Settlement of the Debts of the Canterbury Association.

My Lord Lyttelton and Gentlemen—I was not aware until within the last few moments that you intended to do me the honour of coupling my name with the toast of "Prosperity to the Canterbury Settlement," therefore if I were otherwise capable, I am wholly unprepared to make a speech, or to dilate at any length upon the circumstances that have brought us together. Perhaps, however, it is not altogether unsuitable that I, whom the colonists have chosen as their agent and representative, and who am bound to them by stronger ties of personal interest and affection than any other person in this country can be, should stand up here and return thanks for the honour you have done them. It is just three years ago that, upon the occasion of my return from New Zealand, a good number of my personal friends honoured me with an invitation to dinner in this house, and I should be one of the most ungrateful of men if I did not look upon that day, which was marked by the greatest good feeling and harmony, as one of the happiest of my life. Still it was impossible to avoid feeling on that occasion that there was one subject a little difficult to deal with—one subject that it was necessary to pass over lightly—and that was the losses and sacrifices which had been incurred by individual members of the Association. It is true that the money has been well spent, and far be it from me to say that it was grudgingly given, but it is nevertheless not generally a pleasant impression that one derives from finding that a large sum of money intended by those who gave it for one purpose is expended upon another. And it was to a certain extent undoubtedly a sign of failure that the Canterbury Association had to go to private persons to help it out of its difficulties; and that gave rise to taunts page 246and jeers which it was very difficult to bear or to meet. No one felt this more acutely than I did—no one had a right to feel it more—for no one was more responsible for the undertaking that had given rise to those difficulties and sacrifices. And I knew further that many who were encountering those difficulties and incurring those sacrifices had been led to join the undertaking by their personal friendship for me, though when once they had embarked in it their public spirit and their interest in the undertaking induced them to go on with it, apart from all personal considerations. No one, therefore, feels more grateful than I do that that rock of offence has at length been removed; and for this reason the present is to me a far more satisfactory meeting than the former one to which I began by referring. For now I think we may fairly challenge the world for a precedent and an analogy to this case. Lord Lyttelton has said as much perhaps as is necessary on this part of the subject, and I, as the representative of the colony, am not the person who ought to brag of its good deeds, but as his Lordship has said something about the statistics I alluded to the other day, perhaps he will allow me to put the matter a little more distinctly before you, which I am the more anxious to do as I know there are some here who were not present on that occasion.

Last year the total number of persons in the colony of Canterbury was 4,000, or rather less. Upon this small population a claim was made of about £31,000, to satisfy what was a debt of honour. To meet this claim of £31,000 in part, certain property was offered, producing an annual income of £800, thus leaving a balance to be made up of £1,100 a-year. That is, after the revenue of the property so allocated was deducted, £1,100 a-year was what the people of the colony engaged to meet by taxation. This would average 5s. a-head on the whole population, and would be equal to taxes to the amount of £7,000,000 a-year imposed upon the population of the United Kingdom. Everybody must admit that this was a great burden, and a great sacrifice for a young country that page 247had everything to meet and provide for, to impose upon itself voluntarily, and I may almost say unanimously. Most of you are aware that the Council of Canterbury is elected by a constituency based upon household suffrage. At the election the members of that Council may be said to have been returned to decide this question of the debt due to the Canterbury Association. Avowedly and professedly that was the object for which they were elected. That being the case, I looked narrowly at the progress of the election, and I can safely say that not only was there no candidate elected who professed himself to be adverse to these claims, but that not a single candidate was proposed who held out upon his flag or indicated in any way a disposition to cavil at the claims of the Association, or to escape from the burden, nor was any disposition of that nature expressed in any of the speeches made by the candidates or their friends during the election. I should like to ask what would be said in this country if so heavy an addition were proposed to the taxation for such a purpose? If the Imperial Parliament were dissolved upon the question of assuming the debt of an absentee corporation, and the question to be decided on the hustings was—should that debt be met by an additional income-tax representing £7,000,000 a-year, there would, I think, be found a strong party in the country to come forward upon the principle that "charity begins and "ends at home," and to advance many powerful reasons why such an obligation should not be recognised; the more so if it were attended, as in the present case, by circumstances which might afford grounds for cavil and criticism.

