Dunedin, Saturday, September 6th, 1851.

Otago Witness, Issue 16, 6 September 1851, Page 2

Dunedin, Saturday, September 6th, 1851.

"We have reprinted in our last page a letter which was published in the " Caledonian Mercury " of 7th November, 1850, as much for the amusement of our

readers in the settlement as for the purpose of correcting some of the absurd opinions which are put forward in it; and which, however amusing to our readers here, might possibly mislead our readers at home, and at a distance. We have often been at a loss to account for the singular expectations -on the part of newly-arrived settlers from home— as, for instance, the lady who expected to find a cab-stand at Port Chalmers, and a later case of several parties who thought they could have seats in an omnibus from the Port to Dunedin; or, again, the gentleman who thought that as he had been informed that horses ran wild on the hills, that he could have one for the trouble of catching it : but when .we find such letters as the one we have extracted gravely put forward in a respectable journal published in Scotland, a great deal of our surprise at the curious ideas of Otago formed by intending colonists is removed. That the whole of these singular misconceptions are chargeable upon the writers of letters from the colony we do not believe, for we are by experience aware of the fact that when a man has made up his mind to emigrate, he will persist in looking upon every object and circumstance connected with his intended home in the most glowing colours. But to return to the letter referred to, the writer of which, to use a mild expression, appears to be laboring under a strong bias in favor of a particular locality, or to have been actuated by a a feeling of determination to act as far as possible contrary to the general opinion of the body of the colonists. Of course a man may settle how or where he pleases, and no one would say no to

his choice; hut he should be careful how he gives advice to others,' who may possibly be ruined by one false step|in the beginning of their career. We would not insinuate that he may possibly be like the fox who fell down the well, and was desirous of getting some one else in to help him out, but it is certainly great presumption »in any man to state his opinion so firmly in the face of a majority acting on opinions of quite an opposite nature. We say again we do not wish to disgust any man with his choice, even though he prefer to go 60 miles for what he might have had by going 15 or 20; but we do object to his endeavours to exhalt his own district by crying down all others. The description of Dunedin is highly flattering, and the not-to-be-contradicted style of comment upon the neglect of Port Chalmers, and the grave censure upon " early jobbing," of which " the poor settlers are now reaping the consequences," amusing, and seems to have been made in ignorance of the fact that all persons chose their lands in the place that they liked best, and that probably the poor settlers who have excited the writer's pity knew their own busL ness and meaus better than he did ; and many, no doubt;" will not feel much obliged to him for his pity. But the truth is, that this writer does not ob. serve that there are several occupations in a new colony, and what is applicable to one class of occupations and people is totally inapplicable to another. Every settler should consider well what course he intends to pursue, and hay. ing made up his mind, persevere in it. We will, for illustration, contrast two classes, the Stockholder and the Labourer. Suppose the former to attempt to start a Station, with 500 sheep, on a ten- acre section in the immediate neigh* bourhood of the town; of course he would be compelled to move in a few months at great loss; and suppose the labourer, who depends upon his daily wages for support, to have taken this gentleman's advice, and to have attempted to settle at a distance of 60 miles -from the town ; he might have tried it, but he and his wife and family would certainly have perished from starvation in the attempt. The various persons forming gradations between the two extremes — of the capitalist holding stock and the labourer depending on his daily toil for existence — must be all guided by the circumstance of how near they approach to either of these extremes. But even in the case of the capitalist, what necessity can there be to go 60 miles from his market when he can get what he requires at a less distance, and when the greater distance precludes the possibility of his growing grain for sale, besides the additional expense for the conveyance of his goods and supplies ? And why this writer should argue that a man must spend £100 in the town because he intends to settle but 10 or 20 miles from it instead of 60 we cannot see, unless indeed his horror of concentration and contiguity has led him to exaggerate a little. He, however, seems so alarmed at concentration that he appears to us not to understand the meaning of the word in its fullest sense ; 20 persons sleeping in one hut is concentration, but not in the sense in which that word is used in speaking of colonizing. The writer, according to his own statement, has reaped the benefit of concentration, that is, the clubbing together of means for mutual advantage. Without concentration he could not have chartered a schooner to carry his goods. Concentration brought the vessel to the port ; without concentration there would be no market for produce, no labourers to raise it. To have carried out his principle he should not have come to a settlement at all ; he should have squatted on the west coast, or taken some uninhabited island. But .we believe that he would have saved great expense if he had availed himself of the principle of concentration, and not gone quite so far away, unless he is a very large stockholder, for he states that it cost from £60 to £70 to land his goods at his station ; and as he says nothing about a wife, we

