[2] “‘It is a most beautiful country. I have visited the Brazils, the whole of Van Diemen’s Land, and New South Wales, and been on the Continent, but I never saw a country in the world that equalled it (New Zealand). In scenery, climate, and productiveness, it is a perfect paradise.’—(See T. B. Montefiore, Parliamentary Evidence, 1838.)”

[3] “The missionaries have been sojourning in New Zealand for the last twenty-three years. They, with their families, amount to upwards of ninety individuals, and, with the exception of infants, only one death (it is said) has occurred amongst them. In this country, according to the Rev. W. Yate, ‘invalids become well, the healthy robust, and the robust fat. It has a perpetual spring, the whole atmosphere seems impregnated with perfumes, and every breath inhaled stimulates the system, and strengthens man for the labour which may lie before him. I am persuaded (says he), that all graminivorous animals, wild or domestic, would thrive well in this temperate clime, if allowed to range at large in the forests, on the hills, in the valleys, or on the plains.’”

[4] “‘Marriages among the English have been prolific, in a very extraordinary degree, of a most healthy progeny.’—(See official document by T. Busby, Esq., British Resident.)”

[5] “‘There is a great variety of timber in the country fit for all purposes, as for shipbuilding, domestic, and other purposes. The forests of New Zealand afford perhaps the finest spars for masts and yards in the world, and which are extremely valuable. In India, the wood being there very heavy, they cannot get any description of wood to make good spars, and those taken from New Zealand find there a ready sale.’—(See J. L. Nicholas, Esq., Par. Evidence.)”

[6] “Mr Flatt, an agriculturist from the East of England, of considerable professional and general knowledge, and who has lately returned from New Zealand, where he had been remaining several years, informs the Author, that in crossing the North Island, he travelled along a tract of fine alluvial soil in the lower valley of the Waikato rivers, equal in extent, but richer, than the alluvial level between Cambridge and Hull,—the kernel of England. Mr Flatt also corroborates the statements of others respecting the salubrity, mildness, and beauty of the climate,—that it is a land of sunny-showers, and that is the case of heavy rains, the clouds clear off immediately when the rain ceases, and a most brilliant sun shines out.”

[7] “The Company are not to be considered as guaranteeing the title, except as against their own acts.” See published “Terms of Purchase” by the New Zealand Land Company, and signed John Ward. This is the amount of their boasted security of title.

[8] The cost of free labour in a new colony, or wherever all the land of fair quality is not occupied, has always been—from the ambition to be his own master, inherent in man,—must necessarily be, greater than the producing value of the labour. Where fair land is unoccupied, none but he, who, from some natural defect or incapacity, is incapable of working to himself so well as to produce a maintenance, will ever work as an agricultural servant to another, excepting at a hire beyond the value of his labour; consequently, the work performed for hire will be done in a very inferior and unprofitable manner. This must cause the hired workman to be not upon the best terms with his employer, and he will be felt to be a plague rather than a help. Mr Wakefield’s “sufficient price” plan, “a high price upon fresh land,” at least “such a price as render slave labour a loss, plenty of free hired labour being made attainable,” is one of the most crude and impracticable schemes in reference to a British race population, that the brain even of modern political economists has hatched. Nevertheless, he has procured a whole host of followers, including the South Australian and New Zealand Committees. How would people be prevented from settling beyond the precincts of his high-price-limited territory? Would he keep an army scouring the country beyond this line with fire and sword? Nothing short of this would suffice; and we should have enough of bush-fighting. We would remit from the heated fancies of ignorant closet colonists to the experienced judgment of men who have seen colonization going on, and more especially who have borne a part in it, to determine of the utter unfitness of the “sufficient price.” Has the attempt at the sufficient price worked well in South Australia? Has not a great proportion of the small capitalists lost their capital and been forced to become servants (in some cases obliged to the servants they had carried out for procuring a master), while only the larger capitalists have been able to hold out? Has not the high price of land, L.1 per acre, instead of condensing been the means of dispersion,—throwing the stock owners with their flocks out to wander over the undivided territory for which they pay no price, which in fact is worth no price—perhaps no great loss in that arid country where change of place is necessary in the season of drought to obtain herbage and water—a country only fit for this Tartar or Arab system of husbandry? Has the miserable Adelaide and the steril sands around it, a place scarcely capable of affording support, even under the best culture for which it is fitted, for a few hundreds, become any thing but the grave of the hopes of the many thousands who have been thrown upon this desert coast by means of the money extracted from capitalist emigrants by this “sufficient price,” or by money borrowed at 10 per cent. per annum upon the faith of the “sufficient price?” Adelaide will never reach higher than a miserable village, unless like Sydney it get an extraneous Government expenditure of several hundred thousand pounds per annum (Sydney without this would have remained a miserable village). As soon as the money spent by emigrants (not unfrequently all they possess) waiting upon the lagging surveys, or upon some plausible means of employing their little capital to advantage, shall have ceased to flow, Adelaide will appear in its natural poverty.

