The Lyttelton Times.

Lyttelton Times, Volume I, Issue 27, 12 July 1851, Page 5

The Lyttelton Times.

SATURDAY, July 12, 1851. Mr. Stoddart's letter which we published last Saturday is certainly not complimentary to the Canterbury folk. He gives a vigorous sketch of the country —describes its features and its capabilities at once with the delicate touch of an artist and the keen observation of a speculator; speaks of private matters in sentences which, however valuable as proving the genuineness of the writer, it was certainly a breach of confidence in his friend to publish; narrates some pighunting exploits on the plains; and only alludes to the srttlers as a most unimportant appendage to the new district, much in the same tone as he would have described a tribe or two of natives— "A few years will smash them all, and the country will fall into the bauds of the settlers from older colonies."

Thin-skinnedness is a very miserable fault: let us not exhibit that at all events. Mr. Stoddart comes among us with the shrewdness of an old settlor ; be looks around him, and writes confidentially to his friend in Sydney what be thinks of us. We shall do better to take advantage of the chance which has thrown his letter into our bands, than to be angiy with the writer. Fe.v persons are so fortunate as to find out what the world does really think of them.

The most important part of Mr. Stoddart's letter, is his unqualified admiration of the country as favourable for the production of wool. The opinion of an old practical sheep-farmer is a .valuable addition to the other testimony on this head. If the country be a good sheep-feeding district, nothing can prevent its speedily becoming the seat of a most prosperous settlement. So far, that is in favour of the settlers already here. But alas, the same authority which predicted the fulfilment of their dearest hopes in respect to their promised land, has decreed that their eyes shall not behold its fulfilment. Long before our rich prairies are brought within the uses of civilization, the l'ilgrims will be numbered with "the smashed." Why? what are the symptoms that the Canterbury settlers are to be " smashed." Is it because they do not exhibit a plenitude of loose cash? We have never believed that a new colony was the haunt of the rich. Is it because there have been extravagant expectations as to the class of colonists who were to form.this new settlement? It may be so. It was certainly one of the chief features of the Canterbury scheme, that the colony was to be made as attractive as possible to gentlemen and gentle women. But we never heard it said that the colonists were likely to be rich. In those re-pects, in which it was hoped the colony woidd become attractive, the experiment lias been far from a failure. Mr. Stoddiirt has probably remarked himself the general character of decorum and sobriety which pervades the community, especially the labouring classes : he would probably admit that in no colony which has ever yet been formed, lias there been so large a population of gentlewomen engaged in the early struggles of the settlement, exercising all that elevating and refining influence, without which society rapidly degenerates. But it is absurd to suppose that individual colonists in a new settlement are rich. Some will indeed pretend to be rich, and speak as if they had conferred a favour upon the colony by coming to it at all. It is strange bow tenacious men are upon this point, how they dread being thought poor. Your friend wants to borrow nionoy of you ; " just until he can gei some from England ; if he had only known it, he would have

brought more with him;" whilst every detail of a lady's miseries is wound up with a sigh, "so different from what we wei-e accustomed lo at home." And so it would really seem as if all were in league to keep up this grand farce, that they were all rich in England, and had come to the colony to voluntary exile and poverty.

Why not confess at once the plain and manly truth, that we are all poor, that we came to this colony because we were poor, and because we could not afford to live in the station of life to which we belong", and therefore came to a new land where we might engage in pursuits in themselves honourable, but in which we could not have engaged without loss of caste in our own country. The pockets of the settlers who are raising1 those cheerful looking farms on the plains may not indeed be " well lined," but unless they pretend lo be what they are not, they need not, ami many of them will not, be " smashed." Some of course will; some will not attend to their farms; some will drink; others will gamble ; others will over speculate; others will not speculate enough. But under the present circumstances of the colony, no man need be smashed. If he have money enough to feed himself aiid his family till his crops come in, and have a plough and a pair of bullocks, nay, if he have only a spade, he must get on. The labour of his own hands upon his own land must, with the present prices, yield him a rich harvest. If he have more means, he can employ the labour of others, and his return will be larger ; but in all cases, with common prudence, his capital will be replaced with large interest. We have said at the present prices, but the prices of all agricultural produce are not in the least likely to fall. The gold mania at Sydney, coming upon the failure of the last crops, must, as far as one can foresee any human event, advance the price of food. Add to this the expected immigration in September, and we doubt if all the capital and labour in the colony could, employed to the utmost, lower the price of agricultural produce.

Farming for three or four years must be a most lucrative employment, so much so that we shall hope to see not a few of the 50 and 100 acre pilgrims, at the end of that time, investing their profits in the still more lucrative business of sheep feeding.

But let them never forget this, we repeat it often, it is in themselves alone to fulfil or contradict the prediction.