The Idea of Group Settlement

AN even the shortest story of pioneer home-making in New Zealand must be told how large a part was played by settlers in organised groups. Marsden began with a group; other missionary leaders did the same; and when this enterprise was extended the weakness of solitary effort was avoided as much as possible. In five of the ‘ six colonies’ the principle of the group was ardently-put into practice; the other one, Auckland, was founded without so definite an immigration, but in the later history of the district there are many instances of special settlement notably compact.

We must pass by, with merely a glance at them, three very early ventures, ambitiously planned, that came to grief when their companies of immigrants arrived: the sending from Britain, in 1825, of a party of artisans under Captain James Herd for the first ‘New Zealand Company,’ to settle in the Firth of Thames and at Hokianga; the startling attempt of Baron de Thierry (1837) to establish a personal ‘independent kingdom’ in the second of these two regions—not beyond it—on a doubt­ful title to lands and dignities; the quieter scheme of Scottish promoters, the ‘New Zealand Manukau and Waitemata Company,’ (1838-41), to build Cornwallis on the western harbour of the isthmus.

Altogether different, and happier in outcome, was the French project of a national colony at Akaroa (1840), now a place of forgotten rivalry and tranquil, domestic industry. Really, there was no ‘race to Akaroa,’ and only an abiding Old World savour remains as reminder of what might have been. Here, in its own sweet fashion, is a successful settlement.