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A selection from the writings and speeches of John Robert Godley

[Speech regarding Canterbury Settlement]

page 72

On the 16th December, 1850, the first body of colonists arrived at Lyttelton, where Mr. Godley had taken up his abode about a month previously.

The first public meeting was held at the Mitre Hotel on the 14th of August, 1851. Sir George Grey had written to Mr. Godley to know whether the settlers at Canterbury desired to have their settlement erected into a separate Province. The meeting was called to consider that proposal; and Mr. Godley, being called to the chair, spoke as follows:—

It is my duty to open this important meeting—important as to its character, because it is the first political demonstration in this colony, and important as to its end, because it is the first political demonstration in this colony, and important as to its end, because it will probably determine the condition under which you will, for many years to come, exercise your political privileges; and I will do so by stating the objects which its conveners have had in view, and the question on which it will have to decide this day. But first, it will naturally be expected that I should take some notice of the circumstances under which Sir George Grey wrote the letter which has just been read, and of the manner in which he introduced the subject to the Legislative Council of the colony. About two months ago I addressed a letter to his Excellency, in which I brought under his consideration the understanding which had been conveyed by the Colonial Secretary to those by whom this settlement was colonized, that as soon as possible, if no unforeseen circumstances should intervene, it should be formed into a separate province. In that communication I did not raise (as it was not my business to raise) any question with respect to the boundaries of the Province which might be constituted in pursuance of Lord Grey's implied promise. I left it, as indeed I could not help doing, to the same authority which has the power of conferring a Provincial constitution, to declare how far its jurisdiction should extend. With respect to our land regulations, page 78if I had asked, or if the Canterbury settlers were now to ask Sir George Grey (as he implies) the possibility of their doing, to extend those Regulations to other districts, we should be guilty, as he must know, of a gross absurdity, inasmuch as he has no more power to comply with such a request, than he has to extend our Land Regulations to China. No such proposal, therefore, was made, or could have been made by me; and his Excellency's allusion to it, hypothetically, in his reply, is entirely uncalled for and irrelevant.

Not content, however, with intimating to me his objections to comply with a request which had never been made, Sir George Grey thought proper, in his place in the Council, to found, nominally on the official letter which I have mentioned, but really, as it appeared afterwards, upon a private communication, "so far as he remembered it," made to him by me, and upon "rumours which had reached him from other sources," of a desire on the part of the Canterbury settlers to extend their block; to found, I say, upon these "remembrances" and" rumours," an elaborate and unmeasured attack upon the Canterbury Association, although the Canterbury Association at least was upon his own showing altogether guiltless of the offence which formed the text of his remarks.

Now I am not about to be betrayed by any provocation, however strong, into an unseemly personal controversy with the representative of the Queen; I am not going to bandy reproaches and insinuations with him; I will not attempt to prove that the members of the Canterbury Association are as good friends of the Church, and as well acquainted with the principles of colonization as he is; still less will I follow him into a disquisition on the good or bad effects of religious endownents: but it would not be right for me, holding the position which I do, to pass without notice so violent an attack on the body which I represent, coming from so high a quarter: I will, therefore, putting aside all personalities, make a few very brief, and I trust inoffensive remarks on the page 74essential matters treated of in Sir George Grey's speech. Sir George objects, as it appears, to colonizing associations generally, and to the Canterbury Association particularly: to the former, because they interfere with the colonizing functions of the local government; and to the latter, because it violates the liberty of conscience, by applying a portion of its land fund to the purposes of the Church of England. I will consider both these points.

I must begin by saying that I entirely agree with Sir George Grey in his disapproval of colonizing associations, whether they be composed of land speculators or of amateurs. I believe that their existence and functions are altogether repugnant to sound theory, and almost necessarily productive' Of great practical evils. Yet I have been an active promoter of the Canterbury Association, and I now stand here to defend it, on this ground alone: that it is better than the Government. If we had a Government able and willing to make its waste territory available for British immigration, and to give facilities to intending colonists for managing their own affairs, and colonizing on their own principles from the first, I should be prepared to admit that an amateur association like ours was an intruder. But as it is, I have no hesitation in asserting that our mission is perfectly legitimate and exceedingly beneficial.

