10 GENERAL REMARKS. [CHAP. I. 



it can provide a revenue for Government purposes 

 and for the expenses of internal intercourse and 

 administration. Every farthing drawn from emi- 

 grants in the shape of payment for land is so much 

 lost to the colony ; and if any other way could be 

 devised to provide a fund for the purposes of emigra- 

 tion besides that of selling new lands, no one can 

 doubt that it would be better to give to the emi- 

 grants the land for nothing, on the condition of 

 their cultivating it. 



But what has happened in New Zealand ? Town 

 and country lands were put up by auction, and land 

 speculations were called into existence, which did not 

 fail to damp the prospects, and exercise a most un- 

 favourable influence on the infant colony. In these 

 auctions Government did not consult the interests 

 of those who had come to New Zealand as legitimate 

 colonists, but only of those who were of no ultimate 

 benefit to the colony the land-jobbers. There was 

 a thriving little town at Kororarika in the Bay of 

 Islands ; but, instead of supporting a place which 

 already existed, a new town was proposed, that of 

 Russel, situated in the same harbour, but in a place 

 totally unfit for a settlement. 15,000/. were expended 

 in the purchase of that spot ; and much time of the 

 surveyor-general and his assistants was lost in lay- 

 ing out a town ; but, fortunately, the project was 

 afterwards relinquished. A short time afterwards, 

 April 16, 1841, the town of Auckland, which is situ- 

 ated in the estuary of Hauraki, on the eastern coast 



