# The Story of Christchurch, New Zealand/Chapter 6

Chapter VI.
1853–1854.
Arrival of Mr. H. Sewell, Agent of Canterbury Association—Boundaries of Canterbury defined—Land regulations—Wakefield’s sufficient price theory—Election of Superintendent, of Members of Parliament and of Provincial Council—Opening Sessions of Provincial Council—Opening of first New Zealand Parliament.
Soon after Mr. Godley’s departure from Canterbury Mr. Edward Gibbon Wakefield and Mr. Henry Sewell arrived in the “Minerva,” on February 2. It will be remembered that Mr. Godley had left Captain Simeon in temporary charge, as Agent of the Canterbury Association. Mr. Sewell was the officer appointed by the London Committee to wind up the affairs of the Association, and effect, if possible, their transfer to the Canterbury Provincial Council as soon as that body should be constituted, and almost immediately on his arrival he became involved in a newspaper controversy in defence of the London Committee, his principal assailant being Mr. FitzGerald. The attackers emphasised the non-publication of accounts, and the defence took refuge in the official audit in London, and the promise of detailed accounts as soon as there should be a constituted authority (the Provincial Council) to receive them. The dispute was long and bitter, and in itself constituted a remarkable testimony to Mr. Godley’s tact in avoiding an earlier explosion. Ultimately, on the publication of the accounts in London, with an auditor’s “tag,” ​objection was focussed on certain items of expenditure, but the criticism could have no practical effect until a Provincial Government had been elected.
The New Zealand Constitution Act had been passed in England (June 30, 1852), and proclaimed in New Zealand (January 7, 1853). It remained for the Governor to put it in force by issuing writs for the election of a House of Representatives, Superintendents and Provincial Councils, and appointing members of a Legislative Council.
The advent of representative government was considered by some people to be a favourable opportunity to try to heal the breach which had gradually grown up between Sir George Grey and the Canterbury settlers, and with this well-meant object, an address to His Excellency the Governor was prepared, signed and forwarded. This document is worth quoting, not only on account of its delightful originality, but as illustrative of the antagonism which unfortunately was accentuated later in connection with the Land Regulations.
“To His Excellency Sir George Grey, K.C.B., Governor-in-Chief of New Zealand, etc., etc,
“Sir,
“We, the undersigned inhabitants of the Canterbury Settlement, beg to address your Excellency for the purpose of submitting to you certain apprehensions and anxious hopes which have been excited in our minds by reflection on the critical circumstances in which this colony is necessarily placed by the approaching introduction of a totally new form of government.
“Having regard to the organised state of hostility between the executive and popular party, which has invariably subsisted in colonies peopled by the British race so Jong as Representative Institutions were withheld from the colonists, and from which, of course, New Zealand has not been exempt, we cannot help fearing that, as has happened on many like occasions, the important ​and most valuable public objects which the New Constitution is calculated to effect, may be seriously impeded, or even for a time entirely frustrated, by these mutual feelings of animosity and distrust which have arisen out of past collisions; and we pray of your Excellency to believe that it is our most earnest wish to see all past differences and angry party feelings buried in oblivion, to the end that your Excellency, as the Representative of the Crown, and those who enjoy the confidence of the people, may sincerely concur and co-operate, with a view to the future alone, in the task of carrying into effect the purposes of the Crown and the British Parliament, in bestowing upon the people of this country the inestimable boon of Provincial and General Representative Institutions. We are in hopes that these assurances may be acceptable to your Excellency, and that they may have some weight with the popular leaders in other parts of New Zealand, where the heats and animosities to which we have alluded have taken deeper root than amongst ourselves.
“We could have wished that the inhabitants of the Canterbury Settlement were able to convey to your Excellency without delay some expression of our apprehension and our desires, in the more weighty form of resolutions passed at public meetings; and we have only resorted to the less eligible means of an address signed by those who may concur in its objects, in order not to lose the early opportunity of communication with Wellington which is afforded by the sailing of the ‘Minerva.’
“We have the honour to be, Sir,
“Your Excellency’s most obedient, humble servants,
“Canterbury, February 22, 1853.”
His Excellency’s reply to this quaintly worded olive branch was sent to Captain Simeon, R.M., by the Civil Secretary, accompanied by a request that he would have ​the goodness to forward it to the gentlemen who signed the address. It ran as follows:—
“Civil Secretary’s Office,
“Wellington,
“March 16, 1853.
