... 27

Soil and Agricultural Prospects, ..... 29

Middle Settlements and Cook's Strait, ..... 33

Wellington, ..... 33

Valley of the Hutt, ..... 33

Nelson, ..... 37

Wairau Plains, ...... 38

Land in Cultivation, Live-Stock, and Produce, ..... 39

Estimate for a Fifty-Acre Farm, ..... 42

Regulations for the Disposal of Waste Crown Lands in New Zealand, ...... 43

Account of the Otago Settlement, ..... 47

Account of the Canterbury Settlement, ..... 58

Conclusion, ..... 74

THE AFRICAN SETTLEMENTS –

General Account, .........76

The Cape of Good Hope, Natal,.........78

Miscellaneous Productions, .........80

Land Investments,.........91

NEW ZEALAND.

NEW ZEALAND.

GENERAL ACCOUNT OF NEW ZEALAND.

THE New Zealand Islands in the South Pacific Ocean lie between the 35th and 48th degrees of south latitude. They form a narrow, crooked, and serrated chain, extending to nearly twelve hundred miles in length. From their narrowness, notwithstanding the distance from each other of the extremes, their whole area is generally rated as about the same with that of Great Britain. There are two main islands, the north and the south, separated from each other by Cook's Strait – so narrow and irregular a passage, that in the map it seems like the firths which break in upon the coast of Scotland or the fiords of Norway, and unless when, traced fairly through, it does not appear to be naturally a sea dividing two islands from each other. The division south of Cook's Strait has generally been called Middle Island, because there is still a third island, though comparatively small, called Stewart Island, a great place of resort for the southern whalers. By letters-patent issued under act of parliament of the year 1847, the northern island was called New Ulster, and the middle island New Munster. For the sake of uniformity, the name New Leinster was subsequently given to the southernmost island, which may be considered as the largest of a set of islets off the coast of New Zealand. 1

These islands are the most distant of any territory of a like

extent from other large portions of land on the globe. On the one side they are about 1200 miles apart from the nearest extensive territory – the island-continent of Australia; while on the other they are fully 100 degrees of longitude, with scarcely an intervening rock, distant from the western coast of South America. So much surrounded by wide oceans, it might at first be supposed that the climate and temperature of the islands would render them as distinct from any part of Europe as the Australian colonies in general have been found to be. But New Zealand seems to have within itself influencing causes of a totally different character from the vast internal desert of the Australian continent. The climate has been often compared to that of Italy, to which it pretty nearly corresponds in distance from the equator, stretching rather farther north of the 40th south parallel than Italy stretches south of the same north parallel. The latitude of Wellington corresponds pretty closely with that of Naples.

It is held to resemble that beautiful country in its physical aspect. To those indeed who love wild rocky mountain solitudes, with forest masses in their clefts – to whom, in short, the usual characteristics of fine mountain scenery are among the things that make life enjoyable – New Zealand will probably present more external attractions than any other emigration field. Australia has its mountain district in the northern part of New South Wales, but it is hot and jungly; and while the hilly portions of South Africa are less densely thicketed, yet both are infested by dangerous wild animals, which poison the easy enjoyment of nature, however great may be the attractions they hold out to the resolute sportsman. New Zealand has been peculiar in nourishing no dangerous animal save man; and ere long, the last remains of the aboriginal ferocity will be extracted – if this have not already been in fact accomplished. The scenery of the Canadas is not in any part so wild and grand in the height of mountains and the wildness of ravines, though there is nothing of course that can be compared, as one separate and peculiar scene of terrific grandeur, with the Falls of Niagara. Yet there are many mountain-torrents and fine rivers, and the geological character of the islands makes them diversify the coast with deep inlets, several of which have been found to be well-protected bays. The interior of the country has been but scantily explored;

but probably, when fully known, it will not develop any entirely new features. It resembles, in general, the mountainous countries of Europe; and its configuration, rising by spurs and successive elevations into central chains of high mountains, is so usual as not to leave room, as in Australia, for mysterious conjectures about the internal structure of the country. Yet the character of the geology is calculated to develop, and has already shewn many of the most striking and wonderful phenomena of the material world. The Snowy Mountains produce glaciers, though it would scarcely appear that they can be on so large a scale as those which circle round the Jungfrau of the Alps, or the Norske Fielen. But the mountain-ranges have another element of grandeur and terror not to be found in the Alps or Norway. Not merely does the geology shew volcanic origin and disturbance, but there are volcanoes in actual operation. Hot springs and jets, such as those of Iceland, and even hot lakes, are known to exist; and we may expect that, as the interior is explored, abundant volcanic wonders will be found, since, while it seems to have the same remarkable peculiarities with Iceland, they are not, as in that country, impassably shut from exploration by being embraced within the almost impenetrable recesses of a horrible wilderness, which defies the keenest love of adventure and the sternest courage. The settlers have already had unpleasant intimation that they sit upon volcanic ground. In October 1848 there were felt in the neighbourhood of Cook's Strait repeated shocks of an earthquake. They must have done considerable damage among the temporary rickety edifices of the settlers, since the directors of the New Zealand Company, in their annual report for 1849, congratulated their constituents on the amount not exceeding £15,000.

The indigenous quadrupeds of New Zealand have been so few and small, that, in an economic sense – that is, for the food or other use of man – none exist. The pig, however, has been so extensively propagated, as to have in some measure become a wild animal which is hunted. There are many small birds, and the bones of a gigantic bird, the dinornis, found in the soil, shew it to have existed in times comparatively recent. Fish are abundant in the waters. The whale and seal of the south frequent the neighbouring seas, drawing of course farther and farther off from the islands the more they are assuming a settled character. The whalers – adventurers from Britain, the United States, and the southern colonies, were indeed the first European inhabitants of the islands; and the nature of the prey they pursue, rewarding great daring and success with large pecuniary returns, makes their life one of peculiar wildness and adventure, alternating with fits of indolence or dissipation. The vegetable capabilities of the islands will

have to be more fully considered in connection with their productiveness, and with the accounts of the separate settlements. It may only here be observed, that timber abounds, though it does not in general grow high up the mountains. In the clefts between the mountains, and especially in the alluvial deposits made by the torrents, there are fine pasture-lands. Several extensive plains are of the same character; and much alluvial soil, said to be of the finest description, is covered with an edible fern.

By all accounts, the climate and atmosphere of New Zealand possess the invaluable qualifications of being both agreeable and invigorating – not that they are without occasional personal inconveniences in the shape of abundant moisture. There appear to be none of those scorching droughts or dry winds which blight the Australian colonies. Travellers in good health, and eager in the pursuit of knowledge in a new and interesting country, are peculiarly unsusceptible, and do not by any means represent the sensitiveness of invalids seeking a place of refuge from the miseries which their condition subjects them to in the climate of Britain; but the testimony in favour of the climate of New Zealand is so full and concurring, as to be nearly conclusive. From the scientific notices of Mr Dieffenbach, he was enabled to make the following general statements as to the climate and atmosphere of New Zealand, and their immediate physical influence on the country and its capabilities: –

'New Zealand being situated within the temperate zone, although nearer the equator than Great Britain, possesses, from its peculiar geographical position, especially from its being insular, and also from the nature of the surface, a climate so modified as to resemble that of England more nearly than that of any other country I am acquainted with.... The east coast on which Wellington, Auckland, and the Bay of Islands are situated, is colder than the western, where the settlements of Nelson and New Plymouth have been founded, and where the air is far softer and milder. I ascertained this by actual comparisons, and in this respect the western coast must have great advantages over the eastern. In the interior of the islands the climate is colder and less changeable, in consequence of the presence of a snow-clad mountain group, and the greater distance from the ocean. I found at Taupo, the acacias of Van Diemen's Land, the Ricinus palma Christi, and potatoes, affected by the frost – a circumstance which never happens near the coast. The leaves also of several trees had become yellow and deciduous; the landscape assumed an autumnal tint, although it can scarcely be said ever to have had a wintry appearance. At Wellington, on the contrary, and along the whole coast, the natives plant their potatoes at all seasons of the year; the forest remains ever green, and the opening of the flower-buds is merely a little retarded during winter, the presence of which is only indicated by more frequent rains and winds.'

Mr Dieffenbach joins with other observers in making the amount of rain which falls throughout New Zealand greater than the average amount in Britain. In fact, from the vast ocean surrounding the islands, a mass of vapour is always concentrated over them, attracted by the mountains, and ready to be dissolved with the smallest change of temperament. The united testimony, however, of those who have experienced its effects – far more valuable than any kind of scientific deduction – shews that this moisture is neither disagreeable nor unhealthy. 'This great quantity of moisture,' continues Mr Dieffenbach, 'accounts for the vegetation being so vigorous, even in those places where a thin layer of vegetable earth covers the rocks. Sandy places, which in any other country would be quite barren, are covered with herbage in New Zealand; and the hills, which in lithological and geological formation resemble those of Devonshire, may, in the course of time, be converted into pastures at least equalling those in the hilly parts of that country. Everywhere, also, trees and shrubs grow on the margin of the sea, and suffer no harm even from the salt spray.' However valuable swamp land may be as a means of investing capital in an effective drainage, which makes it richer than the dry hilly tracts by which it is surrounded, the absence of marsh land, and the existence of a geological formation which affords a speedily-drying surface through natural drainage, is of infinite importance to the settler whose whole capital is embarked in his journey and his stock, and who wants immediate produce from the soil. On this the same traveller says –

'The physical configuration of New Zealand, and the geological formation of the hills, are in general such that the rain is rapidly carried towards the coasts in countless streams and rivulets. The lakes with which the interior of the Northern Island abound have always an outlet; and it is only in a very few places that swamps exist, and these are owing to the clayey nature of the subsoil; but they are not sufficiently important to influence the general state of the humidity of the air, or to become insalubrious. In the neighbourhood of Port Nicholson the rain quickly percolates through the light upper soil, and feeds the numerous streamlets which rapidly carry it off into the sea. ' – (Travels in New Zealand, i. 173-179.)

Mr Jerningham Wakefield, whose testimony, however, must be taken as that of a zealous admirer of New Zealand, speaks in the same tone.

'I landed at Kapiti,' says Mr Wakefield, 'and in a day or two after crossed over to the main, and walked to Port Nicholson. In the course of this walk I was benighted on the hills between Porirua and Pitone, having mistaken the time of the rising of the moon. As it was too dark to proceed along the tortuous path beneath the thick foliage, I lay down to sleep for a few hours among the moss and

forest fern beside the path. It is worthy of remark, that although everything was so damp that I could not light a fire, and I had no blanket or any other clothes but those in which I walked to shield me from the wet, I suffered no inconvenience from cold, and rose fresh and vigorous at the first dawn of day.' – (Adventures in New Zealand, i. 389.)

This is a matter of the utmost importance, since it now not unfrequently happens that people in comfortable circumstances, and with every prospect of success at home, believing that it will give their unhealthy children a better chance of life, make up their mind to settle within the range of some more salubrious atmosphere. Mr Allom, a settler at Wairarapa, says, in a letter published in Mr Earp's Hand-Book: –

'From the nature of the country and of the climate, New Zealand stock-farming differs from any other. One of its most valuable peculiarities is in consequence of the climate; namely, your cattle are never housed either in summer or winter. They are always in the open air, or, as they would say in New Zealand, "on the run." Hence whatever may be the extent of the flocks and herds, the only farm-buildings requisite are a strong post-and-rail stockyard for the purposes of milking and occasionally mustering the stock. This favourableness of climate, again, gives rise to what in my opinion is the greatest charm of the stock-farmer's life in New Zealand. His stock being always free to roam where they please, he must be continually in the saddle, if he does his duty to them or to himself; and this constant horsemanship carries with it a life of healthy excitement, to which at times even fox-hunting must yield. Few who have not tried it can have any idea of the excitement that this occupation affords.'

Such is a general view of the features which characterise this the latest adopted British settlement. That it is destined to great influence on the history of the southern world seems almost certain. Its mountain-ranges, like our own, will not be inhabited or tilled; but there appears to be sufficient alluvial soil to supply the wants and the energies of a vast population. It must not be forgotten, in connection with the prospects of New Zealand, that when the operations in progress for making a passage through the Isthmus of Darien, between the Atlantic and Pacific, are completed, New Zealand will be nearer Britain than Australia.

History. – For many years New Zealand was only known as a barbarous country, frequented by whaling-vessels from Australia. At length, in 1814, the Church Missionary Society marked it out as a field for its labours; and from the agents of this association the natives first received the rudiments of civilisation. Gradually the British government awakened to its importance for colonis-

ing purposes; but not till France put forward some claims for its occupation was it adopted as a British possession. From this event the history of New Zealand is little else than a series of misunderstandings, blunders, and contentions, some of which terminated in bloodshed. The natives, the government officials, the missionaries, and the agents of the New Zealand Company, were all less or more concerned in these unhappy events, which it would now be better for all parties to bury in oblivion.

The principal fact which concerns the intending emigrant is, that government in 1841 constituted, by royal charter, an association called the New Zealand Company, to which, on certain terms, a large tract of land was assigned. This company thenceforward began to carry out emigrants, and retail lands to those who wished to be purchasers. Their plans were conceived on a liberal and extensive scale. The colonising operations of the company clustered round Cook's Strait, where they founded the settlements of Wellington, Petre, New Plymouth, and Nelson. Several men of family and fortune were induced to join in this remarkable enterprise. Some were attracted from lucrative professions by the charms of such an adventure, and many gentlemen brought attached followers of humble rank from the districts where they possessed family influence; on the whole, it was a very pretty object of contemplation – a complete social system, with all its checking, controlling, and civilising influences, passing to the other end of the earth to assume mature and complete existence in a fresh and teeming soil. Colonel Wakefield, who led the expedition, sailed in the Tory from Plymouth, on the 12th May 1839, and he met the other ships of the expedition at the general rendezvous at Port Hardy, in Cook's Strait.

Almost from the commencement, disputes arose between the government and the company, which had a paralysing effect on the various settlements. At length Mr Spain was appointed to investigate and settle the differences, and he gave his final award in 1845. Neither this award nor the subsequent proceedings of Governor Fitzroy or Sir George Grey helped the association out of its difficulties; and to put an end to the affair, the company resigned its charter and its functions into the hands of the government in April 1850. From that time the New Zealand Company ceased to exist, save in so far as part of its organization has been preserved under government direction. From this explanation it will be understood that though dealing ostensibly for land with what is called the New Zealand Company, the intending settler is really purchasing from government. The office of the New

Zealand Company, where distinct information may always be obtained respecting lands, is No. 9 Broad Street Buildings, London. Letters should be addressed to the secretary.

New Zealand was at first governed as a dependency of New South Wales. It is now, by various acts of parliament, established as a separate colony, with a governor and the usual subordinate functionaries. It has also been accorded certain municipal privileges conformable to constitutional forms. These it is deemed inexpedient to particularise, as the political condition of the colony is not by any means on a determinate footing. According to a charter and series of instructions communicated to the governor, the colony was divided into provinces, Cook's Strait being the dividing-line. The Northern Island, with its dependencies, was constituted the province of New Ulster, with power to the governor to except from it by proclamation any territories near the Strait; while the southern portion was to be the province of New Munster. Whether the islands will ever be popularly called by these names, which reveal a great poverty of invention in the Colonial Office, may be doubted. The native designations will more probably come into general use. Already a considerable number of places are known only by the names given to them by the natives.

Material Progress. – Notwithstanding the disastrous commencement of the colony, it has never ceased to advance in material prosperity. The amenity of the climate, the fertility of the soil, the latent powers of productiveness, the enterprise of its inhabitants, and its admirable situation for trade, all mark it out as the future England of the southern hemisphere.

In going to this fine country, the emigrant has a choice of several settlements, either directly under the crown, or under the management of associations holding from the crown. In a dispatch by Governor Grey, dated 9th July 1849, the following sketch was given of the state and position of the settlements in general: – 'They are composed at present of what may be termed nine principal European settlements, besides smaller dependencies of these. The largest of the settlements contains about 7000 European inhabitants, and their total European population may be stated at about 20,000 souls. These settlements are scattered over a district of about 800 miles of latitude; they are separated from each other by wide intervals; and communication even by persons on horseback exists only between three of them.....The wide intervals between these European colonies are occupied by a native race of 120,000 souls, a very large proportion of whom are males capable of bearing arms.'

Notwithstanding the presence of these natives, the governor

gave the assurance, that 'at the present moment there is probably no portion of the world in which life and property are more secure than in New Zealand.' In the annual report for 1850, he proposed to reduce the military establishment to 1180 men, and wisely suggested that those dispensed with, instead of being sent back to Europe, at great expense, with their wives and families, should be absorbed in the colony, where they would be promising settlers, with notions of discipline and allegiance, and would be a sort of self-supporting defence – a trained militia. At the same time, the governor proposed the support of a war-steamer as the best means of giving effective strength to the executive – an arrangement well adapted to a narrow island country full of creeks and capes.

It would be improper to leave this department of the subject without alluding to the convict question. No fruitful and unsettled territory, especially so near our penal colonies, could keep itself free of the loose portion of the adventurers cast forth from our social system; but New Zealand has not, like other southern colonies, been systematically made the drain of our criminal population. It is a matter of important consideration for all who propose to settle there, that the conduct of the government has guaranteed the settlement from being made a place of exile for convicts who have undergone punishment. As well as to the Australian colonies, it was proposed to send ticket-of-leave men to New Zealand, 'if the inhabitants were willing to receive them.' Though not blind to the advantages in the labour-market from such a consignment, the colonists expressed a decided disinclination to receive such associates; and Governor Grey, ever clearsighted, and earnestly interested in the welfare of the colony, seconded the disapproval, remarking: 'I think that this country would hold out to men of their characters almost irresistible temptations to retire into the interior of the country, there to live among the native population, and cohabit with their women.' Meetings were held to express the disapproval of the settlers; and even the natives, whether spontaneously or not, spoke out, in an address to Her Majesty, in which they said: 'Oh, Lady, we shall be perplexed if the convicts be allowed to come here. They would steal the property of the Europeans, and the natives would be accused of the theft, and we should be very much displeased. Rather let gentlemen, men of peaceful life, come here. We like such men. Let them be numerous, for our country is large.'

On the 26th November 1849 Lord Grey wrote to the governor of New Zealand, informing him that the government concurred in his views, and would not send convicts to New Zealand. – (Parl. Pap. 1850.)

1 The Auckland Islands may be noticed in connection with New Zealand, though they scarcely form part of the same group, lying fully 180 miles southward, in latitude 51 deg. south, and longitude 166 deg. east. The group consists of one principal island, called Auckland, with smaller ones clustering round it, named Enderby, Disappointment, Ewing, Ocean, &c. Their formation is volcanic, shooting up into picturesque groups of basalt, with richly wooded glens between. The climate, though the islands lie so far south, is described as salubrious. It is considered that they will form a valuable station for the southern whale-fishery; and in this view they have been let by government to the Messrs Enderby, who have published a pamphlet called 'The Auckland Islands: a Short Account of their Climate, Soil, and Productions; and the Advantages of Establishing there a Settlement at Port Ross, for carrying on the Southern Whale Fisheries.' – 1849.

THE ABORIGINES.

THE ABORIGINES.

Independently of all questions as to humanity to themselves, the character of the natives of New Zealand is of importance, because, instead of dwindling away, and disappearing before the civilised settlers, it would appear that they and the uneducated class of colonists are hereafter to be a mixed race. This circumstance alone stamps the New Zealander as a being superior to the Australian and the South African, and even to the North-American Indian.

The pictorial illustrations of Cook's Voyages first awakened a sense among Europeans to their capacity as shipbuilders, organizers of marine forces, sailors, and ornamental carvers. At the same time Captain Cook horrified the world by declaring them to be cannibals: he left the matter in no mysterious dubiety, for the experiment by which he convinced himself of its existence is told with a disgusting minuteness which also convinces the reader. Our countrymen were long loth to believe that people who were cannibals could be more civilisable than other aborigines living on rats and reptiles; but it was so: nor, after all, need we wonder at it, when we see what horrible vices the natives of our own country can commit when they are sunk in barbarism. The bushranging convicts of Van Diemen's Land became cannibals without the least compunction. As they had sunk from the level of British civilisation to that, the most horrible of barbarities, it appeared that there could be nothing in the practice itself to prevent a race who followed it from being as civilisable as our own countrymen.

