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Rh principally due to the expenditure of a large amount of money for the construction of a breakwater and other purposes, and the place is picturesquely situated at the head of a bay.

Christchurch owes its existence to a movement in England, near the end of the first half of the century, for establishing a thoroughly English colony in New Zealand. Its projectors proposed to retain everything that was best in English life, government, habits, manners, and above all the Church of England. The direction of the colony was to be in the hands of tiie Canterbury Association at home, rather than in the control of the Government, though there was no intention of taking a position hostile to it.

One of the founders of the Canterbury colony had been instrumental in establishing a Scotch colony in another part of New Zealand, and being Scotch, it was naturally Presbyterian. There is a story about him that he once projected an Anglo-Hebrew colony, where the Hebrews should govern themselves according to their own laws, and have no Christians living among them. He proposed this to a wealthy