New Zealand

Scholefield, Guy H. (Guy Hardy), G. Allen & Unwin Ltd., London, England, 1917

International Information Series.

I.—IMPERIAL AND OVERSEAS.

1 The Resources of the Empire . Dr. J. W. Orice

3 The Defences of the Empire '.. A. Hurd

3 The Australian Commonwealth Evans Lewin

4 New Zealand Ouy Scholefield

5 Canada Percy Hurd

6 Origin and System of the Empire H. O. Newland

7 The Union of South Africa

8 West Africa H. O. Newland

9 East African Protectorates Sir Harry Johnston

10 The Far East Colonies

11 The Pacific Sir Everard im Thurn

la Lesser Crown Colonies '.

13 West indies Algernon Aspinall

14 Egypt R. Francis

IS India

16 The Finance of the Empire

17 The Commerce of the Empire .

18 Shipping and Maritime Work . Prof. Klrkaldy

IL-INDUSTRY AftD PRODUCTION.

(Subjut to Revision.)

1 Cotton Prof. Sydney Chapman

3 Woollen Prof. J. H. Clapham

3 Ship-building Alex Richardson

4 Electrical Engineering . T. C. Elder

5 Public Works H. E. Stilgoe

6 Iron and Steel F. W. Harbord

7 Machine-Tools and Machinery .

8 Glass and Precious Metals . Egbert Jackson

9 Pottery Egbert Jackson

y ruuci j ...... </i.mu io Agriculture—Crops

11 „ —Livestock

11 ~ —ui»in> ■ 3 Forestry Prof. Dawson

13 Sea Fisheries Prof. Qardiner

14 Chemicals Prof. H. E. Armstrong

15 Oil

16 Coal Stanley Jevons?

17 Leather

■/ —- . 18 Rubber

19 Sugar F. I. Scard

Suggested for Inclusion:

Non-ferrous Metals

Dyes and Dyeing ....

Transport

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The original publication details are as follows:

Title: New Zealand

Author: Scholefield, Guy H. (Guy Hardy)

Published: G. Allen & Unwin Ltd., London, England, 1917

International Information Series

BRITISH EMPIRE SECTION.—VoIume IV.

NEW ZEALAND

Bowen and Macmillan Brown Prizeman, University of New Zealand

Published for the

INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION COMMITTEE

by GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD. LONDON

RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. 1

By G. H. SCHOLEFIELD, B.Sc. (Econ.), Lond.

CHAPTER I

DISCOVERY AND HISTORY

There are several vague legends about the discovery of New Zealand by European navigators, and not a few disjointed pieces of evidence have been used to support the theory that the first visitors were Spaniards or Portuguese. It seems now to be established, however, that Abel Tasman, a Dutch seaman sent out by Van Diemen, the Governor of Batavia, was the first white man to see our islands. That was in 1642, when van Tromp was in his zenith in European waters and the prestige of the United Provinces stood high. With two vessels, the Heemskirk and the Zeehaen, Tasman sailed from Java westward and touched at Mauritius. Then steering eastwards, he discovered what is now Tasmania, and called it Van Diemen's Land, and, continuing in the same direction, sighted, on December 13th, " the high mountainous country" of the South Island of New Zealand, to wit the Southern Alps. The explorer believed that he had circumnavigated the world and come to Staten Land, which had been discovered by his countryman Schouten a few years earlier ; and he mapped it down as such. Passing northward along the coast, he was attacked by natives in an inlet which he named " Massacre Bay," and he finally made his offing from the Three Kings without even setting foot ashore. It was soon established that Staten Land was quite a small island, so the name " New Zealand " was given to Tasman's discovery, after one of the Seven Provinces of Holland.

For more than a century and a quarter after Tasman's visit no other European came near. It was not until 1769 that Captain Cook, having entered the Pacific by way of the Horn, fetched up on the east coast of New Zealand. He, too, was rather unhappy in his relations with the Maori'

~ •■• ••■" ■>"«""'« wim me maun, 3 '

4

and he marked his view or the inhospitality of the country by calling “ Poverty Bay " what is now one of the richest regions of the Dominion. The rivals of the English at sea were now the French, and while Cook was still on the coast de Surville came to anchor in a bay only a hundred miles distant. In 1772 again Marion de Fresne visited New Zealand, and he was murdered by the natives in the Bay of Islands. On several later occasions until 1777 Cook was back in New Zealand ; and he was followed by Vancouver and other British naval explorers; by the Spaniard Malaspina and the Russian Bellingshausen.

Meanwhile whalers, traders, and warships in search of spars and hemp began to frequent the coast, forming the first nuclei of white settlement. This settlement became permanent in 1814, the year in which Samuel Marsden, the intrepid chaplain to the Government of New South planted his mission station close to Bay of Islands. But organized colonization made its appearance very tardily. As early as 1771 Alexander Dalrymple had propounded in a pamphlet a scheme for civilizing the Maori by trading with them. In 1825 the “New Zealand Company" sent out a ship with emigrants to acquire and settle on land in the northern part of the islands. Untoward fcircumstances prevented them from doing anything satisfactory, but on the ashes of this company grew up, twelve years later, the New Zealand Association, a semi-scientific society charged with applying to New Zealand the colonizing principles of Edward Gibbon Wakefield.

Throughout the negotiations leading up to the declaration of British sovereignty in 1840 the Colonial Office appears as the jealous champion of the rights of the natives, yielding reluctantly to the growing necessity ©f establishing some sort of regime for the control and protection of British subjects within ,the jurisdiction of a savage but sovereign state. Wakefield himself was somewhat hotheaded and unconciliatory in argument; and the affair seemed so completely hopeless that the New Zealand Company (as it was now called) thought it better to take the bull by the horns and to go ahead with its scheme in defiance of the Government. By so doing it finally antagonized the Colonial Office, and so sealed its own doom as far as any future usefulness was

5

concerned; but there is little doubt that it saved New Zealand to the British Crown.'

