Thank you for correcting the text in this article. Your corrections improve Papers Past searches for everyone. See the latest corrections.

This article contains searchable text which was automatically generated and may contain errors. Join the community and correct any errors you spot to help us improve Papers Past.

Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image

MORAL STATISTICS OF NEW ZEALAND.

To the Editor of the ' New Zealand Journal.' Ballater, Aberdeenshire, July 22, 1851. Sir, — The follovring communication is the substance of a reply made to a certain correspondent of mine, who, from the debate on New Zealand aflhivs on the 11th inst., and from various sources of incorrect information, has arrived at the con* 'elusion that New Zealand is a kind of Tasmania — a penal colony hi full bloom, now suffering all the evils of convictism. It is not probable tnat any of your readers will fall so deep into a similar •error* but as the Premier's speech is certainly calculated to convey erroneous impressions as to the pnsent state and condition of society in New 3Jeafand, I shall feel extremely obliged by your giving insertion to my reply. — Your obedient servant,

Gharles Hu&sthousk, Jun. Sir,— Your communication of (lie 16th ia not exactly couched in /the terms which a persou employs when seeking gratuitous information on nn important subject ; but as I am always desirous of contributing my humble aid in disseminating correct ideas of New Zealand, I pass orer the more personal parts of your letter, and gladly undertake the task of attempting to disembarrass you from the singular misconception under which you appear to labour. The Times is forwarded to me here ; and I also read the Premier's remarks on New Zealand, On the vital question of supplies, Lord John, in his impromptu reply to provoking, non-colonizing Mr. Cobden, was right in the main, but he exaggerated a little and generalised too much. Dolus versatur in gsneraliLus. Years before the regular European colonization of Now Zealand commenced, the Bay of Islands (a magnificent harbour in theextrrme north of the Northern Island) was the farourite haunt of the English, American, French and colonial whale- s, resorting thither for wood and water, pigs and potatoes, and divers other shore delights: Sydney traders and land-sharks, grog sellers by the gross, Jew slopsellers, vagabond rovers, id genus omne, were thus soon attracted over from the neighbouring colonies. The place was a kind of nonan's land — the soil was rich, rum was cheap, the •climate sunny, the native girls by no means cruel. j Altogether it was a perfect convict's heaven ; and undoubtedly several notorious pcoundrels of this accomplished ord«r did escape from New South Wales to join the motley sympathetic herd, squatting at the Bay.— The rude and lawless crews of the whalers, banded •with these white savages on shore, rioted in a continual ■aturualis. The population might have been divided into those wbo sold rum and those who drank it. Robberies, drunken fights, ferocious violent c, manslaughter •nd murder, were of constant occurrence ; the weaker •natives were shamefully maltreated ; and a more in-tensely-wicked little potful of people than these few hundreds of Bay squatters never, probably, existed at any period, in any spot, since the creation of the world. At last, such a climax was reached, that at the earnest entreaty of the missionaries, our Government sent out a kind of paper gorernor, or half-consul, to protect British interest, and to act as a sort of moral check on these evil-doers and violaters of the law. Some years after this the New Zealand Company commenced their operations by planting the settlement of Wellington — many hundred miles away from the Bay in actual distance, and many thousands in point of actual intercourse and communication. Coeval with this the Crown assumed the sovereignty of the country, and -New Zealand became a regular British colony. -Now, as regards our friends at the Bay, the effect of ' introducing the ''Law as well as the Gospel into New Zealand was just this:— The whalers deserted it and sought their -supplies in various parts of the Polynesian islands to tbe^nortb, where there was no Customhouse flag, creating, yet obstructing smuggling, and where they could still revel in the wild license of barbarism. For the same reasons our convict blossoms skulked off to happier lands, still free from those only I stumbling blocks to their mundane felicity — the police, the gaol, and the*rfhipping-poet. The third estate, the , slop-selling and tavern class, thus deprived of their only customers, began to dwindle away j and the Bay, from boasting a hundred vessels in harbour at one time, could now scarce reckon a dozen in the year. Koriki (tbe Bay town) became as a rank -weed of the past, and so great was the change, that the notorious chief Heke actually justified himself in taking up arms because the British flag had