BOOKS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 8449, 23 March 1889, Page 5

BOOKS.

The^ Colony of New Zealand: Its History, Vicissitudes, and Progress. By William GisßOßNE.—London: E. A. Potherick and

Co. Dunedin: Wi3e, Caffin, and Co,

It is hardly to be wondered at if a reviewer recoils from a new work professing to deal with New Zealand. This colony has probably had more rubbish written about it than any British colony twice its age—or so it seems to us. If there is anything that could have reconciled us to the loss of the terraces, it is the thought that we havo done with descriptions of them at any rate. We seem to be flooded-with a double tide of New Zealand literature—if literature it can ha called. The traveller from home has to record his impressions, and very gilly impressions they often arc: the New Zealand settler who revisits his fatherland has to record his experiences, often as commonplace as the other's impressions. It would be interesting to know how publishers are prevailed upon to undertake the publication of works so little likely to recoup the expense of publishing and what percentage of books on New Zealand bring any profiS to the author. Yet considering the hosts of works dealing with the colony, it is astonishing that up till this year no really good compendious history has been written of the colonization I aud industrial progress of New Zealand. Rusdeu's three ponderous tomes of ill-assorted matter cannot be accepted even as a book, though for some future worker who cares to sift and verify, and arrauge, it may serve a useful purpose. The fact is that a history is too hard a matter for the ready scribblers who for the most part misrepresent this colony They like something easier—something that can be accomplished after a residence of s mouth or two in the colony, and requires no troublesome consultation or works of reference. The work at present under review is really, so far as we know, the first passable attempt to write a history of the colony. The writer who undertakes such a history has a very difficult task to perform, and, if he succeeds, has achieved a creditable work. Not to speak of the difficult work of selection when the material to hand is so abundant, there are, in the very character of New Zealand colonization, elements which make the management of the narrative a matter of difficulty. In most of the other colonies colonisation has spread from one centre, so that in the development of the story a certaiu unity cau bo observed. In New Zeeland, on the other hand, fchere have been several centres, all equally important; and the eoccurrent threads of narrative require adroit management, or else they get tangled up and ravelled, and the result is bewilderment and confusion. Further, the various Native outbreaks and wars are perplexing, from the fact that disturbances sprang up in various parts of the colony, each tribe having to be reckoned with separately as ftisnd or foe. Great soundness of judgment, therefore, and a good eye for what might be called narrative proportion, must be brought to the task of writing a brief history of New Zealand—in addition, of course, to the industry and literary ability necessary for such a work. These qualifications Mr Gisborne has shown himself to possess in very fair measure. He has carefully studied his materialj and has selected and arranged with good judgment. The result is a valuable book for such as really desire to know the story of our colony and the resources of its various districts. Wo cannot say that anyone who does not wish to know about the colony will find himself much attracted to Mr Gisborne's book. It is not what would be called a picturesque history. The style is plain; if it has any ambition at all, it is to be somewhat ponderous and periodic. The book is a good solid book, and, as might be expected, now and then shows the defects of its qualities. At the same time Mr Gisborne is often as epigrammatic and pithy in expression as hs is incisive in his judgment, as when he characterises the shortcomings of public departments—"The original sin of public departments seems to be 10 avoid responsibility, and to shift it somewhere elso. The tradition of each office tends to the rule not to do even a good thing except on compulsion. Time, thought, intellect, all the high faculties of the' official mind are devoted to the task not of doing what is right, but of escaping blame for what is wrong. As a matter of course, this vicious habit leads to the multiplication of wrong, but that is a trifle so long as a department can run to earth in a voluminous blue book." This acrid piece of political philosophy is quite in tho way of a tart Roman historian.

We are pleasad to see that Mr Gisborne takes some trouble to vindicate the eatly missionaries t'rotu the aspersions it is now the fashion to cast upon them. No doubt there have been in the colony, ag elsewhere, missiouaries who were foolish or even worse—and a bad missionary, like a bad pope, does far more to fix the public estimate of his office than a score who fill the office worthily. "Mission life was in early years n time of great trial. Isolated from all civilised intercourse, surrounded by savage tribes, it was Continuously subjected to great privations, to serious dangers, and, especially in the case of families to terrible anxieties. The Wesloyan mission at Wangaroa in 1827 lost all but their lives at the bauds of the Natives; and in 1836 the Church of England mission suffered similar treatment at Tauranga and at Eotorua. Those who live at home at ease can little imagine what mental .".uffering, the worst of all suffering, those have to bear who, from day to day and from night to night, live in lonely wilds, cut off from human aid, aud exposed at any moment to attack from savages, and who, it may bs BaiJ, ever carry their lives and the

lives of their families in their hands Let those who lightly talk of what missionaries have borne picture to themselves, if they can, the scene when a helpless family is awakened in the dead of night by barbarous yells, and, robbed of everything, even if life be spared, is driven away from home without shelter and without food. But the duties of missionaries often took them long distances from their homes, and travelling then in Mew Zealand was difficult aud dangerous. Missionaries suffered much 'in journeying often, in perils of water, in perils of robbers,' 'in perils by tho heathen,' 'in perils in the wilderness,' 'in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness,' and ' the care o£ all the churches.'"