In May 1839 the New Zealand Company's expeditionary ship, the Tory, sailed from England in charge of Colonel Wakefield (brother of Edward Gibbon) to acquire sufficient land for the accommodation of the pioneers whom it was intended to take out. Tardily England responded by authorizing the Governor of New South Wales to include within that colony any land in New Zealand which might be acquired in sovereignty by the Queen. Three months later the first ship with emigrants left Erigland, and close in its wake sailed H.M.S. Druid, bearing to New South Wales Captain William Hobson, R.N., the Lieutenant-Governor-designate of the future colony of New Zealand. The emigrants reached Port Nicholson, at the southern end of the North Island, on January 22, 1840. Just a week later Captain Hobson landed at Bay of Islands, in the north. He hoisted the Union Jack and read his commission as Lieutenant-Governor over any territory of which the Maori might cede sovereignty to England, and then, with the help of the missionaries, he proceeded to negotiate with the tribes to that end. The Treaty of Waitangi was signed on February 6th, but it was not till May 21st that Captain Hobson felt himself justified in proclaiming British sovereignty over the whole of the group.

Before Hobson left England there had been rumours of a French expedition being fitted out for New Zealand, and he had not been long in the country before definite intelligence arrived that the emigrants had actually sailed from France under the protection of a ship of war, L'Aube. This frigate herself appeared in the Bay of Islands in July, and observations let fall by the commander made it clear that he intended to proceed on his mission and to protect the French emigrants when they should land at Akaroa, in the South Island. Hobson replied that already in June the British flag had been hoisted with proper formality at several points in the South Island, and that he must regard as hostile any attempt of the French to carry out their project. That British sovereignty was now technically complete there could be no doubt; but Hobson, to close any possible loophole of misunderstanding, sent a magistrate in the

6

frigate Britomart to hold a civil court at Akaroa under the British flag. Two days after this had been done the French frigate arrived, and within the week the Comte de Paris transport sailed into the harbour, her bulwarks lined by the curious emigrants, disappointed to a degree to see the British flag flying where they had expected to greet that of France. Some of them afterwards went to other French possessions, but most settled down in New Zealand and were absorbed in the British population of the islands. Only the topographical names remain on the peninsula as a reminder of this romantic episode.

The sovereignty of Queen Victoria was now established beyond challenge either by the natives or by European rivals ; but many years of trouble separated the settlers, especially of the North Island, from the peaceful prosperity to which they had looked forward so hopefully when they sailed from England. Before the whites arrived in New Zealand the Maori had been constantly engaged in tribal warfare. By signing the Treaty of Waitangi they handed over their sovereignty to Queen Victoria, who thereby contracted to recognize and honour the native ownership of the soil. This proved a serious bone of contention in succeeding years, but the people of New Zealand have it to their honour as a nation that they have scrupulously observed this obligation, often at great loss and disadvantage to themselves. The honourable observance of the Treaty of Waitangi by the white settlers and the Government of New Zealand ranks in history as a remarkable—and too rare—example of good faith as between a civilized and a savage race. It was not without grave difficulties and heartburning that the whites stood by their plighted word. More than once the hostility of the natives gave the pakeha l a sound technical excuse for abrogating a compact which was all to their own disadvantage. For thirty years at least of their short history they were constantly at war with one section or another of the Maori race, and there were not wanting advisers who urged them to renounce their treaty obligations and start with a clean slate in their dealings with the natives. N There is no doubt that the Treaty was concluded on a false understanding of native tenure. But it was the whites

■ Strangers ; people not of Maori race.

7

who were the losers by the mistake in the long run ; and the whites magnanimously stood by their pledge. Hobson, when he agreed to respect the native title to the land of New Zealand, undoubtedly did not fully appreciate the difficulties of transferring to the whites sufficient for their immediate purposes. The consent of a multitude of scattered owners was required for the conveyance of any single parcel of land to a new owner. Moreover, Hobson cannot have realized that a great proportion of the land of New Zealand was really waste and unappropriated even by the Maori. In most of the South Island, for instance, there were no Maori residents at all. Yet the Treaty of Waitangi recognized a Maori title to every single acre of land, and, once recognized, the claim had to be bought out or otherwise legally satisfied. The most serious disputes arose from the difficulty of discovering who the native owners were. Certain tribes had been driven off their ancestral lands by rivals who had obtained firearms from the whites. When this oppression ended, the fugitives often filtered back to their lands; but the conquerors continued to assert their ownership by right of conquest. Bitterness caused by a mistake of this sort underlay many years of war, in which a section of the natives fought doggedly against the pakeha. Confiscation was demanded, and was on minor occasions applied, but the whites never deserted their obligations, costly and inconvenient as they were. And by their loyalty they have raised up the Maori race from being unorganized, though intelligent, savages, to the position of co-heirs of the pakeha with parallel social privileges.

While the native wars in the North Island hindered development there the younger settlements in the South Island Nelson, Canterbury, and Otago—made comparatively good progress. Constitutional freedom was retarded by the native troubles, the Colonial Office hesitating to hand over to the colonists the full control of native affairs. Eventually the campaigns against the Maori were brought to a satisfactory issue ; and immediately the New Zealand Parliament tended to take a wider view. National consolidation was urgently necessary ; and the General Government set itself earnestly to bring it about. The railway boom was now at its height in the Old World and in America. Railways

8

were obviously necessary to connect and consolidate the isolated settlements of New Zealand and for the opening up of great areas, especially in the North Island, which were as yet untouched by settlement. But railways required money, and money could not be obtained on the disjointed credit of many small and jealous communities. Centralization was plainly inevitable ; and the provinces, after a stubborn fight, bowed their heads to the storm. The Provincial Councils went out of existence. County Councils assumed the minutiae of local government and the General Assembly became really the national Parliament, disposing of the national estate, controlling the revenues and lands, and administering the customs and education on national lines.

At the time of the abolition of the provinces the white population of New Zealand was only 300,000 ; yet there were ten institutions with legislative powers ; only one with general jurisdiction. Obviously such a system, however satisfactory in the early days of the colony, was full of dangers at a later stage. It fostered jealousy and tended to separatism and disruption rather than to national strength.

