—No. 9.—

(From the "Nelson Examiner," of Saturday, February 12, 1848.)

Repot of the Committee Appointed to Choose the Site of a Shipping-Town for the Wairau District.

To the Resident Land-Purchasers of Nelson.

Gentlemen,

The Committee appointed by you to proceed to the Wairau, with the view of enquiring into the means of carrying into effect the Seventh Clause of the Resolutions agreed upon by yourselves and the Agents of the New Zealand Company, in July last, may, in presenting their Report, congratulate you at the outset on the very satisfactory result of their enquiries, and of the facilities afforded by the character of the Districts they have been visiting, for the immediate realisation of the views of the Resident Purchasers, as expressed in the Clause of the Resolutions referred to.

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The particular object of the mission was, by personal inspection and examination, to discover and decide upon the best Site for a Seaport Town in connection with the valuable Districts of the Wairau and the country immediately to the Southward.

There were two Harbours known to the Settlers—one tolerably well, the other very imperfectly—which were supposed to possess, in a greater or less degree, the requisites for the Site of a Shipping-Town for the Districts in question. The first of these was Port Underwood; the second a Harbour in Queen Charlotte's Sound, called, in common with the surrounding land and adjoining pass, by the native name of Waitohi. The attention of your Committee was accordingly directed to these two Harbours, and the task before them was to collate, compare, and report upon their respective advantages and disadvantages, with reference to the following particulars; namely, First, general position as regards the Ocean, New Zealand, and Foreign Countries; facilities of ingress and egress; shelter and accommodation for shipping; and convenience for putting on board and landing merchandise; all which may be comprised in the term "goodness of harbour;" Secondly, the means of communication between these Ports and the different parts of the Wairau District, and such other tracts of country for the produce of which one or other of them might be found to afford the natural outlet; and, lastly, the quantity of contiguous land, level or otherwise, fit for the location and laying out of a Town, and, if possible, a certain number of Suburban Sections.

With these objects before them, your Committee, in conjunction with the Company's Agent, proceeded to a Survey Station at the lower part of the Wairau Plain. There they divided into two parties, one of which crossed the bar at the mouth of the Wairau River, and sailed to Port Underwood along the coast and under the cliffs which separate it from the Plain, with the view of ascertaining the feasibility of a road along the sea coast; while the other party followed the page 41 beach of Cloudy Bay, and took the path over the dividing ranges just alluded to, so as to get an opportunity of deciding upon the practicability of an inland route between the Plain and the Harbour in question. Meeting in Port Underwood, they examined the nearest Coves on the Wairau side of the Harbour, and then, dividing again, part of them took the route by sea round into Tory Channel, and the rest sailed up the Eastern arm of Port Underwood, and gained the Channel by crossing the hills at its head. There reuniting, both parties sailed up Queen Charlotte's Sound to the Waitohi. After examining this and the adjoining Bay, and crossing from the head of the Sound overland to the Pelorus, they returned through the Tua Marina Pass into the Wairau Plain, so as to inspect the communication between the latter and the Waitohi, and finished their journey at the point whence they started. This route, it will be seen, embraced every locality which the purport of the mission rendered it necessary to examine.

To enable you to form an opinion upon the decision your Committee have come to upon the subject before them, and to put you in possession of the facts and considerations upon which that decision has been founded, the best way appears to be, to describe to you the two Harbours so often alluded to; to direct your notice to the advantages and defects of both in the various particulars enumerated above, and to state the principles which your Committee think ought to be adhered to, in weighing estimating and pronouncing upon them. And though the description they are about to attempt will be, as they cannot but feel, a far less complete one than they might have been able to offer had their visit to the localities in question not been so necessarily a hurried one, still they entertain a confident expectation that data will be furnished sufficient to satisfy yourselves and the Settlers of the correctness of the conclusion arrived at, and to set your minds at rest upon the point in agitation.