presume he is a bachelor. What then would become of the respectable emigrant with £150 to £250 in cash in his pocket, with perhaps a wife and five , children, whose expenses would probably be much greater,, and who would have to take a year's supply of provisions. We fear that he would have very little to invest in stock or to cultivate his land ; and when he had cultivated it, being 60 miles from a market for his produce, surely his prospect of a return would be distant, and that he would find himself better off by having planted his station in the Taieri, 15 miles from market, with a good dray road in summer both to carry out his stores and to bring in his produce. We have been, perhaps, a little too severe in our comments upon the writer of the letter, but we cannot .but feel annoyed at being told that the Settlement is a failure because the settlers have not adopted his views, and tnat with the exception of A ■ , hardly any one has done any good, (A -, by the bye, if we guess rightly who is meant, lives within half an hour's walk of the town.) Some of the advice given is decidedly good, particularly that which recommends parties to proceed to their lands at once, without wasting time and money in the town ; but his pity for the poor settlers who happen to think growing grain, and farming near the town profitable, is a gratuitous piece of commisseration rather insulting than agreeable.

We have for the last month heard a rumour that a Petition to Earl Grey was being carried about the town for signature, but in so secret a manner that we have had great difficulty in getting a sight of it. We have, however, at last obtained a copy, and publish it in our present Number. An apology is due to our Readers for loading our columns with another production of the party referred to in our No. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EARL GREY, Tier Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonial Department, THE HUMBLE PETITION OF THE UNDERSIGNED MAGISTRATES AND LANDOWNERS OF THE DISTRICT OF OTAGO, NEW ZEALAND ; Shewet/i, That this Settlement was originally selected by certain individuals of the Free Church of Scotland under an arrangement made with the New Zealand Company, by which the former were to dispose of 2,400 properties, or 144,000 acres ; That of this quantity the N"ew Zealand Company were to purchase 200 properties, or 12,050 acres, being about one-twelfth part of the whole, and that that Company was to be liable to the same charges for Religious, Educational, Emigration, and Civil Uses as other purchasers, to the extent of the Land so purchased by them, a part of the arrangement which has failed by the resignation of that Company ; That although this Association was formed so long as the year 1545, and was making active preparations for the formation of the Settlement in 1847 ; and although the first Settlers arrived here in the John Wickliffe in March 1848, yet it seems, that including all the Land sold up to the latest advices from Great Britain, the properties sold have been only 291, 203 of which were sold to individuals, viz :—ln: — In 1847, 72 properties were sold ; 1848, 71 properties were sold; 1849, 44 properties were sold; 1850, 12 properties were sold; 1851, 4 properties were sold — making altogether only 203 properties, or 12,230f acres ; That in the year 1850 there were only 6 purchasers arrived within the settlement; and in this year, to this date (Ist August) there has not been more than 2 purchasers arrived ; That there has been a decrease rather than an increase in the amount of Labourers in the Settlement for the last year and a half ; That it is obvious to your Petitioners that the Settlement cannot succeed under its present management in adding to its amount of either wealth or labour ; That it is a delusion to consider it in any manner a Free Church Settlement, for the highly respectable gentlemen whose names appear as those forming the Association are none of them purchasers of land within the Settlement ; and however they may have imagined that they were promoting the objects of the Free Church, it is obvious that this Settlement does not possess . the confidence of the Free Church generally, for in a speech delivered before the Scotch Congregation on the Bth May last by Mr. James Macandrew (one of the two leaders of the Association here) and acquiesced in by others of the Association, that gentleman alluded to the injurious reports which parties met with at all the other Settlements respecting Otago, "misrepresentations and misstatements," particu-

