OTAKOU.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 295, 27 May 1848, Page 2

OTAKOU.

The following address by Mr. Cargill, the New Zealand Company's Resident Agent at Otakou, to the immigrants by the John Wickliffe and Philip Laing, will be perused with considerable interest. It is written in a vigorous style, and furnishes some interesting particulars of the voyage out, and subsequent proceedings of the settlers on landing in their adopted country. The passage of both vessels seems to have been particularly favourable, and, as far as our recollection serves, the John Wickliffe is the first emigrant vessel which has arrived in New Zealand without the occurrence of any death on board. The late wet weather has been very unfavourable to their operations, and, in the absence of sufficient shelter for so many persons, must have had a very discouraging effect, but they appear to have set to work with redoubled energy to remedy this inconvenience, and were busily engaged in building houses and sheds of all kinds. The difference of opinion about the site of the town, to which we referred in our last number, has terminated, and selections have been made of town sections at Dunedin, thesite originally laid out, where some of the settlers have already commenced building their houses : — Port Chalmers, Otakou harbour, 15th April, 1848.

To the Immigrants at Otakou Friends and fellow passengers, — I" hay 1 ' now the happiness to congratulate you ou the safe arrival of our whole preliminary party, the ship John Wickliffe, from London, having entered this harbour on the 22nd ult., and the Philip Laing, from Greenock, on the present date. The passage has been made by the former in 93 days from land to land, or 99 days from port to port ; and by the latter in 115 and 117 days respectively. No death 7 has occurred on board the John Wickliffe, whilst in the Philip Laing, of 87 children four have died, and three were born ; and, with one exception, a case originating at home, there is not a sickly person amongst us. Oru numbers being 278 souls souls in all, — exclusive of 19 who go on to Wellington. Our first duty is to return thanks to Almighty God, and I am happy to observe that our Minister and Church members have determined to hold a convocation for that purpose, which all are invited to attend. We are indebted, under God, for the safely and comfort of our passages, to the arrangements of the New Zealand Company, tud it will now be seen that the Directors have been no less careful, by the adoption of every means^ which experience had suggested, to' provide

for immediate application to tbe objects of our enterprise, without distraction and without privation. A temporary barrack for the women and children has been provided, the lands are staked out, and ready for immediate choice and occupation ; and we have three months provisions and groceries in store, to be issued at cost price, and kept up by additional imports until those ot our community, who are so purposed, together with the competition of neighbouring settlements, shall have supplied our markets in the usual course of trade. Your beautiful and commodious harbour is now before you, its enclosing and rounded hills, wooded from the summit to the water's edge, you have partially explored, together with the sites of Port Chalmers and Dunedin, and the adjacent lands laid out for suburban sections ; and some of you have also glanced at the series of rich vallies comprising the rural sections, extending to the Clutha and its banks. * In the cultivations of the few squatters (mostly from Ross and Sutherland) who have been waiting to join you, you have seen and partaken of the wheat, barley, oats, and garden stuffs they have been in the habit of raising, together with the sheep and cattle depastured on the hills you are to graze. The climate also in this the month of April, which corresponds with October at home, you can at once perceive ; whilst the vigorous health of the surveyors, exposed as they have been in the wilderness for two years past, and of other Europeans of all ages who have squatted for various periods during the last twenty years, together with their unvarying testimony as to open winters and temperate summers — and the prosperous circumstances in which you find them, notwithstanding their want of combination and distance from each other — must enable you to satisfy your friends at home that the movement you have made is in all respects, as to things temporal, judicious and advantageous, even as our provision for education and religious ordinances is to the contentment of our spiritual fathers, as recorded by the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland. Our advantages are great, and it behoves us to mark and acknowledge them. In the case of the" Pilgrim Fathers" — they left their homes, not as we do,butby compulsion, and as the hunted partridge for a place of rest. The ships they sailed in, the sterile soil and frightful winters, together with tbe lack of food and implements in the country which received them, were enough to hive quailed the stoutest heart; but they were men who feared God and nothing else. They persevered, and the issue, as now seen, is perhaps the most pregnant for the cause of truth and the progress of mankind, that exists in the world. Again, had our destination been to British America, a voyage so greatly more trying than that we have experienced, the close of that voyage must have been the commencement of a long and tedious journey, and which could only have ended by the setting in of a six months' rigorous and profitless winter. But still nearer — when we look to the difficulties in this fine country, with which others have had to contend, and to the endurance and waste of means to which they were exposed, we ought to be deeply impressed with the contrast of our own position. My friends, it is a fact, that tbe eyes of tbe British empire, and I may say of Europe and America, are upon us. The rulers of our great country have struck out a system of colonization on libetal and enlightened principles, and small as we now are, we are the precursors of tbe first settlement which is to put that system to tbe test. Our individual interests are therefore bound up with a great public cause, and passing over in this place, the higher objects' which Free Churchmen must effect, we should just adopt the sentiment of our British race — " England expects that every man will do his duty." Our duties as pioneers may be somewhat arduous, but as compared with all that have gone before us, they are light and transitory. We, no doubt, encounter a wilderness, but we do so in a climate equal at least to the south of England, and with appliances altogether new. Thecargo of the John \Wickliffe is nearly on shore. A store house is roofed in, and similar matters are being proceeded with, m hich give work for all until the choice of town allotments shall have been made, when all hands will be required and engaged by the owners of these lands, to erect their houses, and those of their engaged servants, ere the approaching winter, such as it is, shall arrive. Meanwhile, I have established the wages for public works in progress at 3s. a-day for a common labourer, and ss. for craftsmen; but when such works, after the houses referred to are up, shall be resumed, public works will then be executed by contract, and so as to give continuous employment for all. In fixing the rate of wages until the hands of our industrial classes are sufficiently initiated for the taking of contracts, it was necessary to take care that the rate should not be such as to overtax the capitalist, and on the other hand, that the labourer should have such increased pay, as the new and profitable field for both parties should

appear to warrant. Such pay being, at the same time, altogether in money, to be laid out by the labourer as he pleases, and on. the food he prefers. The result, as regards the foregoing rate, is, that the man who for common labour had 12s. a-week at home, subject to house rent, is now receiving 18s. with a free house and iuel, and grazing for his cow. You now land with all your implements and effects on the spot which is to be your home, and where the man who has only his hands to depend upon must see, by all that is around him, that with industry and economy, he can maintain a family in coir fort, and achieve his independence, ere the infirmity of years can overtake him. Still, however, we are but a body of pioneers, and as such, must encounter some roughness until our houses are up ; but with willing minds, we shall soon be prepared to receive our brethren from home with a hearty welcome and an approving conscience. W. Cabgill.