“Gentlemen,
“I am directed by His Excellency Sir George Grey, to acknowledge the receipt of your address to His Excellency, and to assure you that you may rely upon His Excellency endeavouring by all the means within his power so to carry out the recent Act of Parliament as to give full effect to the purposes of the Crown and the Parliament, and to render it productive of happiness and contentment to the inhabitants of these islands.
“I have the honour to be, Gentlemen,
“Your most obedient, humble servant,
“Alfred Domett, Civil Secretary.
“To the Gentlemen who signed the address.”
The “Gazette” of February 28, 1853, contained preliminary provisions for putting the Constitution Act into force. The boundaries of Canterbury were defined, and included Westland. There were to be thirty-seven members of the House of Representatives, of whom five were to be provided by Canterbury. There were to be twelve members of the Canterbury Provincial Council, distributed among four electorates, namely, Lyttelton, three members; Christchurch town, three members; Christchurch country, four members, and Akaroa, two members. In the same “Gazette” in which the foundation was laid for representative government there also appeared certain Land Regulations. Under them rural land was to be sold at 10/- per acre (or even 5/- if certified to by a Land Commissioner as not worth that sum), and it was specially provided that “Government Scrip” might be used for the purchase of land. Land reserved for the Canterbury and Otago Associations was ​excepted from the operations of these regulations, It should be explained that Government Scrip had been issued to those holders of the New Zealand Company’s land orders who (like the brothers Deans) had been unable to obtain possession of their allotments. This had not been an uncommon occurrence, owing to difficulties of access or the hostility of the natives, and at the time of these regulations, Government Scrip was being sold at a substantial discount. The Governor’s authority for making the regulations was derived from a proviso in Clause 72 of the Constitution Act, which authorised Her Majesty until the General Assembly should enact otherwise, to regulate the sale, letting and disposal of waste lands, by instructions issued under the signet and Royal sign manual. It is obvious that by the Constitution Act the British Parliament intended to hand over the control of the waste lands to a representative government in New Zealand, and that this proviso was inserted only to carry over the interregnum pending the establishment of self-government. It is even doubtful whether, in the absence of the Royal Instructions, Sir George Grey possessed the authority he sought to exercise.
Mr. Henry Sewell, who happened to hear of the proposed regulations before they were gazetted, respectfully protested against them as being illegal, and received a reply that his letter would be submitted to the Law Officers of the Crown. It appeared from subsequent correspondence that the Attorney-General, Mr. D. Wakefield, at any rate, was not consulted, He, in fact, resigned his position on April 9, following, on account of his disagreement with His Excellency’s land regulations. Some of the correspondence that ensued is most illuminative, such for instance, as the following passage from Mr. Wakefield’s letter of May 14, 1853 (after his resignation had been accepted):—
“I declare that I did not ‘advise the issue of the ​Proclamation as legal.’ Your Excellency knows that my deliberative opinion on that subject was never required. I felt that if it had been offered unasked, and had been adverse to the policy of the Government, I should have only incurred the mortification of seeing it disregarded, and the discomfort of being considered officious. I only refer to a fact more than notorious, to what is in this colony a truism or understood matter of course, in saying that no responsibility ever weighed on the officers of your Government.”
Action was taken in the Law Courts really at the instigation of Mr. H. Sewell against the regulations (Dorset v. Bell), and an injunction obtained. Meanwhile, with indecent haste and inadequate notice, lands were offered for application, for which no proper plans were available. It must not be supposed that because the lands reserved for the Canterbury and Otago Associations were exempted from the operation of the regulations that therefore Canterbury was not affected. It was manifestly impossible for the Canterbury Association or the Provincial Council to sell land at £3 per acre when similar land just outside their boundary was offered at 10/- an acre or even less.
It has been necessary to explain the land regulations in some detail, because the election of the first Canterbury Superintendent largely turned on the land question, The Canterbury Association, whatever its shortcomings in other respects, could have claimed that it had sold no land to speculators, and very little to absentees, and that it had not parted with the freehold of any big estates. The question before the country in 1853 was not leasehold v. freehold, but cheap or dear land. The dear land policy of the Canterbury Association was based on Mr. E. G. Wakefield’s “sufficient price” theory, by which was meant that the price of land should be high enough to provide for the cost of surveys, roads, bridges and other purposes in the case of the Canterbury Association.
