that we are living at present under a government which affords the colonists no legitimate and constitutional mode of stating their opinions upon questions of public interest such as they would possess under a representative government, and such as they themselves enjoyed up to the moment they left their native shores.”
The article went on to state that the “Lyttelton Times” was “wholly independent of the Canterbury Association,” and recognised “no allegiance to the Council of Colonists. Still less can we be accused of submitting to any influence from the Government of New Zealand. Our anxious wish is that the ‘Lyttelton Times’ should be the organ of the settlement and of the settlers, in the most extended sense, and that it may be conducted in such a manner as to be so regarded by our fellow-colonists.”
Only two lines of general policy were laid down—the first being a general support of the principles on which the colony had been founded, and the second to insist upon the introduction of a constitution ‘in which the great principle of British law shall be recognised to the full, that no Englishman shall be taxed without his consent, signified by his representatives.’
The new journal was welcomed by the London “Times” of July 5, 1851, in a kindly and appreciative article:—
“A slice of England cut from top to bottom was despatched in September last to the Antipodes.”
It was “a deliberate, long considered, solemn and devoted pilgrimage to a temple, erected by nature for the good of all-comers, blessed with strong limbs and courageous hearts.
“Between deck and keel were the elements of a college, the contents of a public library, the machinery for a bank, and the constituent parts of a constitutional government. It is superfluous to say that the enterprising voyagers took on board with them type, a press,
