THE CLAIMS OF THE EARLY SETTLERS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4408, 6 May 1875, Page 3

THE CLAIMS OF THE EARLY SETTLERS.

v TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —My last letter on the claims of the early settlers, published in your paper of March 24, 1875, having been very generally circulated and commented upon, a few remarks in further support of those claims will perhaps increase the interest that exists in all parts oi the colony upon this subject, anil as a writer in the Nelson Colonist of April 17, 1675, says, " help in establishing the well-mented claims alluded to, thus assisting to render a long-delayed act of simple justice to these old pioneers." To bring prominently before the public generally and the Legislature of the colony the claims of the early settlers to free grants of land, it is necessary to bring such evidence forward as will induce the Government to consider this subject; and as soon as a committee can be formed a document will be drawn up, to he laid before both Houses of the Legislature. With regard to my suggestion as to who are entitled, or up to what date should claims be considered—that is a point upon which the committee already alluded to will have to agree. I am well aware that there is great diversity of opinion upon this subject. The writer in the Waihato Times, April 13, 1575, says: "It must not be forgotten, however, that in .very many instances the modern settler has suffered to an equal, if not to a greater, degree. We have only to mention Taranaki, Wanganui, and the out-settlements of Auckland during the years 1802 to 1865." He then goes on to say: "We are aware that compensation courts met, and granted sums of money to those settlers," &.C. The early settlers, whose claims I am advocating, do not ask for money compensation ; they simply claim to be put upon the same footing as the naval and military settlers who received grants of land, and as the volunteers, who also had scrip granted to them. But independent of the claims already alluded to, there is a still stronger claim that the early settlers have upon the consideration of the Legislature beyond systematic colonisers. I allude to the circumstance that the more fact of their first arrival in the colony as its early settlers—during the flrst twelve years, when New Zealand was a Crown colony, or up to the time of the proclamation of the Constitution, January, 1853 (and claims up to this period might, with justice, be considered) —not only underwent great hardships, but they contributed, under considerable difficulties, todevelop the resources of the colony, —to bring it into public and favorable notice at home, —and, in doing so, were great sufferers. Witness, for instance, the heavy contributions they were called upon to make, both in the towns and in the country—in the formation of roads. An early settler could not get to his holding without first cutting a road, in many instances through dense forest; and though the Government, by means of the annual Parliamentary grant and the public revenue, carried on certain public works by forming main roads in some districts, tho great bulk of the early settlers (pioneers) had to tax themselves very heavily to make roads in the country and streets in the towns. The early colonists are justly entitled to call upon the Government for a refund in tho shape of free grants of land. And in order to contrast the position of those colonists who are now being brought out free, not only from Great Britain but from other parts of Europe, with the position of the early settlers, it will not bo out of place to quote from the Hon. Mr. Fox's short and wellwritten paper on the history of the colony in the " Official Handbook of New Zealand," 1875, page 25. " Those who aro now seeking a homo in New Zealand can scarcely appreciate the feelings of the early colonists, or tho trials and difficulties they had to encounter. To descend from the deck of a ship, 15,000 miles from home, at the end of a weary voyage of from three to five months' duration, on a shore unprepared for their occupation, without a single house to shelter them, with no friend or fellow-countryman to welcome them, quite uncertain as to the reception they would meet with at the hands of the savage race whose territory they were peacefully invading, with few of the conveniences of civilised life, or the appliances for creating them, except so far as they brought them with them in very limited quantities—how different from tho experience of thoso who now arrivo in the colony, where, though many external differences present themselves, they find all the machinery of social -lifo, and the general aspect of everything very much as they left them at homo. The immigrant who now lands at Lyttelton, Bunedin, Auckland, or Wellington, finds himself surrounded by numbers of his own countrymen, dressed like himself, hurrying about on the various businesses common on tho wharves of any considerable seaport of the old country. .He sees shops with plate-glass windows and English names above the doors, filled with tho latest novelties from'London, Birmingham, or cvon Paris:; cabs plying for customers ; omnibuses rumbling along tho streets; hotels innumerable; churches and schools in modorato numbers," &c, &c. No one knows better than Mr. Fox what had to be done, and what was dono, by those- who t undertook and successfully carried out tho "heroic work of colonisation"; in other words, the founding of an empire. As tho Hon. W. Fitzherbcrt said in his ablo speech at tho last anniversary banquet, January 22; " But, as a matter of fact, New Zealand has been founded from a great many points. Every centre has its worthies, who have done a great deal, not only for their own districts, but for tho colony as a whole. Wellington has its worthies, and not only have they been tho founders of this particular part, thoy were the germ, tho beginning, tho foundation of the whole colony,—and .history will bear out tho statement that they had to do double duty in watching tho interests of their own district, and in assisting to build up a. great colony." _ I have endeavored in this, and my previous letters, to call tho attention of early settlers in all parts of tho colony, who may consider themselves interested in this appeal, and my next stop will be to call by public advertisement a meeting in Wellington of early settlers,: from all paits, with a view to tho formation of a committee which shall be authorised to draw up a document to be laid before both Houses of the Legislature, asking for a free grant of land for tho practical founders and pioneers of this flourishing colony.—lam, Sc, ' J. Howakd Wallace. . Hunter-street, Wellington, May 5.