The history of New Zealand since the abolition of the provinces has not been exactly eventful. An extravagant public works policy and a world-wide depression reduced the finances of the country, to a grave pass. Wool was the single product for which there was a generally lucrative market, and even the wool-kings had their vicissitudes. Throughout the eighties New Zealand was in penance for her extravagance. New sources of wealth had appeared, it is true, but the country had to pass through a social transformation before these came into full fruitfulness. The New Zealand of to-day, highly developed agriculturally, more closely subdivided, considerably developed industrially, and highly protected, is a very different entity from the pastoral New Zealand of the seventies and the eighties of last century, with its wide sheepruns and its export of wool and non-perishable foodstuffs. During the nineties a great deal of social legislation of a daringly experimental character was carried, and the subdivision of occupied land added almost as much to the wealth of the country as the opening up of virgin acres.

In 1895 the white population of the North Island, so long discouraged by wars, became once more as numerous as that

9

of the South ; and to-day the North Island contains about 60 per cent, of the whole population of the Dominion. In 1908 the population of New Zealand reached one million. In March 1916 it was estimated as follows ;

Whites 1,100,406

Maori 49,**44

Taciiic Islands 12,598

1,162,848

The Maori until the end of the nineteenth century were believed to be decreasing in numbers, but the more accurate censuses now possible show that they are slowly increasing. They enjoy all the social privileges of the pakelia and some immunities. They are generally landowners and they are slowly showing a disposition to work their own lands. Their position differs materially from that usually occupied by subject races. In fact, they have avoided subjection, partly by their prowess in the field, but mainly, it must be admitted, by the exceptional privileges secured to them by the Treaty of Waitangi.

New Zealand began in 1840 as a dependency of the colony of New South Wales. In the following year it became a separate colony with a Governor of its own ; and in 1907 its style and designation was changed to that of " The Dominion of New Zealand." In 1901 the boundaries of New Zealand were extended to embrace the Cook Islands, Niue (or Savage Island) and several other inconsiderable groups containing people closely related to the Maori.

CHAPTER 11

THE BRITAIN OF THE SOUTH

There are certain quite sound physical reasons for calling New Zealand the “Britain of the South.” In itself the group presents some striking points of resemblance—e.g. size, general conformation, and climate —but there are also points of difference which go far to counterbalance the similarities.

The wealth and influence of Great Britain in the modern world arise very largely from the position of the British Isles close to the largest land mass of the world and on the direct route from one great site of civilization and wealth to another. England thus became the entrepot between the Old World and the New. English seamen became the carriers for the products of both. English manufacturers took first toll of the raw products of the New World and had first call on the markets there. They made their profits and commissions both ways, the wealth thus derived being essentially a wealth of position.

From the point of view of position New Zealand is quite at the Antipodes. That the group lies at almost the opposite point of the globe from Great Britain is a comparatively small matter. It is really an element of wealth, for the New Zealand summer coincides with the English winter and the products of New Zealand are garnered at the moment when those of Europe are becoming exhausted and new stocks are required. What is vital is the fact that while England is adjacent to the largest land mass in the world New Zealand lies in a hemisphere of water. Her nearest neighbour, Australia, is as yet sparsely populated, and is in any case a producer of much the same class of commodities that New Zealand produces. And Australia is 1,200 miles distant. The whole vast width of the Pacific Ocean lies between New Zealand and her potential 10

II

customers. To the north-west China and Japan lie, say, 6,000 miles away. To the eastward South America’s narrow Pacific slope is 5,000 miles distant. To the south is the polar ice ; to the west the “loping leagues of sea” stretching away to the Cape of Good Hope. New Zealand can never be an entrepot, or distributing centre* except for some of- the myriad islands of the Pacific Ocean. Surely these insurmountable facts of position would seem to condition gravely the whole of the Dominion's development.

The 180 th degree of longitude passes within a few miles of the easternmost point of New Zealand. In this respect the antipodean character is fairly well established. In regard to latitude, however, there is not the same close correspondence. Like Great Britain New Zealand has its chief length from north to south. But whereas New Zealand commences only 34 degrees from the -equator and ends 47 degrees from it, England only commences in 50 degrees north and stretches another 9 degrees from that point. The climate of New Zealand is therefore much warmer on the whole, though the amount of difference which might be expected is tempered by the influence in the Atlantic Ocean of the Gulf Stream. New Zealand’s climate ranges from the subtropical heat of Auckland, which is not unlike that of the south of France, to the temperate conditions of Southland, which at the coldest season of the year somewhat resemble those of Norfolk. The range of temperature for any place is inconsiderable, for the climate is essentially oceanic and equable. The mean annual temperature of Auckland (which lies in latitude 37 degrees) is 54-8 degrees —only 8 - 2 degrees higher than that of Otago, which is 500 miles farther south. The range between maximum and minimum temperature all over the Dominion is only about 16 degrees.

New Zealand is an archipelago consisting in the main of three large islands extending from north to south about 920 miles and having as their greatest width 220 miles. There is a backbone of mountains running throughout the whole length of the chain, clearly defined in the South Island —the largest of the group—but occasionally broken and scattered in the North Island. The mountain chain in the South Island is a very remarkable feature, closely resembling the Andes of South America. For about 350 miles the chain is continuous

15

and unbroken, ana throughout this whole length there is a line of perpetual snow at from 6,000 to 7,000 feet, above which dozens of peaks stand out prominently, many of them being more than 10,000 feet high. One peak, Mount Cook (called by the Maori “Aorangi”) reaches 12,349 feet, ar >d is surrounded by ten others all more than 10,000 feet high.

The barrier of the Southern Alps, which separates the Westland province from that of Canterbury on the east, is at present crossed by a road at only one point, Arthur’s Pass, which is 5,359 feet above sea-level. On the western flank of the Alps is a narrow plain like that of Chili squeezed in between the mountains and the sea. The prevailing winds being westerly, a very heavy rainfall is precipitated here by the intervention of the high Alps. For centuries a succession of turbulent streams has laboured unceasingly in bringing down rich attritus to fertilize this flat, and to-day it is being recovered from dense luxuriant bush for more profitable agriculture and grazing. Here and there from the icy fastnesses great glaciers crawl slowly towards the sea, the most persistent of them only losing itself in a liquid river 800 feet above the tides of the Pacific.