The same gentleman who so beautifully illustrated the natural objects of South Australia has performed the like service for New Zealand, and the intending settler there should take the opportunity of seeing what manner of country he is going to. That the scenery was of a rich, beautiful, and romantic character, was well known before, and Mr Angas's scenes only accord with the expectations formed from descriptions. But his portraits of the natives are somewhat surprising, especially when compared with his representations of South Australian aborigines. It is visible at once that they are a fine race, with a full physical development, and a sound intellectual expression. Good-humour and firmness are united in their physiognomy. The garments, especially those of the women, are becoming and modest; and it is, on the whole, a pleasure to look on these pictures after the eye and the mind have been disgusted with the Australian semi-animal. Mr Angas's

portraits in New Zealand correspond accurately with his statement – that 'the character of the New Zealanders is a strange mixture of pride, vanity, fickleness, covetousness, and generosity, passion and gentleness, mingled with many good and estimable qualities. Their temperament is warm and ardent; their ideas are full of imagery; and they possess much gaiety and wit. In acuteness of perception they are far beyond Europeans: they are children of nature gifted with high and superior qualities, which only require to be directed in a right channel. They have a strong sense of justice, and I have universally found them honest and hospitable.'

The specimens of decoration and architecture in Mr Angas's book shew such an advancement in these arts, as the early inhabitants of Europe might have been supposed to exhibit in woodwork just before the date of the Norman architecture. Their carving, and its adaptation to produce a general effect in combination with the shape of the edifices, are not unlike Norman work such as we see in the early churches and castles of England. The carved decorations, in fact, are about as good; and we must remember that this was the feature in our old buildings, which our ancestors invented. The arch, and the use of pillars – indeed it may be said the stonework generally – were derived from the Romans. It may be questioned if, without this start, the nations of the north of Europe, at the time of the Conquest, could have produced buildings to match with those of the New Zealanders; with, for instance, the mansion of Rangihaiata, which goes by the name of Kai Tangata, dreadfully indicative of the ferocity which mixed with the civilisation, since it means eat man, and was probably conferred in the same spirit in which a sportsman names his shooting-lodge after some sporting peculiarities or reminiscences.

Of their matting, which is one of the best testimonies to their own indigenous progress in civilisation, Mr Wakefield mentions four kinds. The plainest sort, called porera, is closely plaited from unscraped flax, split into narrow stripes. It has a glossy straw-like surface, and though coarse, is compact. The next, called korowai, is woven with scraped flax, and ornamented with black tags or tassels: they were varied in colour by the arrangements of different coloured stripes, and were used as dresses by the women. A coarser kind, but fit, by its closeness of texture, for clothing, was called tiehe, and was formed, from the refuse of the flax scraping. The finest kind was called kaitaka, or parawai, described as a beautiful fabric, woven from fine snow-white silky muka. The black dye so used is extracted from the bark of a large forest-tree called the hinau, which appears to have the

same qualities as the gall-nut, and the natives had found out the secret of blackening the tannin by oxidised iron, the method in which our own writing-ink is compounded.

From the peculiar nature of the land-claims and other sources, many distressing disputes occurred with the natives. Among the tragic results of these was the massacre of Wairau, as it was called, in 1843, in which some of the most valuable men of the colony were slain, including the gallant Captain Wakefield. Those who had lost relations or valued friends in this miserable affair were naturally impatient for vengeance, and irritated when, instead of immediately bringing down on the assailants the retribution of the powerful British government, a cool inquiry was instituted into the whole circumstances. The investigation shewed that the affair arose out of the fruitful source of all mischief in the new colony – misunderstandings as to dealings in land; and it farther shewed that to treat savage chiefs, who, in a dispute in which they had plausible grounds of complaint, had used the force they possessed, like inhabitants of England who had committed a murder for the sake of revenge or robbery, would neither be prudent nor just. The whole of the melancholy transaction is not likely to be forgotten in future schemes of colonisation; more particularly as it was followed by various hostilities which did not terminate till 1847.

The fatalities in the subsequent contests with the natives were, however, on the whole, not very great: they amounted in all to twenty-eight killed and fifty-three wounded. But they had the appearance of being interminable. The resources and capacity for war which they exhibited were of a very formidable kind. Over the vast districts where the European settlements were scattered there were no roads, and none but the natives could command the means of transit. They carried no baggage, their wives following them with potatoes or other simple food – and the sole encumbrance of their march was in the excellent double-barrelled rifle which each warrior possessed, and could effectively use. When they found that the British troops could destroy their fortified pahs, they abandoned them, trusting to flying warfare. At any time the latent energies of this warlike people might thus be roused against British rule, however firmly established. The question was, what remedy should be adopted? The harsh old system would have suggested extermination; but a gentler and more effective method was adopted, leading to amalgamation. In the first place, efforts were made to adjust the land question with thorough impartiality: these have been already considered. There was next an effort made to give the natives a stake and interest in the administration of the British system of government. Those who had fought as allies of

the government were pensioned, and received distinctions. A few natives were employed as policemen: the project was at first nearly overwhelmed in ridicule, hut it turned out to be very effective; and Sir George Grey, in a dispatch of 1849, says – 'The native armed police force has furnished gallant men, who have led our skirmishing parties, and who have fallen, like good soldiers, in the discharge of their duty; and it has furnished intelligent, sober, and steady constables, whose services, under various circumstances, have been found of great utility.' In addition to such means of civilisation, the instrumentality of savings' banks, industrial training, and other aids of civilisation – found efficacious, and, unfortunately, necessary among the lowest grades of our own population – have been satisfactorily resorted to. Exhibiting the first broad, coarse characteristic of a civilisable people – intense love of gain – the New Zealander, unlike the haughty indolent Red Indian, has been attracted to the white man by the sources of profit which he opens up, and many of them have turned out to be good workmen on the public works. Such have been the secondary means of civilisation which, going hand in hand with the more important functions of the Christian missionary and the schoolmaster, are tending to the firm establishment of peace in New Zealand, and a good understanding between the races.

It will be seen that in the act for the government of New Zealand, mentioned elsewhere, provision is made for the native laws and customs being respected, and especially in all questions among the aborigines themselves. In the royal letter of instructions sent out with the New Zealand charter in 1847, for the purpose of putting this act in practical effect, not the least interesting portion is the 14th chapter, applicable to this clause of the act. An abridgment of it follows: –

'The governor-in-chief shall, by proclamation, set apart particular districts of New Zealand, under the designation of "Aboriginal Districts," where the laws, customs, and usages of the aboriginal inhabitants, so far as they are not repugnant to the general principles of humanity, are to be maintained. Within these districts the native chiefs, appointed by the governor, are to interpret and execute their laws, customs, and usages, wherever the aboriginal inhabitants themselves are exclusively concerned. At the same time, any person, not an aboriginal native, while within any such district, must respect and observe these native laws, customs, and usages, on pain of such penalties as may be inflicted by the sentence of any court or magistrate in any other part of the province. The jurisdiction of the courts and magistrates of the entire province are to extend over the aboriginal districts, subject only to the duty of taking notice of and giving effect to the laws, customs, and usages of the aboriginal inhabitants in all such cases. In cases arising between the abori-

ginal inhabitants, beyond the limits of their districts, and in whatever relates to the relations to and the dealings of such aboriginal inhabitants with each other beyond the same limits, the courts and magistrates of the entire province, or of the district in which the cases arise, are to enforce these native laws, customs, and usages.

'The governor may contract or enlarge the limits of aboriginal districts, but no such district is ever to comprise lands which the governor may, by proclamation, have declared to be within the limits of settlement.'

So early as the 25th March 1847, Governor Grey had to report in the following terms the commencement of a good understanding with the natives, which, to the advantage of both parties, made rapid progress: –

'I am unwilling to lose this opportunity of stating, that affairs throughout the whole of these islands are proceeding in a most satisfactory manner. Commerce and agriculture are rapidly extending the improved methods of cultivation adopted by the natives; the large quantities of wheat they now produce, and the erection of mills throughout the country – some of which are their own property – are gradually rendering them an agricultural population, whose property will be too valuable to permit them to engage in war; and although there are still some warlike spirits who may occasion partial disturbances, I do not see any probability of any extensive outbreak again taking place.

'The revenue, as might be expected, is rapidly increasing – indeed so rapidly as to surpass my most sanguine expectations; and as the natives, under the present system of taxation, contribute largely to that revenue, every improvement in their condition will afford the means of providing more efficient protection for property, and for the future peace of the country. Her Majesty's subjects, both European and native, appear to appreciate fully the advantages of their present position; and not only evince the most gratifying contentment, but generally afford me the most cheerful and active assistance in carrying out my various measures. I need hardly add, that this assistance is most valuable to me; and that, in the case of the native chiefs, it has recently enabled me to arrange, in the most amicable and advantageous manner, the great mass of the land-claims in the southern districts, which, had they not met me in a spirit of the fullest confidence, I should have found it most difficult to adjust satisfactorily.' – (Pari. Pap. 1847.)

That a complete cessation of all tribe or party conflict among the natives should have been accomplished, is of course out of the question; since indeed their increased industry and civilisation, by making them more conscious of the advantages of wealth, and especially of landed property, open up new causes of dispute and contention. But short as has been the British rule there, it has been so effectually established, that what would have been

a war between two independent tribes or nations, sinks into a personal dispute, to be settled by British authority. So late as September 1849, Governor Grey had to write to the secretary for the colonies 'that hostilities had commenced between the tribes of the Waikato district and those residing on the west coast of this island, regarding a tract of land claimed by both parties in the neighbourhood of Wangeroa, which lies between this place and New Plymouth. I also understand that, from the number and influence of the tribes engaged in this affair, very serious disturbances might be apprehended, unless their proceedings were checked;' but at the same time he had to report that both parties had applied for his mediation; that, in fact, they respectively pleaded then; case before him; and that they shewed the utmost willingness to submit to the decision of the government in the matter. – (Papers relative to Affairs of New Zealand, 1850.)

Governor Grey, in a dispatch dated in March 1849, gave a very hopeful account of the prospects of the natives, as he saw them in a progress up the Waikato and Waipa, as far as Otawao. 'I was both surprised and gratified,' he said, 'at the rapid advances in civilisation which the natives of that part of New Zealand have made during the last two years. Two flour-mills have already been constructed at their sole cost, and another water-mill is in course of erection. The natives of that district also grow wheat very extensively; at one place alone the estimated extent of land under wheat is 10,000 acres. They have also good orchards, with fruit-trees of the best kinds grafted and budded by themselves. They have extensive cultivations of Indian corn, potatoes, &c.; and they have acquired a considerable number of horses and horned stock. Altogether, I have never seen a more thriving or contented population in any part of the world.' – (Farther Papers relative to the Affairs of New Zealand, 1850.)

The latest notice of the habits and position of the natives, from a private source, is of the same promising and hopeful character. It is in a letter by Mr Hursthouse of Plymouth, published in the last edition of Mr Earp's book on New Zealand. He says: –

'From their skill in using the American axe, management of fire, and knowledge of "burning off," they are found most serviceable in the clearing and cultivation of bush or timber-land – in performance of which work they now frequently contract with the settlers at so much per acre. In fact, owing to the rapidity with which English labourers rise into the "small farmer class," and become themselves employers of labour, all our farming operations would be seriously crippled but for the powerful assistance of the natives.

Our harvests are now almost entirely cut and carried by them; whilst as to ploughing, my esteemed fellow-settler, J. G. Cooke, Esq., me that on the glebe farm attached to the Wesleyan Mission Station, there are some native lads who, for quickness of driving and straightness of furrow, are almost a match for the best English ploughman in the place. These lads, it appears, are pupils at the "Grey Institute;" a large native industrial school or training college, an excellent institution, working much good among the natives, and which owes its existence chiefly to the useful energy and practical philanthropy of the Rev. Hanson Turton, a gentleman whose thorough knowledge of the native language and customs is admirably applied in promoting the joint good of both races.

'Nor is it in the labour-field alone that we are beginning to find the natives such stanch allies. They share in the sports and amusements of the settlers with equal ardour and success. Quick of eye, strong of arm, swift of foot, supple of limb, for pulling an oar, running a match, or accompanying an exploring party, they have no superiors. They are bold riders too, and at the first races ever held in New Plymouth, subscribed for a plate, and won it on their own horses; whilst at the last anniversary of the settlement they took the honours at the rustic sports – catching the greased pig before he had well started, and throwing the best of our Cornish wrestlers in a manner patent to themselves.'

CAPABILITIES – INDUCEMENTS TO SETTLERS.

CAPABILITIES – INDUCEMENTS TO SETTLERS.

The following very condensed view of the natural productions of these islands is from an authority which ought to be of the most unquestionable kind – that of the governor of the colony in a communication to the colonial secretary: –

'Animals imported into this country thrive and increase greatly. There are no beasts of prey except dogs. Fowls of every domestic kind are becoming abundant. Bees succeed admirably. Hides are good, and heavy. Wool is excellent – the fibre being of uniform quality and thickness, owing to the equable temperature of the climate and continuance of pasture. Timber abounds of all qualities. Bark, fit for tanning, is plentiful. Dye-woods are numerous. All European herbage, shrubs, and trees, succeed and thrive rapidly. Clover and grass speedily conquer any fern or weeds allowed to remain on ill-cleared land. All European fruits succeed and ripen well – grapes, apples, pears, figs, melons, strawberries, peaches, &c. Flax has been undervalued, because an inferior quality has in general been used and exported. The "tihore," or silky flax, is much superior to the common kind, and will become a staple commodity.'

'Beneath the productive surface of this teeming island are mineral stores, as yet hardly known. If, from merely looking at or scratching some of the projecting corners of the land, at least twenty

valuable minerals have already been discovered, in greater or less abundance, what may not be anticipated after years of research in the interior? The more valuable minerals hitherto found are coal, iron, limestone, copper, tin, manganese, nickel, lead, silver, bismuth, arsenic, cerium, sulphur, alum, rock-salt, marble of various qualities and colours, cobalt, ochre, fuller's earth, asphaltum, pumice, volcanic earths and lavas, &c. Of the copper, it ought to be remarked that the per-centage of metal is usually very high, and that the ore is easily smelted. Much of the manganese contains a larger per-centage of copper. Both this and the copper can be quarried, rather than mined, in abundance. Fuller's earth, fire-clay, and stone, fit for furnaces, which the bakers here use for their ovens, can be found anywhere in this neighbourhood. – ROBERT FITZROY, Governor.'

A great many of these tempting inducements for embarking capital may be safely said to be less seductive or promising than they were in 1847, when they were so reported.

If this inventory of its productions be admitted to be accurate, the emigrant's legitimate chances in New Zealand must still be as an agriculturist or pasturer. The agricultural land is divided into the timbered and the fern-covered. Neither travellers nor settlers in New Zealand talk of timber as a nuisance and impediment, as it is in North America. It is in scattered masses, not dense, unremitting forest tracts; and were there a better market for it, it appears to be in general timber of considerable value. It is at all events of great use in the settlements: how large an article of export it may yet be from the interior recesses of the mountains no one can anticipate.

One of the most serviceable accounts of the chief timber-trees of New Zealand is that given by Mr Hursthouse in his account of New Plymouth, and we shall here quote it: –

'The rimu, called red pine, more from its foliage than from any resemblance in the wood, is frequently sixty to seventy feet high without a branch, and from twelve to sixteen feet in circumference. Its foliage is remarkably graceful, drooping like clusters of feathers, and of a beautiful green. The tree opens very sound, is entirely free from knots, and, for a hard wood, works well. It is chiefly used for house-building; the finer parts for panelling and cabinet-work: these are handsome, taking a fine polish, and in appearance something between Honduras mahogany and coarse rosewood.

'The kahikatea, or white pine, is occasionally seen ninety feet high without a branch. In foliage and manner of growth it resembles the rimu, but has a lighter-coloured bark. The wood is not much unlike the Baltic white pine, but always sound, and quite free from knots: it is used for general purposes, for oars and boat-planking.

'The puriri, or iron-wood, is one of the most valuable trees in New Zealand, growing from thirty to fifty feet high, and from twelve

to twenty feet in circumference. The wood has a strong scent, is of a dark-brown colour, close grained, heavy, and of a greasy unctuous nature; which last property is probably the cause of its being so much perforated by a large white slug, peculiar to this tree, when growing. Iron-wood is principally used for foundations, fencing-posts, mill-cogs, &c. for all of which it is admirably adapted; as it would be for any purpose requiring great strength and durability in moist situations.

'The rata in its manner of growth is very singular. At first it is a creeper, clinging for support round some young tree; for a time both flourish together in close embrace; but as they grow, the subtle rata, appearing to sap the strength of its early supporter, winds its strong arms around, by slow degrees, crushes it to death, and eventually becomes itself the tree. The pukatea is generally favoured with these embraces, which, though slow, are sure to kill. The wood of the rata is a reddish-brown colour; very strong and tough; well adapted to wheelwrights' work; and from its crooked manner of growth, furnishing suitable stuff for shipbuilding.

'The kohe-kohe attains a height of about forty feet without a branch; it has a handsome laurel-like leaf, and is the most common tree on the edges of the forest. It splits well, and is used for shingles, fencing-bars, and rails.

'The pukatea, a large tree, is a soft, easy-working wood, of light-brown colour, chiefly used for common work, and weather-boarding rough outbuildings.

'The tawa and the rewa-rewa are handsome trees, particularly the latter; both, however, are of inferior quality, and not used except as split stuff: the first, being highly resinous, makes excellent firewood. The hinau is remarkable for the whiteness of its wood, and chiefly known for its valuable dyeing properties; the rich black dye of the native mats is obtained from its bark.'

There never was perhaps a naturally fruitful country so destitute of indigenous productions for food as these fine islands. Fish, especially the larger kinds, have generally been abundant; but on the land the only considerable animal has been man, and consequently he has been eaten. There is a similar destitution in the vegetable world. Except the roots of the great forests of fern, and the cabbage plants, there seems to have been no edible vegetable – there certainly was nothing that could be classed either as grain or fruit; and when some seed-vessels of a luscious aspect have been produced, as contradicting the latter deficiency, they have been found unsuitable for food. The nearest approach to edible indigenous fruit seems to be the poropo, of which Mr Hursthouse says – 'When quite ripe, its flavour is something between that of apple-peel and a bad strawberry; but if tasted before it is soft and mellow, the poropo is most nauseous.'

Yet almost every fruit, pot-herb, and grain known in Europe,

seems to take naturally in New Zealand; and there is, besides the forests, at least one native vegetable of the smaller growth which is useful and valuable – the Phormium tenax, or New Zealand flax. As it has been hitherto considered the raw material of a native manufacture, the fabrics from it have been already mentioned in connection with the history and habits of the natives.

The agricultural capacities of the islands need be only generally spoken of, as they have to be mentioned in connection with each settlement. There are two kinds of agricultural lands – the forest and the fern – and it seems to be undecided which is the better of the two, either for the poor settler, demanding rapid returns, or for the capitalist, who looks for the best ultimate investment. Of this topical peculiarity, the fern-land, the most practical-looking account we have seen is in Mr Hursthouse's account of New Zealand. He says: –

'Fresh fern-land has one marked peculiarity, called "sourness," by which is meant some property hostile to the growth of crops put in directly after the breaking-up. The probable cause of this is the absence in the new soil of such promoters of vegetation as the ammoniacal gases, readily absorbed from the atmosphere when the soil is loosened and exposed; although, if "sourness" arose entirely from this cause, it would appear strange that the bush-land also is not subject to it. If a piece of the finest fern-land be cleared and sown at once with wheat, the yield would probably not exceed fifteen bushels per acre; the same piece prepared nine months beforehand, might yield from thirty-five to fifty bushels, but on timber-land this would make no difference.

'In cultivating fern-land, the first operation is to clear away the fern, which is best done in some dry month. Choosing a gentle breeze, the fern is fired; if it burns well, all the thick and matted dead stuff at the bottom, with the leafy part of the live fern, will be consumed, leaving only the shrivelled "tutu," and the cane-like fern stalks, which, as softened by the fire, should be cut at once, either with a strong hook, or, still better, with a short scythe, and the "tutu" slashed down with a bill-hook. Lying a few days to wither, the stalks are loosely raked up and burned with the "tutu" branches; and the "tutu" stumps have then to be taken up, and carted into a heap, or carried off. After these operations, which cost from 15s. to 20s. per acre, the land is ploughed with a strong plough, having a wrought-iron share, and four oxen. The best depth is about ten inches, turning up a little subsoil. When broken up, the soil should lie some time to get pulverised, and to dry the fern-root. It should then be harrowed and rolled, so as to allow of the easy raking up and burning of the fern-root; and to get it into superfine order, ploughing and these subsequent operations should be repeated, when the land, after lying about six months, will be in the finest possible condition for any crop which may afterwards be grown.

