THE CANTERBURY SETTLEMENT IN NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 588, 22 March 1851, Page 4

THE CANTERBURY SETTLEMENT IN NEW ZEALAND.

[From the London Examiner, Sept.'s. j A friendly contemporary, not without an occasional relish for a joke, seems to think the Canterbury settlement in New Zealand anything but a joking matter. Perhaps be ’is right. We are not indisposed, on second thoughts, to find something in his objection to our banter on the New Canterbury pilgrimage. At least to those who have been induced to risk their money on it, and betake themselves in person to the Utopia, the scheme is likely enough to prove no joke. Deferring to our critic, therefore, we will now say a few words in earnest.

The economical theory upon which the Canterbury settlement professes to be founded, is that of maintaining the due balance or equipoise of capita] and labour. To this end land is only to be acquired in the settlement for a high (we beg pardon, “ a sufficient”) price. Part of this price is to be expended in forwarding labouring emigrants to Canterbury. The settlements, it is assumed, will thus receive constant supplies of labourers; these labourers will be obliged to work several years before they can earn enough to buy land; by the time they are able to purchase, new supplies of labourers will have arrived ; and thus capitalists will always find workmen, and workmen employers able to pay them. This is the theory. Let us see how its practical application has been gone about. The district allotted for the Canterbury settlement contains about 2,400,000 acres. This land is to be sold in blocks of not less than 50 acres, at £3 per acre. Every £3 paid for land is to be applied after the following fashion : 10s. is to be paid to the New Zealand Company for the land ; 10s. for “ miscellaneous purposes;” 20s. for religious and educational purposes; and 20s for emigration. But of tne last-named 20s. ten may, at the discretion of the Association, be allowed towards the passage of the purchaser and his family. '

Now, bow is such an arrangement likely to work? Before the labouring emigrant can aspire to become a proprietor, he must have

earned £l5O to purchase the land, and at least as much more to enable him to cultivate it, and maintain himself till he reaps his first harvest. This is a low estimate. But by the time the Canterbury labourers have been a few weeks in the settlement, they will learn that at Nelson or Wellington they can purchase land in blocks of ten acres, or even less for £1 an acre. They will learn that in these more advanced settlements employment is greater, more diversified, more continuous ; in short, that there is more to be earned ; and having ascertained these facts, no power on earth will be able to keep those labourers at Canterbury. Certainly, “ the church, the clergyman, and the schoolmaster they had been used to at home,” on whose benefits Lord Lyttelton dwells with so much unction, will be altogether unavailing for that purpose. Nor do we imagine that the local authorities will make any insane attempt to compel them to remain there as adscripti glebe. In their written engagements they simply declare that in applying for a passage they do so “ with the full determination of remaining at the settlement, and working there for wages.” They do not bind themselves not to change their minds upon better information. We think it impossible to look these facts fairly in the face without perceiving that the capitalists who have purchased lands in the settlement will awaken some fine morning to find their labourers flown. What, then, will be the condition of the fine lady and gentleman emigrants who at the Blackwall breakfast were not distinguishable from their visitors — noble, literary and fashionable—who came to gaze on them as lions ? What will become of those whose glory as emigrants is stated to be never to have “lek the pressure of want at home ;” and who are going to Canterbury in the confident belief that they are to become New Zealand ’squires like those of Bucks or Devon. They will find themselves alone in the bush. They will have to turn their unpractised hands to the most menial services in the house, and the rudest labours out of doors. Then will come the pains of reflection. Left thus lonely and unaided, our Canterbury pilgrims will be disposed to count the cost of their land. They will sey to themselves : ‘Of the £3 we gave for each acre, 10s. have gone into the pockets of a Company obliged to wind up that it may reduce the amount of the losses it has incurred. That was surelv a preposterous act of charity on our part ; 10s. more have gone in the “ miscellaneous expenses,” of which we only know they have been very mysterious expenses; 20s. have gone to the organization of impossible bishopricks, when the efficient services of a pious and zealous clergyman of our own faith (all we really needed) might have been had for less than a hundredth part of the sum. Finally, 20s. were taken from us on the understanding that it was to be expended in forwarding labourers to the colony ; but favoured purchasers have had the half of every 20s. they paid for this purpose allowed in their own passage money, and we are here without labourers, and without the means of obtaining them.’ Turning from the economical features of the undertaking to the spiritual, upon which so much stress has been laid, matters will not be found more promising. Waiving the strong taint of Puseyism infused by the co-operation of Mr. Sewell, and of which even the Canterbury Sermon at St. Paul’s quite fails to remove the nauseous taste, we take the scheme upon its own showing. The settlement is “to be composed entirely of members of our own church.” “ The Association retains, and will carefully exercise, a power of selection among all those who may apply for permission to emigrate to their settlement, either as purchasers, or as immigrants requiring assistance. They will do so with a view to ensuring, as far as possible, that none but persons of good character, as well as members of the Church of England, shall form part of the population, at least in its first stage ; so that the settlement may begin its existence in a healthy moral atmosphere.” “ The purchasers of land will have the selection of labourers to be recommended for a free passage ; such labourers to !oe also, exclusively, bond fide members of the English Church.” Canterbury, in short is to be a new Goshen, of which the light will contrast with the thick darkness -pervading the Egyptian lands around. Labourers are io oe chosen, not with reference to their thews and sinews, or their habits as steady workmen but upon certificates of orthodoxy from their parish ministers. The older aud more experienced hands from the neighbouring settlements who are in the habit of repairing to newly opened districts, and, by the practical knowledge they bring, are of indispensable value to an assemblage of raw adventurers from the mother country, in this case are to be repelled by refusals to allow them to acquire landed property, unless at the price of becoming-conformists. Assuming such regulations to be possible, we need no prophetic gift to foretel that they must of necessity retard, if not absolutely prevent, all healthy development of the resources of the new district.