On the eastern slope of the Alps the influence of the barrier is most momentous, for, having surrendered most of their moisture on the western flanks of the hills, the prevailing winds bring very little rainfall to the plains of Canterbury. In Westland the average fall is 116 inches; in Canterbury it is only 25 inches. But the Alps nevertheless do Canterbury a benefit. From the frozen storehouses of the mountain barrier a dozen or so swift-running rivers emerge full-bodied winter and summer and race eastward across the plains to the sea. This supply of water never fails even in the hottest summer, for the streams are fed from the ice above the snow-line, and thus the Canterbury farmers and graziers are able by surface irrigation to water practically every acre of their province, Canterbury is the most important wheat-growing and sheep-raising province of the Dominion.

South of Canterbury, in the province of Otago, the Alps become somewhat lower and more broken. In the west are a number of large, very deep, and beautiful lakes, into a single one of which all the lakes of Scotland might be

16

emptied. In this region, too, the mountains press dose upon the seaboard, and the ocean enters the valleys in sounds and fjords of remarkable depth and rugged beauty. Here vessels of the largest size can enter in any weather and find safe haven, mooring themselves, if they wish, by the trees growing on the sides of the cliffs which fall sheer into the depths of the sea. Unfortunately these havens have little economic value, for they are cut off by a wide expanse of mountains from the fertile plains of the east, through which the rivers of the province, the Mataura, the Waiau, the Clutha, and the Taieri, flow from the mountain core to the sea. There is much fine agricultural land here, and in the centre of Otago is a high plateau which produces excellent fruit and hardy sheep.

At the northern end of the South Island, where the main chain bifurcates, are many wide river valleys and sheltered flats, all utilized for grain-growing, dairying, fruit-farming and stock-raising. This . area, owing to the intervening mountain ranges, has hitherto been cut off from the more populous districts of the Dominion and depends for its communications on short railways to a number of ports reached by steamers usually of inconsiderable size.

The South Island is bountifully supplied by nature with harbours for shipping. Lyttelton, the port of Christchurch, is a fine deep natural harbour on Banks Peninsula, almost land-locked. An even better harbour was available at Akaroa on the southern side of the peninsula, but the intervening mountains made the land approach to the plains impracticable. Otago, too, has a natural harbour at Dunedin, with a deep-water port near the mouth. Southland is well equipped for shipping through Bluff Harbour, and the provinces in the north (Nelson and Marlborough) have good havens at Nelson and Picton. On the west coast conditions are not so favourable for shipping. The fertile coast belt of Westland has no natural harbours, and in spite of much expenditure on improvement, the navigation of the river mouths in rough weather is still a perilous undertaking.

The North Island is less in area than the South, but, being less encumbered with mountains and warmer in climate, it has overhauled it in population and promises to be the more important of the two. Both islands are chiefly volcanic

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in formation, but the North Island shows signs of the more recent activity, and has indeed one or two volcanoes not quite yet extinct. The present activity extends from Mount Ruapehu, in the centre of the island, in a northeasterly direction to the Bay of Plenty, White Island itself being liable to eruption. On the mainland the only crater now generally active is Ngauruhoe (south-west of Lake Taupo) over whose crest a faint veil of steam is constantly forming. Between Lake Taupo and the Bay of Plenty is the Hot Lakes region, where evidences of thermal activity are constantly visible. The crust of the earth is in places very thin, and hot springs, mud pools, geysers, solfataras and boiling lakes abound. The vulcanism of New Zealand has almost decayed, but that there is still capacity for mischief in limited areas is evident from the eruption of Tarawera in 1886, when more than a hundred lives were lost, and from the sporadic appearance of very powerful geysers, sometimes here, sometimes there, in the thermal zone.

A wide area in the centre of the North Island, surrounding what is known as the Hot Lakes district, has been overlaid with rocks and pumice ejected by volcanic activity in the pliocene and early pleistocene; and one of the problems now being tackled in New Zealand is the reclaiming of this pumice area for agriculture. South of the pumice zone is an important belt of limestone of marine formation stretching right across the island and giving great value to, the land both for agriculture and for grazing. The more important mountain systems of the North Island are several bold ranges running north and south through the eastern half. The intervening plains, Wairarapa, Hawkes Bay and Manawatu, are extremely rich, as are also the downs of Wanganui and Taranaki, which succeed these to the westward. From the plain of Taranaki the solitary cone of Mt. Egmont rises to a height of 8,260 ft. In the centre of the island is a high healthy plateau—not very rich—from which rise the volcanic peaks of Ruapehu (9,175 ft.), Tongariro (6,140 feet), and Ngauruhoe (7,517 feet). This region is coming into occupation for grazing cattle and sheep, and is to a considerable extent still densely wooded.

It is in this central plateau that most of the North Island rivers take their rise. The Waikato, which was used for

18

navigation a good deal during the Maori wars, rises near Ruapehu, flows into and out of Lake Taupo, and then northward and westward nearly 200 miles into the sea. The Mokau flows west, the Wanganui and Rangitikei south, and the Rangitaiki and Whakatane north, all from the same watershed. From the north-and-south system in the east the Ruamahanga, the Manawatu and the Tukituki are the principal streams; and in the peninsula north of Auckland City are a number of important and economically valuable rivers flowing sluggishly into the long penetrating arms of the sea. The peninsula is remarkably well provided with waterways. In many cases scows and other small trading vessels can sail or steam straight in from the open sea to the heart of the sawmilling country. These natural harbours require no outlay at all. In the South Island the rivers are generally swifter than those of the North and are not so suitable for navigation.

The North Island has only two natural harbours of any importance, viz., Auckland and Wellington. Waitemata Harbour, at Auckland, is an inlet of the sea well protected by outlying islands. Port Nicholson, on which Wellington stands, is, on the other hand, a land-locked crateral basin, with high mountainous surroundings. The existence of these two harbours obviously fixed the positions of the capital towns of the North Island, though in the case of Wellington the land approach to the port is difficult.

