THE LATE MR. HENRY SEWELL.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5734, 15 August 1879, Page 6

THE LATE MR. HENRY SEWELL.

By the last San Francisco mail private intelligence was received o£ the death of Mr. SewelL The absence of any account of his death in the ordinary journals received m the colony is the sole reason why, in this, as probably in other local newspapers, no notice has hitherto appeared of one who for many years occupied a foremost place amongst the founders of the colony. In Canterbury, at least, with whose fortunes he was more immediately connected, we should have expected to see a fitting tribute to his memory.

Mr. Sewell came to New Zealand in 1853. He had previously been the managing member of the committee of the Canterbury Association, after the departure of the first colonists in 1850; and in 1852, when the Association had come to the conclusion that its work had been accomplished, and that it was desirable to transfer its property and powers to the settlement, which, under the Constitution Act recently passed, had become a province with a recognised form of government, Mr. Sewell was despatched to the colony to wind up the affairs of the association, and formally transfer all its powers and property to the new province. This, some of -the old inhabitants of Canterbury will remember, was formally effected in 1855, the province undertaking the debt incurred by the late Lord Lyttleton and three other members of the association, and receiving the deeds by which all the property and powers of the association under their Act of Parliament were transferred to the province. These deeds were

of forest conservation in New Zealand, and referred to experiments made in this direction in Southland which had not succeeded, Mr. E-irk pointing out, with others, the importance of planting our large waste tracts of land, as well as conserving, and drew attention to the immense quantity of waste timber in, uyi colony, particularly in the North, and suggested that it should be utilised as in America, namely, by our locomotives.

Mr. Lecot replied at considerable length, drawing attention to many points in his paper that were most important as bearing on the value of our timbers, and repeated his firm conviction that if properly and systematically carried out, a large and profitable timber trade could be established between New Zealand and other countries, and yield a considerable State revenue.