A TEMPERANCE SETTLEMENT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 226, 19 October 1876, Page 4

A TEMPERANCE SETTLEMENT

The Hawke's Bay Herald has the following : — Amongst the passengers for New Zealand by the mail steamer Australia is Mr J. Broomhall, a Magistrate of tbe County of Surrey, England, ond a director of the Temperance Life Assurance office, which numbers 32,000 policy holders, and has an accumulated capital of £2,000,000. Mr Broomhall haß come out to the colony for the purpose of forming a settlement on temperance principles. The hon. W. Fox, who has always always had the welfare of the colony at heart, and has spoken of it in his numerous public addresses on the temperance question during his present visit to England as the best of all tbe British colonies for a thrifty and industrious people, aod especially adapted for those who have a little capital to start with, has t.ken an active interest in this matter, and has proposed to the leadiug men of the temperanc. body in England tbat they should endeavor to form a settlement in New Zealand on temperune principles, instancing tbe prosperity of Otago and Canterbury, both of wbicb were founded on special class interests. The Whitworth Brothers, of Manchester, the well-known members of Parliament, and leaders of the temperance movement, who are also employers of 45,000 men, have been interested by Mr Fox in the enterprise, as well as other equally weaUhy gentlemen; and we feel sure that if only a comparatively small percentage of steady, industrious men with a moderate capital are once induced to emigrate, they will not only find the colony all that Mr Fox bas represented it to be, but also get a good return for their labor and capital. Mr Broomhall, who facetiously informed us that he has come out to New Zaaland for the purpose of completing bis education by a voyage round tbe world, has been detained in California by a number of banking gentlemen, who represented to him that numbers of people were constantly ieaving New Zealand for California, and great efforts were made to induce him to purchase a large tract of land mortgaged to the late banking firm of Temple and Workman. Our cute Yankee friends appear to have made no little impression on Mr Broomhall, as he showed us a contract for ihe sale of 100,000 acres of land, with most elaborate plans, attested before tbe Briii.h Consul ot San Francisco, and which simply awaits confirmation or otherwise in the event of Mr Broomhall not being able to obtain a suitable block in this colony. It is a manifest absurdity to place the lands of California in comparison with those of New Zealand, and we hope, in tbe interest of tbe colony, that no effort on the part ol the part of the authorities will be spared to prove to Mr Broomhall tbe natural advantages we possets in good prolific land, well watered, which would be admirably adapted for the required object.