But the enforcement of such re<r U ] .• will be impossible. Canterbury is not * 1 - Ds dependent colony. It is only a district 3 ” 1 already established colony, with rising sm?" ments on every side of it. It is part of N Munster; subject to the Executive eov ment of that province ; and bound, as soon** 1 ' the promised representative constitution is 38 tablished there, to send members to the r mon legislature to concur in the enactment 01 * laws applicable to all the districts. The'N ° Munster colonists generally cannot, and 10 not, tolerate the existence of exclusive exceptional laws in a central and import ° district. Nor do we believe that the Cant 1 bury settlers themselves, supposing .th at last they succeeded in establishing a commun* ity of their own, would be at all disposed ij isolate themselves from their neighbours i t that way.

The promises of self-government held out to our Canterbury friends are edifyingly v aßl]n They are told that Lord Grey has “ that “in due time” the Settlement formed into a distinct province, but thafif ls impossible to anticipate when such time shall arrive. They are told that “at sometime other” the Settlement will become a provi DCe “ with certain powers of self-government' l They are told that “ these powers must include bona fide representative institutions, though the details cannot, and need not, not be specified.” They are told that the colon, ists will have “some administration;" b DI that “what finis administration, or governs body, shall be, depends of course on thenoljd tical constitution which the onlnnv win.. •*—J •» «*< lv . ceive, which, as before stated, the Associate cannot foresee or regulate.” It would b 6 difficult for the colonists, in any circumstance! to prove hereafter that promises so studious)? devoid of meaning have not been kept. The fate of the project it is not difficult to foresee. The early history of Georgia, a set. tlement from the original plan of which many hints appear to have been taken, will k found to have been a pretty exact type of that of Canterbury. All will not be losers by their emigration. The district will at some time be settled in some way. The labourer, if capable of working, will be sure to find employment in the neighbouring settlements. The land purchasers who possess energy, and the power of adapting themselves to circumstance, will find some means of getting on somewhere. The trumpery regulations of the Association will be throw.) aside as impracticable. But many who have been tempted out by its visionary promises maybe expected to break down under the disappointment that awaits them ; and even those who struggle through will be crippled for want of money they have thrown away to no purpose, and will be kept back by the paralysing influence of regulations which it will take time to get cancelled.

M e have now spoken, we hope with sufficient seriousness, about the Canterbury scheme. We have more to say —quite as serious—if it is desired.

Me shall probably surprise our brother editor and critic, who jocosely assumes to know so much, by the remark we have to make in conclusion. We have no means of knowing how this Canterbury Project is relished at the Office in Downing-street. But gathering our knowledge from facts patent to the public, we are disposed to think that Office not wholly free from blame. It was at one time proposed to colonise New Zealand through the instrumentality of one great company. That project has broken down; through whose fault is no concern of ours, or of the public either; but before retiring from the field of action, the great company delegates its powers in certain localities of New Zealand to smaller companies—for exaippk> the Otago and Canterbury. Upon this it’is assumed that these associations, with slenderer means and with narrower views, will be able to accomplish the task in which the original New Zealand Company has failed; and these sub-feudatories of the great feudatory company are to pay tribute to the latter in the shape of a price for land, as that company was to pay to government. For this device to perpetuate the company system, the Cob ll ' ial Office is not in the first instance respohsible ; but for lending its sanction for the attainment of charter and incorporation acts by the sub-companies, it is responsible. regret to say that we cannot quite exooeraW it, therefore, from the blame of countenanciOo this bubble of the New Canterbury Pilg r ’“ mage.