MEETING OF EARLY COLONISTS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4459, 5 July 1875, Page 3

MEETING OF EARLY COLONISTS.

is A meeting, convened by Mr. J. 11. Wallace, s- to consider the claims of the early settlers in n all parts of the colony to a grant of laud as a e recognition of their efforts in forwarding the t work of colonisation in New Zealand, was hold ’ on Thursday, June 17, in the Odd Fellows’ Hall. I. There were in all about 200 persons, present, r some of whom were evidently attracted by the ! , novelty of the proposal, and a desire to study - the peculiarities of the old settlers as a class. 1 The pioneers of civilisation in this portion of i the Southern Hemisphere—to style them after ■ their own nomenclature —were represented by t aged, travel-stained men from all parts of the • province, whose hard, deeply-lined features i indicated a career of severe trial and rough ! living. The component parts of tho assem- ■ blage showed, too, that the movement had i- roused a feeling common to both genders, for ■ amongst the gathering were a number of I females, who doubtless retained a vivid recollection of the troubles and dangers peculiar to the live's of pioneers. Mr. G. Crawford, M.P.C., having been voted to the chair, ■ Mr. J. H. Wallace came forward, and stated that the subject upon which he proposed to address the meeting was not by any. means new, as it had occupied the attention of the old colonists for years past. Jt was a subject, too, upon which there wore divided opinions, as they might suppose would be the case. It had, for instance, been said that it was too late in the day to bring forward such a proposal. To that there was a very ready answer, for it was never too late to see justice done, and as a number of settlers had already received grants of land for various reasons, it was only fair that those who had never received grants at all should receive them now, late in the day though it might be. To convey an idea of the condition of things through which most .of them had passed, he could not do better than quote an extract from the account of the difficulties encountered by the early colonists,described in the “New Zealand Handbook” by the Hon. Mr. Fox, which also furnished an excellent contrast between the old settler and the new. [Extract read.] That account, flattering as it was to the pioneers, gave a fair and not over-painted description of the difficulties through which they had passed. An individual named Lookyer walked .up to the platform in a somewhat eccentric manner at this point, and asked Mr. Wallace in an emphatic voice—“ Who was the pioneers?” 1 Mr. Wallace said Mr. Lookyer would find ! out all that presently. His object was to show .' that there were old settlei-s in all parts of the 1 colony who were entitled to make claims of < the nature indicated, and when the proper i time came, steps would of course bo taken to J ascertain who were and who wore not entitled 1 to-recognitiou. It was unnecessary to state in < detail what the old settlers had done to entitle 1 them to a grant. It was patent to everyone 1 in the colony that they had performed what i was poetically called the heroic work of colonisation. No doubt their deeds would some i day occupy one of the fairest pages in the his- £ tory of the colony, but they were met that c day to obtain a more substantial recognition of f their services as colonisers. They had not c come there as paupers, as had been suggested by a Wellington newspaper. (Hear, hear, and f loud applause.) Such an expression of opinion t must meet with their scorn and contempt. £ (Renewed cheers.) It was a low-minded I notion on the part of any person who dared to t put forward such an idea. (Hear, hear, and r great applause.) The meeting, he was proud 1 to say, was composed of men who had in their c day done their duty nobly, and were yet pos- a sessed of sufficient manliness to hurl back such n a stigma upon its author -with the contempt it s deserved. (Loud and prolonged cheers.) It was ( not to be supposed that those who came to the ii country in late years could enter into the a feelings of those who were a quarter of a d century before them; still it should he borne t in mind that the present movement was not n without a parallel, for the purchasers of land ( under the New Zealand Company, and the g New Zealand Company itself, had made direct h claims for compensation for non-fulfilment of n obligations entered into by the company on tho a one hand, and by the British Government on o the other. In both cases compensation was r awarded. At a meeting held in Wellington a in July, 1846, a number of landowners a who conceived that they had not had t justice done to them, drew up an appeal d demanding redress, in words which applied as o well to the old settlers surviving at the present h day as they did to tho landowners of that J time. [Mr. Wallace read extracts from this f appeal, which was drawn up by Dr. Feather- n