'A complete course of "double working" such as this costs from £2, 10s. to £3 per acre; but it should be observed that as this sum is for work performed chiefly by bullock-power, it will be materially reduced as cattle become cheaper. The price of working oxen in New South Wales is about £8 per pair; in Wellington and Auckland, £20; whilst here it has generally been about £35: but as cattle are fast increasing, and as a direct trade has been commenced with Sydney, it is probable that in another year a pair of oxen will be purchased here for £20.

'The best method of cropping fern-land thus prepared is hardly yet determined. If the soil has been exposed about nine months, well mellowed, perhaps the best course would be two wheat crops, then manure a little for potatoes or fallow, and so round; but if it is likely to prove at all sour, the first crop should be potatoes, which might be followed by two grain crops, and then a fallow. Sheep have a surprising effect on fern-land: a flock folded a single night has been known to increase a crop of wheat in the particular spot nearly 100 per cent.; and all animal manure is considered to go twice as far as in England.'

The question between agriculture and pasture as a settler's occupation is not so wide as it is in Australia. The pasturage capacities of these islands, whatever they may be, do not appear to have been tried on any large scale. Agricultural capacities can be tried on any scale; and the cultivator's success in New Zealand seems to point it out as the safer walk, at least for a man of moderate means. It does not appear that the operations, or even the machinery for large farming, will certainly apply to the peculiar state of the country and its inhabitants. Mr Earp, who speaks as a practical man, says that when he left the colony, thrashing-machines, patent harrows, and ingenious ploughs, lay rotting on the shore; and he recommends the agricultural settler to trust to the spade and mattock. Perhaps this may be sound advice until ingenious and sagacious men indicate the kind of agricultural machinery best suited to the organic character of the soil.

Dr S. M. Martin, who had resided for some time in New Zealand, and had been a member of the legislative council there, attested its superiority to Sydney, where he had also resided, for purely agricultural emigrants, on account of its abundant and invariable supply of moisture. He thought the North Island the best – he had there seen, he said, excellent wheat, and still better barley. He thought all English agricultural products would grow there, and some not known in England. Flax was indigenous, and abundant; and he conceived that the vine, Indian corn, and hops, could be easily cultivated, but he did not think the soil and climate adapted to rice. He recommended the home system of farming

as the proper one for the place – a combination of pasture and agriculture.

The mining mania generated in South Australia spread everywhere among the southern colonies in which there were any chances of its finding materials to operate upon. These appear to be abundant in New Zealand. Near Auckland manganese has been worked and exported with great success. In the same neighbourhood there are several copper-mines, where the metal has been prepared for shipment at the several rates of £8, £6, and £4 per ton, according to quality. The mining mania has had a characteristic influence on the natives, who, though given to industry, are still more partial to bargaining than to producing, and seem ever ready to make their own out of the desires and wants of the colonists. 'The very natives,' says an eye-witness, 'have become infected with the mania, and are nearly as expert judges of copper and manganese as the settlers, and may be seen going about with fragments of stone and bottles of nitric acid for the purpose of testing its composition. They serve to keep the settlers in a perpetual excitement by pretending to have discovered copper or manganese upon their lands; and no little money is spent in fruitless expeditions to prove the fact. In some cases the eagerness of the settlers outruns their prudence, and they are induced, by the solicitations of the natives, to purchase the land before seeing it, fearing some reckless speculator may otherwise secure the prize; but it is needless to say that they are almost sure of losing their money, as the specimen of the ore shewn to them has in all probability been taken from the mines of the great barrier, or from the island of Kawau' [near Auckland.] – (Brown on New Zealand and its Aborigines, p. 203.)

With a laudable desire to afford every kind of useful information to emigrants to New Zealand, as well as to all the other emigration fields, the Emigration Commissioners, in their official circular for 1850, give the prices of provisions and the wages of labour there. But in a territory so scantily supplied with European inhabitants, so apt to have its population in any district rapidly increased, and also so apt to have its market for goods affected by the unexpected arrival of a vessel, or any like cause, one can scarcely speak of a fixed scale of wages of labour, or of the price of commodities. It will hardly be a practical guide to people proposing to emigrate thither, to know that in 1848 the wages of bakers were from 4s. to 6s. a day; those of bricklayers from 6s. to 8s.; and those of carpenters from 7s. to 10s.; while those of cabinetmakers were from 6s. to 7s. only; and on the other hand, those of blacksmiths, generally one of the most serviceable of all trades in a colony, were from 3s. to 5s. The least

vibration in the labour-market, caused by the influx of a few carpenters, bricklayers, or other trades, might completely revolutionise this scale.

In the circular there is also a list of the prices of commodities. It is pretty clear that, unless in so far as manufactures happen to bring a very different price in New Zealand from what they bring in the Australian colonies, it must be owing to conventional circumstances, not likely to last – to incidental circumstances, for the moment enhancing or lowering the price. For instance, in this list, while baize shirts are quoted in Western Australia as from 5s. to 6s. each, they are in New Zealand from 10s. to 16s. Then, while strong boots are in Western Australia sold at 12s. to 16s. per pair, the price in New Zealand is from 8s. to 10s. It is clear that these prices, in the case of New Zealand at least, are temporary and capricious.

DISPOSAL OF LAND.

DISPOSAL OF LAND.

Since the cessation of the New Zealand Company, the method of disposing of the lands of the colony may be considered in a state of transition. It has been stated that the company superseded the government in the southern colony in 1847, and that it had its own peculiar privileges in the disposal of land. On the cessation of the company in 1850, the statutory rules, to be immediately detailed, of course applied to the colony in general. But the government market for land is liable to be disturbed by the quantity thrown into the market by the private allottees, who have never gone out to take their allotments, or have been forced or induced to part with them. The statements connected with the history of the colony, with the aborigines, &c. will let the reader see in some measure the position of the land-question in New Zealand; and it will be seen further on that the Otago and Canterbury settlements have their own special regulations.

The statute of 1847 having repealed the Australian land-sales act, in so far as it comprised New Zealand, left the crown, as having at its uncontrolled disposal the unappropriated lands, to make such rules as the government should think fit for that purpose. Accordingly a set of regulations on this subject, adhering in general to the system of the waste-lands act, formed part of the instructions transmitted to the colony with the charter. The general spirit and object of these regulations will be inferred from the narrative already given of the history of the New Zealand Company, and the adjustment of the land-claims; but those who desire to see all their specialties will find an abridgment of them in a succeeding page.

Regulations for depasture and timber licences were issued in August 1848; but they were withdrawn, and others substituted for them, by proclamation of the governor-in-chief on the 2d November. By the regulations as so amended, the licence for a defined run costs £5; that for depasture on common lands, 10s. 6d. The yearly assessment for the animals depastured, payable in advance, according to registered returns, is, for each head of great cattle, including horned cattle, horses, mules, &c. 8d.; for each head of small cattle, including sheep, goats, and swine, 1d. A person desiring to occupy a defined run, having obtained from the surveyor-general a certificate that the land belongs to the crown, and is unoccupied, lodges it with the commissioner of crown lands. If the run remains four months unused, it may be claimed by another party. The occupation is not to interfere with the crown's right to sell any part of the run; and the purchaser of any portion is entitled, in the neighbourhood of his station, to pasturage for sixteen head of great and one hundred head of small cattle, for each eighty acres of purchase. Runs supposed to possess any peculiar value are to be let by public auction. It is provided that 'every proper facility will be afforded by the government to persons desirous of purchasing homesteads on their runs, but it will not undertake to survey and offer for sale any smaller block than fifty acres of land.'

There are special rules applicable to those tracts of land which are within the limits of proclaimed hundreds. There the right of pasturage is to be granted exclusively to occupants under grants of land within the hundred, and to the New Zealand Fencibles, and the natives and half-castes, occupying lands by permission of the government. In applying for the licence, which is renewable annually, and costs 10s. 6d., a return must be made of the quantity of land held. A meeting of the licensed holders in each hundred is to be held annually, for the election of wardens to regulate the appointment of pasturing for the year following.

Timber. – Persons occupying waste lands for the felling of timber pay a licence of £5. The district covered by a licence is marked out by the commissioner of crown lands. No fresh applicant for a licence is to be allowed injuriously to interfere with a forest on which any other person has expended capital and labour, and no one is to be allowed to cut or remove timber on the crown lands reserved by government for the public use.

In the Report of the Emigration Commissioners for 1851, it is stated that a decision of the supreme court had made the previously unsatisfactory state of the land-claims assume a still more uncertain appearance, and that in consequence it became necessary

to pass an 'Ordinance for the quieting of titles,' which validates all existing crown-grants in the northern province without exception. This will render the title secure to about 93,000 acres. To prevent injustice, it is provided that 'unsatisfied native claims connected with the lands thus granted away shall, if brought before the judge of the supreme court before the 1st of January 1853, be satisfied in the first instance out of the general revenue of the province, the compensation thus paid being made a charge upon the land: that grants of a given quantity of land, to be taken within certain limits, shall confer a right of selection within those limits; but that where such selection may be impossible, by reason of native claims, the grantee shall be allowed compensation out of other lands (not being town lands) which have been put up to auction, but not sold; competing claims to be disposed of by a commissioner.

THE NORTHERN SETTLEMENTS.

THE NORTHERN SETTLEMENTS.

Beyond the belt of rich alluvial land which is more directly connected with the Cook's Strait settlement in the east is New Plymouth, the garden of New Zealand. The whole of the middle district of the Northern Island, except the bare tops of the highest mountains, is said to be eminently productive. There is fine agricultural land in the great valleys; but most of the hills are of rounded outlines, and capable of cultivation when in distant ages the plains and valleys become exhausted, while in the meantime they will make ample pasture-ranges. From New Plymouth, along the west coast beyond Auckland, the country is comparatively level, rising into downs and isolated hills: the district is in general lightly wooded, and pronounced suitable for all ordinary kinds of cultivation. From Kaipara to the North Cape the island is narrow and mountainous, and the tracts applicable to productive purposes are in a much more limited proportion than in other parts of the island.

Auckland is the capital of New Zealand, at least so far as it has been, from the commencement of its colonisation, the seat of government. But it has not been a popular emigration district, and it is often remarked that less can be discovered regarding it than about any other settlement. It contains about three thousand inhabitants, and displays some public buildings, chiefly the government offices of the colony. The neighbouring district is undulating, well watered, and in general stripped of timber. The town is the trading centre, so far as any place can be so where there is so small a population on a territory as large as Great

Britain. There are statistical trading returns for Auckland, but it is not easy to say how far they contain matter likely to influence the position of the future emigrant.

This has not been a popular district. The most distinct account of its physical character which we have seen is in 'The First Annual Report of the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of Auckland' (1843), and is as follows: –

'The country in the district of Auckland is of that undulating character which marks the lower series of the secondary sandstone formations, with table-lands and corresponding valleys; so that the sections formed by the shores of the estuaries and rivers which indent it – the Waitemata, the Manukao, the Tamaki, and part of the gulf of Hauraki – present a succession of argillaceous sandstone cliffs of different heights, with intervening bays receding inland – the country lying between these great estuaries varying in breadth from 15 to 3, and at the portage of the Tamaki only three-fourths of a mile, affords over its surface flats of considerable extent and declivities practicable for agriculture, the bottoms being always occupied by a small stream – generally bare of wood, or covered with patches of small-sized trees suitable for fuel or fencing – and rising in gentle elevations to the mountain-ranges to the west and south, which are of a different geological formation, and are universally covered with forests of gigantic trees.

'In various parts of the above-described tract, hills shoot up in the form of truncated cones of various elevations, the highest about 500 feet, which are the remains of extinct volcanoes, each having a well-defined crater and a base of some extent, covered with loose fragments of vesicular lava and scoria, or immense masses of more compact lava "cropping out" at various points, the interstices, however, permitting the growth of a variety of shrubs and trees. The whole of the above-mentioned country, with the exception of the volcanic land, is well watered by natural streams, and water can be procured at all times in abundance by means of wells.

'About one-half of this district, consisting of undulating ground, is covered with fern and various shrubs, chiefly the tupaki, and possesses a soil of a rich yellow clay mixed with sand and charred vegetable matter, owing to the frequent burning of the fern, which, when broken up and exposed to the air, soon pulverizes into a fine rich loam, varying in depth from one to two feet, easily laboured; but, from the excellency of the subsoil, it may be cultivated to any depth required. The subsoil consists of a red and yellow clay, mixed with ferruginous sand. The substratum is formed of a soft blue and yellow argillaceous sandstone.

'One-fourth of the district presents a more level surface, being covered with dwarf manuka, fern, and a variety of small shrubs and tufts of grass. Its soil consists of a whitish clay mixed with sand, more adhesive than the former, yet, when broken up and exposed, soon pulverizes; the subsoil white clay and red ferruginous sand,

substratum the same as the former. It is not so rich as the first-mentioned soil.

The remaining fourth may be considered different from either of the former, being generally situated near the volcanic hills of a varied surface, the hilly portion being covered with fern and grass. The soil consisting of a dry red volcanic formation to a great depth, the greater part covered with scoria, and where it is only on the surface, the soil is a rich red loam, very fertile; another portion, covered with trees and shrubs, shews a rich mould of a volcanic nature to a depth of several feet, mixed with red sand and small calcined stones, resting upon a substratum of concrete. Another small portion lying along the banks of fresh-water creeks, covered with evergreens and tree-ferns, affords a rich friable clay, mixed with ferruginous sand, resting on a substratum of a soft yellow and red ferruginous sandstone.

'It is thus seen what a variety of soils are offered to the agriculturist, each adapted to some particular production, and favourable to some peculiar mode of agriculture.'

Mr Tyrone Power, a son of the actor of that name, in his 'Sketches of New Zealand,' already cited, gave the following unprepossessing account of Auckland: – 'A beggarly collection of poverty-stricken huts and wooden houses, without any of the bustle and briskness that betokens business and prosperity.' And as to its neighbourhood – 'The surrounding country is barren and uninteresting; it consists of low rolling hills covered with fern. Mount Eden, and one or two other black, scoriae-covered hills, are in the distance; but their sterile look does not make the landscape more inviting.'

A return is contained in the parliamentary papers on New Zealand for 1850, of the exports from Auckland in the five years from 1844 to 1848 inclusive. With a steady advance in some articles, there is a decrease in two considerable items – Kauri gum and copper ore. Of the former, the exports in 1845 were estimated at £12,847, and in 1847, £141. The copper ore of 1846 was valued at £22,180, and that of 1848 at £500. It appears, as to the former, that its value had been much exaggerated, and that the copper ore, from the quantity of sulphur contained in it, was not a safe stowage. The other exports were grain, timber, flax, bark; whalebone, oil, and other produce of the whale-fishery; hides, salted butcher-meat, wool, ropes, and curiosities. The exports of timber had increased considerably – the amount in 1844 being £346, and in 1848, £7604. The barley exported was in 1846 valued at £1479; in 1847, at £943; and in 1848, at £270. The wool-trade had, up to 1848, shewn but trifling results, producing in 1846, £822; 1847, £627; and in 1848, £421. The total amounts are shewn to have been – in 1844, £3037; in

1845, £27,239; in 1846, £40,087; in 1847, £12,670; and in 1848, £15,096.

New Plymouth. – This small agricultural settlement, the native name of which is Taranaki, is on the west coast of the North Island, just where the coast trends eastward, after the broad headland, called Cape Egmont, formed by the sudden turn of the long semicircular sweep from Cook's Strait. It is in latitude 39 deg. 1' south, and longitude, 174 deg. 15' east. By sea, it is 180 miles from Wellington, 150 from Nelson, and 120 from the nearest harbour to Auckland. This was one of the earliest proposed settlements of the New Zealand Company, having been the object of an arrangement by Colonel Wakefield in 1839. The land-claims connected with it were the most difficult and perplexed of all; and conflicting views kept the poor colony far behind the progress it would naturally have attained. As in the instance of Port Nicholson, there was a question between conqueror and conquered. The owners were the Ngatiawa, who were attacked by the Waikato under the powerful chief Te Whero Whero, by whom they were driven into exile, enslaved, or put to death. The conquerors do not seem to have occupied the territory, and the New Zealand Company had to deal only with a small number of natives, whose claims were very modest. Subsequently, however, two opposite parties urged their claims – Te Whero Whero by right of conquest, and the fugitives whom he had driven forth. Settlers had arrived in 1841, and were proceeding with the occupation and cultivation of their allotments, when the question of their title was thus provokingly opened up. Mr Commissioner Spain, as referred to, awarded the company 60,000 acres of the 70,000 which they claimed. This was disallowed by Governor Fitzroy, who, on the ground that all who had latent rights had not been made parties to the sale, restored nearly the whole land to the natives. Thus the settlement was for the time paralysed; a few only of the colonists remained, and compensation had to be made to others deprived of their holdings. Sir George Grey at last turned his endeavours to the restoration of New Plymouth. To force the natives to abandon what had been named as theirs by the highest authority was of course out of the question; but it was not difficult to satisfy them of the policy of disposing of their claims for a reasonable compensation. It was seen that the new arrangement was rightly sanctioned, and that there should now be no mistake about the absolute character of the purchase. When Mr Hursthouse wrote his account of New Plymouth in 1849, the 60,000 acres were again considered virtually available, and the colony was flourishing. Though projected on a small scale, it will probably

ramify itself into other fruitful districts when the 60,000 acres have been absorbed in cultivation. To a population of 1137, Mr Hursthouse gives the following account of the land in cultivation: – Wheat, 766 1/4 acres; barley, 128 do.; oats, 108 3/4 do.; potatoes, 167 1/2 do.; turnips, 79 do.; rye, 5 do.; maize, 1 1/4 do.; hops, 1 do.; grass, 267 do.; fallow, 85 do.; gardens, 45 do.; native clearings, estimated at 450 do.; in all, 2103 3/4 do. He gives the live-stock as follows: – Cattle, 726; horses, 48; sheep, 898; goats, 177. This includes a small number of each possessed by natives, who besides own a large number of pigs.

This little settlement, now containing about 2000 inhabitants, since its recovery from the convulsions of the land question, has been considered a very suitable place for men of small capital and frugal habits, or for those who, having nothing but their labour to go forth with, desire an opportunity of gradually raising their condition. Mr Hursthouse gives the following statement of the possessions of sixty-nine emigrants, chiefly agricultural labourers, whose average possessions, on their landing, he supposes to have been about £5 per head: – 312 1/2 acres of wheat, barley, and oats; 10 do. turnips; 80 3/4 do. potatoes; 46 do. grass; 97 head of cattle; 143 pigs; 27 goats; 59 houses; 238 3/4 acres of cultivated land; 180 acres of wild land.

Of the climate, and its effects on health and vitality, Mr Hursthouse tells us –

'From the remarkable equality of the climate of this settlement, it is impossible to define the seasons with accuracy: the coldest and wettest months are June, July, and August; the warmest and driest, January, February, and March...... Snow is never seen except around Mount Egmont; ice is occasionally observed in the July mornings, but soon disappears under a brilliant sun, like that of an English September. The warmest weather is refreshed by sea-breezes, and the nights are invariably cool. Although the winter months are wet, and showers frequent through the greater part of the year, yet from the lightness of the soil, and the dryness and elasticity of the atmosphere prevailing in the fine weather, the climate is not felt to be damp. Fogs and mists are unknown; there are no hurricanes; and thunder-storms are neither so frequent nor severe as even in England..... This climate, as might be expected, is highly salubrious. The children born here are considered by their mothers to be remarkably fine; and making all due allowance for maternal hyperbole, they certainly promise to be a large and robust race. By the census of 1847, the population was 1137; the births that year, and in 1846, when the census was 1089, amounted jointly to 104 – the deaths to 14, two of which were accidental; yet in 1847 fever and hooping-cough were introduced into the settlement from Auckland. This shews the annual ratio of births to be 1 in 18; of

deaths, 1 in 159; whereas in England the births are 1 in about 32 – the deaths 1 in 44. This comparison,' however, the writer candidly remarks, 'does not prove Taranaki to be superior in salubrity to England to the enormous extent indicated by these figures; for some fatal diseases common to humanity have not yet been introduced into the country, and most of the emigrants to this settlement were in the prime of life.'