driven away the ships 'and the people, and be could do longer barter his pigs and potatoes, and women, for tbe equivalent rum, gunpowder, and red blankets. To the great affliction, and despite tbe sugared words of bis weak friend. Governor Fitzroy, be cut the Hag-staff down three times, admitted that he was a bad man, and then repented — by sacking and burning down what was left of the town. The effect of English systematic colonisation on tbe Bay of Islands was the effect of a regiment of carbin eers on a bandfutof Italian brigands ; tbe effect of a British seventy-four on some pirates' petty stronghold —the effect of annihilation ; and tbe former existenoe of such ft wicked little Gomorrah as was Kororarika some fifteen or twenty years ago, has no more actual effector bearing on the present state and tone of society iin New Zealand, thau has the Trojan war or tbe sack of Rome on tbe present State condition of your Northamptonshire peasantry. With respect to your allegation that the Governor of New Zealand declared that tbe large amount of crime •in New Zealand was committed by " Expireea," or persons who had been convicts, there is evidently a mibtake somewhere. In this remote highland village, I have not the means of referring to the New Zealand " Public Statistical Returns for 1850," which I imagine are now procurable in London ; but I venture to assert '•that these returns will shew not only that the per cent- . age of crime is low in New Zealand, but that it is lower than in most colonies of tbe empire. Some six years ago the Colonial Office, in one of • those freaks of policy peculiar to itself, ventured to -■send to Auckland about seventy, I think, of certain juvenile prigs, (termed Parkhurst boys,) who, it was supposed, had undergone a kind of reformatory process in England. Their colonial career, however, did anything buti justify supposition. With a course cf honest • industry open- to them, and in the midst of plenty, they relapsed into picking and stealing with such rapidity, >tbat, parodying the veni, tid^ vici, we may almost say of them — they came, saw, stole, and were transported. This «*as the solitary attempt to introduce convictism in its mildest form into New Zealand ; and such was tbe indignation it excited, such was the deplorable result of the experiment — co bitter, so unanimous are tbe New Zealand settlers against the introduction of convict ism in uny guise, so powerful is the Parliamentary influence of New Zealand (see tbe names on the Canterbury Committee), so significant, has been the warning since given by the Cape colonists—that I fancy tie Colonial Office will repeat the experiment about the tame time that jou discover perpetual motion or the philosopher's stone. In fact, no stronger proof could be adduced of the high state and tone of society in New Zealand—no .more practical denial given to the truth of the assertion that any -** taint of convictism is lurking there," than is to be found in the fact of the emigration of such mem(hers of .first-rate families to Canterbury. People of capital, and refinement, and education, who go to create a home in the new land, to plant out their children, and who -with ample means of information at command, would certainly not so violate every rule of human action, as to make choice of a colony which actually contained the one particular thing which of all others .they wished to avoid, The extraordinary natural advantages of New Zealand, the great per centage of wealthy emigrants who imake choice of it, will undoubtedly give it charms for that class of our fellow citizens who "left their country for their country's good." The antipodean burglar or transported thief, like ourselves would undoubtedly oppreciate the delicious climate, sparkling water (mixed though, .perhaps), the robust health, the rich rising towns and settlements, and the abundance of speck in New Zealand. And we may rely upon it, that from 'time to time, some slippery wight of this genus will successfully elude the rigilvnce of his Tasmanian keepers, and naturally come to disport himself in tbe garden of tbe Pacific—where, as the fit takes him, he may pick a pocket, commit a, burglary, or steal a horse. But as one swallow does not make a summer, and at a drop of water is not the sea, no will such casual occur* rence not derogate from the high state and tone of society existing in New Zealand. Pocketg are picked and horses stolen even in Northamptonshire, but we don't talk of the penal bloom or convictism of your beautiful country. Allow me now <o give my own "experience" as to tbe question of amount of crime. I will confine my* nelf to New Plymouth ; for as you, Sir, may be laudably conversant with the history and peculiarities of your own parish, without having a very accurate or extensive acquaintance with the world beyond its bounds, so may I be well up in all New Plymouth matters, and yet comparatively in the dark respecting the other settlements.