​for emigration, education and religion). In support it was contended that the “sufficient price” would ensure the effective occupation of all land sold, and protect the community from purchases by land jobbers or speculators, who might otherwise block settlement till they could obtain a profit from unearned increment. The effect of the dear land system would thus be to conserve the national estate for bona fide settlement later on. The cheap land party appealed to the working classes. They claimed that their object was to enable the working man to acquire his own farm, and that those who advocated high prices did so to prevent the workers from settling on the land, and to maintain the supply of labour they required. There was at the time a great scarcity of labour in Christchurch, and the importation of Chinese had been publicly urged.
Time supplied the answer. It was under Sir George Grey’s land regulations that the purchase of Cheviot and other large estates at 10/- per acre, some of them paid for with Government Scrip, bought at a discount, became possible.
Meanwhile, at the election of Superintendent, the cry was somehow raised that cheap land meant cheap bread, so that big and little loaf figured in the campaign much as they did many years afterwards in Chamberlain’s fight for Tariff Reform. There were three candidates for the Superintendency: Mr. J. E. FitzGerald and Mr. Henry J. Tancred, who split the vote of the dear land party, and Colonel Campbell, a protégé of Sir George Grey’s, who held the office of Land Commissioner, as the champion of cheap land. Mr. FitzGerald was elected, the poll (Wednesday, July 20, 1853) resulting as follows :— FitzGerald, 185; Colonel Campbell, 94: Tancred, 89.
Early in June, the accounts of the Canterbury Association, made up to November 13, 1852, which had been warmly criticised in the London “Times,” were published in the colony. These showed a deficiency on emigration ​account, ant on the roads, surveys and bridges account, of about £11,000 each, and a surplus on the church and education account of over £10,000, which had been used to purchase endowment lands. There was also a liability (partly disputed) originally to the New Zealand Company, but which had now reverted to the Home Government. Land sales having almost ceased, the Association had no funds to meet this liability, and the Government accordingly foreclosed, and the waste lauds were placed at the disposal of Sir George Grey. The Governor, however, did not in this case, throw them open at 10/- per acre, but (June 9, 1853) entrusted Mr. W. G. Brittan with power to sell the Canterbury Association lands under regulations established by the Canterbury Association. The following month Captain Simeon resigned his position as Agent of the Canterbury Association, and Mr. Sewell became its sole representative.
Then came the first Canterbury General Election, the polling taking place at various dates between August 20 and September 10. The five Canterbury seats in the House of Representatives were filled as follows:—J. E. FitzGerald for Lyttelton, Henry Sewell for Christchurch, Stuart Wortley and Edward Jerningham Wakefield for Christchurch country districts, William Sefton Moorhouse for Akaroa. Mr. W. G. Brittan, who stood for Christchurch country districts, was the only prominent man defeated.
The Provincial Council elections resulted in the return of—J, T. Cookson, W. J. W. Hamilton, C. E. Dampier, for Lyttelton; T. Cass, S. Bealey, R. Packer, for Christchurch town; Charles Simeon, Henry Tancred, John Hall, Charles Bowen, for Christchurch country districts; RR. H. Rhodes, Reverend W. Atymer, for Akaroa. (The latter tied with Mr. W. S. Moorhouse, and was elected on the casting vote of the Returning Officer.)
The first New Zealand Parliament did not meet until ​nearly nine months after the election. By that time, Sir George Grey, who must be held responsible for the delay, had left New Zealand.
The Canterbury Provincial Council was called together more promptly, and met for the first time on September 27, 1853. The session was opened by His Honor Superintendent FitzGerald, with an address fitted to the importance of the occasion—one which could “occur but once in the life of an individual, or the history of a people.” He briefly surveyed the history of the settlement. “Three years have not yet elapsed since the first body of settlers landed on these shores, and I think it may be asserted that rarely, if ever, has so much real work been done by so small a body in so short a time; that never has any settlement been founded with so much success and so little disaster to those who formed the forlorn hope of the enterprise.” After paying a glowing tribute to Mr. Godley, the Superintendent outlined the functions and powers of the Provincial Government, expressed his intention of governing with the aid of an Executive Council, and explained the financial relations between the General and Provincial Governments, as arranged by His Excellency the Governor, “pending any law which may be made upon the subject by the General Assembly.” He referred briefly to the affairs of the Canterbury Association, but postponed discussion until the arrival of the accounts from London should enable Mr. Sewell, the Agent of the Association, to make some definite proposal.