It must have been really rather difficult for Sir George Grey's audience to keep their countenances while he denounced the Canterbury Association as an obstacle to the legitimate colonization of this district by the subjects of her Majesty: in other words as keeping people out of Canterbury. If any one else but the Governor had used such language, I should really suppose that it had been used in irony. Why, what is the fact? Most of those whom I address know, and all of them ought to know, that for seven years, that is, from 1839 to 1846, the Government, of which Sir George Grey is the representative, possessed almost unlimited powers and opportunities for colonizing these page 75islands. I say almost unlimited, for the New Zealand Company's interference was confined to the comparatively small districts of Wellington, Nelson, and New Plymouth, and the native inhabitants, in this island especially, would have been only too happy to dispose of their rights over the waste territory at a nominal price. For seven years, then, Sir George Grey and his predecessors have had nearly the whole of New Zealand, for twelve years about half of it, under their control and in their hands. They have had every conceivable advantage and facility at their command; funds, troops, steamers, civil administrations, surveyors. They have spent more money in one year than we are likely to have at our disposal in five; and what have they done? I will tell you. By means of an extravagant expenditure they have founded one settlement, or rather they have founded one seaport and garrison town which is not a settlement, to which I do not believe 500 actual settlers have ever gone. That is all literally all, that the Government of New Zealand has done for colonization. And yet Sir George Grey gravely complains that the Canterbury Association are keeping her Majesty's subjects from colonizing this district under the auspices of the Government—he taunts us, in fact, with being an obstacle to colonization. Why, if it were not for the Canterbury Association this district would be a wilderness still, as it was for so many years before we came. We discovered it, we surveyed it, we made it available for settlement, we made known its existence and capabilities in England and Australia; we organized and administered the system of operations by which this desert has been peopled; and, after having done all this at vast labour, and with no small outlay, it is rather too bad to be told by those who have been doing nothing all the time that we are keeping for our own purposes a great and fertile district out of the hands of her Majesty's subjects—I say again, if we had not come here, this great and fertile district would still be, as other great and fertile districts over which Sir George Grey's jurisdiction is page 78unlimited, still are—unsurveyed, untenanted, almost unknown. "When, therefore, the representatives of Government shall have performed some part, however trifling, of their colonizing duty, it will he time enough for them to attack others for stepping in to supply their deficiencies. We may colonize badly, but they do not colonize at all. We have done more for colonization in a month than they have done in twelve years; ay, and more, as every man in New Zealand well knows, than they are likely to do in twelve years to come.

And this leads me to a consideration of what Sir George Grey has said of our imposing onerous and prohibitive, conditions on the acquisition of land by the working classes of this settlement. Why, the working classes of this settlement would not be in existence if it were not for the Canterbury Association. What is the use of telling them that they would have got land on easier terms if it had not been for us? Why, if they had never been brought here they could not have got land at all. Neither they nor any one else got land here, I am inclined to think, while it was the demesne of the Crown. Onerous and prohibitive as our conditions may be, more land has been bought under them by working men within the last six months, than would have been bought by them or any similar class of equal numbers in ten years in England. That is the point I wish to insist upon. Our system may be a bad one; I know it is a defective and imperfect one; but it has brought the people whom I see around me here, and placed before them prospects which they could never have had at home; difficulties, hardships, perhaps distresses, they may suffer in this country, and they may be often disposed to lay these at the door of the Association; but I am not afraid of saying here, before them all, that I accept, on the part of the Association, the responsibility for their difficulties, if they will promise to give us the credit for their ultimate success. They may object, sometimes with, sometimes without justice, to many things we do; but the page 77true question between us and the Government as it bears upon their case is this: whether, on the whole, their condition will not prove to have been bettered by emigration? If it be so, then we who have enabled them to emigrate, deserve better at their hands than the Government, which to the end of time, would never have stirred, a finger for such a purpose.