larly to those of the Free Church minister at Nelson, who, he had been grieved to understand, made it a general rule to dissuade parties bound for Otago from coining forward. (Extracted from the Otago Witness -of May 17, 1851, the organ of the Free Church.) That this delusion, -whilst it does not really benefit the Free Church or the Association, retards the prosperity of the Settlement ; That although this Settlement has now been so long established, and although a Free Church minister was brought out by the first party at a stipend of £300 per annum (who officiates only at Dunedin), no additional minister has been appointed, notwithstanding this Settlement has spread to an extent of above 80 miles ; That of the £300 per annum to be paid to the minister out of the proceeds of the Land- Sales, there has not been one-half of that sum paid to him for the last year and a half, so that instead of increasing the number of ministers as the Settlement becomes more extended, they are not able now at the end of four years to pay for one; That your Petitioners might advert to the unpleasant feeling created by the continual agitation of the question of Free Church principles, which arc obtruded on all occasions by those who are considered the heads of that Church, and which they make the ground of perpetual contention, as one cause of the ill success of this colony; That the number of properties held by resident members of the .Free Church are greatly less than those held by other denominations, and that the Settlement must have been reduced to beggary long before this but for the -wealth of those who do not belong to the Free Church ; the numbers are as follows : — 53 Free Church proprietors holding 50 properties ; 51 proprietors, non-members of the Free Churchf-liolding 85 properties ; 37 absentees holding 64 properties ; That your Petitioners cannot but regret to see so fine a district, possessing such advantages in soil and climate, becoming every day more impoverished instead of being so nourishing as it would be if it were like all the other Settlements (with the exception now of only one) in the hands of Her Majesty's Government. Your Petitioners therefore pray your Lordship not to grant any Charter to the Lay Association of the Free Church, nor to give any further extension of time to them under the expectation that there will be any increase of Land purchasers in the District, a hope too often held out by the Association to be now worth of any dependence, but to take the District under the direction of the general Government. And your Petitioners, as ii\ duty bound, will ever pray, &c. This document, like its predecessor, is a mass of untruth ; and as it purports to be the Petition of Magistrate and Landowner, does little credit to their knowledge of .logic or common sense. Why this special production should emanate from and "be confined to the Magistrates and Landowners of the district we are at a loss to account, unless the promoters of it have been, by the ill success of the former efforts on a wider basis, led to pay the body of our people the compliment of supposing that they have too much good sense to put their names to such a document, and have therefore chosen to look for signatures amongst a limited class, many of whom may be open to a bribe in the shape of Government patronage ; or why the former production was so entirely abandoned that not a word was offered in its defence when we exposed its absurdity, we are equally at a loss to account, unless the parties were ashamed of it. But the apparent hostility of j Sir George Grey to class-settlements generally may have induced the promoters of that Petition to revive their agitation, in hope of currying favor with His Excellency to strengthen their claim to some of the many official appointments which His Excellency is so liberally creating. In the former production the classification of our people was the subject sought to be misrepresented ; and in the latter, so far as intelligible, the extent of Land Sales, and synopsis of its ownership, would appear to be the theme. The first cause of complaint is, that the retirement of the Company had prevented the success of the Scheme, inasmuch as that body cannot now purchase the number of properties it undertook to do ; but as this part of the Scheme was found to be an evil, and much complained of by this party, surely its ceasing must promote the success of the Settlement. The second complaint is, that Land Sales have been slow. This is true ; and the cause is stated in our last Number, in a letter written by Captain Cargill to the Secretary of the Association, from which we quote :—-" If sales had hitherto flagged, it was in 'some degree owing to misrepresentation from the colony, but still