The character of the country is a fern-land, with a vast, rich forest background, exhibiting almost every variety of tree known in these prolific islands on the slopes of the mountains. Towering over these rises the great conical snow-capped summit of Mount Egmont, 900 feet high, and by repute the highest mountain in the islands. The character of the lower scenery is described as beautifully rich and undulating. Running water is abundant. There are, besides the graceful fern, many beautiful flowering shrubs, and among others the delicate and brilliant fuschia, while the thickets abound with bright blue parroquets and singing-birds. On the productive capabilities of the soil Mr Hursthouse says –

'The soil may be called a very light, friable loam, with a porous subsoil: it is divided, locally, into three sorts, each marked by a different vegetation. The first is but a strip, extending along the coast, covered with light fern, interspersed with tufts of grass, and freely mixed, especially nearest the shore, with the black iron sand which is so plentiful here. The productive powers of this sand are rather surprising. Almost on the beach, within sixty yards of high-water mark, some early emigrants formed a few rough gardens, which produced excellent crops of vegetables; and, strange as it may seem to an English farmer, upwards of sixteen bushels of wheat have been obtained from a quarter of an acre of nearly the same description of soil.

'The second division, adjoining this, is a tract of great extent, covered with fern six to eight feet high, intermixed with a small bush called "tutu," and a species of tall grass called "toi-toi." The surface is a vegetable decomposition of from seven to ten inches, matted together by the fern-root, with a light, yellow subsoil of many feet in depth, entirely free from stones, shells, gravel, or clay. The principal farms are on this land; and it may here be observed that the chief difference, as respects the cultivation of this soil and the preceding, is, that it requires more exposure before cropping.

'The third division is the bush, or forest-land, which joins the fern, and extends along the country in a rather irregular line, two to five miles from the coast, and a considerable distance back into the interior. This soil in appearance resembles the second description of fern-land, but turns up quite mellow, and fit for cropping at once.'

The natives remaining in the settlement amount to about seven hundred, living in a few well-constructed pahs, and cultivating some four or five hundred acres of land. They are described as a

civil, worthy, well-meaning set of people, tolerably industrious, and in this respect useful neighbours to the settlers.

Away from the small block of cultivable land there stretch various grassy plains, the nature and extent of which is as yet but little known. The settlement does not yet press in the direction of sheep-walks or cattle-runs, nor is it likely, while other parts of these islands and the plains of Australia hold out higher immediate temptations, to be sought by the lordly owners of great flocks and herds. It is as yet essentially a small agricultural settlement; and from the same author from whom we have already so largely quoted, we take the following account of the actual effect of the agricultural operations heretofore conducted. Commencing with the statement that 'wheat is a certain crop, not subject to rust, mildew, or the attack of any insect,' he then proceeds to say –

'Fern-lands apparently alike in every respect have varied in yield the same season as much as twenty bushels per acre – a difference attributable to bad preparation and premature cropping. Small cultivators have not always been able to farm properly; and others, until lately, have not been fully convinced that fern-land pays best when thoroughly worked at first, as in the manner before described. The most practical men are of opinion that when this is done, the general average yield of wheat in this district will be from thirty to thirty-five bushels per acre. The heaviest crop that has yet been obtained on any large piece was 448 bushels from eight acres, equal to fifty-six bushels per acre; sixty bushels have occasionally been obtained on small pieces; and in one instance it is said that the first crop on an acre of bush-land sown with four pecks was nearly eighty bushels of clean wheat. [The last statement is very doubtful.]

'From the apparent nature of the soil, it was expected that barley would succeed even better than wheat: it has, however, been found inferior both in yield and quality; and if the common crops were placed in the order in which they have answered best, they would stand nearly as follows: – Wheat, say 3; potatoes, 2 3/4; barley and oats, 2. As wheat, however, has been grown in the proportion of eighteen to three of barley, and eighteen to two of oats, the latter have scarcely had a fair trial. Three to four bushels per acre more of wheat would be obtained if the operations of harvesting, thrashing, and dressing, were better performed; and in estimating the agricultural capabilities of this district by the present yield of crops, it should be remembered that if farming were conducted with that practical knowledge, skill, and attention required in England, the yield would be materially increased; in some cases perhaps almost doubled.'

The notices of the iron-sand, and the fruitfulness of the soil in which it is found, are curious, and seem to point to some new agency for stimulating the vegetative powers of organic matter. After observing that barley and oats have been little attended

to, and are supposed to be liable to attacks by caterpillars, Mr Hursthouse continues –

'Maize grows luxuriantly on bush-land, and the natives raise it in warm spots; but the climate of this district, like that of Van Diemen's Land, is not sufficiently hot to ripen maize as a general crop. Cobbett's corn, however, succeeds remarkably well; under garden cultivation it has yielded nearly a bushel of shelled corn to a rod. It would be an excellent first crop on bush-land.

'Potatoes are a certain crop; not subject to disease, nor, if planted in proper time, to the attack of any insect. On bush-land they attain a great size, but are not so good in quality as those grown on fern, which are remarkably dry and mealy. The early sorts should be planted in August; the later, for a general crop, in September or early in October. On fern-land, without manure, about six tons per acre are considered a fair crop; but bush-land will produce from ten to fourteen. An extraordinary potato-plant once grew in a garden on the "Black Iron-sand;" in size, the haulm and top resembled some bushy shrub rather than a potato. It was taken up in the presence of witnesses, and the tubers, carefully counted, numbered 240, of which 170 were of fair cooking size.

'Turnips have not been extensively grown. The middle of October is the best time for sowing, although a fair crop has been obtained when tilled as late as Christmas; twenty tons per acre are considered about the average yield. Turnips, like all other roots grown here, are of excellent quality, and specimens of Swedes weighing thirty pounds are not uncommon.

'Beans, peas, cabbages, parsnips, carrots, and onions, have been grown chiefly as garden vegetables; but from the luxuriance of their growth, some of them may become rotation crops. Parsnips and carrots yield most abundantly, and nearly 300 lbs. of onions have been obtained from three-quarters of a rod of the black sandy soil near the beach.

'About three years ago, some interest was excited by an attempt to introduce the cultivation of English flax. From some experiments tried chiefly by Mr Flight, a gentleman conversant with the subject, it appeared probable that the soil and climate of the Taranaki district would be found well suited to the production of this important article; and a sample was sent to Messrs Marshall, the Leeds flax-spinners, and to a Dorsetshire house, whose report of its quality was considered favourable. Seed was imported, but owing chiefly to the want of capital, and to the then unsettled state of the land question, none of it was sown, and the subject has not since been revived.

'About 260 acres have been laid down in grass; chiefly white clover and rye-grass mixed, other varieties not having been generally obtainable: grass seeds are best sown in March. The white clover is very luxuriant, and by banks and road-sides, from farm to farm, is gradually spreading over the country. For pastoral purposes, however, the district adjoining the present southern boundary of the settlement, extending sixty miles along the coast, is one of the

finest in New Zealand, and as capable of supplying cheap working stock for the farms, and beef and wool for exportation: portions of it would form a most valuable appendage to the present agricultural settlement. The greater part of this district is better adapted for cattle than for sheep, or rather for cattle first. The roughest tract is so improved in two or three years by the depasturing of cattle, as entirely to change its character. The fern is destroyed to some extent, and is succeeded by coarse grasses. If sheep follow, the fern is gradually killed, grasses become finer, and white clover soon appears: thus in the end luxuriant pasturage is obtained, never here burnt up in droughts, but always green and succulent.

'Cattle and sheep thrive, and, like all other animals which have been introduced, increase very fast; both are subject to a kind of delirious attack, arising from overfeeding on the "tutu;" but this seldom affects them more than once or twice, and the actual loss caused by it is probably not more than 2 1/2 per cent. A strong dose of spirits – for a bullock two to three bottles – is considered the best remedy; but quick bleeding has been found very efficacious. Sheep are never attacked by the "fly," are free from their common diseases, and fatten quickly; half-bred Southdowns have been killed weighing nearly 30 lbs. per quarter.'

It is, however, of very high importance to give, in connection with this passage, the modification of opinion formed by Mr Hursthouse on the different capabilities of the soils after two years' farther knowledge. It is conveyed in a letter of 20th November 1850, addressed to Mr Earp, and published in the third edition of his Hand-Book of New Zealand. The remarks on the bush-land appear to be particularly valuable.

'It appears, then, that there are even now several thousand acres of bush-land open for selection, and that, too, surrounding and within from two to six miles of the actual town. It should be borne in mind that what is called "bush-land" in New Plymouth is different from much of the heavily-timbered lands in New Zealand – such, for instance, as the valley of the Hutt near Wellington – the land for the most part being level and more open, and the wood of lighter growth. It has long been known to the New Plymouth settlers that this bush-land is wonderfully fertile, far more so in fact than fern-land. But owing to the greater first cost of clearing it, and to the natural preference which English labourers and cultivators have for the familiar plough and harrow over the axe and the saw, bush-land has come to be regarded as far less desirable than fern-land. At page 99 of my little work the comparative merits of the two are discussed; and I still entertain the opinion there expressed, that for a very numerous class of emigrants the cultivation of the former would be found the most profitable.

'In fact, as native labour is peculiarly adapted to the clearing and cultivation of bush-land, and as native labour has become, and is every day still further becoming, more available, I consider the

relative merits and advantages of bush-land to be consequently greater than they were two years ago, and that the cost per acre of clearing and cultivating it is decreasing, and will decrease, in a greater ratio than the cost of clearing fern-land.

'With respect to wheat, however, which has hitherto been the staple crop of the settlement, although it could be produced at a remunerating rate on bush-land, I believe that it would still be produced cheaper on fern. But wheat is only one of many crops which the soil and climate of New Plymouth would produce. Flour is only one of many exports which would find a good market.....

'This bush-land is admirably adapted to the production of many important articles besides wheat, far more so, in fact, than fern-land. Among them may be enumerated hops, tobacco, fruits, cider, oil, seeds, hemp, and flax; butter, cheese, hams, and bacon; whilst from the extraordinary fineness and luxuriance of its artificial pasturage, it may be questioned whether fine-wool sheep could not be kept upon it with advantage – for the risks, losses, and expenses attendant on the care and management of sheep would be less on what may be termed the "near-field system," than on the distant, exposed, "stock-station" plan followed in Australia.

'Emigrants, as a general rule, will take too much land; but if a person settling in New Plymouth with, say a couple of hundred pounds, would be content to purchase and cultivate one of the twenty-five acre bush-sections, he would, I conceive, be almost certain to realise a greater profit than if he took fifty acres of fern. In short, for emigrants of limited means, farmers' sons, and small yeomen, working-men with a little money – the pith, bone, and sinew of a settlement – these little twenty-five acre freeholds of bush-land are admirably adapted.'

THE MIDDLE SETTLEMENTS, OR COOK'S STRAIT.

THE MIDDLE SETTLEMENTS, OR COOK'S STRAIT.

Wellington is generally considered the centre of the middle districts, as exceeding the other settlements round Port Nicholson. It is described as a town beautifully situated, with neat clean painted brick and timber houses, and in the vicinity of beautiful stretches of forest-land. Near it is a large district of table-land, and the fruitful valley of the Hutt. Mr Earp says –

'The valley of the Hutt extends from the harbour of Port Nicholson to the Tararua mountains, a distance of about fifty miles. The land stretching on both sides of the river is of extraordinary fertility, arising from the periodical overflowings of the river, and the rich deposit left on its retirement to its natural bed. This rise of the waters of the river was the cause of the removal of the principal town of the settlement to its present site. Not having been foreseen, this was the cause of serious annoyance to the first settlers, as far as the location for a town was concerned. In an agricultural

point of view, this is of the highest importance to the agriculturist; and happy is he who has been lucky enough to obtain a section within the reach of the waters of the river, whether for flooding or irrigation.

'Of the rural districts bordering upon the town little need be said. They lie for the most part between Wellington and Porirua, those scattered around the shores of the latter harbour being the most fertile. The remainder of the sections, in the immediate vicinity of Wellington, consist of flat table-lands, through which never-failing streams run in every direction towards the coast. Many of the sections in this district occupy the valleys at the foot of hills which have not been included in the lands given out, and which are therefore waste. Such sections are considered valuable, from the extent of sheep and cattle rims which they thus afford. But it is probable that they will not continue to lie waste. Much as has been said about the hills of Wellington, there are few which, when cleared, are not cultivatable to the summits – the land there, as in the case of the table-lands alluded to, being of the finest quality, whilst the valleys, filled with the debris of the hills, are fertility itself. It would have been folly, however, to have given hill-land as sections, whilst there was plenty of flat land for the purpose.....

'The amount of available land in immediate connection with Wellington is limited, not amounting to more than 30,000 or 40,000 acres. At the distance of forty miles north-east is the fine valley of the Wairarapa, containing about 300,000 acres of excellent land fitted for both pasturage and agriculture. At about the same distance west of Wellington commences an extensive country at Waikanai, gradually widening to Wanganui, 120 miles from Wellington, and presenting an extent of perfectly level land, estimated at upwards of a million acres, the greater portion of which is excellent arable land, and nearly the whole is covered with abundant pasture. This district is now being connected with Wellington by the military road, already available the whole way for horses, and for two-thirds of the way forming a good carriage-road.

'The Wairau plains also, on the other side of Cook's Strait, though nominally connected with Nelson, are in reality an appendage of Wellington, being much more accessible from the latter port, to which the settlers of Wellington already resort for a market.' – (Hand-Book for New Zealand, pp. 33, 34.)

There is here a branch of the Union Bank of Australia, a savings' bank, mechanics' institute, a horticultural society, and other elements of a somewhat advanced state of social life. The European population of the district had exceeded 6000 in 1849, and the means of worship were more or less supplied for members of the English establishment, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, Wesleyans, and Congregationalists. The attention of this settlement has been turned less to pasture and agriculture than to commerce and the whale-fishery. It was one of the most popular

settlements when the New Zealand Company was in the ascendancy. Having been readily purchased, great part of it is in the hands of absentee speculators, and thus the settlers in this district, instead of endeavouring to obtain an original allotment, will have to deal with a proprietor either at home or in the colony.

Besides the agricultural operations, considerable enterprise has been developed in industrial operations in this district. Flour, saw, and flax mills have been here established, along with a canvas manufactory, rope-walks, breweries, cooperages, and brickkilns. Mr Earp, in the third edition of his valuable little work on New Zealand, says –

'The total quantity of land in cultivation in 1848 was 2178 acres – the general occupation being the breeding of stock, for which no cultivation is necessary the natural pastures being inexhaustible. In consequence of the ready market for cattle, and the high price of labour, a comparative neglect of rendering land arable was to be expected; but now that emigrants are rapidly flocking into the colony, as well from New South Wales as from the mother country, the cultivation of the soil will rapidly extend; and the more so, as animal food has been brought down to a price which will render the cultivation of the land equally profitable.

'The quantity of stock in Wellington in 1848 was about 50,000 head of all kinds, pigs alone amounting to 7500; of these, upwards of 5000 were the property of the natives, who pursue this lucrative pursuit with energy. The importation of stock since 1848 has been very extensive, numerous families from New South Wales having emigrated to New Zealand with their stock; the Sydney merchants also having engaged in New Zealand stock trade to a large extent. The number of horses in the town and its vicinity was, at the above period, 672, or about one horse to every ten persons......

'The number of manufactories already established in the province is as follows: – six breweries, two brickyards, one candle manufactory, two stocking-looms, six cooperages, one flax-mill, four rope-walks, two sacking-looms, seven flour-mills, two of which are worked by steam; seven ship and boat yards, four tanneries, and nine timber saw-mills.

'The total number of vessels owned in Wellington is seventy-six, the whole of which, with the exception of two, have been built in the colony. Of these, seven are the property of natives, and are either sailed by the natives, or by Europeans acting under their orders. The total number of buildings in Wellington and its vicinity was in 1848, 922, exclusive of native habitations. Many of these are substantial erections of stone and brick, but the majority are of wood – this being a favourite material for houses, notwithstanding the facilities which now exist for the erection of more durable fabrics.'

The chief exports are flax, wool, and the produce of the whale-

fishery. The amount of wool appears to have pretty rapidly increased. In agriculture, however, the settlement had shewn its backwardness by the importation of a considerable quantity of grain. Eastward of Wellington lies the long valley of Wairarapa, unknown to the original settlers, but calculated to supply the demands of an extensive emigration. It contains about half a million acres of plain and down, while the sides of the mountain-ranges which bound it are said to be capable of supplying valuable pasture-ranges when these have been exhausted. The New Zealand Company's agent, in a report to the directors, stated –

'Of the level country there appears to be about 80,000 acres of woodland, finely timbered with Totara, Matahi, Miro, Kahaikatea, Manuka, &c. the soil of which is particularly good; about 200,000 acres consist of open land covered with grass, fern, anise, flax, and toi-toi; the level land is intersected by several swamps, but they could mostly be easily drained. The soil of the open land in the lower part of the valley is in general clayey and gravelly, but some of the plains are of a very good soil. The undulating land consists chiefly of grass or fern land. At the southern end of the valley are two lakes, covering an area of about 50,000 acres, but they are so shallow as to be comparatively useless: there is no entrance seaward, in consequence of a complete bar of sand, and being surrounded by low swampy land.......

'The district may be divided into three parts, each possessing its distinct and peculiar characters: the lowest part, or that nearest the sea, and the western side of the lakes, is mostly swampy, and is covered during the winter months with water; the eastern side, on which the stations are formed, consists chiefly of grass-land; the lower ground near the river consists of the woodland previously described. Beyond these, in what may be termed the valley of the Upper Wairarapa (by far the larger division of the district), there are magnificent grassy plains, the soil of which is of the richest description, intersected by belts of wood, and watered by numerous streams. This district is easily connected with the plains of Ahuriri, which, at a moderate estimate, comprise an area of 500 square miles of level grass-land, from which there is an easy communication with the Manawatu district.'

Mr Tifen, the surveyor of the company, reported that the district was abundantly watered; and at the same time that there were on it unavailable swamps, rocky spots, and large patches of timber. Of the grassy plains he said –

'Some of these contain upwards of 10,000 acres of perfectly level land, where good grasses are growing as luxuriantly, and nearly as close in the sward, as in English meadows. Their present drawback is the absence of natural drainage; for on crossing three of these plains, I found the substratum to be of conglomerate so perfectly impervious, that I feel satisfied they will prove unfit for anything

else but grass, or other plants requiring but a few inches' depth of mould for their support. At Huangarua, and again at Waingowa, this is particularly apparent. At the extreme edge of those plains caves have been formed, the roofs being of conglomerate, which projects five or six feet, the earth having crumbled away.'

Nelson. – As Wellington in the north, so Nelson on the south side of Cook's Strait, is the centre or capital of an agglomeration of small settlements. It is at the head of the great inlet called Blind Bay; and the districts connected with it ramify towards Massacre Bay on the west, and Cloudy Bay on the east, where the great Wairau plain and river meet the sea. The following account of the lands belonging to the settlement is taken from Mr Earp's work. The first paragraph relates to Massacre Bay: –

'The district is a very pretty one; the greater portion heavily timbered, and the land extremely good. Coal and lime exist in it, both accessible at the surface on the bank of a small river (the Motupipi), in which they can at once be put on board vessels of fifteen or twenty tons' burden. Of the two sections known to a certainty to contain these minerals, one, on which they have been already worked, became the private property of the company at the selection of rural lands; the other belongs to Major Baker of Wellington. The gross amount of level land in this bay is estimated at 45,000 acres, of which at least 25,000 are fit for agriculture. The greater part of it has been surveyed for rural sections, and a considerable number were selected there, generally with medium orders of choice.

'Blind Bay contains about 60,000 acres of land sufficiently level for agriculture; but not above one-half of this is of a quality adapted for that purpose. It is generally free from timber, but covered with fern; and in the swampy parts, forming a margin half a mile deep on the south and east, near the sea, with flax. The latter description of land was considered, at the period of the original selection of suburban sections, as nearly worthless; much of it was selected for the very latest orders; and some considerable portions, though only a few miles from the town, were left out of the suburban surveys altogether. It has now, however, proved to be the best land in the district, is easily drained and cleared, and bears very heavy crops. The fern-land is also good when the fern grows strong and high; though, when the vegetation is stunted, it of course indicates a poor soil. But on some fern-land, cultivated on a large scale, from thirty to thirty-five bushels of wheat per acre have been grown without manure, proving that it only requires proper culture to make it good land.......

