THE CANTERBURY ASSOCIATION AND THEIR LAND PURCHASERS.

New Zealander, Volume 9, Issue 793, 19 November 1853, Page 3

THE CANTERBURY ASSOCIATION AND THEIR LAND PURCHASERS.

From the “ Anstr.ilt.vn an-! New Zealand Gazette") No. 11. We were the first to expose the corrupt' practices of the Canterbury Association. We take some credit to ourselves for having put a stop to those practices by putting a stop to the Association itself. It was out of our power lo save those from the delusion, avlio had already cast their bread upon the Canterbury waters, relying upon all that was religious and honourable in profession : —but we prevented the immolation of new victims. Our task is not yet finished, nor will it be till the religion and honour which was from the first pledged to do right, as being linked with the holy faith of Christianity itself—and therefore incapable of wrong—shall restore to the first colonists of Canterbury the portion of money of which they have most unrighteously and most dishonourably been defrauded. The same pamphlet to which we last week alluded ns containing the balance-sheet of the Association as prepared by their own accountant, contains also a number of extraordinary revelations as transcribed from other documents. And here avo give the utmost credit to Lord Lyttelton for having afforded access to papers Avhich tell fearfully against his coadjutors, by avlioui his lordship must have been as signally deluded as have been the unfortunate colonists themselves. In discussing the Canterbury question some time since, avg were compelled to mix up Lord Lyttelton with practices to Avhich avg even then stated his lordship was a stranger. We do not believe that a more honourable or more chivalrous man exists; indeed his chivalrous notions have led him to hear the brunt of the battle out of Avhich his more ignoble co-operators have sneaked—-we know no better term for their conduct—high though their rank and pretensions be. Even as the pamphlet now stands, it is a groat ami indisputable fact. The injured parties—high and honourable in their notions too—have in our opinion foolishly restricted the circulation of the pamphlet to the land purchasers only ; their idea being that its wider publicity may injure the colony. This is absurd: its circulation Avill highly benefit the colony no less than themselves, and avc will give them reasons Avhy. In the first place, most of the great names Avhich formed the Canterbury Association are ignorant of the disgraceful purposes for which their names have been used, and avc are confident that Avlien they really know it, they Avill be the first, at whatever cost to themselves, to see justice done to those avlio have been injured by reliance on their names. Another reason why the pamphlet should be publicly sold instead of being privately distributed, is—that the very men avlio. have brought the Association into disgrace are gone to the colony. To let them renew their practices there will be the surest step to the destruction of the colony; and Ave emphatically Avarn every emigrant, that till their influence there is annihilated, he Avill only be running bis head into a hornet’s nest if he go to Canterbury at all. Canterbury and these men cannot flourish together, or, as lias been the case in the Association, the flourishing Avill be all on one side. It is to the interest of the colony that their practices should be exposed, and as the pamphlet in question lias found its Avay legitimately into our hands, there is not much chance of its concealment. Our maxim is, that to get rid of an incurable disease, the offending limb must be cut off, or the body must inevitably perish. The advantages of the Canterbury settlement will tell in their due. time, but it will only be when the Association and its Montagu Tiggs have been thoroughly got rid of. The more rapidly that time is hastened, the sooner will the colony flourish ; before—it cannot.

AA’e will give an instance why a copy of the pamphlet should be al once placed in the hands of every member of the Association, titled and untitled. It Ci rrects falsehood in the accounts; — or rather the explanations of the accountant of the Association prove his balance-sheet to be unworthy of credibility. In our last article we stated that (he freight and passage-money of the ships of the Association amounted in round numbers to 3,.5000/., whilst (he agency amounted to 5,000/., or fourteen and a half per cent. We stated also t' at one of the Canterbury authorities had ordered 1,000/. of commission to be set down to another item. We have been able to penetrate this mystery. It appeared to the board, that such an enormous amount of commission, running concurrently amongst their multifarious agents, would hardly pass muster. Of (his commission, 572/. Gs. 91. was due to Air. Filby, and 591/. 17s. lOd. to Mr. Stayner. At the suggestion of one of the leading members of the Association—we cannot particularise whom, having that venerable institution ofEnglish law beforeour eyes, which proclaims the greater the truth the greater the libel—the odd scores of pounds, viz., Air. Filby, 111. Gs. !)d., and Mr. Stayner, 91/. 17s. 10d., were directed to be put down to their credit, though they had done all the work, and the 1,000/. which made up their honest commission—for such it was—was directed by the same authority to be passed to another item; thus falsifying the account. Is this a sample of the whole ?