The productivity of New Zealand is extreme. Practically every crop that can be produced in the temperate zone grows to perfection here, and in addition good maize, oranges, lemons, and other semi-tropical fruits are produced in the north and elsewhere, and grapes ripen in the open air. There is no small valley that has not its own adequate water supply, and there is no part of the country that does not enjoy abundance of bright sunshine. The rainfall throughout is moderately heavy, but the sunshine is allpervading. Like Italy, New Zealand has bright sunshine for about 50 per cent, of the time in the year when this is physically possible. In Great Britain the average is from 27 to 36 per cent.

CHAPTER 111

SETTLEMENT OF THE COUNTRY

When the first Europeans came to New Zealand they found the majority of the Maori population living in the northern part of the group. The climate was warmer there and consequently food was more plentiful and living easier. Within twenty years of Cook’s visits people were being transported to Australia on a systematic plan by the British authorities, and simultaneously there was an independent invasion of the Pacific Ocean by whalers of European and American nationality. They became settled by intermarriage with Maori women. The tribes were glad enough to acquire pakeha settlers from whom they could learn civilized arts, and the shore stations which these whalers first established became the nuclei of the later colonies.

Thither drifted individual escapees from the convict settlements in Australia, and many individuals, too, who were in Australia of their own free will and were seeking profit rather than adventure. To these was added, in 1814, a mission under the aegis of the pious Samuel Marsden, and thenceforward until the arrival of British sovereignty in 1840 the little settlements thrived and expanded.

It was scarcely accident that fixed the position of these settlements. The Maori navigators, coming in the fourth century from the islands to the northward, settled as a' matter of course in the nearest bays of the group. It was there that they struck land. The. farther south they went the lower they found the temperature, and the less like what they had been accustomed to. About these beautiful bays they found rich fiats and luxuriant forests, and in the sea an abundance of fish. The people of each canoe, as they stepped out on the beaches, sore, weak, and emaciated from

II I 16

20

their long voyage, were glad indeed. They felt that they had found their long-sought home and they settled in the promised land. Pulling up their great canoes, they constructed their huts where they landed, grew, flourished, and increased. Gradually weak tribes or adventurous offshoots were pushed farther south or emigrated there to find lands for their separate occupations. Some even crossed Cook’s Strait and penetrated to the South Island, where two fugitive tribes (Ngaitahu and Ngatimamoe) hid from the ferocity of their stronger neighbours. But always the number of Maori in the South Island has been a mere fraction of the whole.

By economic tendencies the whites at first made their abode with the natives. If they would trade they must perforce go to the places where their customers were. The flax and timber traders betook themselves where the Maori were to procure flax and timber for them. A few whalers, certainly, founded shore stations remote even from native inhabitants; but as a rule the whites settled where the natives were.

When the British Government at length permitted New Zealand to become a British Colony the order of settlement was reversed. By this time it was quite evident that the occupation of land by large numbers of natives, who were in a very savage state and were given over to almost incessant tribal wars, must be a great obstacle to the white pioneers. Disputes about the ownership of the land, which had already occurred frequently, disclosed the fact that the Maori title was communal. There was no individual ownership. A chief, however powerful, could not give a valid title. Consequently it sometimes happened that land which had been purchased in good faith from a native chief, and perhaps adequately paid for, was subsequently claimed by other natives.

These conditions were not at all well understood before the cession to the Queen in 1840. In 1839 a colonizing society—the New Zealand Company—had made all preparations for establishing a colony at the southern end of the North Island, on the shores of Port Nicholson, and ships sailed accordingly with emigrants who* had paid the society for the sections of land which they hoped to occupy and cultivate. At the

c

i 8

very moment when these hopeful and adventurous souls were landing on the beach at “ Britannia " the LieutenantGovernor, reluctantly sent out by the Government to treat for the cession of sovereignty, was concluding at the Bay of Islands a treaty guaranteeing to the natives the integrity of their titles. This was undoubtedly a well-intentioned and high-minded proceeding, but it paralysed the hopes of the pioneers at Port Nicholson. It was some years before satisfactory terms could be arrived at for acquiring enough land for the settlement; and this problem diverted attention from the occupied and more promising regions of New Zealand to those, farther south, where there were few or no Maori to contest the ownership of the land. Thus it was that while independent migrants continued to settle amongst the natives, where the chances of profit from trade were more immediate, the systematic colonists turned their attention to the unoccupied lands of the South Island.

Offshoots of the New Zealand Company formed settlements at Taranaki and Wanganui in the North Island, and at Nelson in the South. Both the North Island settlements were crippled for awhile by land disputes, and the Nelson settlers had a disastrous collision with a powerful native chief over the same old bone of contention. The outlook for colonists in regions partly occupied by natives was discouraging in the extreme, and wise men went where the trouble was less likely to occur.

Although the North Island was not at all inferior in productivity to the South, its progress was hopelessly retarded by the Maori troubles. In 1858 the North Island, which had been receiving settlers for eighteen years, contained 34,000 whites while the South had only 25,000. But very shortly the disparity was the other way round. In 1860 a widespread war broke out, and it lasted with few intermissions for nearly twenty years. The hostility of the natives locked up the greater part of the island against settlement by the fiakeha, and until the end of the century the large areas of land reserved for the Maori were a great obstacle to development. Meanwhile, not only was the South Island almost free from native troubles, but the discovery of gold in Otago in 1861 and afterwards in Westland attracted a continued stream of people from abroad and from the

22

troubled North Island. Before the end of 1861 the South Island had 57,000 people and the North Island only 42,000. In 1867 64 per cent, of the population of the Colony was in the South Island, and it was not until the end of the century that the balance was again even between the two islands. The equalizing factor then was the more friendly attitude of the Maori and the gradual unlocking of the native lands.

Meanwhile Otago and Canterbury had developed and flourished exceedingly, throwing out offshoots in Southland and Westland and gradually expanding until white civilization and institutions extended from end to end of the island, and a railway system, commenced in short lengths from the isolated ports of the different provinces, had joined up and formed an arterial line of communication almost from end to end. Dunedin and Christchurch were then the two best-appointed towns in New Zealand, and possessed the most complete institutions, especially from the point of view of education. Moreover, throughout the, southern provinces had sprung up a number of healthy and flourishing towns, e.g. Invercargill (the capital of the sub-province of Southland), Gore, Oamaru, Timaru, and Rangiora.