'A purely fern district at first affords little or no pasturage for cattle or sheep; scarcely even goats will live upon it. In Blind Bay, however, there has always been some grass; and as the stock have increased, the grass increased also in a wonderful degree, so that it is now capable of maintaining a very considerable quantity. It has been owing in great degree to the semi-pastoral nature of the district,

and consequent increase of stock, that the settlement has been able to stand its ground among the difficulties with which it has been surrounded.......

'Cloudy Bay, with the Wairau Plain and Valley, forms, however, the most extensive and most valuable portion of the settlement. The whole of that district is somewhat of the shape of a skate-fish – a broad level plain, eight or ten miles wide, at the head of Cloudy Bay, running inland for eighteen miles, when it suddenly converges to a width of two or three miles, equally level with the plain below, and extending from forty to fifty miles further inland. Though it appears level, or may, in a general description, be so spoken of, there is a very considerable but gradual fall from the head of the valley to the sea, probably not less than 2000 feet in fifty miles; but it is not perceptible to the traveller. The land for four or five miles from the sea is covered with flax and other strong vegetation, and is generally swampy, but of excellent quality, and capable, apparently, like that in Blind Bay, of easy drainage; for the next eight or ten miles it is dry, covered with long grass, and generally of good quality; beyond this it continues grassy, the land getting lighter the further you advance up the country, till the last sixteen or eighteen miles, which are very poor and stony, only fit for grazing purposes. At the very extremity there are a few miles of forest. Several portions of the district (chiefly in the valley) are very stony, which were omitted from the surveys, and have no value except for pasture. The whole district, however, contains a great abundance of excellent agricultural land; but its principal value at present is to be found in the fertile pasture with which it is clothed from end to end, including the whole of the hills which bound it on the eastern side, which present some of the finest sheep-runs in the world, and extend all the way to the east coast by Cape Campbell, and so southward to the Kaikora Mountains.'

The averages of agricultural produce per acre are stated at – wheat, 24 bushels; barley, 25 do.; oats, 21 do.; potatoes, 6 tons; turnips, 24 tons. Some mismanagement appears to have occurred in the organization of this settlement, since it remained stationary down to 1848, notwithstanding an excess of births over deaths, which would have made it increase had not, as we shall see, some of the original settlers re-emigrated. There are here places of worship for members of the Church of England, the Wesleyan Methodists, the Free Church of Scotland, Roman Catholics, and German Lutherans. It has been stated that the settlement was from the beginning overstocked with labour. Yet it seems to have been beneficial to the labourers themselves, since many of them are now landowners. The trade of the colony, though small, seems to have a healthy tendency. From 1843 to 1846, the imports fell from £28,867 to £3082, while the exports rose from £629 to £9819. In 1849 the exports exceeded those of previous years by £900. The following particulars as to the industrial

statistics of this district are extracted from a recent report by Mr Bell, agent of the New Zealand Company: –

'The immigration that recommenced to this settlement upon the completion of the arrangement between Her Majesty's government and the company in 1847, and the births since that time, have added more than 500 souls to the European population of Nelson since the date of the last returns in my predecessor's report of July 1848; the total number of Europeans and. natives at the end of 1848 being 4780. Had the re-emigration of 1000 people not taken place in the years previous to 1847, there would have been at this time a European population of 4500, or a total population, counting natives, of nearly 6000 souls. There are about 200 more European males than females, and about 200 more native males than females; shewing a total excess of rather more than 400 males in the settlement; but this disproportion is much greater in the adults than in the children under fourteen years of age. A new feature in the returns subsequent to 1847, is the addition of the natives of Wairau, Waitohi, and other parts of Queen Charlotte's Sound, which places have been annexed to Nelson by the government purchases of the last three years.

'The distribution of the population is interesting as respects the proportion engaged in agricultural occupations compared with that employed in the town. The number living within the town boundary at the end of 1849 was 1297, and 2075 in the suburban and rural districts – giving 778 more people in the country than in the town. In 1844 the proportions were – 1460 in the town, and 1555 in the country; and at Port Nicholson in 1848 there were 2649 persons in Wellington and its suburbs, and only 2039 in the rural districts.

'Land in Cultivation. – There has been a steady increase in actual cultivation from 1847 to 1849 – 276 acres more being cultivated by Europeans in 1848 than in 1847; 84 acres more in 1849 than in 1848: altogether, 360 acres more in 1849 than in 1847; while the total number of acres fenced last year was 5203, and cleared 4167. Still, I believe that the extent of cultivated land is underrated for 1849, and that the returns of the present year will shew a considerable increase......

'The price of wheat and potatoes, and indeed of all agricultural produce, will probably be much higher this year than at any time in the last three years, in consequence of the demand for California; and though at the end of 1849 the prices of produce were lower than those set down in this estimate, it will be remembered that the grain crop of 1849, harvested quite at the year's end, will only be sold in 1850, so that its value is set down at the present rates, and not at those of the former year. But I am disposed to think that the price of flour and potatoes will go so much higher in the course of this year, that a considerable addition might justly be made to the total sum of £26,000, at which I have estimated the crop of 1849......

'The practice of squatting has been very much diminished in the last two or three years, especially since the remodelling of the settlement by the scheme of July 1847: there are now only about sixty of

them, cultivating about 200 acres, whereas in 1846 there were 210. The ordinance lately passed for enabling the magistrates to impose a fine on squatters has had a good effect, and there are some men who only occupy their land without leases, because the proprietors have not given power to an agent to grant any, and who will gladly become regular tenants when sufficient authority is received......

'Live-Stock. – There has been an astonishing increase in the livestock belonging to this settlement since 1843. The total stock of all kinds, which in that year only amounted to 3000 head, was in 1849 upwards of 72,000 head. The number of horses have increased 600 per cent., the horned cattle 650 per cent., the goats upwards of 500 per cent., and the sheep nearly 5000 per cent.; the value of the stock was nearly £80,000, upon a moderate estimate, at the end of last year; in 1843 the value did not exceed £7000: so that the money value of it has multiplied nearly twelve times in the six years......

'Adding, therefore, the agricultural to the pastoral returns, the result is, that the actual produce or income of cultivation and livestock for 1849 was £50,588; and for the eight years of the settlement's existence, the large sum of £252,930; being an average of £31,616 per annum, even reckoning the two first years, when increase was necessarily very small both of agriculture and of stock.

'The list of shipping belonging to this port shews some falling off from the year 1848, and still more from previous years; which is to be accounted for by the loss of eight vessels wrecked in various places in the last few years. A great part of the loss was owing to the shipment of entirely inexperienced persons as masters on board; but the severe lessons that have been given of such folly will certainly prevent its recurrence for the future. Six vessels, not yet in the registered list for 1849, are built or building at the various yards; and this will bring up the number again in 1850.

Buildings, &c. – The return of increase in building during the year is satisfactory, shewing one new building in less than every eight families, taking each family at the usual average of four persons. There are only two brick houses less than in 1848, which is the best proof of the earthquakes of that year not having done much damage; the clay and mud houses have somewhat diminished, and the increase is altogether in the better sort of wooden houses which form the staple building in new colonies......

'Manufactures, Mines, &c. – The account of manufactures forms perhaps the least satisfactory return under this section of the statistics of Nelson; for though no retrograde steps have been taken, no advance has been made. The only decrease of importance is in the number of saw-mills; and this has happened, unfortunately, at a time when the demand for timber is larger than it has been for years, and is likely to increase very greatly yet. There are, however, efforts making to erect one or two more mills in the course of the present year, and if the demand should continue steady, means will be found for the necessary buildings at the proper time. And although the same amount of improvement is not seen under this as under other

heads, the manufacture of goods to the amount of £16,000 is, after all, no inconsiderable circumstance for one year.'

The settlement will look forward to a material extension of its operations on the Wairau Plains. The reason why it has not as yet taken advantage of this valuable tract, is said to be the deficiency of local capital arising from this – that of the original allotees of the land, only thirty have settled.

Wairau is the spot which acquired so unfortunate a celebrity by the massacre of 1843; but it is understood that none of the few natives who reside there were connected with the series of outrages by which the colony was so severely shaken. Their leaders, Rauparaha and Ranghieta, belonged to the north. Since these unhappy events, the natives have given remarkable instances of their acuteness as traders and men of business generally.

Coal and lime are among the natural productions of the district. There are lime and brick kilns, and several workshops and manufactories; as, for instance, saw-mills, flour-mills, flax-mills, shipyards, rope-walks, &c. On the subject of small farming, both in this and the other New Zealand settlements, the following estimate by Mr Ward, published in the 'New Zealand Journal,' will be found practically instructive: –

'I will now give you a short outline of the expenses that must necessarily be incurred in order to commence with a farm of fifty acres at Nelson; it may vary a little in the other settlements: I only mention Nelson, because I know nothing of the other settlements personally. The fifty acres of land at Nelson would cost you, to buy it – if near town, or within five or six miles of it, and being good flax land – £150 per section of fifty acres; if inferior land, within that distance, £50 to £100; if at a greater distance, less in proportion, especially bad land, which at a distance from town is unsaleable: no person would have it as a gift to cultivate it: quality and situation are the two main things to be attended to in selecting land in New Zealand: but without buying the land, it can be rented at a low rent, with a purchasing clause inserted in the lease, so that the tenant can buy it at any time within seven years at a given price if he chooses. This is very convenient, and many sections are let at Nelson in this way. The rent of land varies according to quality and situation – some sections are let at 2s. 6d. per acre per annum, some at 5s., and some 6s., for the first seven years; but it is a general rule for the tenant to have it rent free for the first year, and sometimes for two years: this is regulated by the apparent difficulties and expense that the land offers to get it in a state of cultivation. I subjoin my estimate of the first year's expense, so that you may form some idea what you can do in the colony: you must recollect the first year is the most difficult and expensive – during that, you will have all to buy, and nothing to sell; but after the first year the scale will be turned; you will have plenty to sell, and little to buy. J. Ward.'

Estimate of the necessary expenses to commence a farm at Nelson, New Zealand – fifty acres, at 5s. per acre per annum, for seven years, first year's rent free: –

Wooden house, large enough for five or six people
(A good substantial brick house of this size, £30.)
£15 0 0

Four working bullocks, £40; plough, £6; harrows and roller, £5; cart, £12; gear and small tools, £7
(Two horses will cost £50, and the harness £6 more; bullocks are the best until the land is in a state of cultivation.)
70 0 0

Fencing a ten-acre field
(It would be cheapest to fence the whole in at once, £25.)
10 00

Seed for three acres wheat, 2 1/4 bushels to the acre, at 5s. a bushel, say seven bushels
115 0

Seed for four [two?] acres barley, three bushels to the acre, at 4s
1 4 0

Seed for half acre potatoes
0 15 0

Garden seeds and plants
0 5 0

One cow, a good one, £12; a few pigs and fowls, £5
17 0 0

Housekeeping expenses for three of you for twelve months £50 0 0
(After the first six months, you could have your own vegetables, eggs, and fowls, if you go the right way to work.)

Furnishing the house, and incidental expenses, 20 0 0

70 0 0

£185.19.0

(Suppose it takes £200, as I have allowed nothing for accidents or breakages: you may have a bullock die, or break the plough or cart.)

At the end of the year your account would stand thus: –

Value at
the end of
first year.

Crops, three acres wheat, thirty bushels per acre, allowing the straw to pay expenses, at 5s. per bushel,
£22 10 0

Crops, two acres barley, forty bushels per acre, straw will more than pay expenses, at 4s. per bushel,
16 0 0

Crops, half acre potatoes, four tons, at £2 per ton,
8 0 0

Cow and calf, £15; pigs and poultry, £10; sold butter and milk, £6; two pigs, £1; twenty fowls at 9d. – 15s,
32 15 0

Bullocks, cart, plough, &c; allow 5 per cent, for wear and tear,
66 10 0

House and goods,
30 00

Improvements, ten acres land fenced, £10; and six acres got in a good state of cultivation, £24,
34 0 0

Improvements on four acres land, cleared, ploughed, once harrowed and rolled, at £2,
8 0 0

Improvements by putting up cow-shed, pig-sty, fowl-house, and tool-house, £6. Loss for materials – boards, £1, 12s.; nails, 6 lbs. at 7d. – 3s. 6d. = £1, 15s. 6d,
4 4 6

£221.19.6

'I have supposed you to effect these improvements yourself. Although this may not appear to be a very glowing account, yet in reality it is a very favourable one; and better than it will prove to be, except you are industrious, and everything is looked after as well as it should be, and the land must be good. I see there has been

£96, 5s. 6d. earned within the year – namely, by produce and increase of stock, £17, 15s.; nett produce of crops, £42, 16s.; improvements, £40. But you must bear in mind that you have much better prospects for the second year: you would be able to get twenty acres under crop the second year; the five and a half acres would take but very little cultivating for the second crop; you would have four times as much produce for sale; and your expenses would not be one-fourth as much as the first year. At the end of the second year your accounts would stand thus: –

| Value.
Proceeds of crops, sold and unsold – namely, ten acres wheat, at £7 per acre; eight acres of barley, at £8 per acre; two acres of potatoes, at £12 per acre, | £158 0 0
Cows and pigs, increase since last year, £12; produce sold, £12; value last year, £25, | 49 00
Bullocks, cart, &c. same as last year, having laid out £10 in repairs, | 66 10 0
House and goods, £30; improvements on the land, £40; continued same as first year, £40, | 111 0 0
| £384 10 0
Less for expenses – namely, materials, and building a barn, £15; housekeeping, £20; rent, £12, 10s.; sundries, £10 – less expenses for the year, | 57 10 0
Total value at the end of second year, | £327.0.0

'I have estimated these expenses from actual experience at Nelson, and I have only to say that the prices would be different in a new settlement – the bullocks, cart, plough, and seed would be dearer; then, in return, your butter, eggs, and milk would sell for double as much, and you would get a better price for your wheat and potatoes. If you could buy two or three cows at the commencement, it would increase your income considerably: the young cows would soon make you increase the size of your dairy, and the young steers would soon be fit to assist the old ones, or you could increase the size of your farm when you had sufficient young stock to work it; this would cost you but very little, as you would have only to buy another plough and two yokes and bows. J. WARD.'

The following are the regulations respecting the acquisition of waste crown lands in New Zealand already referred to, which have been issued in connection with an order in council: –

'1. Charts of the islands to be prepared with all practicable expedition and accuracy; and especially charts of all those parts over which either the aboriginal natives or the settlers have established valid titles, whether of property or of occupancy.

'2. In every district shall be kept a registry of the lands, distinguishing, with reference to such charts, the settled lands from the unsettled.

'3. At the capital town of each province shall also be kept a

general registry of the settled and of the unsettled lands, with reference to such charts.

'4. It shall he the duty of every person (other than the aboriginal inhabitants) to transmit to the registrar of lands for the district a statement of the extent, locality, and bounds thereof, and of the title under which he claims to be provisionally registered.

'5. The protector of the aborigines shall, in like manner, transmit to the registrar of the district a statement of the extent (as nearly as it can be ascertained) and of the locality of all the lands situate within the same, to which any such natives, either as tribes or as individuals, claim either a proprietary or a possessory title, to be provisionally registered.

'6. All lands not so claimed or provisionally registered by the time limited, are to be considered as vested in the crown.

'7. Within a time to be for that purpose appointed after such provisional registration, a land court shall be holden, for investigating and deciding on the accuracy and validity of such registrations, competent to decide both as between the claimant and the crown, and as between different claimants asserting opposite and incompatible titles. It shall not, however, be competent to any such land court to decide upon or to investigate any titles to land which at any previous time may have been adjudged to any person, by the sentence of any competent court, or which may at any previous time have been granted or assigned by the crown, or by any governor-in-chief, governor, or lieutenant-governor.

'8. The land registries of the districts being revised and corrected by the adjudications of the land courts, an appeal shall lie from any such adjudication to the supreme court. The registries of the several districts, when revised and corrected, to be final and conclusive evidence of the title to any lands comprised in such registries, and as final and conclusive evidence of the crown's right to all lands not comprised therein.

'9. No claim shall be admitted in the land courts on behalf of the aborigines to any lands, unless it shall be established, to the satisfaction of the court, that either by some act of the executive government of New Zealand, or by the adjudication of some competent court, the right of such aboriginal inhabitants to such lands has been acknowledged and ascertained, or that the claimants or their progenitors, or those from whom they derived title, have actually had the occupation of the lands so claimed, and have been accustomed to use and enjoy them, either as places of abode, or for tillage, or for the growth of crops, or for the depasturing of cattle, or otherwise for the convenience and sustentation of life, by means of labour expended thereupon.

'10. For insuring the observance of these rules respecting the preparation of the charts and the keeping of the registries, and for determining the methods to be followed in drawing up and transmitting claims, and in the provisional registration of them, and for ascertaining and regulating the constitution and proceedings of the

land courts, and the mode of proceeding upon appeals to the supreme courts, and otherwise for carrying into full effect these instructions, the governor-in-chief shall, by proclamations, establish all such rules as by the act of parliament charter and these instructions may be competent to him; and so far as it may not be competent to such governor-in-chief to establish such rules, it shall be his duty to propose to the legislatures of the provinces the enactment of all such laws as may be necessary for that purpose, that so the extent and limits of the lands of the crown, available for future settlement, and the extent and limits of the lands of the aboriginal inhabitants, and the extent and limits of the lands of the settlers, may severally be distinctly ascertained.

'11. No conveyance of the lands of the natives in any shape, or for any period, to be valid unless sanctioned by the crown. This is not to apply to the case of natives who have acquired land by tenure, after the manner of British subjects. – N. B. This part of the regulations is so purely technical, that it seems to have been introduced by the draughtsmen, afraid lest some case had been left unprovided for.

'12. All the lands so ascertained, as aforesaid, to constitute the demesne of the crown, are held for the benefit of the subjects of the crown at large, and especially of settlers.

'13. The demesne lands shall, by proclamations to be issued by the respective governors of the provinces, be divided into counties, hundreds, townships, and parishes, each exactly defined with reference to the charts.

'14. No crown lands in New Zealand to be alienated, either in perpetuity or for any definite time, either by way of grant, lease, licence of occupation, or otherwise, gratuitously, nor except under the regulations.

'15. No crown lands to be alienated, unless included within the terms of some proclamation issued by the governor or lieutenant-governor of the province, declaring for three calendar months at the least next before alienation, that the lands are thenceforward to be within the limits of settlement.

'16. No such lands to be so alienated unless previously surveyed, and distinguished by a mark in the chart of the county, hundred, township, and parish.

'17. The governor, with the executive council, to mark out and distinguish all such parts of the demesne of the crown as may appear best adapted for the site of future towns, and especially seaport towns – or as the lines of internal communication, whether byroads, canals, railways, or otherwise – or as places fit to be reserved as quays, landing-places, or otherwise, for the general convenience of trade and navigation – or as places of military or naval defence – or as the sites of churches, court-houses, markets, hospitals, prisons, or other public edifices – or as cemeteries, or as places fit to be reserved for the embellishment or health of towns, or for the recreation of the inhabitants; or otherwise for any purposes of public utility, convenience, or enjoyment, in which either the whole population of the province, or

any large number of the inhabitants, may have a common interest: all these to be known as reserved lands.

'18. All reserved lands, with the exception of those reserved as the future sites of towns, may be conveyed to any corporation gratuitously, for the public uses for which they were so reserved.

'19. The lands reserved as the sites of towns shall be divided into two classes – 'town allotments,' and 'suburban allotments:' the town allotments being such as will probably become the future site of buildings, the suburban allotments being such as will probably acquire a greatly-enhanced value from the close vicinity to such buildings.

'20. All the demesne lands of the crown brought by proclamation within the limits of settlement are to be alienated as follows, being divided into three classes; of which the first class shall consist of town allotments; the second class of suburban; and the third of rural.

'21. In reference to each town, and the suburbs, the governor shall, by proclamation, determine the number and extent of the allotments; care being taken that they be made in reference to some convenient plan previously fixed for the erection of the town, and that no town allotments be greater in extent than will probably be required for a single edifice, with such adjacent land as may probably be necessary for the use and enjoyment of the future occupants.

'22. No rural allotment within the demesne shall exceed in extent one square mile; but it shall be competent to the governor to divide any such allotment for the purpose of such alienation into allotments of one-half or of one-quarter of a square mile.