I now come to the violation of conscience theory. Sir George Grey has endeavoured to make the people of Canterbury believe that we violate conscience by applying a part of our land fund to religious and educational purposes. I trust I shall not be guilty of impropriety if I say that such an argument does not deserve serious notice. In fact, it is not argument, it is mere ad captandum declamation. There is not, I venture to say, one individual in the settlement who ever dreamed of such a grievance until it was put into his head. "When a man comes to buy land, as when he comes to buy any other article, the only thing he troubles his head about is whether he gets the value of his money. "What use the seller will make of the price, whether he will build a church with it, or get drunk with it, is a matter in which, very properly, indeed necessarily, the buyer does not consider his conscience as implicated in the slightest degree. Perhaps the value of the accusation is best tested by an argumentum ad hominum. I wonder what Sir George Grey would say to any one who refused, on the plea of conscience, to pay taxes to Government, because the Colonial Chaplain is paid out of the treasury; and that is a much stronger case, because a man cannot help paying taxes, whereas no one forces him to buy land. It would really be a waste of time to dwell upon such grievances as this. But perhaps the most original and ingenious form into which it could be put is that of complaint on the part of the old settlers in Canterbury. They, it seems, are the persons whom we have most deeply injured, by forming our settlement in their neighbourhood. They are martyrs, poor men, for conscience sake! I think my friend page 78Mr. Deans is not very likely to complain that we have injured him by planting the future capital of New Zealand within two miles of his homestead. My friend Mr. Rhodes is sometimes a little inclined to grumble and complain, but I don't think even he will join Sir George Grey in voting for the relief of his conscience by the annihilation of Lyttelton. The persecution to which we subject him may be very severe, but I doubt very much whether he be not effectually consoled by the market which we provide for his wethers.

In considering the objections against the endowments of churches and schools, we should never forget this most material fact, that it has created the very fund out of which it is paid. If it were not for this provision, the Canterbury Association would not exist, and without the Canterbury Association neither settlement nor land fund would exist at this moment in the plains of Port Cooper. I purposely abstain from arguing for the present, as I might easily do, this question on the higher ground that our scheme of colonization is sound and right, and that in providing endowments for religion and education, out of a fund voluntarily contributed, we are right; because this is not the proper place for discussing such subjects as these, and because I know that of course there may be a legitimate difference of opinion about them. I have therefore preferred to take the lower, but more obvious ground, that by means of our plan this district has been colonized with almost unprecedented rapidity and success, and that without our plan it would not be colonized at all; and I have a right to say, that such being the case, Sir George Grey should rather address himself to shew the superiority of his system over ours, by turning to account his own great opportunities of colonization, than by depreciating and discrediting the efforts of those whom he cannot rival.

I will conclude my observations on the subject of the Canterbury Association, by saying that in my opinion its mission will have been accomplished when the settlement shall have beenfounded, and when its local government shall have been page 79constituted. I say that as soon as the people of this country shall be placed in a position to govern themselves, to choose their own officers, to make their own laws, and to administer their own revenues, I for one hold that all our powers and functions ought to cease. There is no doubt that it improperly interferes with the powers and functions of the local government. Nothing can be more anomalous than that your land fund should be administered by the representative of another distant and irresponsible body called the Canterbury Association. All I say is that nothing would be gained by our transferring it to another distant and irresponsible authority called the Colonial Office. I trust I shall not be misunderstood if I maintain that, putting of course a comparison of personal merits out of the question, the Association's agent, living among you, and having no public interests to look after but yours, is more likely to look after them well, than the Governor, who is, comparatively speaking' a stranger to you, and who has a thousand affairs more pressing upon him than yours to divert his attention. Until, therefore, there shall be a local government entitled to the confidence of the people established here, the Canterbury Association is bound to retain the powers of which it is trustee. When such a government shall be constituted, it is the equally bound, and I will say virtually pledged to surrender them. I assure you that my conviction of this forms one of the strongest motives which urges me to take a part in the movement which we are originating to-day. Those who wish, as I wish, that the anomalous functions of the Association should cease, so far as is possible consistently with the conditions on which their enterprise was undertaken, are bound to agitate for a local and responsible government.

