The Sun.
London, England, 1845-02-03 00:00:00

NEW ZEALAND COLONIZATION.

We have been favoured by Mr. George Robins
(whose name and character is a little familiar to
most of our readers) with a copy of a letter he has
just received from Nelson, in New Zealand. It is
not always an easy matter to give a decided opinion
where so much of contrariety appears, as we have
lately read by opposing correspondents in New
Zealand and in England ; but we confess there is so
touch of real tact---130 much of zeal and earnestness
ouch a total absence of a single little-minded feeling
throughout this detail—indeed, it is altogether a
document so essential to correct the misapprehension
that has arisen amid those who are in doubt—that we
rejoice to lay it before our readers. The Govern-
ment are bound by this statement to deal out justice
—aye, and speedily too—to all those who have
been led from their apparent sanction to induce so
many to depart. A little fair play is alone required by
Government to satisfy all, and render New Zealand a
very safe place for a man of moderate means, and a
wife and children, to go and improve their " ways and
meansh" but first the Colonial-office must be up and
stirring : and if any of these high-minded gentry will
only read the following letter with due attention, they
will see what they have to do, pointed out by the
hand of a master—a gentleman who left England in
great practice as a first-rate medical man, because his
chest and his health altogether were too uncertain for
an English climate—he has not had a pain nor an
ache since he left the shores of England. Mr. Robins
is a land proprietor of 1,000 acres only, near to Wel-
lington, and 5001. capital stock in the Company.
Nelson, New Zealand, Sept. 5, 1844.
MY DEAR Sta,—Since my arrival here, I have on two
or three occasions, in my letters to Miss D—, and twice
by letter directly to yourself, communicated any infor-
mation I thought might be acceptable on the state of
things here, confining myself, however, principally to what
concerned your own immediate interests as a land pro-
prietor ; but I have been for some time intending to
write to you on the state of our colony generally, in the
hope that if it had no other effect, it might still give you
half an hour's amusement. I now regret I did not do so
sooner, since I see from the papers that record the pro-
ceedings of the New Zealand meetings, and which we
received a few days back, THAT YOU TARE SO MUCH
INTEREST IN OUR CoNCERNS. At no time could it be
exerted more beneficially than at present, when
the whole colony (and particularly this settlement)
is thrown into confusion by the unexpected nature
of the news we have just received, viz., THE FAILURE
OF THE NEw ZEALAND COMPANY TO HONOUR ITS BILLS,
AND SUDDEN AND TOTAL STOPPAGE OF ITS EXPENDITURE
HERE. To show its effect upon us here, I must go
back a little to what our condition was for some
time before. On my arrival in March, 1843, nearly
eighteen months ago, my first inquiry was for the
founders of the colony, Mr. Edward Bryan Duppa, and
the party of capitalists at whose request and instigation,
as intending themselves to emigrate, the colony of
Nelson was first set on foot, as you may see from Mr.
Duppa's letter, published by the Company, with the
prospectus of the scheme. To my great surprise,
neither. Mr. Duppa, nor one solitary capitalist or em-
ployer of labour, appeared to have come out in any way
connected with him or his letter ; the Society here con-
sisting of the Company's agent, surveyors, and other
parties connected with them, the few officials necessary
for Government purposes, and about a dozen private in-
dividuals, not employing in all more than from twenty to
thirty labourers. . . . . . Ido not include in this
enumeration the storekeepers, nor those young men
whose friends, having bought them a section of land, had
sent them out with one or two hundred pounds in
their pocket a sum wholly inadequate, even had
they possessed the knowledge of agriculture ne-
cessary to commence farming, or the knowledge of
the world required to husband the little they bad,
but which rapidly disappeared under the combined influ-
ence of the high price of labour and provisions, and the
difficulty of all at once accommodating their habits to
their circumstances. The evils of this state of things
were already beginning to be felt. The population was
nearly 3,000 ; the private capital could employ but a
small proportion of the labourers, and the Company
found work for the rest. But the majority of them were
artisans and mechanics ; the Company's work was road
and ditch making, many miles in the country, away from
their wives and families ; and the pay, although ample
to the farmer's man, or clod-hoppers, as they called
them, not one-half of what they had earned when em-
ployed in their own trade at home. All being paid one
uniform price for their labour, the quantity of work done
was regulated by the power of the moat unskilful among
them, no one choosing to do more for his money than
another. The attempt to give task work made the me-
chanics still more discontented. The country labourer
in some cases finished his week's work by mid-day
on Tuesday, while his companion toiled through
the week. Many of them had left or were leaving for
other places—Sydney, Hobart Town, or Valparaiso—
and Captain Wakefield, haying written to stop all further
immigration, the ship I arrived in was the last (with the
exception of? one from Hamburgh, with Germans) which
brought any addition to our labouring population.
