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A selection from the writings and speeches of John Robert Godley

Lyttelton, September 5, 1851

Lyttelton, September 5, 1851.

I have received a copy of the Report of the Managing Committee to the Canterbury Association, dated April 25, 1851, and have read with much interest the able paper on the subject of Ecclesiastical and Educational affairs contained in the appendix to that document. It is unnecessary for me to give my opinion with respect to the various details embraced by the "Scheme for the Administration of the Ecclesiastical Fund," and the "Plan for the College," &c., but I cannot help urging upon the Committee that it would be most inexpedient to commit the Association definitively to any such elaborate scheme, until it shall have become virtually a local, colonial body. It is utterly impossible that the people of this Settlement should accept or be satisfied with plans, (however ably drawn up) for the management of their affairs, with framing which they, the parties chiefly interested, have bad nothing to do. The only result, therefore, of any attempt to establish page 213Such plans would be an unceasing and injurious struggle, Which could not end otherwise than in their discomfiture. The colonists will, I have no doubt, thankfully accept recommendations and suggestions made from home in all these matters, but they will insist, and in my opinion most justly, that the ultimate decision shall rest with themselves. Home made plans, however inferior to imported ones in the abstract, are sure to work better, because the people like them better. I trust that the Committee will particularly observe the unanimity of feeling in favour of local self-government which has lately been displayed in this Settlement, and will remember that it will extend itself equally to all departments of affairs in which the colonists are interested, ecclesiastical and educational, as well as those with which the general Government is concerned.