The immediate vicinity of Port Underwood to the ocean is page 42 the first and obvious advantage of its position, on which it is unnecessary to dilate. The next is its being situated to the Southward of Cook's Strait, on which account it may perhaps be looked upon at first sight, as far as position alone is concerned, as the natural outlet for the produce of the Wairau Plain, and the probably much more extensive Districts still further to the South. As no Harbour exists between Port Underwood and Banks' Peninsula, the Northern half of the whole country lying between these two localities may fairly be considered as the natural appendage of the former; and its accessibility, without the necessity of entering the Straits, would be a circumstance, if not counterbalanced by others, greatly in its favor with reference to communication with the part of the country last mentioned. Another advantage, arising from the position of Port Underwood, on which some stress has occasionally been laid, is that which Colonel Wakefield, in his Journal, describes as "the only one it offers over the "neighbouring harbours," viz., "its vicinity to the whaling-grounds, for the shore-parties to run to." This circumstance probably also made it in former years a favorite harbour for the whale-ships themselves. In either case, the advantage presented is a very temporary and precarious one, as long-continued fishing is well known to cause the whales to abandon, sometimes for many years, the grounds on which it has been carried on. Of late years, each season has been getting worse than the preceding ones in Port Underwood; and last year, not one whale was caught within its boundaries.

The entrance to Port Underwood is wide, and unobstructed by rocks, or reefs, or shoals. But it is to be feared that this advantage, as well as those we have just been considering, are greatly reduced in importance by the difficulties of ingress and egress, reused by the winds that generally blow on all this part of the coast. "The prevailing winds in Cook s Strait," says Captain Chaffers, "are North-West nine months out of the twelve; in the winter months, June July and August, blowing in heavy gales, and shifting round suddenly to the page 43 opposite point." All the reports of the residents in Port Underwood tended to show that this description is equally applicable to the winds in Cloudy Bay. The North-West winds blow nearly directly out of Port Underwood, and, whenever violent, prevent all ingress; while the opposite winds, the South-Easters, which divide the year with the North-Westers, whenever they are heavy, make it equally difficult for vessels to get out. As a sample of the violence with which the South-East wind blows up this Harbour, it may not be out of place to state, that the Missionary who lives at the very head of the Eastern arm of the Harbour—the part of it described, perhaps correctly, by Dr. Dieffenbach, as "by far the most sheltered,"—pointed out to us a peach tree in his garden, which a late gale had completely stripped of its leaves.

Port Underwood divides itself into two arms at the upper or Northern part. The shores of the main harbour, and of both of these arms, may be described as consisting of a succession of coves, formed by spurs from the mountains, descending into the harbour and its branches, at nearly right angles to the direction of the latter. As the prevalent winds are nearly up and down the harbour, these spurs, of course, afford on one side or the other shelter from each wind in turn. But these coves are all of them of small extent, and no one of them could apparently afford shelter for a considerable amount of shipping. The inconvenience arising from vessels being obliged to lie in different coves, or on the opposite side of the harbour to that on which the Town would necessarily have to be placed, need hardly be remarked upon. In other particulars of accommodation for shipping and convenience for trade, Port Underwood is a satisfactory harbour enough; the holding-ground in the coves being good, the beach sufficiently shelving for the erection of wharfs at moderate expense, and wood and water to be had in plenty.

The consideration next in importance to the communication of a Port with the outer seas, and its general goodness as a Harbour, is that of its communication with the interior of page 44 the country. Between Port Underwood and the Wairau Districts there is one such communication by water, and one by land. You may send produce down the Wairau River to Cloudy Bay, and so to Port Underwood, the distance being ten miles; but the river has a bar across its mouth, which makes this an operation not to be risked with any wind but one off shore. The North-Westerly wind is such a wind. It generally prevails—and then the bar is crossed with safety. But whenever this wind is violent, there is the impossibility, for small vessels certainly, to get into Port Underwood; while nothing but boats, or decked vessels of very small draught, could cross the bar at all. The depth of water on the bar was said by some persons to be eight feet, by others fifteen. What is certain is, that it varies according to the previous weather—a continuance of South-Easterly winds raising the bar considerably, while North-Westerly gales, or large floods in the Wairau River, probably lower it as much. The delays and risks to be created by this obstacle in the export or import of any goods will, it is evident, be great and expensive.

