The Lyttelton Times.

Lyttelton Times, Volume IV, Issue 201, 4 October 1854, Page 5

The Lyttelton Times.

Wednesday, October 4, 1864. Mb. Selt-e's pamphlet is one of peculiar interest to us at the present moment. It is a very able resume of the proceedings of the Canterbury Association from the first embodiment of the Canterbury scheme to the final suspension of the Association's powers.by the Government. Much is explained which has never been thoroughly understood, and the mistakes made by the Committee of Management are confessed with a frankness which deserves to be met by the colonists with indulgence for errors of judgment, and gratitude for the great work which, in spite of many and unexpected difficulties, has been^suecessfully carried out. The letter speaks fyr itself; and requires no comment from us. We may, however, be permitted to draw attention to one or two of the most important points touched upon in that portion of it which we publish to-day.

Two of the chief accusations brought forward by the enemies of the Association, were " the great mistake in having allowed a settler to come out before the road from the Port to the Plains was made passable,';" and the Association having "based their plans on the assumption that the sale of 100,000 acres would be quickly effected^ an idea ridiculously inconsistent with any rational 'expectation." Mr. Selfe very clearly points out that it was at the expressed and urgent wish of the colonists themselves, and upon the representations of Mr. Felix Wakefield, who has, since it has suited his purpose, been one of the most active in taunting them with it, that the Association consented to carry out the scheme, notwithstanding the grave disappointment they met with in effecting the first land sales. That the colonists were right in urging the [immediate prosecution of the scheme, and that the Committee were right in acceding to their wishes, the progress of the colony has since fully demonstrated. The Association will not at any rate be reproached by us for their boldness in carrying out their project in the face of difficulties unforeseen when it was first mooted. The accounts themselves will be published as soon as we are able to give them in detail. They show the sacrifices made by individual members of the Association to keep the infant colony upon its legs. At three different crises in its financial affairs private members came forward and gave their personal guarantees for large amounts rather than check the progress of necessary works. Loud LiTtiei/tost, Sib John Simeon, and Mr. Thomas Some us Cocks, have had to meet bills drawn upon their personal guarantees from the coiony to the amount of £4,168. In 1852 and 1853 individual members of the Association advanced £8,374 19s. 6d. in liquidation of sundry expenses ; and in January of this year £5,341 in payment of the debt due to the Crown. They are certainly rewarded for

their zeal by success in a noble undertaking, but the material gain is ours. Mr. Bowler's Shipping Report is very severely condemned by Mr. Selfe. He -frankly acknowledges that the Committee were to blame in having adopted it too readily, and says.: " Mr. Bowler is in New Zealand, and unable to defend himself; without therefore assenting to the assertion that the Report was wilfully and designedly untrue,' it is sufficient to say, that a closer examination of its contents shows it to be fallacious and untrustworthy." By whom that report was really concocted we need not now pause to enquire; Mr. Bowles's name was appended to it, and as he is in New Zealand some explanation of its contents may be fairly expected from him.

We ire inclined to consider Mr. Jackson's mission a great failure ; but are ready at the same time to allow that the cause of that failure is not to be laid altogether to the charge of the Association. The expenses of that mission as well as those incurred by sending out Chaplains with every ship, absorbed the Educational and Ecclesiastical Funds received during the year 1850. They were incurred in carrying out the principle on which those funds were set apart. If mistakes were made the Committee erred as any body of men might have erred, pressed upon, as they were, by complicated business, and there is no doubt that many advantages have accrued from its expenditure which we might not otherwise have enjoyed. The last point which we will touch upon to-day is the republication of the New Zealand Journal alluded to by Mr. Selfe. Mr. E.G. Wakefield's unscrupulous hand leaves its impress on whatever it has touched. Mr. Selfe distinctly states that Mr. Wakefield never was a member of the Association. No—but he had a great deal too much influence with them. This was really their crowning error. It was one which they were naturally led into by his great experience in colonial'matters and in dealings with the Colonial Office, his undoubted talent, and his indefatigable zeal for the colonization of New Zealand. But those who work with him always rue it in the end. It is a melancholy thing to see a great man, the founder of so many colonies, live to be deservedly mistrusted by every one of them. No colonizing Association hereafter will fall into the same error.

The remainder of Mr. Selfe's letter, in ■which he enters at considerable length into the subject of the mortgage of the Bishopric Fund, will be published as soon as possible.