colonies. May I earnestly and solemnly impress upon them the one great fundamental maxim of sound colonial policy—it is to let your colonies alone; not chiefly because your interference will probably be of an injudicious kind in this or that particular matter, still less because it will be costly and troublesome to yourselves, but because it tends to spoil, corrupt and to degrade them, because they will never do anything or be fit for anything great so long as their chief political business is to complain of you, to fight with you, and to lean upon you; so long as they consider you as responsible for their welfare, and can look to you for assistance in their difficulties. I protest quite as much against subsidies and subscriptions as against vetoes and restraints-indeed, more, for the poison is more subtle, and the chance of resistance less. I want you neither to subsidise their treasuries nor support their clergy, nor to do their police duty with your soldiers, because they ought to do these things for themselves, and by your doing all you contribute to make them effeminate, degenerate and helpless. Do not be afraid to leave them to themselves; throw them into the water and they will swim. ... To this rule the Canterbury Colony is no exception. ... Now it must go alone. It has been called into existence, it has been given its opportunities, if has been started on its way; henceforth it must work out its own destinies.
“They (the members of the Canterbury Association) have done their work—a great and heroic work; they have raised for themselves a noble monument; they have laid the foundations of a great and happy people.”
Mr. Godley afterwards held the position of Commissioner of Income Tax, and later of Assistant Under-Secretary for War. He died on November 17, 1861. The Provincial Council erected the statue to his memory which now stands facing the Cathedral. It was the work of an eminent sculptor, Mr, Woolner, and was unveiled on August 6, 1867, by Mr. C. C. Bowen, who
