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The Story of Christchurch.

say: “No scheme could be carried out against the will of the colonists, and if it is to be carried out with their will, why not entrust them with its management? It will be most painful to me if I have to enter into an open conflict with the Committee; it is like going to war with one’s brothers.” There he broke off, spoke of being “gloriously well,” and told of a cricket match in which “Brittan and I distinguished ourselves very creditably.”

A few months later, on January 20, 1852, he gave definite expression to a new confession of faith: “I long held with Wakefield that they (colonising associations), were positively good; then I came to look on them as lesser but necessary evils; now I am convinced that they do more harm than good.” The immediate occasion for this outburst was the conflict between the New Zealand Settlement Act of the Imperial Parliament and a local ordinance on the same subject. The two enactments were passed simultaneously, but of course it was some months before the Imperial Act arrived to supersede the ordinance. In the meantime, people had been acting on the ordinance, buying land, etc., “and behold out comes the Act, and everything that has been done under the ordinance falls to the ground.”

It is easy to imagine how galling this was to Mr. Godley, and we need not be surprised to find the breach widening. In the same letter, he continued: “My heart is very sore after reading the Fatima letters. I find that my friends of the Committee are most unreasonable and inconsiderate, quite as much on their side as Tam on mine. Wakefield out-Herods Herod in the outrageous virulence of his abuse; tells me I am inconsistent, ungrateful, wild, furious, incapable, worn-out, perverse, delirious, and winds up by advising me to retire into the country and cultivate my health, which is all I am now fit for. I think, if God spares my life, I may show him yet that I am fit for something else.”