Jackson's Bay.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 232, 19 February 1876, Page 18

Jackson's Bay.

(From the New Zealand Times, February 15.) The weak point in the policy of public works and immigration is the failure to settle people on the land. This is admitted on all sides. The Government attempted to do something towards this by passing an Act empowering the issue of free grants of land to immigrants under •certain conditions ; but this measure proved abortive, as all who had experience in the working of the free land grant system believed it would. Practically tne law is a dead letter. Its failure, liowever, was largely owing to the impediment by Provincial Government, which refused to the colony land for settlement unless such was bought from the provinces. Fortunately the Abolition of Provinces Act of last session laid the axe to the root of the provincial tree, and it is for the coming session to clear away the rubbish heap, and enable the Government of the colony to take such steps as shall best conduce to the settlement of the country without respect to provincial boundaries or antipathies. New Zealand is now a united colony. The Government is the Government of New Zealand and not a servant of Superintendents, and the public look to having the interests of the colony at large conserved by it. Under these circumstances, it becomes more especially the duty of the Government to see that isolated attempts at settlement do not miscarry through neglect or mismanagement of those in charge. We say this all the more pointedly owing to the letter which appeared in yesterday's issue from Mr. Hoos, in reference to the Jackson Bay special settlement. We have taken pains to satisfy ourselves of the perfect genuineness of the letters from which Mr. Hoos quoted, and we do him the justice ofsayingthathe somewhat mitigated the severity of the orginals, which were not written with any view to publicity, and would probably not have seen the light but for our article in Saturday's, paper. Now, it does seem to us that the duty of the Government is clear in this matter. Ministers are responsible for the failure (should it prove a failure) of the Jackson Bay special settlement; they should therefore make certain that it has been managed discreetly and with due regard to economy. Moreover, it is for them to inquire whether Jackson Bay was a proper location at the present time, having regard to the actual condition of sectlement on the West Coast, for the location of immigrants. We do not doubt its ultimate •value as a settlement, but the question is simply whether, on account of its present isolation, the site was well chosen at present. This is a material element in the case, inasmuch a 3 the money expended in founding the settlement has been advanced by the colony, and if it be wasted —if the settlement be ultimately abandoned —the colony will be the loser. There will be so many thousands of pounds squandered on the West Coast of the Middle Island under the supervision of Mr. Superintendent BOKAB. The charges appear to us to be serious and specific ; and from inquiries we have jnade'we are clearly of opinion that the Jackson Bay settlement was a mistake. The only apparent good it has done has been to find employment for a cockleshell steamer, the Waipara, owned, we believe, by Mr. Bonar, the sailing of which to Jackson Bay appears to be usually fixed twenty-four or thirty hours before the departure of the Maori, a much larger and more commodious vessel, subsidised by the General Government for the convenience of the West Coast settlements. These are facts which should cause the General Government to institute the most searching inquiry into the Jackson Bay affair. Neither will a reference to the agent of the Government, or to his subordinate at Jackson Bay, satisfy the public, which has become exasperated on the subject throughout the whole length of the West Coast. Evidence of the facts, we believe, is forthcoming ; and now that the whole responsibility for settling the country rests with the Executive, it will never do to slur over an affair of this kind. An independent inquiry is ! imperatively called for. And now, on the general question, we are prepared to affirm that the selection of Jackson Bay for a special settlement was not dictated either by prudential or economic considerations. There were two intermediate special settlement blocks, either of which might have been selected with every hope of success. The first was a block of 50,000 acres of good land four miles from the town of Ross, and about twenty miles from Hokitika, through which an excellent road has been formed, connectirfg with Hokitika, by the Public Works department. Settlement has advanced all around this block. It is connected with a market, and men located there would have had heart to remain. But this special settlement block was passed over. The coßtly road, made out of borrowed money, remains com-