'23. Rural allotments shall, by proclamation, be divided into such as are supposed and such as are not supposed to contain valuable minerals.

'24. No part of the demesne of the crown shall be alienated, either in perpetuity or otherwise, either absolutely or conditionally, until after it has first been put up to sale at a public auction, on three calendar months' notice.,

'25. At every such public auction the lands are to be put up in lots at a minimum upset price.

'26. No rural allotment shall for the present be put up at any minimum price less than twenty shillings per acre.

'27. The respective minimum upset prices of rural lands supposed to contain minerals, of suburban lands, and of town lands, shall always be the same in respect of each separate allotment of the same extent comprised in any one of those several classes respectively. Such upset price shall always exceed the before-mentioned upset price of twenty shillings an acre, the amount of such excess being from time to time determined by such proclamations as aforesaid, in respect of the allotments contained in each of the said several classes of land.

'28. It shall be competent to any person, within three calendar months after the auction, to become the purchaser of lands put up, and not sold at the upset price.

'29. Immediate payment in cash an indispensable condition of every sale.

'30. It shall be competent to the governor to demise, for any term of years (not exceeding twenty-one), any rural allotments supposed to contain minerals, reserving a royalty of not less than fifteen per cent, on the produce, and to introduce all covenants necessary for the faithful discharge of all the terms and conditions of the lease.

'31. A separate account to be kept by the treasurer of each province of the gross proceeds of the land-sales, rents, and royalties, and of all the costs, charges, and expenses of crown lands, after deducting which, the net balance shall be held for defraying the cost of introducing into the respective provinces emigrants from the United Kingdom, or for defraying the costs of such other public services as shall from time to time be prescribed by instructions to be issued under the act.

'32. These rules not to affect the promulgation of instructions respecting the occupation of lands by lease or licence for any term of years, or for any shorter time, to be regulated by further instructions.

'33. But this exception is not to extend to the temporary occupation of lands, for the purpose of depasturing sheep or cattle under any lease or licence. This branch is to be regulated by further instructions, and in the meantime by orders by the governor-in-chief.'

An amendment of these instructions was issued under the sign-manual on 7th February 1850, authorising the remission, to a specified extent, of the minimum upset price of 20s. per acre in the case of officers of the army and navy settling under the government regulations, and to sanction the gratuitous alienation of land to military pensioners and natives.

THE OTAGO SETTLEMENT.

THE OTAGO SETTLEMENT.

Before the separation from the Established Church of Scotland of a large body of its members, constituting the Free Church, a design had been formed of constructing a class or ecclesiastical colony, the ruling principle of which should be an attachment to the Presbyterian form of worship and church government. It does not appear to have ever been designed that the settlers and labourers should consist exclusively of members of one church, but that the promoters should be a Presbyterian body, who should take especial care to provide for the means of their own worship, and for the education of the rising generation in their own sentiments. It seems to have been contemplated from the first, that part of the funds raised from the disposal of land should to a considerable extent be devoted to these purposes. Thus the members of

the persuasion of the promoters, though not arrogating an exclusive right of colonisation, would have a privilege over others in their worship and education, being supported out of the general funds. The persons who had nourished this idea being chiefly connected with the large body who had left the establishment, it came into practical effect as a project of the lay members of the Free Church. The site of the colony was suggested in 1845, and the Otago Association was soon afterwards formed. A bargain with the New Zealand Company was completed in the summer of 1847, and before the end of that year, the first party of colonists were despatched to the settlement in two ships.

The district apportioned to this Scotch colony is situated in the Middle Island of New Zealand, near its southern extremity, south latitude 45 deg. 40' to 46 deg. 20'. It comprises a large block of fine land, and has been called Otago: such being the name given to it by the natives. The capital of Otago is called Dunedin: that being the Celtic name for Edinburgh, and therefore appropriate. The settlement has a coast-line of from fifty to sixty miles in length, lying between Otago Harbour and a headland called the Nuggitts. It extends an average distance inland of seven miles to the foot of a low mountain-range.

According to all accounts, the lands of the Otago settlement are fertile, well watered, and eminently suitable for purposes of husbandry, while beyond the boundary there is extensive and available pasturage. The basin called Otago Harbour, on which Dunedin is situated, is a fine land-locked sheet of water, fourteen miles in length, and so deep that vessels may sail up and deliver their cargoes at the quay. The nature of the country will be gathered from the following extracts from different authorities: –

'Beyond the first ridge of down, which forms the southern horizon from the harbour, lies an undulating country, covered with grass. This is more or less good, according to position and aspect, and has been much deteriorated in places by extensive and repeated burnings, which impoverish the land. The worst of it, however, affords abundant food for sheep.

'The anise plant, so valuable as pasture for sheep and cattle, abounds over all the land we traversed. It is this plant that renders the plain of the Waimea, near Nelson, so propitious to the fattening of stock. I have never tasted such well-flavoured meat as that fattened on the natural pastures near Nelson. The plant is also found in abundance near Port Cooper, and in the Wairarapa Valley, near Port Nicholson. I have not seen it farther north, or in any district where fern abounds. Its chief property seems to be a warming tonic. As such, I believe some preparation of its seed is given in racing stables in England as a condition-ball. It arrives at its full growth during

the summer; but in many places during our journey I found it at this season of the year eighteen inches in length, and scarcely a square foot of ground without a root of it. In the uplands we found snow in some places knee-deep, and the ground frozen to the depth of an inch; but on our return these indications of a severe climate had disappeared before some days as warm as those of summer. The vicinity of snowy eminences is highly estimated by flock-owners, particularly where the downs are round-topped, and in long slopes; so that the gradual tricklings from the melting snows go to nourish the roots of the grasses. After traversing these downs for five miles from Otago, we overlooked the plain of the Taieri, which contains about 40,000 acres of land, and is intersected by the river of the same name, navigable for large boats twelve miles from the sea, which it reaches at about twenty-five miles from Otago. About two-thirds of the plain are now available. The remainder is subject to inundations, but may be reclaimed and rendered more valuable than the higher parts.' – (Colonel Wakefield, pp. 9, 10.)

'The tide having ebbed, we descended to the base of the cliffs, and walked along a natural pavement formed by the horizontal strata. We were not long in perceiving indications of coal in black streaks in the sandstone, and thin beds of richly bituminous shale; and we picked up several rounded pieces of pure coal cast up by the waves. But on turning a projected point, we found ourselves in face of a black wall or cliff, which upon examination turned out to be pure coal. In thickness, what we saw of it could not be less than 18 feet, while, as the pavement on which we stood was coal as well, extending out to meet the waves, it was impossible to say how much deeper it went. Mr Tuckett was of opinion that in quality it was very superior to the ordinary New Zealand coal; but in this opinion I could not agree with him, as it appeared to me to have the same conchoidal fracture and resinous lustre as the Massacre Bay coal, as well as that which I have seen from other districts in this country. What was rather remarkable, was its nearness to the surface. Above it lay a bed of about twenty feet of a conglomerate of small quartz pebbles, on the top of which the soil commenced. We were not able to estimate the horizontal extent of the bed. What we saw ranged only for a few hundred yards, disappearing in some small gullies, which at that point intersect the cliffs.' – (Munro, p. 119.)

'As we proceeded about the time of low-water along shore, I was gratified to observe very abundant large pieces of drift-coal of good quality, still no bed was visible in the face of the cliff. Farther on, the beach became again rocky, and quantities of coal were lodged between the rocks, and soon appeared in view a black cliff. I felt certain it must be a vast formation of coal, although Mr – – – , at Waikauwaike, had declared that there was no other coal discovered along the coast but the insignificant appearance which I had examined at Matakaea. Approaching this cliff, I found it to be a mass of coal for about 100 yards' length, in thickness from 12 to 20 feet, as seen in the face of the cliff above the sand, and to what depth it exists

beneath the sand I could not ascertain: I should suppose, from appearance of coal, adjacent to the depth of low-water.

'The beach is not accessible on account of the heavy swell and great surf. The coal must therefore be worked inland, and the bed will be no doubt discovered near the bank of the Clutha (or Matou) River, which, in a direct line inland, is probably not more than four Or five miles distant.' – (Tuckett, pp. 41, 42.)

In the following extract from a letter by the New Zealand Company's surveyor, reference is made to the capital of the settlement: –

'The site of the Upper Town (Dunedin) proves to he extremely convenient in every respect: a great part of the suburban sections may be laid out immediately around it; there is an easy access from it to the rural districts, the walk to the Taieri at the present time not occupying more than two hours; and when the banks in the upper harbour are marked by a few stakes, vessels of 100 tons' burthen might, in two tides, be towed up with boats a-head to within a very short distance of it. Along the water-frontage there is a long flat, dry at low tide, which might be easily reclaimed; and on the opposite side of the bay, about half a mile across, there are 2 1/4 fathoms' water. Eighty suburban sections adjoining the town at Koputai have been laid out and staked, and there are about a hundred more ready to be staked on the line between the two towns. In marking both town and suburban allotments, I have adopted the system of using square-sawn stakes, with the numbers branded on them, so that a surveyor will not be required to go over the ground hereafter to shew the proprietors the boundaries of their properties.

'I have lately been examining the flat, which you perhaps remember, lying between the township and the sand-hills on the ocean shore, with the view of laying it out into suburban allotments. This land is covered mostly with high grass; and though in some parts there is surface-water to be found, yet it is not at all swampy, the drainage being only impeded by the exuberance of the vegetation, and which will, I believe, be entirely obviated by the lines which will be cut for the survey. The area I estimate at 2000 acres, or 200 allotments; the survey can be made very quickly, and will be commenced as soon as possible.

'On the west side of the town, separated from it by some grassy hills, lies the Kaikarai Valley, which will yield about 300 suburban sections. It is open land, with a rich alluvial soil, well adapted for agricultural purposes. Mr Charleton is now cutting lines for sections in wooded land on the side of the harbour opposite (east of) the town.'

From the 'Otago Journal' for November 1849 the following passage, giving the experience of the first settlers, is taken. Its author is not mentioned; and it must be remarked that the yield of wheat stated in it is of a very extraordinary kind: –

'Letters have just arrived from this settlement of dates down to the 25th of April last. They announce the safe arrival of the Mary with immigrants. The settlers had then had twelve months' experience of the country; and their opinion of its climate, soil, capabilities, and resources, fully bear out all that has been said in regard to them. The summer had been splendid; and the second winter, on which they had then entered, so far as it was gone, had been characterised by weather remarkably fine and calm. We have been favoured with the following extract of a diary of the weather from 9th October 1848 to 17th April 1849: –

Months.

Average of Mean Temperature of each Month, from observations taken between 6 and 7 in the morning.

Number of Days of twenty-four hours perfectly dry.

Number of Days of twenty-four hours showery.

Number of Days Wet

October, from 9th to 31st,

49.7

16

5

2

November,... 1st... 30th,

54.3

13

12

5

December,... 1st... 31st,

54.3

18

9

4

January,... 1st... 31st,

53.5

17

6

8

February,... 1st... 28th,

56.0

14

11

3

March,... 1st... 31st,

50.5

19

8

4

April,... 1st... 17th,

45.8

10

6

1

'From sixty to sixty-five bushels of wheat per acre, with oats, barley, and potatoes in proportion, were the yields of the soil. The lands being generally open, fencing and ploughing up with oxen was all that was required, whilst the luxuriance of the gardens and nursery-grounds exceeded expectation. Hawthorn seeds, for instance, gave a full braird within six weeks after sowing. Shepherds, ploughmen, and country labourers, were in proportion to the demand. Amongst the last were a few weavers from Scotland, who, in bad times at home, had been accustomed to work with the spade, and had proved the most useful and intelligent at similar work in the colony. One of them, with a large family to support, has built himself the most perfect and commodious cottage in the settlement, which is referred to as a model. The landowners were busily occupied in building houses, erecting stockyards, forming sheep-stations, and introducing stock. Many ships laden with sheep, cattle, horses, &c. had arrived from Australia. A channel into the harbour, of twenty-one feet at low-water, being five more than were supposed to exist, had been discovered. Dunedin, the capital, consisted of 130 houses, and the revenue for the quarter was nearly £5000.'

It is to be regretted that the series of papers from which the above quotation is made is more devoted to rhetorical commendations, and to general views on the duty and wisdom of emigration, than to that kind of specific information, either about the original nature of the soil and its produce, or about the progress of the colonists, which would be really valuable to intending emigrants.

There are some letters from settlers, but these, too, are of a somewhat vague character, and in general only shew that the writer has reason to be contented with his own lot. One of the most business-like of these letters, from a Scottish gardener, dated 16th April 1849, contains the following passage: –

'Bush-land can be cleared for about £6 – that is, the bush burnt off; of course the stumps are left to rot out. The breeding of cattle will pay best here, I believe, for some time; you may purchase them from £7 to £15, turn them out to the hills, and let them run summer and winter. Some people milk them, but others allow their calves to suck. They never cost a farthing for food, so that you would pay almost as much for a calf as a cow, and no one would kill a calf on any account. A squatter told me lately that he had sold a young bullock for £15, which never had cost him a halfpenny. The first thing that people do, or should do, is to provide themselves with some sort of house. Some are merely covered with grass; others built with clay; others weather-boarded; others, among which is my own, are made with trees, say 9 inches diameter, fixed upright in the ground, and then plastered over with clay; a brick chimney; and for slates we have shingles, or a sort of lath 1 foot long, 4 inches broad, 1/4 inch thick; and in these said houses, rude though they may appear, we are quite as comfortable as you are in No. 10 Duncan Street. As regards the climate, it is very temperate; we had the thermometer as low as 27 degrees several times last winter, and I have seen ice as thick as a penny; but it uniformly disappeared by nine A.M. We had a good deal of wet weather in May and June, which in fact constitutes our winter weather. The air is pure and bracing, of which we have ample evidence in the appearance of the settlers, notwithstanding all the exposures to which they have been subjected; and I think those who were once most bitter in their declamations are now to be heard the warmest in their praises of their adopted country. As for myself, I would not return to Scotland to live permanently: true, we have rough labour, but we can afford a day for recreation too; and where can there be finer sport than a pig-hunt!'

The following passage is from the letter of a settler whose class is no farther stated than as it may be indicated by his tone. He is evidently possessed of a less contented spirit than the majority of those whose communications are adduced as testimonials of the perfection of new emigration fields: –

'I have now had eight months' experience of the colony, and from what I have seen myself and gleaned from others, I have little doubt but that it will yet be a very valuable country; but at present there are many drawbacks: first, we have few men of means amongst us who can afford to do much in the way of hiring labour; still, it is wonderful how few are for any time out of work, and those who are are generally of the unsteady class. It is a great bane to

this and the other colonies the great number of runaway sailors that are to be found generally spending every shilling in the taproom, and practising every vice. They leave their ships in the prospect of getting the high colonial rate of wages, but it is seldom of much use to them. I am happy to see that the labouring-men are making a beginning in cultivating their gardens: this is a beginning, and were they to join heartily, and lay their little stores together, they might soon be able to have their own ground.

'I have mentioned these things, that people may know the true condition of matters – as the fact is, that people coming here in general have not the least idea of what sort of country they are coming to, and have puffed themselves up with the most extravagant notions and ideas, till I believe the garden of Eden itself would scarcely have satisfied some of them; but in general, after they get a little settled, the steady portion find work, and get more into the way of the country, and more reconciled with their own condition. Another drawback at present is, that we are dependent upon other colonies for supplying us with provisions until we can raise our own. This is a most fearful drain upon our capital, which thus flies off at once, and we have nothing at present to draw it back again. Were facilities given to the labouring-men to cultivate the ground, this would soon be at an end, and I hope such a thing is not far distant.

'The want of roads is a serious evil, as the roads we have at present are merely formed out of the soil, and are more like canals of liquid mud and clay in winter than anything else; in fact, you cannot set a foot upon them at that season, but must make the best of your way along the edges or through the adjoining flax and fern; but in summer they are as good as they are bad in winter. The weather in this country is very changeable, and in the winter months very disagreeable – there being so much rain, which, with bad roads and bad houses, gives things a very dreary appearance; but there are many more working days than at home in winter, and the intervening days are often very mild and pleasant. I may mention that we had several severe falls of snow and sharp frosts, but such as you would merely laugh at in the north of Scotland. People coming here should provide themselves with the strongest and most durable clothing, especially laced boots, both for men and women, as dress-shoes and cloth-boots would be of little avail here. The summer months are very warm and pleasant, but the heat has not that oppressive feeling that is often felt in very warm days at home. For this reason a lighter clothing is necessary, and light canvas or duck trousers are the best, with a blue woollen shirt or duck overall; but the boots and shoes must always be strong. One thing is evident, that although the climate is very changeable, there can be no doubt but it is healthy; and I am told, and believe it to be a fact, that the climate is far better in many parts of the block than at Dunedin; and I know by experience, that where I stop it is much milder. The reason is, that there is no high ground

between it and the ocean towards the south, and to the east and north-east there is the harbour, and a large valley, so that it is exposed to a drought when the wind blows in any of these directions; and the south-west wind is the coldest wind here, answering to your north-east at home.'

The progress which the association have had to report in the last number of their journal, published in November 1850, was not in accordance with their anticipations, and, apparently admitting this to be the case, they refer to 'a combination of adverse circumstances which have retarded their progress.' The quantity of land disposed of in Otago was stated to amount to 18,000 acres; and the number of persons who had embarked thither from the United Kingdom in New Zealand ships, exclusive of those otherwise conveyed, amounted to 1400. By the agreement with the New Zealand Company, five years were allowed, from 23d November 1847, for the association selling 2000 properties covering 125,000 acres. By the New Zealand Company abandoning their privileges, and allowing their rights to revert to the crown in July 1850, the proceedings of the association were subjected to a temporary disturbance. The association immediately applied to the government for assistance in carrying out their original arrangements. While taking into consideration the propriety of giving the association a royal charter, an arrangement was made for paying over all moneys for purchases to the Emigration Commissioners, to be held for the government, who thus marked their intention to carry out the principles on which the bargain with the New Zealand Company was contracted.

Arrangements were made, and from time to time amended, for the disposal of lands in the settlement. The last series were issued on 1st August 1849. They are in many respects interwoven with the interests and privileges of the extinct New Zealand Company. They will thus have to be altered in then-details; but as it is presumed that in essentials they embody the pecuniary and other conditions on which lands are to be held, an abridgment of those parts which most materially affect the immediate interest of the proposing settler is here subjoined: –

'The settlement to comprise 144,600 acres of land, divided into 2400 properties, and each property to consist of sixty acres and a quarter, divided into three allotments – namely, a town allotment of a quarter of an acre, in a spot selected as the site of a town; a suburban allotment of ten acres, in the vicinity of a town site; and a rural allotment of fifty acres, be the measurements more or less.

'But each class of land to be sold separately, if so desired by the purchaser; and in case of such separate sale, the rural allotment to be reduced, if so desired, to twenty-five acres.

'The 2400 properties, or 144,600 acres, to be appropriated as follows: namely –

2000 properties, or 120,500 acres for sale to private individuals.

100 properties, or 6025 acres, for the estate to be purchased by the local municipal government.

100 properties, or 6025 acres, for the estate to be purchased by the trustees for religious and educational uses; and

200 properties, or 12,050 acres, for the estate to be purchased by the New Zealand Company.

'The price of the land for sale in the United Kingdom to be fixed for the present at 40s. an acre, or £120, 10s. a property, if the property be purchased entire, as defined above. But if purchased separately, the price of each class of land to be – Town land, £12, 10s. per allotment of a quarter acre; suburban land, £30 per allotment of ten acres; and rural land, £50 per allotment of twenty-five acres.

'The said prices to be charged on the estates of the municipal government of the trustees for religious and educational uses, and of the New Zealand Company, in the same manner as on the 2000 properties intended for sale to private individuals; and the purchase-money, amounting (at the rate of 40s. an acre) to £289,200, to be appropriated as follows – namely, emigration and supply of labour (three-eighths, 7s. 6d. in £1, or 37 1/2 per cent.), £108,450; civil uses, to be administered by the company – namely, surveys and other expenses of founding and maintaining the settlement, roads, bridges, and other improvements, including steam, if hereafter deemed expedient, and if the requisite funds be found available (two-eighths, 5s. in £1, or 25 per cent.), £72,300; religious and educational uses, to be administered by trustees (one-eighth, 2s. 6d. in £1, or 12 1/2 per cent.), £36,150; the New Zealand Company, on account of its capital and risk (two-eighths, 5s. in £1, or 25 per cent.), £72,300.