The communication by land presents nearly equal difficulties. The hills which bound the Wairau Plain on the North, turning off almost at right angles, are continued till they form the Western side of Port Underwood, leaving a space of six miles between the Plain and the Port, where their bases are washed by the sea. Along the whole of this distance, with the exception of two places, where they recede and form two small Coves, open to the South-East, their declivities are abruptly cut off seaward into craggy cliffs and broken rocks, hanging over and jutting out into the sea, and split and shattered into every variety of ruggedness. A road by the sea-coast may be, therefore, considered as out of the question.

The inland path runs from the Plain over the spurs between the coves just mentioned, and descends to the sea-coast in each of them. Some of our party, as has been said, tried this page 45 road, and describe the first hill as excessively steep—indeed, so near a perpendicular in its ascent, that they were obliged to clamber and drag themselves up it by the bushes growing out of its rocky sides. The path then runs along the ridge of the hill, which is narrow and rocky in most parts. It descends to White's Cove, then goes over a much longer hill, though presenting somewhat fewer difficulties, into Robin Hood's Bay. Another ascent and descent takes it into Ocean Bay, in Port Underwood. From Ocean Bay to Guard's Bay, the hill-spur requires steps cut in the footpath here and there, which will give a tolerably correct idea of its steepness. From what had been seen of this road, as possibly yourselves may be from what has been said, your Committee were convinced that a road over these hills, available for carriages, could only be constructed at an outlay a Settlement could not be expected to be in a condition to incur for many years. Such are the impediments to communication, whether by land or sea, between the Wairau Districts and Port Underwood.

Next, for the convenience afforded for the laying out of a Town. Ocean Bay is the first Bay or Cove within Port Underwood, on the Western side. It may contain about a Hundred, or One Hundred and Fifty Acres at the outside, of level land. Guard's Cove has a very much smaller quantity. At the head of the Western arm there is the appearance (as seen from the hill between the two last-named Coves) of a somewhat larger piece of nearly level land; but while the extent even of this is comparatively insignificant, its distance from the Wairau, and the greatly increased difficulties of making a road over all the intervening spurs, put it out of the question as the site of a Town in the connection proposed. The two first-named Coves, then, are the only ones that could be looked upon as available; but, in the first place, it is tolerably certain that the two together would not afford the requisite quantity of level land; and, further, any Town laid out there would be effectually divided into two sepa- page 46 rate and independent parts by the mountain-spur between them.

The water-frontage has already been described as sufficiently good, though limited of course by the small size of the Coves. It may be doubted, however, if fresh water sufficient for the purposes of a crowded or considerable Town would be found at all seasons of the year in either of the available Coves.

It is needless to observe that no Suburban Lands, properly so called, could be procured in connection with a Town in Port Underwood. The nearest Land available for Agriculture, beyond that required for Town Sections, is in the Wairau Plain itself, all which will be wanted for Rural Sections. Another obstacle would be, that all that portion of the Plain nearest to Port Underwood has been reserved for the Natives, although a tract along the coast, as far as the hills, has been bought by Government. The nearest Land to Port Underwood, available as Suburban Sections, would be on the Southern side of the Wairau River.

But now let us consider the capabilities of the Harbour at Waitohi (which it has been proposed to call Newton Bay), taking the several particulars above-mentioned in the same order as before. If Queen Charlotte's Sound is not so well situated as Port Underwood, as the natural outlet for the produce of the country South of the Straits, it has in the same degree the advantage of Port Underwood as an inlet for the products of foreign countries. For all ships coming from the Westward, in which most of such products are brought, but especially for those from the Australian Colonies, it is preferable, as not requiring the passage of the narrow part of the Straits. The only part of what can properly be considered the Straits which it is necessary to sail through to reach Queen Charlotte's Sound, has this peculiar advantage; that its Western coast is formed of a close succession of deep, safe, and easily accessible Harbours—Port Hardy, Admiralty Bay, Port Gore, and the Sound page 47 itself, the wide mouths of which, like the spaces between the open fingers of a hand, lie almost at right angles to the direction of the prevalent winds (the South-East and North-West), so as at all times to afford the readiest shelter from both.