atom] It spoke of their having severed ties of kindred to found a settlement on these shores, and in that work he maintained that those .he saw around him had taken a part which fully entitled them to the compensation asked for. One of the strongest reasons why they should obtain compensation was that during the first six or seven years of thenexistence in the colony they were unable to obtain those prizes which it was said the old colonists had special opportunities of obtaining. As a matter of fact, the Government were hostile to the settlers, and them obtaining land by keeping the Maori race entirely in their own hands. Any settler who attempted to deal with the natives was immediately prevented from doing so by some of the numerous Maori teachers and Commissioners. For years they were hemmed in around Wellington, and their progress stopped. They knew nothing of the Wairarapa, because they were prevented going there ; still, he was one of the first men who found their way into the district and reported upon its capabilities. An outcry was raised on account of the settlers being unable to improve their condition by getting on the land, but notwithstanding the prohibition, Mr. Eiddell and Sir Chas. Clifford, who were amongst the first to settle in the district, went there in defiance of the law, and they were the parties who really benefited, because their offences were afterwards condoned. But the great bulk of the settlers had no such opportunities. The settlers round Makara and Karori, who had been resident in those localities for twenty-five and twenty-six years, had made some progress, but they had none of the facilities which were offered to the new settlers through the initiation of the public works policy and the railways, which were being opened up all over the colonies. The early settlers had to make their own roads at their own expense, and on that ground alone they were entitled to groat consideration. Even when highway boards were established they had to pay enormous rates, sometimes as much as Is. 6d. an acre. Men who were subject to such heavy burdens as this, and there were many in the room who wore suffering at the present day on account of the heavy sums in which they were mulct in the early days, were entitled to a refund of the largo amount they had expended in time as well as money in the formation of those roads._ He would not detain, the meeting further, as other gentlemen wished to speak, but wmdd conclude by moving—“ That the pioneer settlers and members of £heir families now in the colony, who arrived prior to the Ist of January, 1848, and have not received scrip, compensation, or any .portion of the public estate, as compensation after their arrival in the colony, are entitled to free grants of land, and that a memorial be prepared for presentation to the Legislature, embodying these views, and praying that their claims may bo investigated and satisfied.” That, he thought, would put the matter fairly before the meeting. Mr. Gundy said that far from their coming there as beggars, he maintained that they had every right to demand the recognition which they asked at the hands of the Government

They had suffered in the early days as the * settlers of no other colony in the world had • suffered, and he had always had in view the i agitation of such a proposal as that before the i meeting ; but ho was much surprised to find that some of their prominent men, who shouldtake the lead upon such an occasion, had shirked their duty. He was one of those who arrived in 1810, when the. country was wholly in the hands of the natives, and with some of his shipmates took up his abode in the Waiwetu, where they lived for seven years without a road. To get his produce to market he had to carry it on his back to the boat. After existing in this manner for two years, he went to the back of the Waiwetu to sec how his shipmates were getting on, and he certainly was struck when he found them, many of them being without shoes or stockings, and without bread to eat, life being maintained by chopping do wu the nikau and eating portions of it. If any body of men were ever entitled to compensation it was the early settlers of this province, who had subdued and won a country far superiorto England. He had conversed with Mr. S. Kevans, of the Wairarapa, upon this subject, but he was sorry to say Mr. Kevans took little interest in the matter, saying that they had all had their day and had lost it.- He (Mr. Gundy 1 told Mr. Kevans that he had never had his, and that he intended to demand his rights now. They had paved the way for those who came after them,, and the Government would be bound to listen to their application for their rights. Mr. Hdv, of Greytown, gave a history of his experiences upon his arrival, showing the hardships he had undergone, and then stated that he could not agree with that portion of Mr. Wallace’s motion which exempted.. those who had already received compensation from any benefits that might accrue from the present movement. Many of them had received scrip for services as volunteers or militiamen, and if they were to he excluded on that account, the compensation now to he sought for would he shared by very few. He would suggest that -compensation should be granted to all those who experienced the difficulties common to all tlie early settlers ; and then he did not believe in going so far as to demand compensation from the Government; he would rather appeal to their sympathies, because he

felt convinced the Government would not deny the justice of their claims, Mr. Death also' gave an account of the life he passed during the first years of his existence in the colony, and then claimed that as the Government were offering premiums for additions to the population by means of immigration and so forth, he had a right l to their favorable consideration, as he was the father of fourteen children, all of whom were brought up in the colony. The Government were spending hundreds of thousands of pounds in bringing people out from Home, and if anybody were to receive compensation he ought, for his children and his grandchildren now numbered about seventy. Mr. Sm also objected to the exclusion of a large section of the early colonists simply because they had received compensation of some sort. Ho had Jiimself received "compensation for the destruction of his crops and cattle during the times of war, but he scarcely thought that a good reason why ho should be excluded from the benefits to be conferred upon those whose troubles and trials had been no greater than his own. His crops had been destroyed through the mismanagement either of the Colonial or the Imperial Government, but that was not a good reason for depriving him of his rights as an early settler. He trusted the motion would be amended. Mr. Brown took a similar view of the matter. He had received compensation for losses sustained through the native war, but he knew of no reason why any of those persons who 1 arrived in the colony prior to 1818 should be excluded from the compensation claims. Mr. Shout said ho was glad to find that a few gentlemen had interested . themselves in the endeavor to obtain compensation for the eaidy colonisers. He had never received compensation hi any shape. Possibly that was through his own neglect, but it certainly could not be because he did not deserve it, because he had worked as hard as any man that ever came to the country. He had worked for half a crown a day and kept a family of six children upon it, and though he never received compensation he always made sure of the half-crown. (Laughter.) He had seen thirty-three years in the colony and had seen a great many ups and downs. His old frame had stood a good deal of hardship, and there was not a man in the room who had been smashed about so much, or had so many bones broken- as he had. (Laughter, hear, and cheers.) If he hadn’t had a good constitution he couldn’t have stood it. He