'It is to be observed that from the sum of £36,150, to be assigned to the trustees of religious and educational uses, will be defrayed £12,050, the price of the 100 properties, or 6025 acres to be purchased as the estate of that trust.

'In like manner, out of the sum of £72,300, to be assigned to the New Zealand Company, will be defrayed £24,100, the price of the 200 properties, or 12,050 acres to be purchased by the company as its estate.

'The purchase of the surface to include coal and all other minerals, but the company to have power to exclude lands containing, in considerable quantities, coal or other minerals, to be disposed of, by lease or otherwise, in such way as may be agreed on; with a view to prevent the coal-field from becoming a monopoly in the hands of private individuals, injurious to the public interests, and to insure to the community a due supply of fuel at the cheapest possible rate, and to enable lands containing other minerals to be disposed of in such way as may be considered most expedient.

'Reservations to be made, so far as may be practicable, of the sites of villages and towns, with suburban allotments adjacent, in the

parishes and hundreds, to be laid out in accordance with the government regulations.

'In laying out the chief town, Dunedin, due provision to be made for public purposes; as fortifications, public buildings, sites for places of public worship and instruction, baths, wharfs, quays, cemeteries, squares, a park, and other places for health and recreation.

'Five years from the 23d of November 1847 – the date of the embarkation of the first party – to be allowed to the association for effecting the sale of the 2000 properties, or 120,500 acres to private individuals.

'In the event of the whole 2000 properties being sold to private individuals within the period, the association to have further the refusal, on such terms as shall then be agreed upon, of the entire remainder of the block of 400,000 acres, or such portion of the same as the company shall not have returned to the crown.

'Each allotment to be assigned to the person first making application for it at the appointed place in the settlement.

'Purchasers to be allowed to select out of the whole of the lands of each class which may be surveyed, laid out, and open to selection at the time in the settlement.

'The municipality, and the trustees for religious and educational uses, to be entitled to select their respective estates in the proportion of one property or allotment each for every twenty properties or allotments sold to private individuals; and the New Zealand Company in the proportion of two properties or allotments for every twenty so sold.

'The association (including the purchasers and colonists whom they have brought forward or approved) having prepared a deed of trust and relative institutes, dated 6th November 1847, as a constitution for church and schools, the same to be held as part of the terms of purchase; to trustees appointed thereunder, the funds for religious and educational uses to be handed over, as collected, on the completion of each party; the provisions of such deed of trust and relative institutes to be duly observed in all respects; and in this and all other matters, the association to have respect to the full exoneration of the company from responsibility at the earliest possible period.

'Purchasers desirous of recommending labourers to the association for free or assisted passages, to give to the association written notice of the desire to make such recommendation, with full particulars of the labourers recommended, six weeks before the sailing of the vessel in which the labourers, if approved, are proposed to be sent.

'Two-thirds of the amount of the emigration fund (or £30 on each entire property purchased) to be applied to the provision of a supply of labour in accordance with the government regulations; and the remainder (or £15 on each entire property), subject to the concurrence of the company, to the passages from the United Kingdom of persons who, under those regulations, are not strictly eligible – such as the parents of grown-up children; children under seven years of

age, in excess of the authorised number; and, to a limited extent, purchasers as detailed below.

'Chief cabin passengers, being purchasers, to be entitled, at any time within twelve months from the date of their respective purchases, to receive one-third of the emigration fund accruing thereon (or £15 on each entire property) as an allowance towards defraying the expense, actually and reasonably incurred, for the passages to the settlement of the said purchasers and their families, at the rates laid down by the New Zealand Company.

'Fore-cabin and steerage passengers, being purchasers with regard to whom the Otago Association may be satisfied that they intend to he hirers of labour in the colony, to be allowed, at any time within twelve months from the date of their respective purchases, the same sum as chief-cabin passengers; if to the satisfaction of the association not intending to be hirers of labour, but to be, in fact, labourers themselves, the whole emigration fund accruing on their purchases (or £45 on each entire property); provided in every case that the sum specified be actually and reasonably expended, as stated above.

'Passages to be reserved for purchasers, and for labourers recommended by them and approved by the association, in the ships chartered by the company, provided that application for such passages be made six weeks before the sailing of the ship in which the parties desire to proceed.

'Licences. – Licences for the pasturage of land in the Otago settlement, while such land continues unappropriated, and not required for any purpose other than pasturage, to be granted for periods not exceeding one year, nor less than six months.

'The persons qualified to hold such licences to be the owners of not less than twenty acres of suburban, or twenty-five acres of rural land in the settlement, under titles originally derived from the company; or, with the consent of such owners, their immediate lessees or tenants to the like extent; in the latter case, however, the owner not to be qualified to hold a pasturage-licence in respect of the same land as his tenant.

'Apportionment of Pasturage. – No licence to be granted within the boundaries of the settlement for any defined pasturage-run; but the extent or amount of pasturage to be enjoyed by each licensee, and the mode of using the same, whether in commonage, in runs, or otherwise, to be decided by wardens elected annually under the following arrangements: namely –

'A public advertisement to be issued by the company's principal agent, or other authorised officer, in the month of October in each year, calling a general meeting of the persons qualified to hold licences in the settlement, to be held on a specified day in the ensuing month, where three wardens are to be elected by a majority for the year ensuing. Persons to be entitled to votes in the following proportions: namely –

Suburban Land. Rural Land. Votes.

For 20 acres and under 40, or 25 acres and under 50 – One.
... 40 ...... 80,... 50 ...... 100 – Two.
... 80 ...... 120,... 100 ...... 150 – Three.
... 120 ...... 160,... 150 ...... 200 – Four.
... 160 ...... 200,... 200 ...... 250 – Five.
... 200 acres and upwards, or 250 acres and upwards – Six.

'Applications to be delivered on or before the 15th days of the months of November and May respectively; and the licences to take effect respectively on the 1st of January and the 1st of July then next ensuing.

'The pasturage to be apportioned, the mode of using it to be decided, and the parties interested to be apprised accordingly, by the wardens, in the months of December and June for the half-years ensuing.

'New purchasers of land, being duly qualified, and making the requisite application, to be admitted to a proportionate privilege of pasturage at each half-yearly apportionment.

'On the issue of each licence, a fee to be paid of 10s. 6d.

'No licence to confer any right to the soil, or power of breaking up the same, or of subletting the pasturage apart from the land in respect of which the licence is issued, without consent of the other authorised officer.

'No allowance to be made to the holder of any licence for any improvements which he may think proper to effect.

'Disputes among licensees to be determined in such manner as the wardens may decide. Such decision to be conclusive against all parties interested.'

Such are the principal arrangements respecting the disposal and use of lands. Exact information as to making purchases, transit, &c. may be obtained in this country by application to the secretary of the Otago Association, 27 Hanover Street, Edinburgh. At this office the 'Otago Journal,' a small and useful periodical, is issued as occasion requires.

Conducted with considerable spirit and discretion, Otago settlement can hardly fail to do credit to its promoters, though, from the expense at which lands are disposed of, it must suffer in comparison with other districts.

THE CANTERBURY SETTLEMENT.

THE CANTERBURY SETTLEMENT.

While Otago is professedly a Scotch settlement, with a regulated endowment for religious and educational purposes according to Presbyterian doctrines and forms, Canterbury, its neighbour, is a settlement having precisely similar class objects in view, in relation to the Church of England.

Canterbury settlement is conducted under the auspices of a society, having its head-quarters in London, and consists of a large block of land, which, as in the case of Otago, was acquired from the New Zealand Company. The spot selected for the operations of the company was the neighbourhood of Banks's Peninsula, on the east coast of the Middle Island. The 44th degree of southern latitude passes nearly through the centre of the district. The peninsula itself is a wild rocky mass; but the pioneers of the settlement satisfied themselves that the land stretching inward was, from its possession of pasture and alluvial soil – of wood and water – a satisfactory site for their intended settlement: It may be mentioned that the open space proposed to be occupied by them, stretching to the interior mountain-chain, comprises a district somewhat less than Yorkshire in England. The operations of the society cannot be said to have assumed a practical form till 1850, when various vessels with emigrants were despatched.

The aim of the society was to transfer a settled and civilised community, with its various attributes – religious and educational establishments, employers or capitalists, tradesmen, labourers, &c.; and to carry out this object, funds were to be contributed from the price paid in acquiring lands. Thus while the purchaser has to pay £3 per acre, it was not to be considered that this was to be the price of the land. That was to cost but 10s.; but £1 was to go to a religious fund for the support of an ecclesiastical hierarchy and a system of education; another pound was proposed to be expended in emigration – that is, according to the lately prevalent theory, in bringing out labour to balance the capital. The remaining 10s. of the £3 per acre was to be applicable to miscellaneous purposes, such as surveys, roads, bridges, &c. When the whole territory expected to be absorbed by the system was actually purchased, a million of acres would be disposed of; and of the proceeds half a million would go as the price of land, a million for religious and educational purposes, a farther million for the emigration fund, and half a million for miscellaneous purposes.

As regards the selection of emigrants and settling on lands, the association, at an early stage of their progress, announced the following principles: –

'Selection of Colonists. – So far as practicable, measures will be taken to send individuals of every class and profession, in those proportions in which they ought to exist in a prosperous colonial community. The association retain, and will carefully exercise, a power of selection among all those who may apply for permission to emigrate to their settlement, either as purchasers, or as immigrants requiring assistance. They will do so with the view of insuring, as far as possible, that none but persons of good character, as well as

members of the Church of England, shall form part of the population, at least in its first stage; so that the settlement may begin its existence in a healthy moral atmosphere.

'Mode of Selecting Land. – The peculiarity of the method of the selection of land adopted in this settlement, consists in allowing every purchaser of an order for rural land to select the quantity mentioned in his land-order, in whatever part of the surveyed territory he may please, assisted by an accurate chart, which will be made as rapidly as circumstances will permit, representing the natural features, the quality of the soil, and the main lines of road. Certain rules as to position and figure, embodied in the terms of purchase, and framed with a view to prevent individuals from monopolising more than a certain proportion of road or river frontage, must be observed in each selection. But it is not the intention of the association to divide the whole or any portion of the territory to be colonised (except the sites of the capital and other towns) into sections of uniform size and figure, which has been the system generally pursued in other settlements. Every selection will be effected by the owner of the land-order communicating to the chief surveyor a description of the spot on which he wishes his section to be marked out. If this selection shall not violate the regulations as to position and figure, and if the area included shall be equal to the amount of land stated in the land-order, the section will be immediately marked on the chart, and a surveyor will be sent as soon as possible to mark it on the ground.'

Doubts being entertained as to whether it was necessary that purchasers of lands in the Canterbury settlement should be members of the Church of England, we applied for information on the subject, and are now authorised to state that it is not essential that purchasers should be so. They may belong to other religious bodies; but will of course have to give a third of their purchase-money to the support of the avowed institutions of the settlement. Labourers and others sent free from this country to the colony must, we presume, be members of the Church of England; but as natives will be employed, and a general community be self-introduced, the promoters of the scheme may lay their account with seeing the rise of dissenting bodies within the boundaries of the settlement.

The nature of the arrangements between the association and the New Zealand Company may here be explained. It was agreed that, unless before 30th April 1850, the amount paid to the company for land taken by members of the Canterbury Association should amount to £100,000, the territory should revert to the company, and the purchase-money be repaid to the associates who had advanced it. On the 1st of January 1850 a royal charter of incorporation, which had passed about a month earlier, was communicated to the association. The contingency which was

to prevent the reversion of the lands to the New Zealand Company was, however, far from probable. A very small amount of the promised £100,000 had been raised, and the association obtained a postponement of the day to the 30th of June. The prospect of the requisites being fulfilled, however, was as faint as ever. An entirely new arrangement was necessary; and it was carried out by the zealous friends of the project at, it would appear, some personal sacrifice. The term was prolonged to the 31st of December; and instead of realising £100,000, the new condition was, that sales must have been made to the extent of £50,000 by that day, and should be continued annually for ten years at the same rate, otherwise the powers of the association were to cease. The crisis in the New Zealand Company occurred in the meantime. On the 5th of July the New Zealand Company announced the termination of their functions both as a colonising and a commercial body, and thenceforth it fell to the association to deal immediately with government. A bill was then brought in for regulating the functions of the Canterbury Association by statute, and was passed on 14th August 1850 – (13 and 14 Vict, c. 70.) It followed the arrangement previously adopted when the New Zealand Company was a party, requiring, as a condition of the continuance of the association's functions, the expenditure of £50,000 a year on land purchases. The conditions on which land was appointed to be sold were, in general, those which will be found in the terms subsequently issued by the association, which will be seen further on. It was made a condition that a sixth of all receipts on land, whether from sale or depasturage, should be paid to the government. It will thus be observed that the scheme of the association has not been so widely appreciated as its promoters were led to anticipate, and hence probably the disposition to sell lands to any one without reference to religious profession.

The character of the lands within the Canterbury settlement will be gathered from the following extracts. Captain Thomas, agent and chief surveyor of the association, thus reports under the date of May 1849: –

'The block of land on the east coast of the Middle Island, from which the million of acres for the site of the Canterbury Settlement is to be selected, contains over two millions of acres, extending coastwise to the north and south-west, and bounded inland by a range of hills whose distance from the coast varies from forty to fifty miles. This country is perfectly level, watered by numerous rivers and streams, and covered with grass. Like all extensive districts, portions of it are found of inferior quality – a very small part is swampy, indeed so trifling, that a dray may be driven over almost every part of it: the surface in some parts is stony, but on examination we found it confined to the surface alone, the soil consisting of

a light loam, resting on gravel and a substratum of blue clay; much of it well adapted for agricultural purposes, and capable of yielding excellent crops of all kinds of grain, potatoes, and European fruits and vegetables. The whole of this extensive and almost uninhabited tract of plain country affords excellent natural pasturage, and is particularly well adapted for the depasturing of cattle and horses. The produce of a very extensive country, extending along the sea-coast for 200 or 300 miles, will have Port Cooper as its market and harbour. Banks's Peninsula contains no less than four good harbours – namely, Akaroa, Pigeon Bay, Port Levy, and Port Cooper. The country is hilly, and well wooded; and the three former harbours are separated from the plain country, excepting by forming long and expensive hill roads: thus Port Cooper alone is of any value with reference to the plains adjoining. The harbour of Port Cooper, situated in the north-west angle of Banks's Peninsula, though open to the eastward, affords good and safe anchorage. Large ships anchor about four miles up, whilst brigs and large schooners lie off the port town of Lyttelton. It has no bar, is easy of access and egress, and has been frequented by whalers of all nations for the last twenty years, and no accident is on record; and with a lighthouse on Godley Head (which I should most strongly recommend), might be entered with safety in the darkest night. The districts Lincoln, Stratford, Mandeville, Ashley, Oxford, and Buccleuch, are for the most part grassy, or partially covered with flax, and can be brought into cultivation at a very moderate expense; and I recommend these districts to be first occupied, not only on account of the quality of the land, but the first three with regard to the relative position of the harbour, as also of their possessing in many instances the advantages of water-communication for the transport of their produce, and supplying them with timber and firewood from Banks's Peninsula; and the last two with reference to the large extent of forest-land adjoining. We were agreeably surprised to find that mosquitoes, which are common in many parts of New Zealand during the summer season, were seldom found on the plain; and we attributed their absence to the very small extent of swampy land.'

In 1850, the association issued authoritatively to the public the following matured statements as to the theatre of their operations: –

'The site of the settlement is a territory on the east coast of the Middle Island of New Zealand, containing about 2,500,000 acres in one block, consisting mainly of three grassy plains or prairies, named Sumner, Whately, and Wilberforce, and intersected by several rivers, with their numerous tributaries, running to the sea from an Alpine chain of snow-capped mountains. All along the spurs and foot of this range, the forest, of which the plains seem to have been stripped by fire, extends in primeval grandeur. Near the middle of the coast-line, Banks's Peninsula, which comprises about 250,000 acres of mountain-land, the greater part of it being still covered by the forest, contains two lake-like harbours, with several

smaller ones. The capital of the settlement is Lyttelton, in Victoria Harbour (formerly Port Cooper.) The latitude of this place is 43 deg. 35' south, which, as respects temperature, corresponds with about 47 deg. in the northern hemisphere, being that of the most pleasant spots in the south of France. The climate exactly resembles that of Tasmania, being chiefly remarkable for warmth without sultriness, freshness without cold, and a clear brightness without aridity. Both the grape, for which England is too cold, and the gooseberry, for which the south of Italy is too hot, come to high perfection. In consequence of the scale of the natural features of the country, the scenery is very beautiful, and in some places magnificent. The fertility of the soil has been abundantly proved by the experience of successful squatters. The prairie character of the main part of the territory, together with the dryness of the atmosphere and the mildness of the winter, indicates that the most suitable occupation for capitalists will be pastoral husbandry – the breeding of cattle, horses, and sheep; but the absence of timber, the absence of drought, and the natural richness which produces grass in abundance without man's labour, explain why the arable lands of the squatters have yielded large returns, and shew that the plough and the flail will be plied successfully by those who may prefer tilling the earth to the management of live-stock. Drought is unknown. As respects flowers, kitchen vegetables, and all the English fruits, with the addition of melons and grapes, the gardens of the French settlers at Akaroa, and of the squatters on Sumner Plain, are described as teeming with produce of the finest quality and most beautiful appearance. Sea-fish is abundant, various, and of excellent quality. The only wild quadruped is swine; they are numerous, are very good to eat, and afford plenty of hard sport. The plains abound with quail, and a variety of wild-fowl. There are no snakes, wild dogs, or other indigenous vermin.'

Perhaps the most valuable, and certainly the most trustworthy document which the association have published, is an answer to a series of queries, given by the Messrs Deans, who had been for about six years previous to 1849 settlers and farmers about fifteen miles inland within the district proposed to be embraced by the new province of Canterbury. These explanations, and indeed, of course, any other documents issued by this association, as well as its rival, already noticed, will be readily afforded by the promoters to all applicants who are at all likely to put them to use. Had it been otherwise, this document would have been considered of sufficient importance to be here repeated. The surveying officer of the ship Acheron, writing in May 1849, said:

'You know, of course, that the general feature of the country is a succession of abrupt and lofty hills, with corresponding deep and secluded valleys, either thickly wooded, or clothed with a thick fern and long grass, offering all kinds of obstacles both for pastoral and

agricultural purposes; indeed it is often heartbreaking to see the land that people have settled down on, and the struggle and privation that must be endured before it can be turned to account. But here we have a plain extending from north to south 100 latitude miles, with an average width of at least thirty miles, intersected by numerous rivers; not the water holes of Australia, but rather rushing torrents, which have managed to excavate beds for themselves some 200 or 300 and 400 feet in a perpendicular drop, on the western side of the plains: these rivers will, I anticipate, on a detailed examination of their entrances being made, offer but few obstacles to boat navigation for some half-dozen miles from the sea-board, which will render their passage at all times secure: this great plain may be called almost a dead level for as far as the eye can trace from any point. From the sea-shore to the Backbone ridge, not a rise of twenty feet meets the view; but judging from the excavated bed of the rivers and other circumstances, I think there will be found a gradual rise of the land from the coast to the base of the mountain-range, where I judge it may be some 500 feet above the level of the sea.'

The documents published by the association are not all absolutely eulogistic. Even their enthusiastic agent, Mr Godley, so late as the 31st August 1850, gives the following qualified remarks on what passed under his eye: –

'After inspecting the works at the port and in the immediate neighbourhood, I rode with Mr Thomas over the hill to Mr Dean's farm on the plain. The tract which we were obliged to follow is exceedingly steep – so much so, as to be only just practicable for horses, and no heavy baggage could be transported by it. I cannot better describe my impression of the country beyond the hill, than by saying that it precisely corresponded to the idea which I had formed of it from the map which was sent home last year. It may be said that to the eye there are but two features – a range of mountains, apparently thirty or forty miles distant; and a vast grassy plain (the colour of which, as seen from a distance, is not green, but rather that of hay) stretching from the sea towards them as far as the eye can reach, without any inequality, and almost without any variety of surface; for streams, though numerous, are not large, and they are sunk between very steep banks, and the patches of wood are unfortunately both rare and small. The grass on the plain is intermixed with fern and flax. To an eye unaccustomed to new countries it does not appear luxuriant; but I am informed on the most undoubted authority, that the district in question is equal, if not superior, in this respect to any part of New Zealand, and that the improvement of the grass, after its being grazed over for some time, will be almost incalculable. In Mr Dean's garden I saw excellent crops of fruit and vegetables, and he gives a very good account of his own crops.'

