“I have been an active promoter of the Canterbury Association, and I now stand here to defend it on this ground alone, that is better than the Government. For 12 years….Sir George Grey [the Governor of New Zealand and pictured here in 1861] and his predecessors have had nearly the whole of New Zealand under their control and in their hands. They have had every conceivable advantage and facility at their command, funds, troops, steamers, civil administration, surveyors. They have spent more money in one year than we are likely to have at our disposal in five; and what have they done?They have founded one seaport and garrison town (Auckland) to which I do not believe 500 actual settlers have ever gone…we [the Canterbury Association] have done more for colonization in a month than they have done in twelve years; ay, and more, as every man in New Zealand knows, than they are likely to do in twelve years to come”.
John Robert Godley (co-founder of the Canterbury Association and founder of Canterbury) fighting for Canterbury’s right to self-govern as its own Province ~ 19th June 1851