The position of Queen Charlotte's Sound with reference to the opposite coast of the Straits, the Southern coast of the Northern Island, is a circumstance greatly in its favor. There is no Harbour from Wellington all round the coast to Hokianga. The water communication will be easier between the whole of this coast North of Porirua and Queen Charlotte's Sound, than between the same coast and Port Nicholson itself, whether South-Easterly or North-Westerly winds are blowing. Therefore, the fine grazing districts about Manawatu and to the South of Cape Egmont, so long as the sea continues to be the best communication between them and a sea-port, would probably draw much of the supplies, and export much of their produce from Queen Charlotte's Sound, and the Maori trade of all the coast and district alluded to, would naturally be liable to be drawn into the same channel. This, of course, leaves to Port Nicholson the advantage of the regular and certain communication by land, as soon as roads may be made; but till then it may be considered as compensating for the advantage Port Nicholson would, perhaps, have over Queen Charlotte's Sound, in supplying and exporting from the Districts to the Southward of the Kaikoras, at furthest, till equally extensive lines of roads be made, or till a Town at Banks' Peninsula shall become the natural recipient of the imports and exports of the more Southern portion of the last-named Districts.

For facility of ingress and egress, Queen Charlotte's Sound is well known to yield to few Harbours, if any, in the world. The only circumstance that makes any particular caution requisite is the set of the tides—the flood to the Northern, the ebb to the Southern head of the Sound. "In sailing "either in or out with little wind," as Captain Cook says, "attention must be had to this." But as the entrance is page 48 nine miles wide, this is a difficulty easily avoidable. Its great advantage in this respect is, that it lies, as has been said, at right angles to the direction of the prevailing winds in the Straits.

But the Harbour at Waitohi (Newton Bay) is from twenty to twenty-five miles from the entrance, and the position so far inland has been mentioned as an objection. That immediate contiguity to the outer seas would be preferable, would perhaps be taken for granted, though to ships from a distance this circumstance is of no great account. To show how slight an objection is this, it is only necessary to consider the character of the Sound itself. In the words of the glorious Seaman quoted from above, "It is, at the entrance, "three leagues broad, and is a collection of the finest Harbours "in the world." "The tides in the Sound," says Captain Chaffers, who surveyed some of the Creeks and Bays in the Straits some years ago, "are regular, the soundings from Motuara Island (at the mouth) gradually deepen from seven and eight to thirty and thirty-five fathoms mid channel. The shores on both sides are bold, and may be approached with safety to one cable's distance. In case of night coming on, good anchorage can be found in the Coves on cither side of the Sound."

The water continues deep almost to the head of the Sound, and its width diminishes very gradually. It is two or three miles wide, for the most part, between the South end of Tory Channel and Newton Bay. The projecting points on the opposite sides of the Sound at Newton Bay were by every one on board considered to be at least from one mile and three quarters to two miles apart, and the Sound widens again above these points. Then the soundings give twenty-two to twenty-three fathoms.

With such a breadth and uniform depth of water, with the same abundance of deep and safe Coves and Harbours, with a singular freedom from rocks, and shoals, and sand-banks, every one will agree, it may be supposed, that the upper part page 49 of the Sound, even above Newton Bay, deserves as well as the lower the terms which Colonel Wakefield, in his excellently written journal, describes the Sound in general. "On" the whole," says he, "considering the position and capabilities of Queen Charlotte's Sound, whether with a view to its becoming a port for homeward-bound vessels to take in cargo and provisions, a safe channel of communication between the Western part of the Straits and Port Nicholson and the Eastern Coast, or as a situation for docks and ship-building, it is of the first importance, and cannot be spoken of in too high terms."

The objection, then, to the approach to this new Harbour arising from its inland position being perhaps got rid of, we come to the Harbour itself. At the mouth lies a little Island, leaving a passage of about three quarters of a mile wide on the East, and one of half a mile width on the West. The soundings, which are twenty-two fathoms at the Harbour's mouth, decrease within the Islet to seventeen fathoms, and then diminish very gradually and with the utmost regularity to four, and three and a half fathoms, within a hundred yards at most from the shore at the head of the Harbour. The Harbour or Cove within the Islet may be called about a mile and a half deep, by a mile and a quarter wide. The soundings across are as regular as those from North to South, in which direction the Harbour lies. At the bottom of the Cove on the East and West sides, where the hills come down to the water's edge, there are from four to seven fathoms within a boat's length of the shore. The bottom is sandy clay with broken shells.