I will now address myself directly to the practical question which this meeting has to consider this day. "We are met to declare, in compliance with the expressed wishes of the Governor of New Zealand, our opinions on the advisableness of making Canterbury a separate province. Now, I should-page 80be very sorry to exaggerate the importance of this matter. Certainly the question as to the boundaries of our municipal territory is much less important than that as to the nature and powers of its government. It is one, too, of what may he called mutable and temporary importance; for it is reasonable to suppose that in the course of no very lengthened period, whatever arrangement we may now establish of provincial jurisdiction, will be modified by necessity or convenience. As communications become more frequent and easy, and as in the progress of wealth and civilization a leisured class comes into existence, able and willing to make politics a profession, and to devote their whole time to such pursuits, it becomes possible and desirable to abolish provincial distinctions, and to centralize governmental power. The extent, therefore, to which political subdivision should be carried in any particular case is quite arbitrary: it is a question not of principle, but of degree, and one on which I hesitate to speak with any degree of confident assurance. In deciding it, in fact, we are compelled to strike the balance between opposite inconveniences and dangers, and when I give my own opinion in favour of separation, I know I advocate a course which involves risk. I wish it therefore to be understood that I advocate it only with this distinct qualification—that separation be carried out in a proper manner, that it be, in fact, a reality, not a sham. Everything depends on the composition of our Provincial Government and its powers. If the only result of separation be a repetition of what has occurred at Wellington; that is, if we are to get nothing by it but the establishment of a petty court, and the appointment of a number of officials with fine names and nominal duties, while the real administration of the province is still to be carried on at the seat of central Government, then I say emphatically we are infinitely better without it. The Provincial Government of New Munster is an expensive nonentity, and I protest against the introduction of anything like it here. It is necessary to say this very page 81distinctly, lest Sir George Grey should find in anything we do an excuse for saddling us with a costly Provincial Government, and giving it, when constituted, nothing to do. But if separation be carried out with a real bonâ fide desire to make it work well: in other words, if we obtain the real management of our own affairs at the lowest cost consistent with efficiency, then I think, in our existing position, the change would be very beneficial to us; and I will tell you the reasons why I think so. If I were asked what is the main lesson that I have learned from my colonial experience, I should say it was the blighting and ruinous effect of distant government. I stand here, myself the agent of a distant and irresponsible governing body, to say that I think no amount of abilities, no amount of theoretical knowledge, no amount of zeal and disinterestedness, can even approach to compensating for the enormous disadvantage of being without personal interest in its local affairs. It appears to me as indisputable as an axiom in Euclid, that a country governed from a distance will either be jobbed and tyrannized over, or altogether neglected. Now, the settlement of Canterbury, under existing circumstances, is in the latter category; there is really and truly no government at all here at the present moment; we get on as well as we can, ungoverned. And yet the circumstances of our position are exactly those which require the greatest amount of present, active government. It is the greatest mistake to say, as I have heard it said, that a new country does not want government. The exact converse is the truth. In an old country, like England, for example, where long use has moulded, and fitted, and dovetailed, and oiled, as it were, every part of the machine of society, where every contingency has been provided for by a precedent, and every individual runs, as it were, on a tramroad of convention and tradition, from which he can hardly diverge, there is scarcely any need of government in the ordinary sense of the word. In England people would get on very well without any higher authority than that of the con-page 82stable. But where a new society, like this, is formed under conditions in many respects unprecedented, an urgent want is felt for an ever-present, ever-living fountain of authority and law; new institutions must be framed to meet new emergencies, and men must be taught and made to perform duties to which they have never been accustomed. Every step in the formation of a new community needs the sanction and regulation of a new law; and requires, moreover, in the law giver an intimate local and personal acquaintance with the details to be provided for. We want a law for the administration of our pasturage, a law for the mating and repairing of our roads, laws for the regulation of our hospitals, and schools, and cemeteries, for facilitating common drainage, for establishing ferries. But I will not weary you with a catalogue which might be prolonged indefinitely, of subjects for local legislation. It is sufficient to draw your attention to the fact that the crude and imperfect state of our social relations makes a present, active Government peculiarly necessary to us. And this is exactly what we cannot have without a restricted and local jurisdiction. Look at the matter practically, for this is a question which requires to be looked upon from the point of view of common daily experience. For all practical purposes we might almost as well be governed from England as from Wellington. Our interests and requirements, however important to ourselves, are not so to our governors, and we cannot get them attended to. Our letters are hardly ever answered under two or three months, and many of them are never answered at all. I will illustrate my position by a somewhat trivial example, which may serve to indicate the practical inconvenience of the present system. Exactly two months ago, Mr. Gouland informed me that henceforth he could not pay any money out of the Treasury without a special written authority from the Governor. Accordingly, I wrote at once to Wellington, to ask for a general authority to some person or persons residing here to provide for the necessary casual expenses of Government; and page 83to that letter I have as yet received no answer; so that, with a very large sum lying idle in the Treasury, a considerable part of the current expenses of Government, those for example of the hospital, and the casual expenses of the police, are actually obliged to be advanced by any one who can be found charitable enough to pay the money for them, and wait for repayment till the bills are sent up to "Wellington and returned. Nor should we be much better off, I fear, with a central representative Government as regards constant attention to our local concerns. Even supposing, which would probably not be the case, that our own representatives could, if present, enforce such attention, it is really more than doubtful whether the men whom we should like to choose would be inclined to leave their business and live for a considerable period away from their homes. We are very busy, and not very rich just now, and what we want is a homely government, of which the members may take their share in public business without neglecting their own.