These sources of discontent have subsisted in part up to
the present time ; but still the Company acted the part
of a great resident capitalist., and found work, however
distasteful, to all who require it. About three months
after my arrival, occurred the fatal affray of the Wairau;
the whole settlement was at once alarmed and indignant;
the friends of the sufferers naturally took the lead ;
Government was blamed for OUR UTTERLY DEFENCELESS
STATE, AND THE NON-SETTLEMENT OF THE LAND CLAIMS,
AND WAS LOUDLY CALLED UPON TO DO JUSTICE ON THE
MURDERERS. In all this I could only take a very modified
part. Agreeing in the necessity for protection, and unable
to divine why our Governor should never come
near us, but fix his seat of government at
such a distance that we sometimes had intel-
ligence from England of as late a date, nor why the
Commissioner for settling the land claims should defer
until the last those which were most important from
the numbers, whose interests were involved in his deci-
sions, I still thought the expedition unnecessary hazar-
dous, and sure, in case of any disaster, to be disavowed
by the Government. Unnecessary, because, unlike our
friends at Wellington, we had undisturbed possession of
more land than we could beneficially occupy ; hazardous,
because the chiefs to be apprehended were powerful and
uncivilised, and unlikely to submit quietly to a proceed•
ing which, according to native customs, at once de-
graded them from their rank ; and sure to be blamed by
-Government, if it failed, because it took upon itself to
act where they had hung back, and where its failure
'would be brought forward as their justification for so
doing. At last arrived Governor Fitzroy, with his
caind evidently made up beforehand to consider
the natives as ill-used and oppressed, IN WHICH
NE WAS WRONG ; and to consider our conduct
as rash, hasty, and republican, in which, perhaps,
with the exception of the last charge, which was ludi-
crous, he was right. He at once superseded our local
authorities, and appointing as police magistrate a fellow-
passenger, in a very flattering manner put me into the
commission of the peace by myself, although ho after-
wards added two or three more names. On leaving us
he proceeded to the other island, and after an interview
with the native chiefs in question, decided that he would
take no further steps in the matter. His published
reasons were that the settlers had acted illegally, and
that the natives had done no more than was customary
with them after a fight ; nay, less, for although they
killed, they did not eat their prisoners. His private
seasons were supposed to be a great desire to conciliate the
natives, THE INADEQUATE NATURE OF THE FORCE AT HIS
coareasiu, and his belief that a general war would take
place, and the colony be destroyed. As to the legality
of the act, it was argued that the police magistrate had
received the approbation of Government for the very
dame conduct on a similar occasion before ; and that his
duty was to punish and not to palliate their enormities :
that he could have procured any amount of force from
Sydney, and that nothing could more directly tend to
atop colonization than the knowledge that these murders
were left not only unpunished, but not even legally in-
quired into ; and that by the natives his conduct would
be ascribed to fear, and their own behaviour bo much in-
Iluenc,ed by such a belief. Since then the Governor has
been busy at Auckland, making laws, and trying to
raise a larger revenue (a hopeless task, now the New
Zealand Company's expenditure has ceased), until the
other day, when he refused to confirm the Commissioner's
decision, that the Company's title to New Plymouth was
good, and after their three years toils, offered to com-
pensate the settlers by land at Auckland. On this point
there_ is but one opinion, that his conduct is indefen-
sible. Altogether I look on him as a very conscientious,
religious, hard-working, positive man ; well-informed,
touchy, too much disposed to treat us as his subjects,
and altogether, perhaps, hardly of sufficient calibre for
eo difficult a situation.
To return to the Company's affairs. Shortly after poor
Capt. Wakefield's death, I was very near being appointed
agent in his place, had it not been thought
advisable to appoint somebody entirely unconnected with
the settlement, which was done. Since then various
attempts have been made, by task-work, lowering the
Wages, and graduating them according to families (a
Pauper system), to force the labourers to cultivate for
themselves, as the settlers could not employ them, and
~,eY were beginning to re-emigrate in numbers—about
to the present time. Thus matters went on until a
week
oZuks when the Nelson arrived, THE BANE REFUSED
"" ANOTHER SHILLING, AND THE COMPANY DIS-
CHARGED Au, ITS LABOURERS. Since then there have been
held daily meetings
employment,to devise remedies, suggest modes of
prevent disturbances. THE LABOURERS
ARE BEHASIN
BottlersT.
andk.OMIRABL Blaming the Company, and
acknowledging the,
the to be too few and too poor to
do much for them, a willine_ess to work
for any wages, or try anylP
employment, Wages, with-
out a murmur, are reduced
from 18s. to 10s., to em-
ploy more hands ; the Company', az nt
every facility to intending cultivators, b_ granting
exchanges, Ling
of land, to induce more cultivation, and y
.fers are made to
buy hand-sawn timber and handalressed
flax to some
considerable extent.
About 300 adults have been discharged, representing
above 1,000 souls. Nearly one-third, it is believed, may
struggle on until harvest, when they will be indepen-
dent ; another third, it is hoped, will be absorbed by the
additional spur given to cultivation by low wages ; and
if some few take to sawing timber, some to flax-dressing,
be., it is hoped that the amount of destitution may be
reduced to something like a manageable number. On
the whole, our feeling is a hopeful one ; the labourers
say they like the colony, and do not wish to leave it,
if they can possibly help it. Many settlers, whom the
high price of labour deterred before, now talk of setting
to work, so that, perhaps, double the amount of land will
be broken up this year to what would have been. Some
storekeepers are setting off and going into the country,
oRd a general impression exists that six months hence
we shall be in a sounder and better state than if this
crisis /la never occurred, it may seEn itraDge that the