It is needless to say much about the shelter afforded by this Cove, as it is a Harbour within a Harbour, the Sound itself being one. But if here, as Captain Chaffers says is the case in the other parts of the Sound, the prevailing winds be West and South-West, they would be off-shore winds, and the mountains in that direction must be sufficient protection against them. The South-East and Southerly winds are said page 50 to blow with some violence in winter, in squalls or flurries, down the pass to the Southward of the Harbour. Should these be strong enough to prevent ships beating down the Bay, they would have to lie under the Eastern or Western heads till the gale subsided, having the advantage all the while of being actually within such a safe Harbour as the Sound itself is considered. But whatever the winds, it may be securely said, that no sea is ever raised there that could interfere with the landing of goods at any time. All accounts agree on this point. The Missionary at Port Underwood declared that he had never seen a sea that he could not cross in his dingy; and an European resident at the place itself, in picturesque phrase, confirmed his opinion by remarking, that in the worst weather you might hold a four-hundred ton ship with a whale-line.

The other particular of importance in the enquiry we are upon, is the communication between this Harbour and the District of the Wairau. And here your Committee have an equally satisfactory report to make. The Harbour is connected with the Plain by a pass through a Valley which is densely wooded for the first eight or nine miles. The path crosses some slopes which can scarcely be called more than undulations, and indeed would hardly render incorrect a description of the whole pass as an almost level one. The Natives are in the habit of building canoes in this wood, four or five miles from the Bay, and then running them down to the water on poles laid across the road.

This is sufficient evidence of the character of the pass to that distance up it, and the remaining part of it through the wood is little if at all inferior. Beyond the wood the Valley takes a winding course into the Plain, and consists of an unbroken flax and raupo swamp. This is apparently of easy drainage, but at any rate the road might be continued at the most trifling expense about the foot of the fern hills, which rise with a gentle ascent on the Eastern side of the Valley. Thence it would have to cross a patch of wood at the foot of page 51 the hill, in which the Massacre of 1843 took place. It should then be carried across the Wairau Plain to the highest reach of the river, which is at all seasons deep and tranquil, where a ferry would have to be established. Though your Committee cannot give any decisive evidence as to the frequency or force of the floods to which this part of the Plain is said to be liable, they can bear witness to the facilities afforded for making a road from the pass to the point proposed, by the high strips of ground covered with strong fern, and stretching along the banks of the river at this part of its course. This seems to be all that is requisite to connect the Waitohi Harbour with the Wairau Plain, and the Districts immediately to the South of it.

For a Town Site, the Land at the head of this Bay presents all the requisite capabilities in a most satisfactory degree. Between the Bay and the Valley, at the back, spreads a Flat, which contains between Two Hundred and Three Hundred Acres of land, at the most moderate computation. A little River winds through it, which, though not navigable for boats for many yards above its mouth, may be considered sufficient to supply a Town with fresh water all the year round. Two or three other small brooks were still running in the Midsummer months, in which your Committee's visit was paid. There is plenty of timber for building and fuel in the wooded valley behind, and on most of the neighbouring hills; and the Flat is sufficiently high in most places to make drainage easy. The water frontage, strictly belonging to the Town Site, is not very considerable, but may extend to a quarter of a mile in length, the best part of it being formed by a low abrupt bank, on which the Town Flat terminates in the middle of the head of the Bay. A little creek, or lagoon, on the east side of this, is separated from the Bay itself by a narrow spit or bank of mud, which boats might pass at high water. The shore round this might be included in the water frontage, which, however, might be indefinitely extended by building at the foot of the hills on each side the head of the bay, page 52 where, as has been said, are from four to five fathoms water a boat's length off shore.

