THE WAIRAU. To the Editor of the Nelson Examiner.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume IV, 8 November 1845, Page 142

THE WAIRAU. To the Editor of the Nelson Examiner.

In allusion to the subject of a note addressed to you by Messrs. Bell, Fell, and Seymour, in your last number, as representatives of the absentee proprietors of land in this settlement, I beg to state that I do not agree with your opinion expressed in reference thereto, that " your correspondents were crying out before they were hurt." On the contrary, I think that every landowner ought, not only to thank those gentlemen for noticing the matter, but join in repudiating, in the strongest possible manner, the slightest bint or suggestion, by whomsoever made, of appropriating the occupation of the Wairau district under squatting licenses from the natives.

To show that these gentlemen did not take alarm unnecessarily, I may state, that my own impression, on reading the article which originated their correspondence, was, that the paragraph in question emanated from certain flockholders, possessing no original landed interest, and that the suggestion was thrown out as a kind of feeler as to how such an unfair proposal (to say the least of it) would be entertained by the colonists in general. The bare suggestion, at the moment of perusal, certainly raised in my mind a feeling of indignation as well as some alarm, that a district decided to be as fairly bought in the first instance as any other part of our settlement, and afterwards too dearly bought over and over again at the cost of the best of our fellow- settlers' lives, should, even in idea, be allowed to relapse into the possession, of the sanguinary savages who first sold it, and we ignominiously become willing tenants under them !

As, however, in your rejoinder of last week in explanation, you so strongly repudiate the idea yourself — stamping it as the merely possible ultimatum of what ought to be (if it is not) an impossible contingency — it will be unnecessary to say anything further on that part of the subject; and I shall therefore conclude with mere ly a few remarks tending to prove, independent of any other circumstances, how indispensable the Wairau district is as an appanage to the Nelson colony, regarding her future importance and prosperity. Although there certainly has been a large extent of country surveyed and laid out in wh at are termed, accommodation and rural allotments, independent of the Wairau district, yet I iy this time every one knows that probably not on ;- fourth part of the quantity can ever be available for profitable occupation as agricultural lan 3, and a much less proportion for depasturir g sheep and cattle. In fact, so confined is the settlement at present, that few capitalists wishir g to extend their farms to the moderate limit af 200 or 300 acres, would be able to effect the ir object without great detachment, or unless they cultivate lands totally unprofitable. Where, then, are new settlers to get their farms on their arrival, but in the Wairau and parts adjacent ;? The accommodation lands being already di stributed, it will be foreign to the purpose to allude to them more particularly here ; but as the rural allotments, consisting of three-fourths of the section purchased in England and paid for, are not yet available for distribution, a word i>r two more with reference to them may not lie misplaced. In the last document sent to the New Ze iland Company by Mr. Tuckett, a list ivasgivon of upwards of 800 rural allotments that we re either surveyed or in progress of survey, statii ig also the number contained in each district. Of this number, about 700, 1 believe, were situatf id in the parts of the settlement more nearly approximating to Nelson; but a small portion of the Wairau district having been then surveye i. Of these, about 100 were contained in the Ne Ison, Waimea, and upper Motuaka districts, 2< \0 in theMoutere (including those barren hills near the coast), 60 at Motuaka, and the remaining 300 at Massacre Bay.

As no allusion was made to the quality pr other circumstances connected with this large extent of land, the Directors in England, as will as other parties, must have been misled by this document, and very erroneous opinions formed of the character of the settlement. It is therefore partly to correct such impression that I have embodied these remarks, as it otherwise is possible that the absolute desirability of the Wairau as a portion of our settlement may be overlooked by parties so distant and so vaguely acquainted with its local character.

I have myself visited every district, and am acquainted with nearly every individual section in each of them ; and although it is very far from my wish to depreciate their value, or discourage enterprise in any shape, yet, if the honest truth must be told, I do not hesitate to assert that there are not 100 allotments of the whole number in the combined districts that any prudent farmer would venture to embark his capital upon, with the most distant prospect of any return. In this statement lam alluding to them only in an agricultural point of view — the principal legitimate source of most settlers' intended occupations. If timber should ultimately become an article of commercial enterprise, the Massacre Bay district and portions of some, of the others may become proportionably valuable on that account alone, the former being especially almost exclusively a very heavily-tim-bered country, much of the soil of which is also very fertile, but co densely encumbered with large trees as to render the clearing of it a matter quite out of the question by any but very small holders using their sole manual labour. It is not necessary to enter further into the merits of the other districts, other than to say the bulk of the rural lands comprised in them is not of that character to induce an experienced farmer to cultivate them.