The Canterbury Association have from the first kept candidly and prominently forward their main objects. They have not concealed, but have rather profusely announced, that these objects

must be paid for by their colonists. It will therefore always be a question for the intending emigrant to satisfy himself on, whether these are objects for which he will feel inclined, or feel himself justified, to pay. Of the £3 an acre, it has already been said that £1 is to go for church and education, £1 for emigration, and 10s. for miscellaneous services; 10s. being considered the actual price of the land. At the commencement of their operations, the association offered the following calculation – a calculation which, it may be remarked, was not by any means justified subsequently, especially in the most important, indeed the fundamental element – -the quantity of land disposed of: – -

'Assuming, by way of hypothesis, that out of the territory of one million acres to be allotted to this settlement, two hundred thousand will be sold in the first year or two, and the remainder appropriated to pasturage, the association will have at its disposal two funds, each a little exceeding £200,000: one appropriated to immigration purposes, the other to ecclesiastical and educational establishments and endowments. The former funds, under the system of partial contributions to passages, instead of defraying the whole cost of them, which the association intends to adopt, will probably enable the association to forward 15,000 persons to the settlement. The association, considering the large surface over which the population will be distributed, calculates that twenty clergymen, and as many schoolmasters, will not be more than are requisite to establish and maintain that high religious and educational character which the association hopes, with the Divine blessing, that this settlement will possess. Assuming that the churches, parsonage-houses, and schools, will be constructed of wood, upon foundations of stone, carried to a height of three or four feet above the ground, the following will be an approximate estimate of their cost: –

20 Churches, at £1000 each, - - - £20,000
20 Parsonage-houses and Glebes, at £500 each, - - - 10,000
20 Schools, at £100 each, - - - 2,000
A College and Chapel, - - - - 6,000
Residences for a Bishop, the Principal of the College, and an Archdeacon, - - - 3,000
Total, - - - - - - -£41,000

'Deducting this sum from the original fund of £200,000, £159,000 will remain. The interest derived from this sum will probably have to defray the following stipends: –

To a Bishop, - - - - - £1,000
To an Archdeacon, - - - - - 600
20 Clergymen, £200 each, - - 4,000
20 Schoolmasters, £70 each, - - 1,400
Total per annum, - - - - £7,000'

Among the earliest of the scanty funds obtained by the land-sales, £10,000 were sunk as an endowment for the bishop. In May 1850, a project for the establishment of a college was announced, of which a full statement will be found in the documents readily communicated by the association to those who have an interest in them. Some money appears to have been expended on a bell weighing thirteen hundredweight, an organ, and carved work for church decoration. As regards preparatory means for public instruction, the following passages occur in a letter from the secretary of the association to Mr Godley its agent: –

'With respect to the erection of schools, the committee leave you to consult with the bishop designate. You will together consider the question of making the best provision for this object, having regard to disposable means. On the subject of the college, the bishop designate has made all necessary arrangements for beginning the work. Some of the clergy who sailed by the last ships, together with masters and teachers in various departments (several of whom will accompany the bishop designate), will form an ample staff for commencing an educational system of a high order, embracing all the departments of literature and science, and including instruction in the arts most useful in the colony. The committee have provided an ample supply of books (selected by the bishop designate), both as the foundation of a college library, and for instruction in the college and schools. The bishop designate will hand you a list of these books, and of other articles designed for the use of the college and schools. The whole of this department will be under his direction, except so far as concerns matters of expenditure, upon which he will consult you, and obtain your sanction, previous to any outlay being incurred. You will, however, assist him in his objects to the utmost extent which prudence and the present limited amount of disposable funds will permit.'

'As regards the college buildings, you will together consult as to the best temporary provision to be made. It would, in the opinion of the committee, be inexpedient (even were there ample funds at command) to undertake at once buildings of a costly and permanent kind. It must, for a little time at all events, be matter of uncertainty as to the best locality to select for a site, and a hasty decision on such a point may involve consequences extremely injurious. Besides this, to commence a great work of this kind, involving the employment of a large quantity of labour, in the first infancy of the settlement, would be, as the committee think, an unwise measure in point of economy in every way; both as rendering the work itself unnecessarily expensive, from the excessive price of labour, and at the same time enhancing the price of labour in the colony, by taking up a large portion of the available supply. In all works of a public nature which you may consider necessary – whether churches, colleges, or schools – the committee wish you to bear this in mind, considering, as they do, that every addition at the present moment to the demand

for labour beyond what strict necessity requires, must operate injuriously to the colonists, whose first wants ought to be supplied before anything not strictly necessary is undertaken. Subject to these remarks, and governed, as you will be, by the amount of funds at your disposal, the committee desire that you will, in concert with the bishop designate, provide temporary buildings sufficient for carrying on the work of education. The committee cannot doubt that all parties concerned in this work will, for a time, cheerfully submit to slight inconveniences, having regard to the necessity of circumstances, and looking forward to a speedy completion of the edifice and buildings of the college upon a suitable scale.'

A practical difficulty arose at the very outset about the establishment of the bishop – whence he was called in this document 'the bishop designate.' There was already a bishop of New Zealand. He had been appointed at a time when the probability of a small settlement in the colony demanding a bishop for themselves was not anticipated, and when it was believed that one such dignitary would be sufficient for a population not likely, for some years to come, to exceed that of a secondary county in England. It was impossible, however, according to the episcopal system, to appoint an independent bishop to a territory already under episcopal jurisdiction. Before the territory could be episcopally partitioned, the existing bishop of New Zealand would require to resign his office, and the episcopal function would thus be suspended until a new arrangement was made.

The actual colonisation did not commence until the autumn of 1850, when it was thus announced in a statement of the progress of the institution down to November 1850: –

'The first expedition of colonists, 800 in number, sailed from Plymouth on the 7th September, in the ships Randolph, Sir George Seymour, Cressy, and Charlotte Jane, which have been succeeded by the Castle Eden and Isabella Hercus, each of them carrying about 200 passengers; so that the whole number of colonists who have sailed is just 1200. Of these 307 were cabin passengers; a much larger proportion, it is believed, of that class than ever occurred before in the same number of emigrant ships proceeding at the same time to the same colony, and one, therefore, which shews that the desire of the association to render their settlement attractive to the richer order of colonists has thus far been fully realised. Other vessels are now preparing for sea, and will be continually succeeded by ships of the same class, and despatched in the same manner.'

The association could only announce, however, the sale of 14,000 acres, with a right of pasturage over 70,000 acres. The committee of the association, in writing to Mr Godley on the 7th September previous, had said:

'You will doubtless have been disappointed at the non-fulfilment

of the expectations at first entertained as to the extent of land-sales, and the consequent amount of funds available for the service of the colony. Such expectations appear to have been founded in too sanguine a confidence in the immediate effect which would be produced in the public mind by the first promulgation of the plan of the colony. It has, in fact, been a work of time to impress upon the public its real merits. However, to a great extent this effect has been accomplished, partly through the medium of public meetings, and the strenuous exertions of individuals, and partly through the agency of the "Canterbury Papers," of which the circulation is rapidly increasing. The progress, however, has been gradual. The committee hope and believe that this very circumstance is in itself an omen of more sure and certain success eventually. But in a financial point of view, the amount of land-sales (small, as compared with previous anticipations) is attended with inconvenience. In particular, it does not enable the committee at once to place at your command the full amount which you estimate as required to complete all the works in progress in the colony. At the same time, with the means that they will place at your disposal, and upon which I shall address you by a separate communication, they are confident that you will be able to effect all which may be considered essential to the general wellbeing of the colony.

'I send you a statement, shewing the account and particulars of land-sales, with the names and descriptions of purchasers. In the aggregate, including the sales both for the first and second opening of applications, there have been sold about 151 allotments, containing 13,150 acres of rural land; 264 allotments of town-land, extending to 132 acres; 151 allotments of pasturage, with pre-emptive right of purchase, containing 65,750 acres. The aggregate of purchase-moneys will be (when the full purchase-money upon the second lot of sales shall be paid) £39,300. I need not stop to calculate for you the proportions in which these amounts will be applicable to the respective funds.'

This was not a cheering practical result of operations, commenced on the supposition that three millions would be put at the command of the association, and which still continued to announce its views and objects on the following large scale: –

'In order to render the state of society in the colony similar to that which exists at home (except, of course, as regards the evil of competition amongst the members of every class, in which respect the colony cannot too much differ from the mother country), it has been deemed sufficient to guard against the occurrence of four common drawbacks to colonial life. The first is the appropriation of more waste land than can be occupied, and the consequent dispersion of the settlers over a wide space of ground, whereby the productive powers of industry are weakened, and social intercourse is impeded: the second is that want in colonies which most renders them unsuitable abodes for emigrants of the higher classes – namely, the want

of labourers for hire and domestic servants: the third is the want of a systematic, organized preparation of the wilderness for occupation by settlers: and the fourth – a circumstance very repulsive to heads of families, and especially to thoughtful mothers – is the want of religious provisions, and of the means of school and college training similar to those which exist in England. In the Canterbury Settlement, moderation in the appropriation of land will be enforced by the prime cost of all land, which is the fixed uniform price of £3 per acre. It is believed that one effect of this price will be to occasion such a proportion between the number of inhabitants and the quantity of appropriated land, as to secure the occupation and use of all the land when it becomes private property. If so, no part of the waste will be treated as the hay was by the dog in the manger; and the colonists will not be mischievously scattered. But in order that the price of freehold land may not operate as a restriction on the use of those extensive natural pastures from which the wealth of the settlement must, for a long while, be mainly derived, it has been provided that every buyer of land, amongst the purchasers of the first 100,000 acres, shall be entitled to occupy pastoral runs, for an almost nominal rent, at the rate of five acres of pasture for one of freehold. One-sixth of the purchase-money, or 10s. per acre, is paid to the government for public purposes. Another sixth, which, when the whole plan shall be carried out, will amount to £1,250,000, is to be expended in surveying, road-making, and the general administration of the plan. A third, or £1 per acre, being £2,500,000 in the whole, is to be an emigration fund, devoted to the purpose of paying for the passage of the land-buyers with their families, their servants, and other persons of the labouring-class. And the remaining third is exclusively appropriated to religious and educational objects – such as churches and common schools, a parochial clergy, a bishopric, a school of the highest class, and a college fit to supply New Zealand, and the other colonies of England in the South Pacific, with a local Cambridge or Oxford.'

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

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

'2. Any quantity of land may be purchased as a rural allotment

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

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

'Town allotments may be sold in the colony in the following manner: – An allotment of half an acre in the capital at £24, and an allotment of a quarter of an acre in the port town, if any, at £12; but no such allotments shall be sold upon the foregoing terms without being first put up for sale by auction, at upset prices of those amounts respectively.

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

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

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

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

'8. Applications for the purchase of rural land must be made according to a printed form, which may be obtained at the office of the association, 9 Adelphi Terrace. Before any application can be received, one-half of the purchase-money must be paid to the bankers of the association, Messrs Cocks, Biddulph, & Co. Charing-Cross, and their receipt produced. Land-orders will not be issued until the purchase-money shall be paid in full.

'9. The selection of land in the colony will be made according to the order in which land-orders shall be presented at the land office

of the association in the colony. But if it should ever so happen that two or more persons should apply at the same time for the same allotment, the preference of selection between them shall be determined by lot.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Of the actual progress of affairs in the settlement, Captain Thomas, the agent of the company, wrote to his constituents on 27th January 1850, saying: –

'Nothing I have ever seen out of England comes up to our surveys; and all the surveyors employed on it, whether on the staff or by contract, are delighted with it. The trigonometrical survey is completely successful, and the filling in of the intermediate features by the system of contract is also most satisfactory. We have completed 230,000 acres, and in a couple of months more shall have 200,000 more trigged; and before the winter, we shall complete the districts of Lincoln, Christchurch, and Mandeville; so that I shall fulfil my promise of having at least 300,000 acres ready the first twelve months. The next year I hope, our facilities of movement are so increased, that we may complete it all. The cost of the trigonometrical survey, without the topographical, is, up to the present, about three farthings per acre. I shall, when further advanced, send you a great deal of information on the formation of these settlements, by giving all the expenditure, and classifying it under the various heads of surveys, towns, roads, and public buildings.

'The experiment of bringing down natives from one part of the island to work in another, is also successful, and was the only one I could adopt, in the absence of police and protection, to form the roads. As yet we have not made much progress, for it is a very arduous undertaking to get a road from here to Sumner – distance four miles. We are, however, getting through the worst of it; and should we have funds, I hope to have the whole line to Christchurch (10 1/2 miles) open in the course of a twelvemonth.

'As I wrote you, I contracted for Hobart Town timber, as the only way of obtaining a sufficient supply in a limited time, and at a reasonable price. A fortnight since it arrived, and is all now stacked in the timber-yard, or in the hands of the carpenters, who are putting up the emigration barracks. Sixteen carpenters also arrived from Hobart Town, and they are a very passable lot, and as yet work well. Altogether, this plan has completely succeeded, by keeping down prices, and compelling the vagabonds that pack to all new settlements, to work and accept reasonable terms. The vessels that brought the Hobart Town carpenters and timber have now been at anchor here three weeks. The captains speak well of the place..... The improvements I have made in this place will make it a very pretty town, and it will have an excellent road to Christchurch. I am quite satisfied we have made no mistake in fixing the sites of these towns.'

It appeared, however, from the subsequent dispatches of Mr Godley, that Captain Thomas, to do even the limited services he accomplished, had overdrawn the association's account; and on 31st August it was necessary to say –

'For the present, accordingly, all our operations are at a standstill, and must remain so until fresh remittances shall arrive from England. This is very mortifying, as not only is there necessarily a considerable amount of loss accruing on such a suspension of extensive works, and a risk of considerable damage to the works them-

selves, but Mr Thomas and myself are in the disagreeable position of remaining idle for want of means to do any work. I shall remain here, and endeavour to employ my time as usefully as I can in acquiring general information; and he will remain at Lyttelton, after winding up his operations, until he shall receive from me instructions to resume them. The work actually done consists of the buildings which I have enumerated, of a road partially made, but which (including a bridge and sea-wall, which are necessary to complete the connection between the port and chief town) will require at least £7000 to finish; of the trigonometrical survey of about 600,000 acres, the topography of about half of which will be completed (as Mr Thomas informs me) within the period at which he will be compelled to stop; and finally, of the materials for emigration houses at the chief town, which will hardly, I fear, be erected within that period. I consider, however, that, with the exception of the road, nothing will then be left unfinished which is absolutely necessary for the reception of settlers.'

Of the general appearance of progress in the settlement, he gave the following sketch: –

'The harbour is very fine, both in a picturesque and a utilitarian point of view. The captain and all the nautical men on board were delighted with it. It consists in a regularly-shaped inlet, about seven miles long from the entrance to the end, and varying from a mile to a mile and a half in width. It is open to one wind (east-north-east), but everybody agrees that it never blows hard from that quarter, and also that the swell is lost before it reaches the harbour. There is a good anchorage outside in seven fathoms, and from thence it gradually shoals to three fathoms, about five miles up. There are two small bays, in which, if it should be found necessary, shelter for ships may be found from the only wind to which the rest of the harbour is exposed. No pilot is required, as there is literally nothing to avoid except the hills on each side; and there is width enough to beat in or out in fine weather. Half-way up the harbour we passed a whale-boat, which informed us that we might go up and anchor opposite "the town." At that time we had seen no sign of civilisation, except the line of a road in process of formation along the face and over the top of the hill on the northern shore, and no human habitation except some Maori huts close to the beach; but we held on, and presently another whale-boat, with Captain Thomas, the chief surveyor of the association, on board, shot from behind a bluff on the northern shore, and boarded us. Immediately afterwards we let go our anchor, though "the town" was not yet, visible, and my wife and I went off with Thomas. On rounding the bluff aforesaid again, I was perfectly astounded with what I saw. One might have supposed that the country had been colonised for years, so settled and busy was the look of its port. In the first place, there is what the Yankees would call a "splendid" jetty; from thence a wide, beaten-looking road leads up the hill, and turns off through a deep

cutting to the eastward. On each side of the road there are houses scattered to the number of about twenty-five, including two "hotels" and a custom-house (in the shape of a small weather-boarded hut certainly, but still a custom-house.) In a square, railed off close to the jetty, are four excellent houses, intended for emigrants' barracks, with a cook-house in the centre. Next to this square comes a small house, which Thomas now inhabits himself, and which he destined for an agent's office. Behind this, divided from it by a plot of ground intended for a garden, stands a stately edifice, which was introduced in due form to us as "our house." It is weather-boarded, has six very good-sized rooms, and a veranda; in short, after seeing it, we could not help laughing at our own anticipations of a shed on the bare beach, with a fire at the door.'

Further particulars respecting the settlement, terms of purchase of lands, transit, &c. may be obtained on application to the secretary of the Canterbury Association, No. 9 Adelphi Terrace, London.

CONCLUSION.

CONCLUSION.

The facts offered in the preceding pages will have shewn that New Zealand differs materially, in climate and general physical features, from any part of Australia. The prevalence of mountains and hilly lands renders the climate showery, and consequently it bears a resemblance to that of England, though of a finer quality. While, in the pastoral districts of Australia, the population must be necessarily of a dispersed character, that of New Zealand will generally attain a density similar to that of Europe.

Other peculiarities of New Zealand are equally significant. It consists of a group of islands, abounding in bays and harbours suitable for foreign commerce, and affording means of ready intercommunication by steamboats. The coasts also yield vast quantities of the finest fish, valuable for home use, and for exportation in a salted state. Then, the moderate climate admits of not only fish, but beef being salted, without risk of loss. The lands, when cultivated, yield prolific crops of wheat and other kinds of grain suitable for exportation. From the trees, potashes may be made to any imaginable extent. From the Phormium Tenax, or New Zealand Flax, cordage of the strongest and most durable kind may be manufactured. Of fruits of excellent quality, there will be, as cultivation advances, the greatest profusion. The amount of mineral wealth it would be presumptuous to estimate.

It would be difficult to say what New Zealand wants in the natural attributes of a great country. And a great country it will be – the greater from its proximity to the vast regions of

Australia, still in the infancy of their prosperity. That which New Zealand requires is the settlement of industrious and intelligent Europeans. From what has been previously said, it is seen that everywhere the field is open. At Auckland, Wellington, Nelson, New Plymouth or Taranaki, Dunedin, Lyttleton, and other centres of British civilisation, lands may be acquired, and employment will be found by those who are able and willing to work. It is true that fortunes are not to be made by sheep and wool, as in Australia; but sufficient scope is offered to capitalists, and also for carrying on a system of rural husbandry on a moderate scale, with room for extending to greater things. Unite to this the usual exemption from rates and taxes, freedom from the oppressive conventionalities of an old country, and the solacements of a delightful climate, and it may be said with justice that few parts of the earth's surface present such allurements to the emigrant as New Zealand.

NOTE. – Since the above was written, the following extract from a letter from Mr Godley to Mr Adderley, M. P., dated Wellington, New Zealand, August 13, 1850, has been put into our hands: –

'This colony, as a field for the investment of capital, is, I firmly believe, unrivalled in the world. Sheep and cattle-keeping here will pay – does pay, in fact, according to the most moderate computation – 30 per cent, on the average, and has often paid 100 per cent, and more. And this will last, and even increase, until the vast available districts of the Middle Island are filled up.... Is it not most wonderful that there should, in these circumstances, be hardly any capital flowing into the country? A man beginning with £5000 is quite a Jones Lloyd here; and I know a man who began with about 200 sheep, and 15 or 20 horses, seven years ago, and who has now sheep and other stock worth at least £10,000, besides having 150 acres under the plough, and large farm-buildings, a brig of his own, &c. Everything, no doubt, depends on personal, or at least trustworthy management; but what each family in England ought to do is this – to send out one of its own members, if qualified, and make him superintend the investment of the family capital. It might, with ease and certainty, be doubled in four or five years at present rates. I am sure of this, and you know I am not given to rash or headlong speculation. I could prove it to you by numerous instances.'

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