more to the difficulty in restoring confidence after the feeling of disgust which New Zealand misrule and disaster had induced, and which had so decidedly turned the tide of Emigration from those superior and once popular islands into other channels. Of this difficulty the Canterbury Association has also had its share ; whilst, as regards the older Settlements, it can hardly be said that any move towards them has been resumed." The statement put forward in the Petition ! as to the number of arrivals, the amount of : Land Sales, and the synopsis of its ownership, are quite incorrect, and the arguments founded on these misstatements so illogical as not to bear upon the subject at" all, or to lead to quite a different conclusion from that which the petitioners desire ; as for instance, that this is not a Free Church Settlement, "because the Free Church minister at Nelson did not like the climate of Otago, and that therefore it does not possess the confidence of the Free Church generally; that it is not a Free Church colony, because the Association are not purchasers, and because the whole of the purchasers are not Free Churchmen. The Association does not profess to purchase Land more than that of the Canterbury, nevertheless we find 12 of their number to have been purchasers in 184 S. We make little account of what country the purchasers may be; it is only necessary that they adhere to our Scheme, and obtain permission to purchase in terms of it. We observe, that at sth July 18<50, the number of Scotch purchasers at home was 97, holding 101 and three-tenths properties ; and the number of English 45, holding 93 and one-fifth properties ; and since which, we believe, they happen to be entirely Scotch. And with regard to purchases in the Colony* whether in open market or from the Company, and most of them having been made by thriving workmen, we would recommend the party to look how matters stand, and favor us with their statistics of that point also. ! But these parties do not understand the Scheme, or they would know that the very arguments they use prove the success of it. How can they say that the Free Church has deterred purchasers of other denominations ■ from settling, when they state, though incor- j rectly, that the Free Church are a minority. They pretend to sigh over the deficiency of the funds for Religious uses, and regret the nonarrival of another minister. This is pure by- ! pocrisy, for another minister is the last person they wish to see ; but if the funds will not sufficiently pay one minister, of what avail would those funds be if divided between every denomination of Christians ? It was never intended that the Settlement should be exclusively Free Church, nor that the funds from Religious uses should amount to an endowment ; but the experience of other Settlements, where those funds were lcndered useless from the difficulties of dividing them amongst the various applicants, and conse- I quently are locked up to this day, being before the eyes of the founders of this Settlement, they wisely made a specific arrangement before leaving their native land, and the result has i proved their wisdom. But the petitioners give j an unfair meaning to the words " cls!s-settle-ment," and affect a liberality of sentiment which they do not feel. "We also find them complaining that the continual agitation of Free Church principle, and the feeling produced in consequence, gives J them much pain ; but they lay the blame on the heads of the Church. If they will only candidly look into their own proceedings they will find that all the disturbance of the liar- j mony of the Settlement proceed from their own conduct ; and that they are at this moment doing that which they complain of in others. In conclusion, we beg to caution the Public, and more especially, our country Headers, from signing Petitions or Papers which will not bear daylight. This is the third instance of this practice being pursued by the party referred to in our No. I. ; and we know not how many other documents may have left the Colony secretly. We wish every man to express his opinion ; we respect him the more for having one j but we say, do not that behind a person's back which you would not do before his face ; and beware of every attempt which may be made to entrap you into signing secret papers.

We have to call the notice of our Headers to a circumstance which lays our little community under a debt of deep gratitude to a gentleman whose name at the present stage it would be improper perhaps to state, although it cannot long be concealed ; and when we say that he is a medical man, whose unostentatious benevolence and gentlemanly spirit ' has been noted by all classes, there can be little room for mis. talce. It having been put by the Government to our medical practitioners to give attendance at the Hospital gratuitously, as at home, and strong efforts having been made to dissuade and deter fromcompliance with this, the party referred to could nevertheless see no reason for declining to do here what medical men compete for at home ; and the more so, because of the merely causal and light duties, making an hospital establishment and salaried surgeon so incompatible with our limited revenue, and the urgent calls upon it. How true it is, that a gentle spirit is in most cases also brave and upright.

Observations. — "Whilst at the beginning of the winter several home plants, such as the broom, came into blossom in our gardens, and remained stationary in that state all winter, neither advancing nor receding, and losing none of their brightness, there were indications about the middle of this month that spring had fairly commenced. The young grasses, gooseberry and currant bushes, crocuses, &c, &c, are now exhibiting their spring growth. Wheat and other grain crops are every where looking well.