Having said so much on this matter of the debt I will claim your indulgence while I say a few words upon the position and the prospects of the colony. I will not weary you with statistics, with which you must be already pretty familiar, and which go to prove the great progress the colony has made in material prosperity, and the prospect of the continuance of that material prosperity for the future. I believe there can be no doubt—and in confirmation of this opinion I may refer page 248to many who are here present, and who can speak from their own personal experience—that there is no new community on the face of the earth in which there is less of failure, less of destitution, less of debt, or less of difficulty of any kind, or in which the elements of both moral and material prosperity are more favourably developed, than that of Canterbury. There hare been, indeed, amongst them many elements of prosperity which are extremely rare in new communities. I speak with some knowledge of new countries—knowledge derived both from reading and personal experience—and I know that in all new countries there are great difficulties, great dangers, and much suffering to be encountered by the first settlers; but in Canterbury all these have to a great extent been avoided, and now there is both in moral and material progress as fair a chance for a long history of unchecked prosperity, in all respects, as ever any colony possessed. But, at the same time, I will not deny that, as Canterbury has special and peculiar advantages, on the one hand, so it has special and peculiar dangers and difficulties on the other; and as what I say may probably reach the colony, I will, with your permission, offer a few words, by way of warning, in reference to those dangers and difficulties. The chief of these, as it appears to me, is the danger of the deterioration of the upper class of the population. By the upper class I mean the men of superior intelligence, the men of cultivated minds and high education, to whom we should look to direct the policy of the country and give tone to society. I must confess that I see in Canterbury some danger of the deterioration of this class of the population. That danger, as I conceive, arises from two circumstances—the one the want of labour, the other a deficiency in the means of education; and to remove these causes and avert this danger should now be the great object of all who feel an interest in the colony. The want of labour is, perhaps, the more important of the two causes, for that affects the mainsprings of social progress in every possible way. And I do hope that all who have influence with the people of page 249Canterbury will endeavour to induce them to submit to the present pecuniary sacrifice, whatever it may be, of keeping up a continuous stream of immigrant labour into the colony; for such is the labour-absorbing power of the country, that if you do not meet it in this way, there will be a constant tendency to make the whole population labourers, and thus eliminate the means of cultivating intellect. The second cause—want of educational institutions—is possibly of less importance, especially when the other is removed; for if people have leisure and money they will of themselves create the means of education. At the same time, it is highly desirable that at the very beginning they should have a sound system of education established, and such a system, if once set a-going, will always, it may be hoped, keep the population up to a high intellectual standard. Nothing is more certain than that the disinclination most people have to emigrate arises from the fear that they will have to separate their children from them, and to send them home to be educated. Remove this difficulty, and the complaint of the want of good society in the colonies will cease. Well, the question follows, what can we who are here at home do to aid the colony in overcoming these obstacles? As to the want of labour, that is a difficulty that must be met by the colonists themselves; but there are few here present, I apprehend, who are not called upon, from time to time, to give advice and sometimes aid to emigrating labourers. On such occasions, I would ask you not to forget the claims of Canterbury. There is no country in the world where the steady industrious labourer is more likely to prosper, or where his labour is more appreciated. In this way you may, to some extent, assist the colonists in supplying the want of labour. As to the other point, the want of education, two or three gentlemen have asked my opinion as to how they could most usefully express their feelings in regard to what the colony has done in the matter of the claims of the Canterbury Association, and I have always told them that anything in the shape of encouragement to education would best promote the page 250permanent interests of the colony. I leave it to you to consider whether something may not be done here for that purpose.

Perhaps I may now be permitted to say a word or two, and a word or two only, in reference to my own connection with the Canterbury Association. This, as your Lordship has observed, is the last time at which the members of the Association will meet in anything like a corporate capacity, and I cannot address them as a corporation for the last time, without thanking them earnestly for the great kindness and confidence and personal regard that has been evinced towards me both by the members of the Association and the colonists. I cannot trust myself to speak upon this part of the subject as I ought to speak. My feelings will not allow me to express myself in other than in a most imperfect and unsatisfactory manner: I will therefore leave this topic, and I will only add, in conclusion, that I hope the members of the Canterbury Association, now that their official connection with the colony has come to an end, will not lose their interest in a Settlement that owes its existence to them; certain as I am that they will carry to their graves the conviction, that never have they employed their time and their labour and their money in an undertaking that will conduce more to the happiness of their fellow-creatures, or redound more to their own honour.