THE PECULIARITIES OF NEW ZEALAND AS A COLONY.

New Zealander, Volume 2, Issue 89, 13 February 1847, Page 2

THE PECULIARITIES OF NEW ZEALAND AS A COLONY.

The propensity to undervalue advantages which are within our reach, is, when confined within proper limits, not only natural, but implanted in the human breast, for the especial purpose of accomplishing certain objects relating to the individual, and others, of a more comprehensive kind, bolh present and future, relating to the species at large. The propensity in question, however, ceases to be innocent, when it exists in such a degree, as to lead us either altogether to neglect advantages placed before us, or to use them with less zeal than we might or ought to use them. The entire loss, or a considerable diminution of advantages, once within our grasp, will, of course, force the mind into a just, or even an exaggerated estimate of them. But, without resorting to these remedies, which, in most cases, must prove to be severer evils than the disease itself, the tame end may be attained, by a habit of comparing ourselves with others wanting the advantages which we possess, or, by a habit of imagining what would be our own condition if we were suddenly deprived of them. It would be difficult to imagine a particular instance, to which these maxims could be more appositely or more usefully applied, than the conduct of the settlers of New Zealand, with respect to certain advantages, which have never yet been enjoyed by any lace of British colonists but themselves. In every Colony hitherto founded by Great Britain, with the exception of New Zealand, the aboriginal inhabitants maintained themselves almost solely and exclusively by fishing and hunting. Knowing nothing of the usa 3 to which land can be put, they valued it only for its supplying game, or its proximity to a fishing station on the sea coast or the banks of the rivers. Systematic labour was utterly intolerable to them, and they had little or nothing to barter. Such men being altogether useless in a commercial point of view, as well as in agricultural and pastoral pursuits, the truly awful labours of incipient colonization were sustained by the settlers without any assistance whatever. The hardships, privations, and sufferings which they consequently underwent, were such in nature and so great in amount, that nothing to be found in books of romance could convey the faintest idea of them. Just notions of them can be had only by reading the few authentic accounts of them which still remain, and which

we would most heartily wish to see extensively circulated amongst the Settlers in New Zealand. The slow influx of emigrants, the high price of labour, the enormous prices of the simplest necessaries of life, the consequent expenditure of all the capital in the settlement upon these objects, the want of capital to import decencies and luxuries, the utter impossibility of exporting- any of the natural productions of the country without labour or capital, the constant inioads of the natives, poverty and pestilence, were standing causes of the misery and desolation, which reigned in these settlements during the first years of their existence. Misgovernment and internal dissensions, added to these, and taken advantage of by the natives, in some instances swept whole settlements away, the colonization of which was sometimes commenced anew, and not unfrtquently followed by the same or similar results. In fine, the principal towns of these settlements, after fifteen years standing, seldom contained a population of two thousand souls, and not one of them was ever finally and firmly established, except upon the ruins of several successive tribes of settlers. When, however, these moral campaigns against eveiy species of trial, difficulty, arid danger, were at length terminated, then came the men, whose happy lot it was to put in the sickle, and resp the haivest raised by the labours of their predecessors. In the scenes of enterprise and speculation which followed, the exploits of the pioneers were either wholly forgotten, or very imperfectly recorded. But, in New Zealand, for the first time, British Settlers came into contact with a race of half-civilized aborigines — with men skilled in agriculture, patient of labour, and ready and able to assist the Settlers in all their operations. The difference was soon felt, and too soon forgotten. T*he Settlers were supplied by the Natives with all the necessaries of life at cheap rates, and the price of native labour was exceedingly moderate. All the preliminary difficulties of colonization were avoided, and the capital of the Settlers was employed in house-building, and in commercial and land speculations. The superficial articles of export produced by the country were abundantly supplied by the Natives, and exported by the Settlers from the foundation of the Colony ; and, certainly, some ten or fifteen years, before exportation was commenced on any thing like a considerable scale, in any other settlement hitherto planted by Great Britain. By all these means, and by the expenditure of a large quantity of Commissariat money in the district, the people of Auckland have become one of the wealthiest colonial communities in the world, and a taste -for luxury and gaiety has long prevailed in it, as unsuited to" the age of the settlement, as it is unfriendly to its interests and prospects The evils by which New Zealand has been afflicted, have been of a political rather than an economical character. Some grave mistakes committed by the Imperial Government in the time and manner of colonising the ! country, and the never-ending disputes between the New Zealand Company on the one hand, and the Imperial and Local Governments on the other, have produced much political and even some social confusion in the Colony; while, in the Mother-country, they have given rise to false impiesssions concerning the Native population, and their feelings to the Government. It must not, however, be forgotten, that these disputes have been mainly instrumental in procuring for us the New Zealand Government Bill, and the reestablishment of perfect order and repose throughout the whole colony. At this moment, then, there is not a country on the globe, in which capital can be invested with more perfect security or more profitable returns than in New Zealand. Our population is equal to that of New South Wales in the sixtieth year of its existence. Five-sixths of this population consist of men ariived at that stage of civilization, at which they are available for every species of labour, and yet, far from that stage at which they would be likely to turn their attention to the acquisition of capital for themselves. The resources of the country, too, are absolutely unparalelled. Under these circumstances, then, there will be a field for the investment of capital in New Zealand, which cannot be filled up for many years to come. During this period, competition can take place only between the labourers, and scarcely at ail between the capitalists. Capital will not be in this Colony, as it has been in all others, wasted upon high wages, and high prices for the necessaries and decencies of life. It is impossible, that that which has invariably happened in other colonies, can co.ne to pass in New Zealand, namely, that the great majority of small capitalists should, in a few years, be reduced to the condition of labourers, and, in a few years more, driven to the bush or from the colony. The very same combination of circumstances, too, which renders New Zealand so favourable a field for the investment of capital, renders it also a highly advantageous field for the exertions of emigrant artisans and labourers, On account of the comparative absence of competition, the amount of capital, upon the profits of which the artisan or labourer can live comfortably in New Zealand, will be much less

than in any other colony, The tendency of the state of things in New Zealand is, to convert artizans and labourers into small capitalists in a very short time, and continually to increase the capital of those who come into the colony possessing one, and who use it with tolerable judgment. Whether these truths respecting Nevr Zealand have or have not been reflected on in the colony, it is quite certain, that they have not been taken advantage of to the extent they might have been. If we may judge from the more than ordinary share of attention, now so long given to the affairs of New Zealand, both by the Parliament and the British public, there can ba no doubt, that they will be soon known in England, and duly estimated there. A regular current of emigration will then set in towards New Zealand, and a career of prosperity will be commenced before unheard of in British Colonies*