Then as in a former letter, he broke off suddenly. “But let that pass. I hardly see my way to getting back to you in England. I think I am more wanted here, and that I ought to stay until Canterbury affairs are settled on a satisfactory and permanent footing.” So, however his faith in colonising associations may have been shaken, he was loyal to the settlers who trusted him.
The first year of the Canterbury Settlement, which had now drawn to a close, was remarkable for the discovery of gold in Australia. If the “Diggings” had broken out a year earlier it is impossible to say how great an effect they might have had in diverting intending Canterbury settlers to Australia. The discovery, as it was, proved a severe handicap to the early settlement. Labour that had been imported at great expense, drifted away to the goldfields, and provisions were forced up to famine prices, flour standing for some months at about £40 per ton, quadruple the price at which it had stood at Nelson during the previous year. The latter effect might have been beneficial in providing a market for Canterbury produce, but till that produce became available, there was no counterbalancing advantage to the settlement.
During the first year of settlement, nineteen ships had safely arrived, bringing over 3,000 persons; 25,000 acres of freehold land had been sold, and 400,000 acres of pasturage runs had been taken up, and coal had been found in the Malvern Hills. The unfinished Sumner Road was still the main topic for the Society of Land Purchasers, whose Committee urged the raising of a loan, and the prompt prosecution of the work. Sir George Grey expressed sympathy, and sent a surveyor (Roys) to report upon the road. The report, dated April 3, 1852, thoroughly endorsed Mr. Thomas’s selection of route, and stated that the road to Heathcote Ferry could be constructed in eighteen months at a cost of £12,500.