The North Island, on the other hand, was still backward. A railway ran from Auckland some distance southward until it touched the aukati, the boundary of the native preserve known as the “ King Country,” which stretched like a neutral zone across the island and formed an impassable barrier to development. From Wellington, too, lines reached northward into the back country, but there was still a gap of nearly two hundred miles between the slowly approaching railheads. Wellington -and Auckland were towns not far inferior to Dunedin and Christchurch in population and just approaching the same dignity in regard to educational institutions. There were some provincial centres, too, e.g. New Plymouth, Wanganui, Palmerston North, Napier, and Gisborne, but each was the centre of its own isolated district until quite recent years.

The harbours of New Zealand in the early days were the natural self-appointed harbours of the coastline. Some of those in the North Island, notably at New Plymouth,

23

Napier, Gisborne, and Wanganui, were rather dangerous open roadsteads, where communication was liable to interruption in any weather but the calmest. In the South Island, too, the spread of settlement compelled the pioneers to use such roadsteads as Hokitika, Timaru, and Oamaru. But as these smaller centres grew in population and trade they adopted schemes for harbour improvement which afforded them shipping facilities and security not much inferior to those available at the natural harbours of Lyttelton, Picton, and Dunedin.

CHAPTER IV

TRAFFIC AND COMMUNICATIONS

FROM the archipelagic character of the group it might appear that waterways would be the principal means of communication in New Zealand. . The islands have an area of 103,000 square miles and a coastline of 4,330 miles. The two main islands are long and narrow, and in the coastline of both are many deep indentations suitable for harbours and in some cases for sheltered navigation. In the north of Auckland especially the rivers run almost imperceptibly into long, reaching gulfs of the sea, so that almost any square mile of the peninsula is easily accessible by water. And it was by this means that the Maori of old moved from place to place. It became the white man’s road, too, in the early days, and even to-day, ploughed by innumerable row-boats, sailing boats and motor boats, it is far from being altogether superseded by railway or road. There is another region where the conditions are something like those of the north of Auckland, viz. the sounds of Marlborough, at the northern end of the South Island. Here a considerable portion of the traffic, especially in timber and farm produce, is carried by water amongst a network of intercommunicating bays and sheltering islands.

But elsewhere the conditions are not so favourable for the use of natural waterways. The fine harbours of western Otago, as we have seen, are shut off by high mountain barriers from the productive lands of the province, which drain naturally to the eastern seaboard. The great Waikato river in the North Island, though navigable without improvement and largely used in former days by both Maori and military, flowed for most of its course through a hostile native country, and was therefore not available for trade before the days of

21

25

the railway. The Wanganui had a similar disability. The early pioneers, in fact, were able to make surprisingly little use of the waterways provided by nature for their use. The first roads almost everywhere were the tracks used by the Maori in passing from pa to pa. These were generally widened out by the pakeha, and in due time were metalled and pushed laboriously ahead wherever the finger of progress pointed.

Road-making and bridging rivers to open up new tracts of land were among the main preoccupations of the Provincial Governments, and absorbed the largest part of their revenue. To the present day, indeed, “roads and bridges” are an engrossing part of State policy ; for the road has always in New Zealand preceded the railway, and the road will always be a necessary lateral feeder of railways. In unopened country the Government, through its Public Works Department, actually makes the road, but generally in half-settled country the County Council rs the constructing body, though it may receive financial help from the central Government.

The railway mania in Europe and America took early hold of the more progressive provinces. Canterbury was the richest of them all, and it decided in iB6O to make a tunnel through the Port Hills and to construct a railway through it from Christchurch to the port of Lyttelton. The General Government had no money for such purposes, but it took cognizance of the work and laid down that the standard gauge for railways in New Zealand should be, as in England, 5 feet 6 inches. The hilly nature of the country and the limited funds at the disposal of the authorities both suggested the advisability of a narrower gauge, and some years later, at considerable added expense, the width of all the railways in the Colony was changed to 3 feet 6 inches. Canterbury’s first line was actually 5 feet 3 inches. The first portion was opened in 1863. In 1870 there were 70 miles of railway open for traffic in different parts of New Zealand, and to-day the total length is about 3,000 miles. When the provincial railways were concentrated in the hands of the General Government (in 1876) there were 718 miles open.

State ownership was then rather an accident than a matter of definite policy ; -but the State in the seventies undertook a very ambitious scheme of railway construction, the cost of

23

which was to be paid by the sale and increment of the lands along the route. Before this scheme made much progress there was a depression—a wave of the great world depression of the seventies—and many ambitions were jettisoned. It was nearly twenty years before the Colony fully recovered its prosperity ; and in this period two considerable railways were undertaken by private enterprise. One of these, the Midland Railway of the South Island, was started by a company which proposed to construct a line from Christchurch through the mountain barrier to the rich coalfields of Westland. The company failed to carry out its contract with the Government, and in 1895 the line reverted to the State. Within the last few years the State itself has made renewed efforts to complete this undertaking. The work is now steadily proceeding, but the boring of a tunnel 5J miles long through the solid rock of the Alps to reduce the grades oyer the passes is a very heavy task which has already baffled one private contractor.

The other private venture was of an entirely different nature. The Manawatu line is 84 miles long and connects with Wellington the flourishing town of Palmerston North, the centre of a very rich agricultural plain with pastoral back country. This line was opened in 1886, and it paid handsomely for twenty years. The Government took it over in 1908, the last piece of privately owned railway in New Zealand. Within the last year or two Parliament has passed a law to encourage once more private enterprise in railway construction. It is to enable settlers, in certain districts where the Government does not wish to provide a railway, to band themselves together, as they already do in co-operative dairy factories and freezing works, and construct light lines. The total cost of constructing the 2,945 miles of railway which were operating in 1915 was £34,133,000.

