HOBSON-SHORTLAND COLONIZATION.
-Governor Hobson and his inseparable Mr. Shortland were possessed With a passion for colonizing. Sent out to govern settlements already formed, their first step was to form settlements more or less distant from any of them. When Captain Hobson visited New Zealand in 1837, he found, aceOrding to his own report, considerable settlements of Europeans on Cook's Straits, and in the Bay of Islands. Of the former he said, in his report to Sir Richard Bourke—" The only other places [except Rapid and Mans] to which the Whites resort, are Cloudy Bay and Queen Charlotte's Sound; where they are so numerous, and so confederated by their pursuits, (which are exclusively whale-fishing,) that no Natives dare molest them." The report of Mr. Busby, the British Resident, to Sir R. Bourke, dated a month earlier than that of Captain Hobson, states with reference to the Bay of Islands, that "the trade of New Zealand is sufficiently extensive even now to afford ample means for the support of an efficient government ;" and that "the whole coast-line from Cape Brett, including the noble harbour of the Bay of Islands, and extending as far as Waugaroa, forty miles to the Northward of the Bay, has, with trivial exceptions, passed from the posses. sion of the Natives into that of British subjects." In both reports, the settlements on Stewart's Island, the Southern parts of the Middle Island, and Banks's Peninsula, are overlooked.
When Governor Hobson arrived at New Zealand in January 1840, he found the British population in the Bay of Islands and its trade increased since the date of his former visit ; and he found that the European settlers in Cook's Straits had been reinforced by a class of new colonists from England, of whom he says himself, in a despatch to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, dated the 26th May 1841—" The persons who have settled at Port Nicholson under the auspices of the Company, are, from their rank, their numbers, and their wealth, by fax the most important in the colony."
In 1837, Captain Hobson of the Rattlesnake was of opinion that the best mode of introducing civil government into New Zealand was by appointing magistrates where European settlements already existed. But in 1840, Governor Hobson was of opinion that the best mode of introducing civil government was to disregard all the already existing British settlements, and establish new colonies at a distance from them, to be governed by himself and his colleagues. Accordingly, he set himself to colonize, with great zeal if not with great skill.
His first attempt in the way of colonizing was in the Bay of Islands. He found the trade of that harbour concentrated in the settlement of Kororarika. A report of his Surveyor-General, dated 28th March 1840, says—" The principal and indeed the only settlement yet formed in the Bay of Islands is at Kororarika. * * * I have no doubt that the Government will be enabled, by negotiation with the Native chiefs, to obtain possession of a considerable extent of land, comprising the most important part of the frontage on the Bay, and in the very centre of the town, which yet remains in the possession of the Natives, and which, when properly disposed, will afford space for the erection of all necessary Government buildings, and at the same time leave a number of very valuable allotments for sale." And yet the SurveyorGeneral recommended that the Government-offices should be erected at a considerable distance from Kororarika. The site recommended for this purpose consisted of between 300 and 400 acres of land, belonging to a Mr. Clendon, American Consul. The ground was rugged and broken, and unfit for the site of a town : nevertheless, Governor Hobson purchased it, on the 25th April, for £15,000. The plan of a town was immediately laid out upon paper ; and on the 25th May we End Governor Hobson dating his despatches from "Government House, Russell, Bay of Islands ;" the house being a wooden store, erected by Clendon and included in the bargain. Another "Government House" was soon after put up at Auckland ; while the trade of the Bay continued fixed at Kororarika. Sir George Gipps refused to ratify the bargain with Mr. Clendon ; and so long as New Zealand remained a dependency of New South Wales, that gentleman received no payment beyond his first instalment of 1,0001. But one of Governor Hobson's first steps after the erection of New Zealand into an independent colony, was to obtain the assent of his Council to the payment to Mr. Clendon of eighteen months' rent for the land at Russell, at the rate of 1,500/. per annum, (or 1,2501., after deducting the 1,0001. already paid,) and a grant to him of thirty acres in the district of Auckland for every acre given up at Russell.f Governor Hobson tired of his dear bargain of Russell before proceeding to colonize it. On the 15th October 1840, he intimated to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, that he had, "after mature deliberation, decided upon forming the seat of government upon the South shore of the Waitemata, in the district of the Thames ;" and on the 10th November, he announced that a town bad been founded, and was to be called Auckland. Of the judgment and caution with which the Governor plunged into this colonizing speculation some idea may be formed from what he says in the same despatch—" I beg leave to call your Lordship's attention to the necessity of directing emigration to the proposed capital. The country around it is, as I have already reported, decidedly the best in New Zealand ; and although, from the deficiency of surveyors, I am not in a condition to sell land at this moment, yet having already purchased from the Natives a tract of land computed at 30,000 acres, and having engaged nearly as much more, I shall be enabled to do so within six months to an extent sufficient to meet any demand that is likely to arise from immigration." Seven months, however, elapsed, and the survey for the purposes of colonizing had not yet begun ; as appears from a letter of the Surveyor Appendix to Committee's Report, sp. sea. f House of Commons Papers, MI; No 969, p.147.