had heard a good many strong facts that afternoon that had struck him very hard (suiting the action to the word.) (Laughter.) He had carried a great many loads over the hard roads, and through the streams, and had had as many wot feet as any of them—(laughter)— and he felt sure the community believed what the old colonists said. (Hear, hear). They didn’t want these stories heaped up over and over again. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) He had spoke to Sir George Grey about the Maoris, and had fought in the Militia, and he felt convinced that had the Maoris acted unitedly, they could have driven the settlers out of the country. But the pioneers had stuck together well, and had undergone great hardships, which fully entitled them to compensation. The Chairman stated that Mr. Wallace had consented to amend his resolution as follows ; —“ That the pioneer settlers, and the members of their families, now in the colony, and who arrived prior to the Ist of January, 1818, are entitled to a free grant of land, and that a memorial to both Houses of the Legislature bo prepared for - presentation, embodying these views, and praying that the claims made by

them be investigated and satisfied.” Mr. Udy said that the resolution, as amended, coincided with his views, and he should heartily support it. Mr. Jeffs said the meeting might suppose that he was a young man to presume upon their indulgence, and to dare to call himself an old settler, but for all that he had been twenty-three or twenty-four years in New Zealand. He did not propose to take up their time with a long and tedious story as to what he had done or what he had not done, but he wished to point out a great incongruity in the resolution submitted to the meeting. He remembered that two years ago a meeting was called for the purpose of establishing an Early Settlers’ Association, when there was a line drawn stating who should be considered early settlors and who should not. -He found, however, that according to the resolution on the table they had gone back a couple of years, and what ho wished to impress upon the attention of the meeting was' this point : that there were men who, between the years 1848 and 1851, had experienced as much hardship as any 'of those who put their foot on New Zealand soil previous to that time. (Loud cries of No, no, and Hear hear). He hoped they would hear him out, as he had only given them his .text, and had yet to give them his sermon. Between 1848 and 1851 there was an immense amount of country thrown open for settlement, where men had to work as pioneers, and he had known many who, with their small capital, loft their little bits of homesteads about Wellington,-and went -forth into the Wairarapa and even to more distant parts of the country, whoro' they took up Modes of land. They had no roads. They had to pack their wool, and had to go through all the difficulties of the very earliest settlers. (A voice : “ They had good roads.”) He might be pardoned for saying that they had no roads. (Uproar, confusion, and groat laughter.) He could assure them he was not dealing in the imaginative. The gentleman who talked about good roads did not know what he was talking about. (A voice : “ Yes I do. What did wo do in ’4l ?”) He know that when his things were landed at Castle Point, and ho took up a block of 15,000 acres at the bade of Whareama, there were no roads except those nature had made. [The mooting became so uproarious that Mr. Jeffs found it impossible to proceed.] Mr. Sim appealed for fair play for every man, and hoped Mr. Jeffs would obtain a hearing. [The response was a storm of bootings, which having subsided, Mr. Sim said ho would make them hoar him, as ho would make his voice heard above them alb]

Mr. Jeffs resumed by saying that he did did not wish the meeting to believe him ; he merely wished them to listen to him, and he would repeat that when he left Wellington to go to Castle Point, from .the-time he passed Pencarrow there was no road except the beach road. (A voice : “There is no road .now.”) Those, people had a good deal to contend with who settled in the back country at the time he spoke of. They had but small capital, and when the land was thrown open for sale and they wanted to secure a small piece for their homesteads, the large capitalists stepped in and bought it over their heads, pie therefore felt in every way justified in saying that these who arrived up to 1831 were as much entitled to compensation as those who arrived earlier. Not that he cared much whether they got it or not, because any share that might come to him he would willingly hand over to some charitable institution. . (Cheers.) The resolution, as amended, was- carried nem. con. Upon the motion of Mr. Wallace the fol-. lowing gentlemen were authorised to draw up a memorial, embodying the views expressed in the resolution, and invested with power to make the necessary arrangements for having the memorial placed before Parliament, viz., Messrs. G. Crawford, Wallace, Brown, Candy, Brady, Udy, McDonald, Petheriok, Sim, S. Woodward, and Beading, with power to add to their number. Mr. Wallace was elected secretary, • and a fund started to provide the means necessary for carrying on the agitation. A vote of thanks to the chairman concluded the proceedings.