The remarks of the Superintendent on religion are interesting as illustrating how far the settlement had already departed from the original intention of its founders. Mr. FitzGerald held that while maintaining an “attitude of absolute indifference to all religious communities,” the State might, and should, grant legislation to enable any such community to manage its own affairs, and that, therefore, the Church of England was ​entitled to ask for the appointment of trustees to administer the property specially set apart for its use, and still held in trust by the Canterbury Association. The subject of education called for special attention, as it was proposed to ask the Council ta pass a Bill incorporating Christ’s College, and vesting it with the control of the Educational Endowment.
Mr. FitzGerald considered that the State had grave responsibilities in connection with education, and that the funds for this purpose should be raised by taxation in the future. The College, for which the Canterbury Association had set aside endowments, would benefit the whole community by providing highly trained instructors for the public schools.
Among the subjects that engaged the attention of members during the first session, that of the “Waste Lands” of the province was the most important. Under the Constitution Act these were to be banded over to the control of the General Government, but it was hoped and urged that Parliament would delegate this control to the Provincial Councils, as being in closer touch with local requirements. Addresses to His Excellency the Governor, and to Parliament (when it should be called together), urging this course, were agreed to. Strong exception was taken to the omission of Sir George Grey from calling Parliament together, and the legality of his continuing to raise revenue without Parliamentary sanction was questioned. On November 9 the Provincial Council passed a series of resolutions on the subject, from which the first two may be quoted:—
(1) That in the opinion of this Council, all appropriation of revenue of the colony prior to the meeting of the General Assembly, is a violation of the spirit and intent of the Constitution Act.
(2) That until a meeting of the General Assembly shall have taken place or until further information shall have been laid before them, the Council will abstain from ​passing any law for the appropriation of the public revenues.
These resolutions were followed up with an address to the Governor, which was carried on November 23, in which His Excellency’s delay in convening the General Assembly was strongly censured, as entirely prostrating the designs of the Imperial Government; and it was further contended “that many of the powers exercised by the Executive Government will, in the absence of the sanction of the General Legislature, be exercised in an illegal and unconstitutional manner.” With this parting shot, the Council was prorogued on Thursday, November 24, till February 15 of the following year.
During the ensuing session (February 15 to April 3), regulations dealing with the terms of purchase and pasturage for the waste lands of the Crown within the Province of Canterbury, fixing the price at £2 per acre, were prepared and passed. These regulations could, of course, have no effect unless accepted by the General Government, in which the absolute power was still vested, but it was hoped and expected that they would be used by the Canterbury members as indicating the wishes of the Province. The regulations were published in the “Lyttelton Times” of March 4, and in the same issue the announcement was made of the purchase (but outside of the Canterbury block), of 40,000 acres, afterwards known as the Glenmark Estate, by Mr. Moore on behalf of his brother-in-law, Mr. Kermode, at 10/- per acre. The actual cash paid was only £14,000, as part only of the land was bought at 10/- per acre, and the remainder on a deposit of 5/- per acre, to go through the form of an auction afterwards.
It may be added that thanks to the energy of two of the Canterbury representatives, Mr. FitzGerald and Mr. Sewell, both of whom took very prominent parts in the first New Zealand Parliament, the Government passed a Bill giving control to the various ​Provincial Councils over their own waste lauds—one-half, however, of the proceeds of these sales was to be handed over to the General Government. A Bill was also put through appointing trustees ta manage the ecclesiastical property held in trust by the Canterbury Association.
Meanwhile, Sir George Grey had, on December 31, 1853, left New Zealand, and Lieut.-Colonel Robert Henry Wynyard, as senior military officer, took the oath on January 3, 1854, as Administrator; a somewhat anomalous position for a gentleman who had represented Auckland as its Superintendent. Colonel Wynyard summoned the General Assembly to meet in Auckland on May 24, probably as early a date as was possible, taking into consideration the difficulties of communication.
In his speech on the opening of the first New Zealand Parliament, the Governor confessed to some natural hesitation about calling Parliament together, he was “holding office but temporarily,” and “bound not to embark in any measure which may embarrass the policy or affect the duties of the permanent Governor of the country.” “But,” he added, “possessing the necessary legal authority, and seeing that Her Majesty’s subjects in New Zealand have a right to the exercise of the powers conferred upon them by the British Parliament, I felt that I ought not to allow considerations personal to myself to disappoint their expectations, and to delay them indefinitely.”
The concluding paragraph seems to cast a curious reflection on the neglect of the late Governor to call Parliament together.