THE Lyttelton Times.

Lyttelton Times, Volume I, Issue 17, 3 May 1851, Page 5

THE Lyttelton Times.

SATURDAY, May 3, 1851. We have printed at length in another column an article from the Nelson Examiner of the 29 th of March: and we have done so in order that our readers may know the light, in which our settlement is viewed by the neighbouring settlements in New Zealand. To the ribaldry and abuse of the English Examiner, the Canterbury Colonists made no reply, and paid no attention. The calm and kindly criticism of its namesake at Nelson demands a different notice. *'" Let us first however assure the readers cJf that journal that in speaking of Canterbury as an experiment in " Systematic Colonization, which has hitherto never been fairly tried," they must not suppose that one word has ever been wittingly spoken in ,a tone of disparagement of the other settlements in New Zealand. We consider the whole colonization of these Islar&s to have been a bold attempt at " systematic colonization," and if success fell short of anticipation, it was not altogether the fault of the New Zealand Company; most certainly it was not the fault of the settlers. Though but recently come among them, we know well the courage with which they grappled with

unexpected difficulties, —the perseverance with which they, in some measure, overcame them. The advantages which we possess over the first Wellington and Nelson settlers have been, in no small degree, achieved for us by the trials of those settlements. We allude especially to the question of title to land. The ruin which the want of a good title brought upon many of those colonists, was a warning to the Association not to send out a colony at all, until a good title had been obtained. Again, the difficulties formerly experienced in selecting land, taught the Association that a good survey was as necessary as a good title.

The meaning of systematic colonization we take to be simply this ; that forasmuch as a number of persons are going to form a social community together, they subscribe a part of their capital for those objects which are necessarily of common interest, such as the import of labour, the making of roads, and so on. It is assumed, according to the recent theory of colonization, that each man receives benefit in these objects in proportion to the quantity of land he possesses: therefore he is made to subscribe so much an acre towards the common fund, in other words, he is to pay a price for his land, which price is to form a fund for common objects. This was the principle of the New Zealand Company, nor is there anything new in the Canterbury scheme, further than this, that the objects to which the common fund is to be applied are greater in number, and therefore, the price to be paid for the land is higher. !;The promoters of Canterbury deemed the |performance of the services of the Church, land the means of education for children to !be matters of public and general interest, equally with the making of roads and bridges, the survey of the country, or the importation of labour. So much was therefore to be paid for these objects, on account of every acre sold. Now the part of the scheme of this settlement which is unpopular with the " Nelson Examiner," is that the whole of the Educational and Ecclesiastical fund should be applied to purposes connected with the Church of England only. We are glad to admit the candid and fair tone in which this objection is urged. In the same spirit we ask the attention of the Examiner to the following simply practical view of the case. Suppose we had agreed that this fund should have been devoted to the maintenance of clergy and schools of all religious denominations, and that each settler might have specified the sect to which his contribution should be given, and that our colony had been made up of all denominations of Christians and sects of philosophers; could there, or is it in the remotest degree likely that there would, within many years, have been a sufficient fund in the hands of any one sect, to have established any thing like an effectual system of education ?

If instead of having one school we had attempted four or five, if we had thus dissipated our funds instead of uniting them, is it likely that we should have been able to obtain the superintendence of scholars and gentlemen to undertake the tuition of the older portion of our youth, or even of efficient masters to educate the younger ? Is it not certain that we should have had no education at all ? We cannot understand how the Canterbury settlers can be charged Avith bigotry or intolerance. Let us suppose there to be a small tract of laud, —veiy small as compared with the immediate expanse of the waste lands in the British colonies, —almost unknown and unheard of in a distant part of the globe. Suppose a number of gentlemen agree to go out and colonize that spot of the earth ; but suppose .that, agreeing in their religious belief,, they are unwilling to

banish themselves to a land where they cannot obtain for their children that sort of education which they most prize; and so that they subscribe for the purpose of esta- . Wishing their Church, and their own form , of education amongst themselves. That the Government give them up that small - territory in which to try their experiment, and that they agree to levy subscriptions, in dividing the land amongst themselves, at so much per acre. That they do not exclude any others from coming to their country, that they do not interfere with other creeds, nor pi'event other systems of education or of religious worship from being set up; simply that they impose, on the land given them to try their own experiment in, a subscription of so much an acre to the cause for which that experiment was to be tried. Suppose all this, and, although others may differ with them in their religious opinions, they surely cannot accuse them of bigotry. No man can rationally say that persons so framing a colony, exhibit a spirit of intolerance; yet such, it seems to us, is the hypothesis which the Canterbury settlers have endeavoured to realize. We no more expect that Canterbury will remain an exclusively Church of England colony than Maryland remained exclusively Roman Catholic, or Pennsylvania, a community of Quakers. But we do expect that s the introduction from the first of a good ! educational machinery for youth of all/ ages, will be felt in the colony, and will/ prolong its benefits to all time. And as long as the members of the Church of England desire, as nine out of ten do, to have their children educated in their own religious principles, we cannot but think that the Canterbury settlement has wisely adopted almost the only plan which could be devised for obtaining such an education in the earliest stage of its existence.