paratively useless, while men and money are shovelled into the Slough of Despond at Jackson Bay. Again, in the neighborhood of Okarita; once a thriving port, and still a settled mining district, there is another 50,000 acre special settlement block which might have been selected, and a good road northward has been made for ten miles, a break of only eighteen miles separating it from the Hokitika road through Ross. If the Okarita special settlement block had been chosen, the settlers might have been profitably employed forming the remaining section of the West Coast trunk road, while their families applied themselves to clearing and cultivating. But this would have given a much needed stimulus to a neglected district, and a chance of ultimate success to the settlers; it was consequently overlooked, and the third and last special settlement block of Westland at Jackson Bay, which could not with advantage be occupied until the intervening country between it and Hokitika had been settled, was chosen for the experiment. If a goldfield were developed there, settlement would be easy; without it, the settlers who remain must for many years be dependent on the Government for support. It is cut oft* from all communication with the settled districts except by sea, and even that means of intercourse, as Mr. Hoos and other reliable persons state, is not by any means satisfactory. We spoke strongly of the refusal of the German immigrants to land at Jackson Bay; but if the facts be as stated, and we do not doubt them, we cannot wonder at their countrymen in Hokitika advising them against going ashore there. If their refusal have the effect of rescuing the West Coast from mismanagement, and leading to a more active supervision of settlement by the General Government, it will not have been withovit its advantages. The colony will derive a lasting benefit from it, and the Government should be grateful for an opportunity of taking a bold and decided step towards the colonization of the country. ,

TO THE EDITOK OF THE HEW ZEALAKD TIMES. Sib,— In vour concluding paragraph in your leader of to-day you make allusion to the return of the German immigrants who refused to be landed at Jackson Bay settlement, and you recommend without further knowledge of the matter that they should be thrown on their own resources at once. This paragraph no doubt is based on the telegram which appears in your previous day's issue, dated Hokitika, Thursday. In that telegram appears the following passage :—" They were sent to Hokitika, not Jackson Bay, of which they heard nothing in Wellington; also, they were prejudiced against Jackson Bay by their countrymen in Hokitika." There can be no doubt that the latter is the cause why the immigrants refused to be cast adrift at that settlement, and which strongly implies that it cannot be recommended by the German residents in Hokitika to their countrymen, of whom already a good number are located there. However, to give some of the reasons which may be prejudicial to the settlement, I shall give a few extracts from letters received by me having reference to Jackson Bay settlement. A letter dated January 17, from a friend, has the following passage:—"l have received a painful letter from Jackson Bay from a German woman whom you know, and whose husband has died there. He has been ill twelve weeks, without medical aid or any comforts whatever, and no opportunity of sending him to the Hokitika Hospital, as no steamer had called. The poor woman with her large juvenile family is totally lost and helpless in such a place. The first potatoes they had planted are all decayed, owing to the damp soil and continued wet weather, and a second planting was made impossible through the long interval of communication. There will either be want or the settlement will have to be abandoned, unless better supervision and communication are provided." A second letter contains the following passage :—" Mr. Bonar has purchased goods for Jackson Bay in Greymouth, which has given great offence here to merchants and others." A third: " There will be lively times. Jackson Bay colony is a scandal, and the papers here say nothing about it. I could-write nice things, but the steamer is going." I have also been handed two letters from a friend, a resident in Wellington, who has received them direct from Jackson Bay. The first is dated the 10th January, which concludes':—" Come down soon to see us, or you will only see our graves." The second is from a settler, who asks advice, as. he assures my friend that he had been shamefully treated : —" I had applied for work, and been refused, until I had taken up land and built a hut, which I did, not on the land alloted to me, as there was no dry land on the section of IS x 10ft., but on the gravel reserve, which involved me into debt. I then got work on the road, which barely kept me in tucker, when I was taken from the road to watch a mate who had become a lunatic and attempted suicide. The resident agent, Mr. Macfarlane, on the 22nd December desired me to sign a voucher at the rate of Bs. per day (being Is. per hour), which I refused to do. as I had worked often twelve and fourteen hours per day, owing to the few fine workable days occurring. Mr. Macfarlane then denied me the rights of a settler, refusing me both tucker and work. Would you kindly advise me as to the best mode of proceeding in the matter, being here without food and pennyless." ,",,,, From the foregoing it appears to me that there is some urgent cause to investigate the matter thoroughly, for I am convinced, through observation and otherwise, that the settlement does not receive that fair and impartial treatment from its administrator as it ought to ; else why is not communication by tender at regular intervals established, and not as at present, when convenient to her owners, by the Waipara ? Again why are not tenders called for everything required, and not as it is done at present by the Governor's agent, who purchases goods at Dunedin, Greymouth, and other places, maybe at lower rates, ; may be also of retailing them at higher rates? On the i whole the conducting of the .lackson Bay settlement is not placed in disinterested impartial hands, and the sum of £12,000 (besides indirect expenditure] is a handsome sum to be trusted in one man s hands, who provides all communication and necessaries. Under these circumstances, I myself should prejudice any immigrants against Jackson Bay settlement.— I am, &c, c - Hoos. TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sib.—Your correspondent, Mr. C. Hoos, suggests that the Government should inquire into the management of the above settlement. In coinciding with those views expressed, I can safely state that at no period of Jackson Bay's history was a better opportunity offered to the Government than the present one, for ascertaining as to whether or not settlement under the Immigration Act—expenditure of the mmigration funds is or is not legally expended. That jobbery and maladministration under the present system exist, no one who has any knowledge of how immigrants are sent and treated when at this famous settlement can dispute. That the Superintendent of the province of Westland is intimately connected with the only means of