Up to a few years ago it was the policy of the Government to make the State railways pay interest just as if they were privately owned. They were constructed out of moneys raised at rates varying from 3to 6 per cent.—the bulk at 4 per cent.—but the railway commissioners had never realized more than £3 is. per cent, on the working. At the end of the nineteenth century the demand for facilities for developing the country became more and more insistent, and the

24

Government resumed control of the system, announcing its intention of operating the railways for the benefit of the people and not for the purpose of making a profit. Henceforth all earnings over 3 per cent, were to be returned to the users of the railways in concessions on fares and freights. Every year since 5896 the railways have earned more than 3 per cent, on the capital—twice more than 4 per cent. —and concessions amounting to some millions of pounds have been granted, chiefly to farmers in the carriage of manures and produce and to children travelling for educational purposes. The gross revenue in the year 1914-15 was and the expenditure 71 per cent, of that amount. Though the population of the Dominion is just over one million, the railways carried in the year 13J million passengers and issued 300,000 season tickets. More than a million tons of grain, three million tons of minerals, and seven million sheep and pigs were carried.

Trunk railways for both the main islands are now almost complete. In the South Island the main line runs from Invercargill, in the extreme south, along the whole length of the eastern plains through Dunedin and Christchurch and thence northward to the boundary of Canterbury province. From Picton in the north another line is slowly moving year by year southward along the coast at the foot of the Kaikoura and Looker On Mountains, to join up eventually with the Main Trunk line. At right angles to the trunk line along its whole length numerous branch lines go off, tapping the valleys which run down from the mountain barrier to the sea. A few of these are important, as for example the Otago Central, which taps the high plateau of that province ; the Kingston line, penetrating to the southern lakes ; and the Midland, which strikes in from Christchurch towards the West Coast. The narrow Westland plain, with its coalfields and timber forests, has a railway running from Ross in the south right through to the province of Nelson on the north.

In the North Island the arterial railway from Auckland to Wellington, the North Island Main Trunk, has only recently been completed, the central plateau having been for so long closed to settlement. Another main line runs from Wellington through the extensive Wairarapa plain to Napier, the

2 5

capital of the wealthy province of Hawkes Bay. On the western side of the mountains a branch line leaves the Main Trunk at Marton and links up the province of Taranaki. The northern peninsula of Auckland is slowly being invaded by a railway creeping from the capital towards Bay of Islands, but in the main communications here are still by sea. In the east the wealthy district of Poverty Bay, with its capital of Gisborne, is looking forward to having railway communication with the rest of the Dominion. This is likely to be achieved first by the completion of the railway which is now making its way north-westward across the Motu Mountains towards Bay of Plenty. It will then skirt the shores of the Bay and join the Main Trunk Railway probably at Hamilton. Taranaki province still has its shortest communication with Auckland by sea, through the ports of New Plymouth and Manukau, but the connecting line of railway from Stratford in Taranaki to the Main Trunk at Te Koura is steadily proceeding. In the South Island the province of Nelson has only sea communications with the more populous parts of the Dominion; and Westland is dependent on a number of bar harbours on a dangerous surf-beaten coast for most of its valuable coal traffic with the rest of the Dominion. The completion of the Midland Railway will be a great boon to this part of New Zealand.

New Zealand has no navigation canals at all, find is never likely to have them on an important scale. The elevations are too steep and the rivers generally too swift for canalization. On the other hand, this in itself is likely to conduce to industrial wealth. The great lakes and mountain tarns and the swiftly flowing rivers from the central mountains, as well as the falls from the central plateau of the North Island, have been estimated to contain potential energy which can be harnessed cheaply and will suffice for the growing industries of the Dominion for many years to come. Three of the lakes of western Otago contain something like 1,720,000 brake-horse-power of energy; and nine individual rivers would yield more than 100,000 horse-power each. Some of these are already being developed by State and municipal enterprise.

The insularity of New Zealand is extreme. The population being roughly divided between the two islands trade passes

D

29

between them in a constant, full-bodied stream, and consequently what New Zealanders -call " the ferry" is a wellpatronized crossing. It is almost 200 miles from Lyttelton to Wellington, but there are not many adults in the Dominion who have not at one time of their lives made the passage, and the daily steamers both ways are always crowded. Before the different settlements expanded from their centres and coalesced along the connecting railways, adventurous travellers had to pass from one to the other by small trading brigs and schooners ; and it is on record that members of the General Assembly, going to Auckland for the annual session of Parliament, sometimes occupied a month on the voyage and occasionally made the journey from Otago to. the north by way of Sydney, in Australia!

The far-seeing Scots of Otago gathered up these opportunities in a line of steamers, nursed them carefully, extended them shrewdly, and to-day the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand is one of the largest and most up-to-date shipping lines in the world, extending from the port of Otago to every corner of the Pacific, to India and Australia, to Canada and to England. The frozen-meat industry brought to maturity other shipping projects which had their origin in New Zealand and to-day such companies take a premier position in the trade connection between New Zealand and the Old World. For a community of one million souls New Zealand has a very respectable mercantile marine of her own. The ships registered in the Dominion in 1915 were as follows:

Number.

Tonnage

Steam 384 135.8.?8

Sailing 197 22,714

To these should properly be added 24 vessels of 86,095 tons which had been transferred to the register of the United Kingdom during the year, making a total of 605 vessels, with a tonnage of 244,647.

The oversea shipping entered in New Zealand ports during die year 1914 amounted to 650 vessels with an aggregate tonnage of l| million tons, while the coastwise shipping entered was more than la million tons. But perhaps the most satisfactory feature of New Zealand's mercantile relation.-,

2 7

is the fact that only one-eighth of the oversea shipping trading there is of foreign nationality. The Dominion’s own mercantile marine, too, has been very carefully guarded during recent years with a view to encouraging its British character and improving the conditions of New Zealand seamen. In this respect it is very creditable. New Zealand marine engineers are almost as übiquitous in the world’s mercantile marine as those of Scotland and the Tyne.