In an explanatory note by the accountant we find the larger amounts paid to Messrs. Stayner and Filby ; we should like to see under what heads the respective amounts are included in the balance-sheet, in which there is a want of detail in most statements of importance. We perceive 5,814/. set down as payments to the clergymen of 22 half empty vessels; i. e., 204/. each for their services on the voyage! As no one will credit this payment for a moment, a portion of the 1,000/. may have been saddled on them. The clergymen being lor the most part land purchasers and therefore being entitled to their drawbacks, must have made a pretty good thing of the voyage. But docs the Canterbury Association really believe that such statements will go down with the public ? Now, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of Dublin, the Duke of Newcastle, the Duke of Buccleuch, the Marquis Cholmondelcy, Lords Ellesmere, Dare wood, Mandeville, the Bishops of London, Winchester, Exeter, Ripon, St. David’s, Oxford, and a host of other titled members of the Association, are all deeply Interested in disproving this our statement, or in agreeing with us that the accounts of the Association, as" rendered by their own accountant, are unworthy of credibility. If they disprove our statement, tvell and good;—if they cannot,- they must admit that fraud has been committed in their names and under their authority ; and that they are in honour bound to see justice done, even if the amount of reparation come out of their own pockets. There is no other alternative ;. and by this alternative they are bound both by the laws of God and man: therefore by all means let land purchasers make the pamphlet public property. But we must go to the pamphlet itself, as a matter which intimately concerns every colony Ln the southern hemisphere; since the proceedings of the Canterbury Association have put an end to nil other colonizing schemes, and there ss, therefore, an end to the agency of companies as a colonizing medium. Their very concoctor has

run away from them, rightly considering that U$ vocation is gone. We apprehend that no man, not a candidate for Harwell or' Bedlam cotrld now be found, who would trust bis money to a colonizing project, however plausible. The colonies will flourish, nevertheless but by means better adapted to the end. The loss to the Association bv shipping transactions must be further gone into. It nowhere appears as an item in the balance sheet, probably having been “cooked” by order of the same gentleman who so ingeniously disposed of the 1,000/. as previously related. Our readers wifi scarcely credit the following items as an actual statement made by the Association’s accountant.

A most extraordinary list truly, and one widely from the specimens we have seen, must surely contain a few items transposed by order from their legitimate places. 2,003/. for twenty-two sTiipsurgeons, or 130/. each for the voyage. How shipbrokers will laugh at this statement. Pass we next to a more serious matter, morally speaking, viz, the return of'the “ bishop designate,” almost immediately on landing in thecolony. The Association acknowledges to the receipt of the following ecclesiastical funds: 10/100/: 1,000/. collected by the Rev. Mr. Jackson ; 74/. 19s. OJ. sundry other collections —total 11,074/ 19s. Od. On the other hand, their balance-sheet alleges them to have expended on account of the Ecclesiastical Fund, 10,000/. for “endowing the bishopric,” and 13,000/. for “ investment in land.” Why, the government auditor himself declared that they had spent the money, and hud been driven to the shift of giving their worthless land as the only reparation in their power to make. He did this in April 1832: and in April 1853 the accountant of the Association is coolly directed to make the above statement. In addition to these items, the Ecclesiastical Fund was entitled to a third of 109,011/. by stipulation with the colonists, or 80,537/., making in all, for ecclesiastical purposes, 47,011 1. Where is it ? To return, however, to the Rev. Mr. Jackson. The amount paid to Mr. Jackson for srfitiry, outiir, and passage, was 2,000/., and as our readers know, he left thecolony almost as soon as he entered it. What was the cause of this step ? We have m» right to assume causes —wo shall keep strictly to our text, i. c. the statements of the Associa'ion, or the absence of statements. In this case there is an absence of all statements —and what is the natural inference ? why, that the appointment of a “ bishop designate” was a manoeuvre to attract land-purchasers, and that the manoeuvre having partially succeeded, the bishop was dropped, as being of no further use, and tie ecclesiastical funds were spent for the secular purposes of the Association. We know that the latter was the case, from the Government auditor’s report—and what other inference can we arrive at with regard to Mr. Jackson’s sudden return, on which no expl n .tion has- been vouchsafed ? This view is even strengthened by subsequent events. From the period of bis return t* the present time the Association has deemed it requisite to talk about sending another bishop, who, however, has not been sent. The Association, if it have any regard for good faith, should lose no time in stating why the “ bishop designate” so suddenly left the colony, or the inference alluded to can he the only one drawn from their silence. We do not say that this was the reason of his withdrawal, but we do say that the silence of the Association, coupled with the rest of their conduct as regards the Ecclesiastical Fund, leaves no room for any other inference, so long as that silence is maintained.