Communicating between Hokitika and the unlucky settlement is pretty well known to every man, woman, and child in the province ; that the Waipara steamer is the only " coacher" to Jackson Bay, and principally the property' of the Superintendent, is also universally known; but it is not generally known that the Superintendent deemed it necessary to purchase at Greymouth stores for his pet settlement, when the same could be had at a distance by thirty miles nearer. The question naturally occurs to the mind of any unbiassed observer, what were the reasons for drawing those supplies from Greymouth, when they undoubtedly could be had at Hokitika? If the transaction were necessary so as to afford the Waipara the extra freight and sundry other chances of trade, then I can understand the reasons; but if the Superintendent of Westland did not personally pocket the profits on the pickles, lobsters, soap, and oatmeal so purchased, the Government, upon an inquiry being made, would be able to find out whether or not the immigrants enjoyed the benefit by the Superintendent rushing to a further and much dearer market. Apologising for my trespassing,—l am, &c., SCHIDERFAO EN. TO THE EDITOR. OF THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sib, —In perusing your telegrams and leader of the last few days, I saw to my astonishment that some of my countrymen had been sent to perish in that Godforsaken place the Jackson Bay special settlement. I may be permitted to say something of the place, having been induced by the Provincial Government to establish there a saw-mill, and got victimised in a handsome sum of expenses, through the tremendous "blows" and misstatements by telegrams and leading articles in Westland papers and printed reports of the chief surveyor. I would pity anybody to be compelled to live in such a place. Two of my sons, rather than remain, went overland —a feat not often done by milksops, as King Mac called them. As my own grievances will probably come in a different manner before the public, I will only refer to my general observation of the at that time proposed settlement, as the surveyors under the leadership of Mr. Browning had only surveyed the township of Seacombe, and my only object in going there was for the purpose of establishing some of my sons in a saw-mill for exportation. My impression was that a piece of ground was chosen without the least contents of the glorious timber forest and other luxurious growths, as enumerated by the Chief Surveyor, Mr. Gerhard Muller, in his report of the 21st December, 1874, and published in a pamphlet by the Westland Provincial Government, and sent to me, with later subjoined reports of the agent in charge of the settlement. The land seemed to me to be of a late formation, with very little or no soil on it, although I have seen some fine soil out of the line intended for the special settlers, and only to be reserved or already granted to the more favored few of the realm. The land in the settlement is described as very fine for draining ; so I found it. The only difference was that the land drained the ocean, instead of the ocean the land. After my sons walked away in disgust at not finding the promised 20,000 acres of forest, but scarcely enough to build a similar* mill with as we used to have, I had to stand the abuse of King Mac, as the agent of Mr. Bonar or the Government, is called by the settlers; and none of his men would go with me on a further exploration, although I offered higher wages, being afraid to speak against the schemers of the speck. 'But Mr. Browning, the surveyor, gave "me every help he could, but had not found anything worth while during his 16 weeks* work there, but the agent, who had never been far out of the proposed township site, sent regular bulletins of excitement to Hokitika on my return from Jackson Bay by the Waipara. • One of the " jimmigrants," as the old diggers who intended to settle there styled themselves, managed to get on board, as he had assisted to discharge the Waipara ; but he was not permitted to go unless he paid his double f air,as he had been brought there by the Government; but he managed to pay his double fare, and without coat or blanket started with us, but the captain being part owner of the Waipara, after starting pretended the coming of bad weather and went back to the anchorage and landed the man to fetch his things, but did not wait his return but left him there, and prided himself on the clever trick played the poor fellow. lam glad that this matter has been brought before the public, and hope that the proper authorities will institute an investigation, and also hope to bring them German immigrants to Wellington, as I have seen Mr. McKirdy, the contractor, who will be very glad to employ them. —I am, &c, C. Nees.