Is the sufficient price calculated for New Zealand? Why import so many servants when it is so politic to employ native labour, and to leave the labour market open for this supply? The natives say they have a double motive for selling land to the British—the price they receive for it, and the employment they procure in cultivating it. Why take means to prevent dispersion when prudence will direct a pretty close arrangement? Why take means to procure a consolidated population as a market for agricultural produce, when a market so very favourable already exists in the agricultural produce-demand of Australia and of the South Sea Whalers, together with the British and Indian demand for flax and spars? For what then is a “sufficient price” desirable? Only for the private emolument of managing secretaries and other officials, to whom the “sufficient price” will pay a pretty good tax in transitu, and to be a plausible pretext for the Land Company resident in London to obtain the warrantry of the Legislature for monopolizing whole provinces of New Zealand, and for selling the land at a high price to the buyer;—no doubt thinking the buyer will be a more industrious colonist after his pockets have been emptied into this land-jobbing Company’s coffers. From some hints which have been thrown out in Parliament lately, it would seem to be in contemplation to have something like “a sufficient price” in the British colonies in the West Indies (perhaps practicable there by a sufficient demonstration of bayonets), that is, a plan of preventing the working black population from procuring portions of land, by the industrious cultivation of which they could maintain themselves in ease and comfort. By this plan it is intended “to make slave-labour a loss, plenty of hired labour being attainable,” the black population being thus compelled to labour to the planters at whatever hire the planters choose to give, or to starve. Perhaps there is some understood stipulation, that the planters will restore the twenty millions to the British Legislature on the passing of this “sufficient price” act, as well they might? Welcome back slavery to the West Indies—welcome West Indian slavery to the working man in Australia and New Zealand, rather than the “sufficient price.” But it is an absurdity, and, if persisted in, will ruin these colonies. For a complete exposure of the indirect systems of slavery, see “Emigration Fields,” pages 53 and 187.

[9] The following scheme of a Directory or Government is submitted to the Shareholders for consideration:—

In order that the Executive may be conducted as a whole with promptness and decision, and that the various individuals composing it may act in unison, and be brought more readily under the control of the shareholders, who stand on the same relation to the Executive as a parliament does to the ministry, it is resolved that one individual, elected by the shareholders, act as the head, choosing his assistants, for whose official conduct he is responsible.

EXECUTIVE.

The powers and business of the Governor to be accurately defined by the preliminary general meeting of the shareholders by which he is elected. All moneys put under the control of the Governor to be voted at quarterly general meetings of the shareholders. In case the shareholders become too numerous for a deliberative body, each ten or more to elect a representative.

BOARDS OF OBSERVATION.

The above Boards to supervise the concerns of the Company; and, should they observe any thing wrong, or tending to wrong, to report of the same to the Governor, and at the same time to retain a copy of this report, to be laid before the next general meeting.