Passing other most objectionable items of expenditure, we come now to Mr. Go Hoy's premature dismissal of Captain Thomas, at a cost to the Association of 500/ ; and the supplanting him by Mr. Brittan, who knew nothing of surveying, at a salary of 300 Z. a year, whereliy the roads which Captain Thomas had begun weresuspendcd, and the money sent out to go on with was spent in forming a sort of little court —with a regular civil list, about Mr. Godley’s person, forsooth ! Some explanations are here wanting from Mr. Godlcy, who now that he has reached England, is in a condition to make them. Mr. Go Hey announces to the Association the “ much regretted resignation” of Captain Thomas, and keeps back the vote of thanks which the Association ordered to be conveyed to him. At the very time that Mr. Godley was writing to the Association on the “much regretted” resignation of Captaift Thomas he had been trying to disgust Captain Thomas into resignation; though a more energetic or honest man never lived—as his accounts and work actually done show. The accounts of Captain Thomas are marked by minute detail of every shilling expended; those of Mr. Godley, are marked by no detail at all, though the Committee of Land Purchasers ought to demand the minutest detail from Mr. Godley, seeing that he has so few public works to show fur his expenditure. The conduct of Mr. Godley in the “much regretted” resignation of Captain Thomas must not be passed over. Whilst he was writing this to the Association; Captain Thomas was thus writing to Mr. Ilutt and Lord Lyttelton. “ Mr. Godley has arrived, and is to "Wellington. He was cold and uncommunicative. From Wellington he ordered all public varies to he suspended Hearing nothing further of him for a long time, I went to Wellington for instructions. lie received me in the same repulsive manner as before. When he came back in November, his manner towards me was so offensive that it was frequently remarked; and his hostility to me was so frequently evinced in other ways, that considering it rendered me loss etlloient for the public service, I gave notice of resignation.” This was what Mr. Godley so “much regretted” to the Association. Mr. Godley then appointed Mr. Brittan. at a salary of 300 Z. a year, and a very nice use he appears to have made of his -cilice at the commencement, by monopolizing to his own sectiqp the wood of the colony. 11 d and a Air. Bowen, appear to have shared the little wood between them. Bowen makes no secret of the matter,, but thus writes boldly to Capt. Thomas’s assis-tant-surveyor, Mr. Jollie. “We wish to have our selections on the east side of the Imsh—with a view to the wood, not the land; ” wood was at that time selling at a very high price. This Captain Thomas would not submit to, and he wrote to Mr. Godley, either to tell Ids underlings to leave him alone, or “close his agreement at once.” This.was what Mr. Godley wanted, ami there was an end to the roads of the Canterbury settlement, and a beginning to the Little Pcdlington court which Air. Godlcy formed around, him. The whole of the correspondency on the subject is published In the pamphlet before us,, and we should state that Air. Brittan retailed his. wood at -40/. au acre., (To be continued.)

Receipts. £ s. d. Passage-money and freight ... 34,587 0 » Expenditure, £ s. d. Cost of full staff of clergy fto half empty vessels] 5,814 0 0 Ship communion plate ... ... 130 18 a Cost of ship-surgeons •... 2,005 V ii Shipping agenciesand Commissions 5,200 0 0 Shipping public breakfasts !. ... 742 0 0 Provisions for ships 18,000 0 0 Ship fillings ... ... ... .' 3,823 10 7 Paid shipowners 44,849 Provisions and stores 3,851 « 10 15 0 £86,226 0 9