1 titled in New Plymouth five years. The miied population, natives and Europeans, was about 3,000. In tliis period I never saw a drunlen broil or fight among the labouring 1 population. For some years, two prisoners at one time could not have been confined in the gno\ for it whs a wooden box, with a roof about four feet by seven. In the five years I recollect but four " Slate criminals :"--one, a girl, for stealing some shirts; another, o deserter; the third, a suipiciouslooking stranger, wbo turned out to be somebody else, and wbo hnd fallen a victim to the law's mistake ; the fourth, another stranger, for having burglarioui possession of a cheese. There may have been some others, but certainly not many; for the capture and incarceration of a prisoner was an "event" likely to be remembered. In fact, the variety of having a criminal tenant for the box was only equalled by the uncertainty of keeping him in it. The cheese-man was confined a weelt and broke out every second day, throwing the whole settlement into confusion to catch him again. Not being a man of trade in New Plymouth, having no banking account or ledger, ray money transactions were not of Rothschild cal bre. Still I had some business transactions with all classes of the community. I trusted every one who asked me, and I have made just one bad debt of the exact amount of half-a-crcyvn. I question whether half the doors in the settlement were locked at night. Certainly the feeling of security from thief and burglar was much greater in our little settlement than it is in Clieapside, surrounded by police and within cry of the Lord Mayor. As a further indication of the social condition of New Plymouth, permit me to conclude by offering you this quotation from a recent work on that settlement : — "There is also anotbef Church in rustic style on the banks of tbe Henui, and a third lately erected in the Donata hamlet ; together with a Wesleyan, an Independent, a Primitive Methodist, and two or three native chapels ; six day schools, two evening schools, and five Sunday schools, built mainly by the people, supported mainly by the people." And if you are still sceptical, pray procure a little publication called the " Bishop's Journal ;" turn to page thirty-eight, and see what the good bishop Dr. Sel wyn, said of us even four years ago. If you will neither believe tbe Bishop, nor accept tbe alternative of remaining a martyr to your own unbelief, I can only say — Go and' judge for yourself; you will be quite safe. If tbe fastidious, the timid, the " unprotected female" style of person, ihould ever emigrate at all, he should certainly make choice of New Zealand—* colony which your favourite authority, Sir George Grey, the Governor-in-Chief, bas thus aptly described :— " At tbe present moment there is probably no portion of tbe world in which life and property are more secure than in New Zealand, nor U there any country which holds out greater promise of prosperity and happiness to intending emigrants," Your trenchant critique on Mr. Etrp's excellent work and on my own humble little production, I regard as quite unanswerable; but if it were not so. and I attempted an answer it might perhaps be urged against me by certain censorious pundits deep in New Zealand lore, that I was indulging in the arguwentum ai ignor' antiam. I will, therefore, maintain a discreet silence, only begging you to observe that to err is human, and suggesting that for the future it would be wise not ■o hastily to impute dishonest motives to those who may have the misfortune to differ from you. Mr. Earp and myself must endeavour to seek some consolation under your attack in Earl Scarborough's motto, " Murus ceneus conscientia eana." 1 have to apologise fortbe afflicting length of this poor reply to your complimentary favour of the 16th. A Scotch wet day keeping me indoors, bas, I fear, tempted me to write more than you will care to read or profit by.— l have the 'honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant, Cn*niiM rhrasTHOusi, Jun.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZ18520218.2.6

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 610, 18 February 1852, Page 4

Word count
Tapeke kupu
2,303

MORAL STATISTICS OF NEW ZEALAND. New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 610, 18 February 1852, Page 4

MORAL STATISTICS OF NEW ZEALAND. New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 610, 18 February 1852, Page 4

Help

Log in or create a Papers Past website account

Use your Papers Past website account to correct newspaper text.

By creating and using this account you agree to our terms of use.

Log in with RealMe®

If you’ve used a RealMe login somewhere else, you can use it here too. If you don’t already have a username and password, just click Log in and you can choose to create one.


Log in again to continue your work

Your session has expired.

Log in again with RealMe®


Alert