But all these latter advantages are doubled by the existence of another Bay or Cove, in the immediate neighbourhood of the one just described. This Cove, which it has been proposed to call Milton Bay, lies a little to the North-East of it, and is separated from it by a narrow neck or peninsula of hills, joined to the main land by a level isthmus. The level spreads round the heads of both Bays, running about three miles in length by half a mile in breadth, from the top of one Bay to that of the other, and losing itself in the Waitohi and Tua Marina Pass. There is, in fact, one extensive Town Site abutting on two Bays. Milton Bay is in itself also an excellent Harbour, though more open to the Sound than the other; the soundings are as regular, the water generally as deep. The only circumstances that make it inferior to Newton Bay or Waitohi, being, first, that the water shoals more gradually in the former than in the latter, so that the three and a half and four fathoms depth, which is found a hundred yards from the shore in Newton Bay, is three hundred yards at least off shore in Milton Bay; and, secondly, that the Bay itself is three miles further from the Wairau Plain. The first circumstance would make the throwing out of wharfs into deep water three times as expensive as it would be in Newton Bay. The second would increase the expense of the road, and the distance to carry produce; although the additional track, consisting of firm and level land, the increased expense of the road would be but trifling.

There is further a third Bay or Cove immediately to the Westward of Newton Bay. But as a range or two of hills lie between it and the Wairau Pass, your Committee did not examine it. The three Harbours, however, are so close to each other, as to constitute one group.

The description which has thus been attempted of the two principal Ports connected with the Wairau District, illustrated page 53 by the rough charts and sketches which have been prepared for your inspection, it is hoped may be sufficient to give you a correct notion of the facts and circumstances on which your Committee had to found their decision. The chart of Newton Bay and the other Harbour in Queen Charlotte's Sound, was drawn by Mr. Moore; the soundings were taken by that Gentleman and Mr. Dillon; and considering the extreme shortness of the time at their disposal, your Committee think that the thanks of the Public are especially due to both for the results of their volunteered and valuable services.

In weighing and determining upon the relative merits of the two localities in question, your Committee were guided by one ruling principle, which was, that the two great particulars of goodness of Harbour and facility of communication with the Wairau District, were the all-important ones on which their decision should be founded. All other qualities and capabilities, such as have been enumerated above, are quite secondary and subordinate. The possession of these two in a superior degree would more than compensate for inferiority in all the others; any defect in these two would more than counterbalance all the advantages of excellence in the rest. But even when the question is reduced to this narrow compass, it will be seen that a decision upon it must still be somewhat difficult and doubtful. For neither of the two localities compared, has, in the only two particulars of importance, any such defects as must be considered as eventually insurmountable, and a certain and permanent disqualification. Still, your Committee, believing that on the whole the advantages as a Port are on the side of the Harbour in Queen Charlotte's Sound, and knowing that the means or communication between the latter and the Wairau are greatly superior, or by a trifling outlay to be rendered so, came unanimously to the conclusion that the Site of the proposed Town ought to be on its shores. If Port Underwood is naturally best situated for the Districts South of the Kaikoras, Queen Charlotte's Sound more than makes up for this by its page 54 position with respect to the Northern Island and to foreign countries to the Westward. If Port Underwood has disadvantages in respect of ingress and egress, Newton Bay-requires a longer inland voyage. The first evil is far from an overwhelming one, but the last is made almost a nominal one by the character of the Sound. A considerable outlay would render the communication between Port Underwood and the Wairau tolerable; but even then it would probably be inferior to what a comparatively small outlay would render that between Queen Charlotte's Sound and the Wairau. But again, until the small outlay be made upon the last, the present very bad communication by water between the two former places, Port Underwood and the Wairau, must and will be made use of, since a bad communication is better than none at all. Set these circumstances over against each other, and you will no doubt award the palm to Queen Charlotte's Sound. On these the decision was founded. But with respect to other and minor particulars, excellence of Town Site, accommodation for ships, facility for putting on board and landing goods, space for Suburban Sections in the vicinity of valuable timber districts, your Committee believe the chosen locality to be immeasurably superior. They confidently expect, therefore, that you will confirm their decision. But at the same time they are anxious to express their full sense of their own liability to error, and their conviction that, after all, they are perhaps only deciding between opposite probabilities. So difficult is it, not as the ordinary phrase is, to dive, but even to dip the point of the foot, into the future; so impossible to foretell with absolute certainty a result which, after all, must depend upon so many contingencies to come.

