Backbencher

During lecture four we discussed the settlement of Australia and New Zealand. We began by looking at some of Dr. Isern's pictures from sheep stations and mining scenes, giving us an idea of what these pilgrims and convicts saw when they arrived. We then talked about the transportation of convicts and how it affected Australia and New Zealand. During this time convict colonies were beinging development and so grew problems. The Irish republicans and many other groups did not get along leading to turmoil. Other economic opportunities began to uprise and so did the immigration rate. This lead to the new immigrants wanting respectability and that is hard to acheive in a land of convicts. So, in 1937, the Molesworth Committee agreed to stop the trasportation. New Zealand was settled very differently with the purpose of planned settlement. They disired the British quality of life, only better. Soon settlement sites began to develope and opportunities on the felden were recognized. Immigration to the country due to found gold, lead to the arrival of the "undesirables" to New Zealand.

Part of this lecture that I found interesting is even though these countries are close to each other, they still developed different strategies for settlement. In my mind planned settlement is much better than convict settlement. Leading me to think why they thought it would be a good idea. However, I have to remind myself that our founders were "traitors" and would have been in prison or dead if they didn't leave Britian. So good people exist every where. A question that I have is how many immigrants came to New Zealand? Since it was planned I assume that it was very organized but I would still like to know how many people came and in what time frame.