NELSON IN THE FOR TIES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 25 November 1922, Page 7

NELSON IN THE FOR TIES

INTERESTING RECORD OF THE . SETTLEMENT REPORT TO THE NEW ZEALAND COMPANY (By Mr F. D. Bell.) XVI. Following is a continuation of tho report made in 1849 by Mr F. D, Bell, agent of the Now Zealand Company, upon the Nelson Settlement:— THE LAND QUESTION (Continued.)

There is no doubt that_ (be Company, by ils most liberal offer of placing its private as well as general estate°aU the disposal of Governor Sir George Grey and of the arbitrators appointed under Resolutions 11. and XIX. of July 1847, lias become dispossessed of a very valuable portion ol that private estate which has been awarded away, and has therefore in point of fact altogether lost part of tin; purchase money which it paid for its 100 allotments. Hut il must _ not. be forgotten, as I must say again, that ihe stipulation for payment of claims m land alone was the* Company’s own doing; and above all the shareholders' must bear in mind that they received £236,000 from Parliament as compensation to themsolves (since if the Company "break up this sum Ist wholly remitted to the Crown), upon express condition made by Earl Grey, that the colonists should receive liberal consideration for their losses and injuries; not merely as purchasers who stood upon a contract, but as settlers who had under the Company’s auspices founded a colony through a lime of disaster and difficulty at tho outset, unsurpassed by any other instance in the colonial history of modern times. If therefore the total value which the Company have given away in satisfaction and complete liquidation of a. previously unfulfilled contract of eight years’ standing appeal’ large at first sight, it will seem moderate when all the facts connected with the caso are taken into consideration. But had it been much larger than it is, the Directors may feel assured that the 'sacrifice was* worth tire Cornpnny’s while iu order to bring about, that perfect freedom from any complaint, that satisfaction and content, that cheerful acknowledgment of the , Company’s liberality, and that firm re-es-.tabiishment of 'its good name in former times, which existed throughput tho ■ ■Settlement' until the other day, and which will, yet bo renewed when tho Trust Fund question is settled. , And this brings me to the. last part of the arrangements of 1847 which require notice in this report: I mean the .establishment of the Board of Trustees for the future management of the Trust Funds. It would not become me to remark upon the decision to which the Directors have conic, under the legal advice communicated to tho, principal agent and through me to tho settlers, not to transfer the Trust Funds to the Board, which, as reported to you before was elected in pursuance of the 18th Resolution of July on ■the first day of the present year. , I have done what I considered my duty in placing before the .Court the fact of the disappointment and dismay which that decision has caused iu Nelson, and that is all which it is strictly speaking my place to do. But T may perhaps be allowed to refer briefly to an objection which I perceive Messrs Few and Co. (but noli the Directors) raised to the 18th Resolution being carried out. namely, that several of tho absentee proprietors dissented from placing the Funds to which they had contributed in the hands of persons all of whom were to be resident in the Settlement. If the Funds which now remain, or any part, of them, were for .objects in which the body of absentee proprietors could personally, take a share, or if even they could (with the" exception of the remnant of the Emigration Fund) he expended in England, the objection might readily be understood. But what are the funds- for? One of them is for the of a eollege in the Settlement; 'the building must bo here, the scholars here, the income and expenditure. here. Who are so much interested, or more properly, who arc directly interested at all hi this Fund but the colonists? The Religious Fund has been spent with the exception of £3000; and for whom again is this remnant intended? Surely the colonists themselves arc the best judges in what way to apply the money for (die greatest quantity _of spiritual instruction iu the community, and could best make a fair allotment of it for the future ? x Even the Steam Fund the colonists best know how and when to expend for the permanent advantage of the Port and of the Settlement and the owners of property in it. An absentee proprietor who should object to the colonists riaving the disposal of the funds should not forget that his interest is bound up in tlio welfarfc and prosperity of the resident settlers, and that as they are most competent to care for and promote their own welfare, lie can best leave to them what are now the most avail*

able means to secure it and thereby to attract others into the place and givo a. value to his investment which ha a

tor so many years lain idle chiefly because the settlers were not left to manage their own affairs. But again, tho Board is composed of members of whom twb are appointed by the absentee proprietors. If 'they can trust the whole value of allotments which cost them £IOO,OOO and upwards to agents here, often with unlimited power of sale, and if those agents have earned and continue to possess their confidence. they can surely trust these agents, 'sitting at the Trust. Board as their representatives, to guard what interest they hove in tiie management of but a small portion of the value? Tho cry is not, I can assure the Directors, that the absentee agents favour tho residents; the cry is that they are too jealous of their clients’ interests, too watchful lo protect and object against the smallest encroachment upon them, 100 exacting in the prices and

rentals they ask; ami although lam so far prejudiced as to think them right, rh,' bulk of the community would gladly see a change 1 more for its own interest. On the whole, therefore, I air rare that the great body of abseuter. proprietors if asked would not now raise an object ion which they have never communicated to their agents here, nor interfere, to throw any obstacle in addition to the legal ones, in the way of the only thing that no"w remains to fulfil the scheme of July 1847 (from the other provisions of which they received so much advantage', and to restore the Settlement to roe condition of internal quiet .and content for which the Company has Mierff-cp ] so much. • : (To he continued.)