Norwegian settlers arriving in Manawatu in 1871

1. The Evening Herald. MONDAY, JAN. 9, 1871, Wanganui Herald, Volume IV, Issue 1056, 9 January 1871 http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WH18710109.2.6 

We understand that the General Government have decided to locate the Norwegian immigrants, who are expected to arrive in Wellington about the end of this month, somewhere in the neighborhood of Palmerston, in the Manawatu Block. At the request of the Government, the Provincial Executive have reserved some five or six thousand acres in alternate blocks of fifty acres each, with the view of placing a family upon every other block, leaving the remainder to be disposed of by the Provincial Government (their heirs -administrators, or assigns) when the roads and tramways upon which it is intended to employ the immigrants, are sufficiently far advanced to enable the country to be taken up by ordinary settlers. It is proposed to permit the immigrants to occupy their sections rent free for two years, and at the expiration of that period to allow them to purchase the land by an annual payment of 10s per acre for three years, the 30s thus given for it by way of deferred payments being about equal to a present payment of one pound, the price at which all Manawatu land is now sold. In addition to this, it is proposed to allow each of the immigrants as may wish to be employed upon Government works—at a rather less rate of pay, or at lower contract prices than those prevailing in the Province—to buy their rations from the Government at little above cost price for a limited period. On their first arrival, the immigrants will be accomodated [sic] at Mount Cook Barracks, and each shipment, as they arrive, will be forwarded to their destination as soon as possible. On the whole, the scheme seems to be an excellent one. Its success will depend partly upon the general prosperity of the country, but still more upon the character of the immigrants. The principle on which it is founded is that of helping people to help themselves. It regards the immigrant not as a pauper, who must be fed to live, but as a man who, having no capital, should be enabled to acquire it by his own industry; for after all, as Adam Smith long ago pointed out, "capital is but the earnings of labour."  

2. EXTRACT FROM: HERALD TELEGRAMS, Wanganui Herald, Volume IV, Issue 1192, 24 April 1871 http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WH18710424.2.8 

DEFENCE OF THE NORWEGIAN IMMIGRANTS.  Much has been said and insinuated against the character of our Scandinavian settlers, as colonists. Their miserable condition was described in vivid if not glowing colors; the error of introducing them having already been established in the minds of their defamers, it was magnified into a political blunder of the most patent and flagitious kind. If the Scandinavians had understood our language, and read the reports given, they might possibly, from the sheer force of imagination, have fancied themselves as wretched and depraved as they were pictured, but while the tales of the "worthless," “woe-begone,'' "squat," "ill-formed," descendants of Thor, were producing the impression intended throughout the Colony, the people of a common ancestry with the conquerors of England, were, in happy ignorance of their literary annihilation, toiling away in the Manawatu bush, with scarcely enough clear land to pitch their tents upon, at the erection of wooden houses that would not disgrace the model villages of England. These houses or log-huts, are constructed of solid pieces of timber cut into certain lengths, and placed transverse, presenting a number of diamond shaped forms. We have heard some working men who have been in daily communication with the Scandinavians, and who have, for certain reasons, not much sympathy with the foreigners, express the opinion that it would be impossible to find any people more industrious. Men, women, and children work from morning till night with the industry and application of bees. Each family has forty acres of land, a portion of which will soon be cleared and brought into a state of cultivation. Some of these settlers can speak very good English, and each section is called the "country" of the family, a term which the whole of them understand. The most disheartening thing the Northerners have to contend with is the mosquitoes. Every person in this district knows all about these things at Middle Rangitikei; but get into the Manawatu bush and the locusts of Egypt were not a flea-bite compared with the numbers and voracity of these phlebotomists. It would have been bad enough for a people coming from a cold country to be troubled with a few casuals; but to be literally covered with swarms of winged insects, was too much for the patience of our friends, and it was not surprising to find them give way to the consolation found in the frequent use of expletives. Man, we are told by some philosopher (perhaps Tupper) is the most plastic of animals, and we suppose the Norwegians will soon get used to the mosquitoes. It’s a hard trial for these people nevertheless, who have only the poor compensation for so much suffering, that they are not likely to die of apoplexy. If any person is sceptical about the Scandinavians not being a desirable class of settlers, we recommend him to pay them a visit, see what they have done and are doing, the place they are in; what they are suffering, and what steady and sober determination there is pictured on the face of all to make homes, happy, comfortable homes, in the most uninviting most unromantic region on the face of mother earth. This description only refers to the dense bush where these settlers have been located. When it rains two or three days at a time the land is flooded, and it is then difficult to find a knoll where the waters have not "increased." There is some open country a few miles from Palmerston, near where the Scandinavians are, of the finest land in the Colony; but the bush land covers three fourths of the country. "If," said a labouring man in our hearing, "the Government want to get the bush country settled, they cannot do better than bring 100,000 Norwegians, for I can assure you they will settle down where no Englishman would care to stop a night." So much for Norwegian colonists.