Only one or two points require to be alluded to. From the description of the Eastern Cove (Milton Bay), it will have been perceived that a much more extensive Town Site exists in connection with it and Newton Bay than was required to carry out the Seventh Clause of the Resolutions. Here, as in page 55 choosing between the two Seaport Sites, your Committee were almost embarrassed with the superabundance of the means at their disposal to effect the object intended. Had Newton Bay not existed, Port Underwood would have been gladly selected for a Seaport; had only one Bay existed in the South-West of the Sound, it would have been welcomed as amply providing for every desideratum. But in fact the Site chosen contains at least 1,200 level Acres of genuine Town Land. Your Committee, therefore, strongly recommend, and they are unanimous and earnest on this point, that the quantity of Quarter-Acres required should be laid out at the head of Newton Bay, and that Government and the New Zealand Company should be requested to ensure the preservation of the rest of the Flat as a Reserve for the Settlement, to be sold by auction in the Colony from time to time as occasion arises. If this be done, a most promising source of future funds, to be employed for the public benefit, for the advantage of the whole, will be kept open. Should it be neglected, should this land be either laid out as Suburban Sections—which, in fact, would be as improper as giving Rural Land for Town Land—or should it be left to be purchased in a Block by land-speculators, bound by no conditions as to the application of the profits to be got by reselling it, the Town and that part of the Settlement would be deprived of funds absolutely essential to its prosperity, and the benefits that should be shared alike by all would be monopolised by a few. The advantages of the course recommended are so obvious, that your Committee entertain a strong conviction that you will cordially assist in securing its adoption.

One word with respect to the Names which you will perceive your Committee have suggested for some of the localities to be occupied. When no previous Names exist, it is obviously better at once to affix some such as may be suggestive of worthy associations, than to leave it to chance to attach unmeaning or obscure ones. Native Names have many disadvantages. To the English at home and abroad, they have page 56 a strange and foreign sound; are associated with the ideas of a savage people and country; are continually confounded and misapplied; and, as the slightest glance at any Newspaper or Blue-book will prove, so constantly misspelt and misprinted, that it is with difficulty any one in New Zealand can recognise them at all. Then the same ones are constantly recurring in different parts of the country. Still the simpler ones, if euphonious, might occasionally be left. The more complex ones should be abandoned at once, as experience shows that they almost invariably become corrupted in common use into low and ludicrous English imitations of them. Your Committee cannot but think that the Public would prefer to these such appellations as are associated with the intellectual triumphs and the national glories of England. You have the power, by affixing to mountains, rivers, and promontories, the names of those who have deserved well of their country, to dedicate to their memory more durable monuments than any that the wealth of a nation could erect in granite, or marble, or bronze. Recollecting these things, your Committee have given to a few of the localities we have been speaking of the following names:—The Harbour selected as the Site of the Town, they propose to call, as has been said, Newton Bay; that to the Eastward of it, Milton Bay; that to the Westward, Shakspeare Bay. The two projecting Headlands, between which lie the two Bays to the Westward, have been named respectively, Point Raffles and Point Metcalfe, after those truly great men and models of Colonial Governors, the late Sir Stamford Raffles and Sir Charles Metcalfe. The Middle Point between them it is proposed to call Point Napier, after a brilliant living Soldier, the rapid conqueror and beneficent ruler of Scinde. Your Committee came to no unanimous decision upon the name to be given to the proposed Town, and think it better, therefore, to leave the determination of this point to a General Meeting of Resident Purchasers.

Your Committee conclude by expressing a hope that the excellence of the Site selected for a Seaport Town to the page 57 Wairau, the valuable and extensive Districts in connection with it, and the ease with which a good communication may be effected between them, will be strong inducements to His Excellency the Governor, and to the Agents of the New Zealand Company, to co-operate with all the means in their power in acquiring the yet unpurchased locality, and in establishing the communication required. It is hoped that His Excellency will at once acknowledge the importance of opening up so valuable a District, and the propriety of applying some portion of the Public Funds to the accomplishment of this object; an outlay than which it is not easy to conceive one more calculated to be beneficial to the public or remunerative to the Revenue.