General, dated 19th May 1841, intimating, that for want of surveyors no sectional survey for the purposes of settlement had been made. In short, it is obvious from his own despatches, that Governor Hobson undertook to found a splendid capital, as the nucleus of a wealthy agricultural and trading settlement, without emigrants—without a surveying-staff—without money except what he could borrow from New South Wales, or drain in the shape of taxes from the distant settlements of Cook's Straits and the Bay of Islands—and at first without land.
The subsequent proceedings in the colonization of Auckland have been worthy of this beginning. The little that has been done has been done on the strength of a loan of 12,0001. advanced by the Home Government from the Commissariat chest in this country ; and has been confined to the transmission of from 500 to 600 free-passage emigrants and some 130 boys from the Penitentiary at Parkhurst. The money which the local Government raised by sales of land has been otherwise appropriated. On the 19th April 1841, 119 allotments (containing 44 acres) were sold at Auckland, for the gross sum of 24,2751. 17s. 4d. This enormous price shows the character of the purchases. They were all of urban allotments, and made by jobbers who speculated upon the high price land was likely to bring in a town where great part of the colonial revenue was to be spent. The total subsequent land-sales by Government, till 30th April 1842, only amounted to 34,112/. 17s. And the whole of this 58,3881. 14s. 4d. was absorbed by the expenses of the Government : not a farthing of surplus was left to defray the expenses of emigration. The 2,000 settlers who have emigrated to Auckland are Government officials, speculators in town and suburban lots, and retail dealers attracted to the seat of Government from Sydney, and the settlements in the Bay of Islands and Cook's Straits. On the 28th October 1841, 27 emigrants, sent out by a Scotch company calling itself the Manukau and Waitemata Company, arrived at Manukau. Governor Hobson, delighted to find emigrants coming to his neighbourhood from any quarter, allowed them to squat provisionally, and appointed the Company's agent Deputy. Surveyor. When application was made by the New Zealand Company's agent for a site for its second colony, (which ultimately settled at Nelson,) a desperate effort was made by Governor Hobson to induce him to send the emigrants to Auckland.* When the Nanto-Bordelaise Company claimed land on Banks's Peninsula and the adjacent main, Governor Hobson recommended that lands should be granted them at Auckland. In November 1840, he had made an attempt to seduce from Port Nicholson labourers carried thither at the expense of the New Zealand Company ; a step for which he was reprimanded by Lord Stanley.f The results of this kind of colonization will be best described in Governor Hobson's own words. On the 26th March 1842, he wrote to Lord Stanley—" Without a single emigrant direct from England, there have settled in this town and neighbourhood, in the space of little more than a year, upwards of two thousand people; and the erection of houses, stores, and other buildings, has proceeded with almost unexampled rapidity. At this moment, however, considerable depression prevails. By purchasing town-allotments at the high price of from 100/. to 1,5001. per acre, the settlers are fell without the means of bringing the lands into cultivation, or effecting any improvements; and are now anxiously looking to the local Government for the adoption of any measure which may tend to draw capital and labour to the settlement." In the same despatch he says—" But little of the extensive neighbouring land has been sold ; and the settlers already here, although they have paid for their town-lands the most extravagant prices, would readily support any plan which promised to secure the introduction of capital and labour."
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