Page:Canterbury Papers.djvu/40

 EXTRACTS OF A LETTER FROM THE BISHOP OF NEW ZEALAND.

(Copied from the Times of December 10, 1849.)

After a very pleasant walk, we arrived at the farm of some Scotch settlers, whose hospitality we are not the first travellers who have reason to acknowledge. As I understand that they have furnished Mr. Thomas with a detailed report of the agricultural capabilities of this district, I need not repeat the information of a similar kind which I obtained from them in the course of conversation. It may be enough to say that mutton, 'flourishing with Homeric fat,' and juicy apples, and foaming jugs of milk, verified all that I have ever read of the plenty and contentment of the pastoral and bucolic life. The quails which started up every moment under our feet completed the picture of patriarchal abundance, needing only the true manna of God's blessing to fulfil every promise which He ever made to His chosen people to the happy settlers who may hereafter occupy this fair land in the spirit of simplicity and faith. All other persons I would advise to go to California or any other place where the prospect of wealth may be more inviting. What we have to offer ought to be enough—a land flowing literally with milk and honey, where men eat bread to the full. It is possible that in former letters I have expressed an unfavourable opinion of Port Cooper and its district. If I have done so, it was under the impression that the district had been thoroughly examined by Colonel Wakefield and the company's surveyors; and that Otalron had been deliberately preferred, though 150 miles further to the south. As I had seen Otalron, I did not think that any inferior place could be eligible for so large a settlement as that which is projected by the Canterbury Association. But I have since heard that Port Cooper was very superficially examined by the former surveying party; and as my opinion was founded chiefly upon the fact of their preference of Otalron, I readily acknowledge my error, after a personal inspection, the result of which has left a most favourable impression upon my mind. Captain Stokes, I hear, has given a similar opinion, after a much more careful examination.

You are a body which ought and will be able to dispense with all trickery and gambling.

In the first place, it is a pure delusion to talk of founding a colony at once. It is a very pretty analogy to think of Minerva coming forth full armed out of the head of Jupiter; but in most cases, when you come to look for your Minerva, you will find nothing but her owl. Neither your heads nor the settlers can afford to be so trepanned. A more wasteful system could not be devised than that of congregating large bodies of settlers at once upon the same spot, requiring at once exactly the same supplies, and tempted by their discomforts and their necessities to acquiesce in the most extortionate prices for everything that they buy. If a settler has to pay 100l. for a house worth only 50l., it is a clear loss to the community, especially as the money generally goes to some other settlement, from which the supplies must, in the first instance, be derived. Even if the settlers supplied their own labourers, yet all prices would rise to that excessive point at which artizans almost invariably take to drinking, and then the money would go to the publican, who would most likely be some experienced vintner from Sydney. A flight of such harpies is always found ready waiting for the new arrivals. The loss which is sustained by a new community from the excessive price of all the necessaries of life is incalculable. My advice, therefore, is, form as large a plan as you please, but carry it out gradually and cautiously. Let each section settle itself before the next arrives, that it may be a help instead of a hindrance to the new comers. An interval of at least a year would secure this, and would enable each detachment to arrive at such a time as to have the summer before it, which is a point of great importance in a wet climate.

On the organization of these sections I would suggest that the arrangement should not be merely numerical, but local and topographical. Let a good leader, like a queen bee, undertake to form the township of Oxford, or Stratford, or Mandeville, or what you will, and secure a right good clergyman and school-master as the first step. Then, as in the old Roman armies, legit virum vir; let