But this is not all: our position among the settlements is altogether exceptional and peculiar, and requires exceptional and peculiar handling. The pastoral nature of our country, the absence of natives, the existence of a land fund, the extensive immigration from England which is going on, and above all, the presence and the influence of the Canterbury Association, all these things distinguish us so broadly from Wellington, Nelson, and Otago, that I feel convinced that for the present we had better pursue separate paths. The laws which suit us don't suit them, and vice versâ. Again, it is a natural and laudable instinct among colonizers to desire the freest possible scope for giving effect to their peculiar tendencies: religious, political, and social. They like to try their own experiment—in other words, to create something. And so it is with us. The people who have come out here have their own notions, no doubt, of the kind of laws and institutions that are best for them; and one reason with them for coming out here was that they might be able to realize page 84those notions. They only ask for liberty to try their hands. Even those who differ from us ought to be glad to give us the utmost scope for our experiments, in order that if we fail, our failure may be the more conspicuous, and the condemnation of our principles more complete. In any event we shall be useful to our neighbours. If we fail, we shall be a warning to them; if we succeed, we shall be their model. But at any rate let us try; let not our aspirations, and our efforts be crushed and thwarted by swamping us in a crowd. Give us a chance, we ask nothing but that, and it is surely not too much to ask; the right of standing or falling by our own exertions, and of turning to what we think the best account the capabilities of our adopted country, and this we cannot do on fair terms unless we work unimpeded and alone.

Again: I have heard it said that we are too few to govern ourselves, and that our territory is not large enough to be a province. I protest altogether against the assumption that the amount of population is in the smallest degree a test of fitness to exercise legislative powers: it has nothing at all to do with it. Local position and peculiarities, not numbers, should determine the extent of political sub-division. I see no reason why the people conveyed by the first ship to an uninhabited country should not make laws binding on themselves the day they occupy their new home. It was so at the time when America was colonized, and I can answer for it that the principle has worked well there. The first body of emigrants to New England numbered but 120 souls, and yet from the hour of their landing they exercised absolute and complete power of self-government. There were only 350 colonists in Massachusets when the charter was transferred to the colony. Rhode Island, Connecticut, Newhaven, had every one of them fewer inhabitants than the town of Lyttelton when they established their municipal independence. In the middle of the seventeenth century, a population of 20,000 souls in New England was divided into five separate and independent colonies, and I find the historian of the United page 85States remarking on this municipal subdivision, and the variety of laws which it produced, that they "exercised a beneficial influence on the colonists, by prompting them to examine and discuss the merits of the different systems and thus promoting a constant and animating circulation of political sentiment and opinion." It is very remarkable too that the constitutions which were then framed have scarcely been altered since, while under their shadow those small and feeble communities have been growing into great and powerful states.

Another objection is the additional expense said to be entailed by separate Government. I really do not see why a separate Government should entail any additional expense worth talking of. I do not see that we want a Lieutenant Governor, or a new Judge, or any material addition to the number of public officers, over and above what will be demanded by the increase of population and business, if we remain a dependent settlement; what we want is a change in the nature of their powers and responsibility. Laws made by ourselves will not require more officers to execute them than laws made by other people. A Provincial Council will cost us nothing except a law officer to prepare bills, and the expense of building a council room, and that of a clerk or two. If we only try, we shall find that a few gentlemen can meet in a small room, and despatch public business very efficiently, without calling themselves by fine names or drawing high salaries. I assure you this fear of additional expense will turn out altogether unfounded, if this matter be properly managed. There are ample means a our disposal for all that we really want. Our revenue is already more than £6000 a year, and no Colonial Government in the early days of British North America cost one-half of that sum. Within twelvemonths it will be doubled, and we ought to have a surplus of £9000 or £10,000 a year from the Customs alone to spend upon our public works.