OFFICERS.

In case of quarrel or property dispute, the parties to appear personally before the Conciliator, and, if he fail in settling the affair amicably, that he remit to the Judge-Arbiters. Should one of the parties agree to settle the dispute amicably by the Conciliator’s advice, and the other party do not, that the latter, should judgment go against him, pay the whole cost of the arbitration, including pay of witnesses on both sides. In case the Judge-Arbiters be not unanimous, to remit to the first meeting of the shareholders.

The Governor, the Boards of Observation and Officers, to be annually elected, and changeable at any time, wholly or in part, by a general meeting convened for the specific purpose. All the Executive chosen by the Governor to vacate with the Governor, and to have no retiring salary. That one-third of the shareholders, or the Governor, have power at any time to order the Secretary to convene a general meeting for any specified purpose, which the Secretary must do immediately, by circular letter (giving one week’s previous notice) to each shareholder; but in all cases that the business of the meeting be limited to the object stated in the requisition.

[10] It would be well did our Home Government limit its cherishing care to protection,—vessels of war, and a harbour fort or forts in New Zealand, leaving the internal government entirely to the emigrant population, with this proviso, that trade in native produce (pernicious maddening drugs excepted) be free between the parent country and the colony. This would be the cheapest colonial organization, and also the one which would attach the colony the most firmly. Instead of jealousy and discontent (the natural produce of the present system) we should have pride in the parent country, and honourable enthusiastic attachment towards it.

[11] Would such a plan not be practicable in Britain?

[12] We would recommend investment in new lands as incomparably superior to investments in savings’ banks, as affording far better security and higher profits, and would urge those who have money in savings’ banks to withdraw it, and purchase shares in the Scots New Zealand Land Company. The effect of a proper system of colonization and the exclusion of bad subjects, has been recently exemplified in Russia. A number of working small capitalists, solicited and received the grant of a desolate hilly portion of country from the Emperor. They divided this into portions of about 60 acres of tillage land, with a suitable portion of hill pasture to each family, allowing no one to enter the community, unless he possessed a certain capital, and totally excluding lawyers and priests. The success has been great beyond all precedent. No quarrels, high morality, industry, economy,—the country cultivated like a garden,—plenty to all.

[13] Certificates are forthcoming and favourable in proportion to the worthlessness of the subject. The friends are active in procuring the necessary certificates of character to those they are ashamed of, and wish at the antipodes.

[14] The proper means to prevent settlers from seizing upon more land than they can put to good use, and taking up too wide an arrangement, is not a high price upon fresh lands (which is merely to suck out the life’s-blood of the colonist just as he is about to commence the arduous combat), but a low land tax per acre, rated permanently to three or more class qualities of soil. This is the only genuine tax,—should be the only tax, and made available to the whole government of the colony. Instead of repressing industry as other taxes necessarily do (those on pernicious luxuries excepted), this tax would even benefit the payer by stimulating him to improve his lands, and thus render them of higher quality, while their class rating for taxation remained unchanged.

[15] In conjunction with the Scots New Zealand Land Company, it is intended to establish a New Zealand Whale Fishing Company, having a domicile at one or more of the maritime stations of the Land Company, at which the families of those engaged in the fishing will reside, and where the oil will be prepared for export. This will be mutually beneficial in a high degree. The fisheries will draw in a great revenue to the colony for exported oil, and those engaged in them will constitute the best of customers for the fine produce of the land. The families and shore-establishment of the Whale Company will be sheltered by the Land Company during the time their own strength may be absent in the fishery; while, should any thing serious be apprehended to the Land Company, the assistance of the daring and formidable crews of harpooners, who will be absent only on short voyages, will soon be forthcoming. They will indeed constitute a most formidable defensive force; and, instead of being a great cost and population-check, a consuming evil and source of decay, like the armies of Europe, they will be the source of wealth, and population, and power.

PATRICK MATTHEW, Chairman.