CANTERBURY ASSOCIATION. [From the Times.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 820, 11 June 1853, Page 4

CANTERBURY ASSOCIATION. [From the Times.]

Our readers wilLremeraber that on more than one occasion we have, though we fear in vain, emphatically warned intending emigrants against the manifold delusions and absurdities of the Canterbury settlement sytem. We fear that we warned in vain, for religious enthusiasm, picturing to herself the revival in the nineteenth century of the manners and usages of primitive Christianity, and the love of good society captivated by the prospect of a colony in which all the refinements of au old country were to be associated with all the iresbness and abundance of a new one determined to be genteel or die, irresistably pleaded against us. . English gentlemen, such as they were in the happy, merry days fof the Stuarts and Tudors, »nd a church pure and merciful as the hierarchy over which Laud presided, were to render the fern clad mountains and swampy plains of New Zealand an earthly elysiura. Purified from the drosi of modern liberalism, uncontaminated by the "slightest ve»tige of the commercial spirit, the English character was to regain all that busy centuries have stolen from it. Stately cavaliers were to bow to the toilsome but not ignoble labour of agriculture, and lovely dames condescend to a supervision, such as their great grandmothers might have practised, of the details of domestic economy. Imported bees were to buzz in the tangled forests, real British trout of the purest breed were to dart athwart the mountain torrents, the genuine British thrush and robin redbreast were to enliven the woods with their well-known notes, and everything, under a brighter sky and a purer air, was to recall the image of England, not ai now, stifled by steam and besmirched with smoke, whirling with locomotives and clattering with the sounds of innumerable factories, but such at she was in the glorious middle ages, when our eld nobility was intact, and arts and commerce could not die, bebecause they had never begun to live. There is, unhappily, no reasoning with, the imagination. Persons possessed with these" Bea-" tific visions were raised far above the consider*-: tions which affect the ordinary race of mortals; and to this, rather than to any defect in our own logic, we are self-satisfied enough to attribute our'total inability to make any impression on these sentimental pilgrims. The basis of the wTiole speculation, we showed, was the possibility of selling land for three pounds an acre while land of equally good quality could be obtained for a tenth part of the (price. We'showed'that, whatever might be the disposition of enthusiastic persons to purchase in England, as a commercial speculation

land at such a price would never fee sold, and tbat the purposes to which the land fund was to bs appropriated were found by experience in no degree to affect the value of land. We further pointed out tbat the site was in many respects ill-chosen, being separated from the sea by a high mountain, and consisting of land which, in rainy seasons, is little -better than i morass. Further, we showed tbat the agricultural* pursuits on which the colony relied must be crippled for want of labour, which was sure to be attracted by higher wages obtainable ou the continent of Australia. We went further, and accused the' Association, composed as it undoubtedly is oT persons of the highest character and most elevated station, of having misappropriated the funds placed at their disposal, and tbat in a manner more than ordinarily discreditable. The leading feature of the Canterbury plan was, undoubtedly, the religious one. A third of the land fund was to be appropriated to the purposes of education and religion; deans and chapters, Greek iambics, choirs, choristers, organs,' carved screens, and other ecclesiastical luxuries danced before the vision of the enraptured land purchaser. We accused the Canterbury Association of failing in this, the most vital pomt — of laying their bands on the money devoted to ecclesiastical purposes, of misappropriating it to secular objects, in direct viola'tidn of their duty, and of concealing this fraud on the sanctuary by a nominal sale to the Church of their own unsaleable land at its ( imaginary price. * This accusation drew a letter from Lord Lyttelton, in which,' after giving something like the lie direct to our statements, he referred us, in proof of the falsehood of our assertions, to the forthcoming report of the Government auditor. We did not speak' without good information,- but having no access, to the accounts of the Company, we were obliged to Bubmit to this peremptory contradiction, until the lapse of time and the report of the auditor should do us justice. Tbat report, and a letter from Lord Lyttelton, will be found in another column, and in them ft confirmation of all tbat we asserted. The auditor, evidently unwilling to state the case mall its force against the managers of the Canterbury Association, says, — ' the small demands for educational add ecclesiastical purposes in the infancy of the colony had allowed a considerable balance to accumulate to the credit of the fund in the books of the Association at the commencement of the present year.' It would have been more correct to say that this accumulation of, a balance in the books of the Company was owing to the utter neglect by the Association to perform their contracts, and to execute their trusts; so that eighteen months after the foundation of the colony the emigrants were obliged to subscribe for the .building of a church, having been during all this time left in this model settlement without any proper place for Divine worship. " The whole available resources of the Association," continues the Government auditor, " having been required to meet the excess ef expenditure in the other departments, it was determined to make good the balance due to the educational and ecclesiastical fund by an allotment of land "—that is, the money having been misappropriated, it was determined to give by way of repayment worthless' land, instead of the solid cash of which', in defiance of good faith and honesty, the church had been deprived. "By this means," says the courteous auditor, " the amonnt of land sales was apparently increased by the sum of ten thousand 'two hundred pounds, and the responsibilities of the Association proportionably augmented, while no addition was made to their actual resources by thetransaction." Well may he add — " It appears to me tbat such a proceeding was hardly in accordance with the spirit of the charter, which requires that one-third of the land sales should be appropriated to educational and ecclesiastical purposes. But here the whole proceeds of the land sales had already been expended on other objects, and instead of money a tract of land which may remain for an indefinite period before it acquires a saleable value, was appropriated to the fund in question. " Doubtless," as he naively concludes, " the money being spent, it was a choice of difficulties." Yes, that is just it. When an apprentice borrows a small sum, received on his master's account; the money being" spent, he, tcto; hai a " choice of difficulties " — such difficulties as thicken round the path of any man who, in whatever sphere of life, permits himself, under any circumstances whatever, to lay his bands on thit which' is not his own. We cannot conceive how, with the full consciousness of these facts, Lord Lyttelton could have addressed to us the abrupt and categorical denial with which he met our charges. Those charges be no longer denies, but seeks to extenuate in the following manner. First, he says, investments of this kind ire not uncommon, and that Colonial land has before been taken in this way. But then, we suspect, it was taken at its market value, and not at a nominal price agreed between the seller and the purchaser, they being in reality the same person. Next, he urges, that the act obtained by the Company in 1851 legalizes the proceeding; if so, the trustees , have an answer to a bill in Chancery; but this merely legal defence cannot absolve them in a court of conscience. Thirdly, tbat the committee believe an investment in land, proved by experience utterly unsaleable to be the best way of disposing of the fund ; that is, to place money in land which cannot be rescld, and yields no rent, was considered by the committee the best way of spending it for the interests of the church to which it was dedicating it. Fourthly, that the colonists themselves to some extent ratified the proceeding. Of this we can only say, that we could hardly imagine [that the colonists authorized the Association to misappropriate to secular, uses the funds consecrated to the building of a church ' in order that they might have the gratification of erecting one 'themselves by private subscription. It is quite ! clear to us that, though the Association cannot undo the ]?ast, they are bound in honour, and very probably in strict law,' to make 'ample reparation, and that it would- well become them to restore to sacred ppfposes the funds which they have devoted to secular uses instead of colouring this misappropriation by the unavailing transfer of worthless land. '