In fact, the probable existence of a surplus revenue forms page 86a strong ground for claiming provincial separation. The surplus revenue of this settlement may and ought to be very large; and if so, if through our industry, through the exertions of our friends in England, and through the natural resources of our country, this settlement advance, as humanly speaking I know it will advance, in prosperity, in wealth, in population, I say it is fair and right that we, the inhabitants of it, should reap the fruits of its progress.

But the chief reason which influences me, I fairly confess it, in wishing for a local government, is one by advancing which I know I expose myself to be misconstrued, sneered and cavilled at; but I cannot help telling you what I know to be the truth. I want to see the people of this settlement taking an interest and a part in politics, and thereby training themselves in the exercise of those faculties which are engendered and nurtured by freedom; and I know they will not do so unless politics are brought to their doors.

I am not one of those who think that the prosecution of agriculture and commerce, and the cultivation of the domestic virtues, constitute the whole duty of man. I do not think the man who "minds his own business" only, discharges himself of all his responsibilities to Grod and to his neighbour. On the contrary, I hold that among the many advantages of free institutions, the greatest and most precious is, that they elevate and ennoble the characters of those who enjoy them, by drawing them out of the restricted circle of their private concerns into the arena of public life; by teaching them to think, to speak, and to act upon questions of universal interest, and by thus bringing into play the highest faculties and instincts of their nature. In the school of freedom are nourished patriotism, self-devotion, energy, fortitude, and all the long train of civic virtues which cannot exist without it. This language may be sneered at as high-flown and sentimental; yet I venture to say, almost every one here who thinks on that subject at all, is conscious of the practical evils to which I allude, and which I am so anxious to avert. Few, page 87I think, can fail to observe the tendency which prevails here, as in all communities despotically governed, to an apathy and carelessness about everything that does not affect our personal interests, to a certain isolation and want of public spirit; above all, to a kind of cowardly dependence upon authorities; a dependence which is not at all inconsistent with habitual discontent. If provisions are dear, if there is a heavy sea on the bar, if the roads are soft after the rain, if the Bank refuses to discount bills, it is ten to one that the man who suffers by any of these untoward circumstances, lays it on the head of of the Canterbury Association, because in the absence of any real Government, the Association stands in the place of a Government here. Now what I want to see is the whole burden of setting these matters to rights thrown upon yourselves. No people was ever yet fostered and dry-nursed into prosperity. By being forced to do your own public business you will learn to do it well. If I had the produce of all California at my disposal, and the administrative genius of a Napoleon or a Cæsar to deal with it, I should not be the less, in my present position, an incubus on your energies, and an obstacle to your progress. 1 shall never rest, therefore, till I see such institutions established here, as shall enable, aye, and compel you to do without extraneous aid, as well as extraneous interference. One is as noxious as the other; your motto must be "Ourselves alone."

Again: it is a great mistake to suppose that a people which interferes with politics is thereby unduly diverted from industrial pursuits. History and experience have taught me a very different lesson. They have taught me that, as a general rule, freedom and industry have gone hand in hand and that just in propertion as institutions of self-government, with their necessary consequence, political activity, have prevailed among nations, has been their progress and success in all the arts of civilized life. I need not go back into remote history for proofs of this. I will take the examples immediately before our eyes, of the countries with which we are page 88most familiar, England and America. It cannot be denied that the English and Americans are of all modern nations those which take the most unremitting and active part in political affairs; and so, on the other hand, they are of all modern nations those which carry on most keenly, indefatigably, and successfully, every kind of private business, whether it be agriculture, manufacture, or commerce. They find time to look after their public business, and their private affairs as well; because freemen beat slaves at every thing, weight them as you please. Away, then, with the base notion that because we have a great deal to do in settling ourselves just now, it is better for us to have the business of government taken off our hands. A people that acts consistently on such a notion is virtually a people of slaves, and will soon exhibit all the vices and all the weaknesses which follow in train of political enslavement.

I have now concluded: I have laid before you to the best of my ability the various points of view from which, in my opinion, the question before you ought to be considered. I have not, I trust, exaggerated the benefits to be expected from the measure which I advocate. I have not concealed from you my conviction that there is serious danger of its being carried out so as to do more harm than good. If, notwithstanding this danger, you have the courage to ask for the measure, and after having obtained it to resist manfully any delusions and abuses which may be imposed on you under its cover, I believe you may, through its means, set a fruitful example to the British Empire and to the world—the example of a people contented and loyal, yet independent and free—of an educated people fearing God, and a self-governed people honoring the king.