The principal lines of shipping touching New Zealand are the great cargo lines which have run with almost the regularity of mail ships, carrying refrigerated produce to the London market. They have in the past made the voyage by Cape Horn, generally calling at Monte Video or Rio de Janeiro, but now show a distinct tendency to use the Panama Canal. The outward voyage has been made by way of the Cape of Good Mope, but this also may be affected by the distance-saving carnal. Most of the west of England ports are regularly visited, and recently Hull also has been made a port of call. From the eastern provinces of Canada there is a monthly cargo service, and from the Pacific port of Vancouver a regular mail-boat connection.

,o " wu '" " "*"— - —— The United States of America are linked up by a periodical mail-steamer service from San Francisco to Wellington, and by a cargo service from New York. The connection with Australia is, of course, much more frequent, at least two steamers a week running each way. A few months before the War Germany had commenced a cargo service to Australian and New Zealand in spite of the fact that New Zealand has for some years past levied an additional customs duty upon goods not of British manufacture.

28

OVERSEAS SHIPPING, 1914.

Vessels Entered— Number. Tonnage.

-..~ ~.,.~..~~ l\umDer. lonnage. Steam 567 1,677,000

Sailing 79 48,000

Vessels Cleared—

vessels Steam 1,736,000

Sailing 75 46,000

Nationality.

1 . Vessels Entered—

British 191 792,000

Colonial 398 848,000

Foreign '57 - 85,000

Coastwise Shipping.

Vessels Entered—

VESSELS E.MEK&D Steam 23,019 12,217,000

Sailing 3,880 176,000

CHAPTER V

GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATION

Like most of the British Dominions New Zealand has a system of government modelled on the regime existing in England in the middle of the nineteenth century, modified here and there to suit the divergent views of young democracies.

For more than a year after the hoisting of the British flag in 1840, New Zealand was a dependency of the Government of New South Wales, administered by a Lieutenant-Governor with the advice of an Executive Council nominated by himself. In 1841 the dependency was erected into a separate colony under very much the same system. This did not work at all satisfactorily, partly because the Colony was very short of revenue, but chiefly on account of the discontent of the pioneers with the obstacles to development. In 1847, a^ter tne usual agitation, a charter was granted dividing the Colony into two provinces. The northern part of the North Island, which contained the majority of the Maori and most of the whites, formed the province of New Ulster; and the balance—including the whole of the despised South Island, which was soon to loom the more important—was the province of New Munster. Each province had a Lieutenant-Governor, a Legislative Council, and an Executive Council; and the Governor of New Zealand was the Governor of both provinces. There was provision also for a representative chamber in each province, but the most advanced democrat of the next generation in New Zealand, Sir George Grey, who was Governor at the time, considered the grant of responsible government premature, and on his own responsibility he suspended this part of the charter.

29

3°

Five years later New Zealand received a Constitution pro* viding for a General Legislative Assembly for the whole Colony, to consist of a nominated Legislative Council and an elective House of Representatives, The provincial boundaries were swept away, and six new provinces were defined, each to be administered by an elective Superintendent and an elective Provincial Council. The councils were elected every four years on what amounted to a householders suffrage, and the superintendents were similarly elected by the voters of the whole province. The Governor of the Colony could dissolve the councils and unseat the superintendents at any time, though in point of fact he rarely interfered at all in provincial affairs. A certain sphere of legislation was reserved to the General Assembly, and the provincial councils acted the part —very important in those days—of glorified County Councils, or Boards of Roads and Bridges. They administered the provincial lands, roads, railways, and educational institutions and generally they did it in a most capable and enlightened manner.

At that time the white population of the Colony was distributed in isolated settlements remote from each other and having very few interests in common. Communications were so poor that the average member of the General Assembly sitting at Auckland could not possibly know anything of the conditions and requirements of communities other than his own. Some of them were 900 miles away, and their circumstances were entirely different. And so for the first three decades of the life of the Colony the provincial system worked very well. Besides providing for the efficient administration of purely local affairs, it fostered that strong local feeling which has ever since been a feature of public life in New Zealand. It provided also an excellent academy for the leading intellects of provincial politics aspiring to enter the wider sphere of the General Assembly. From an exaggeration of local patriotism there developed quite naturally, and rather unhappily, a tendency to parochialism and a marked sentiment of separatism. Otago and Canterbury in particular, rich in the revenues from wide tracts of public lands, and far removed from all alarms of war, grew impatient of the tedious prolongation of the struggle between the settlers and the Maori in the North Island and the heavy expense to which

3i

the Colony was being put. The movement for separation and the setting up of an independent Government in the South Island obtained considerable support from the southern settlers.

Year by year the little settlements expanded from their centres outwards into the wilderness until the farthest pioneers of the neighbouring provinces came into contact. Roads were pushed forward and close behind them the railway. Each settlement had its own ambitious scheme of communications, and presently these met and the separate and rival social systems began to coalesce. Simultaneously great armies of strange adventurers invaded the provinces of the South Island in the search for gold, bringing in their packs new thoughts, new manners, and new ideas, to say nothing of a new infusion of American words and idioms. The day of the provinces was gone for ever. The provincial outlook gave way perforce to the wider outlook of the general interests of the Colony. For the most part the provinces would have been well content to remain as they were. In the South Island especially they were very comfortably off, and they clung tenaciously to the disposition of their fat revenues. But the Colony had outgrown that state of affairs. The end of the Maori War was in sight, and the statesmen of the General Assembly, who had some years earlier shifted their capital from Auckland to Wellington for the sake of centralization, were automatically impelled to further measures of centralization. Whether they liked it or not they had to consider expensive schemes of development, particularly by the construction of railways, and they had only very slender financial resources. They urgently needed a wider basis of credit on which to raise loans in the London market, and this could only be devised by pooling the resources of the provinces.

The General Assembly possessed the power of altering its own Constitution, and, in spite of the determined resistance of the provincial party in the House of Representatives, the provinces were abolished. They went out of existence in 1876 and the control of Crown lands passed to the General Government. The General Government had no desire to be burdened with the small matters of local administration—the roads and bridges which always weigh so heavily on the

32

governors of new countries—and it set up a system of local government by County Councils to carry on this essential work.

The system provided by the Constitution of 1852 remains in force to-day, but with some modifications. The Legislative Council ;(or “ Upper House," as it is popularly called) was until recently a nominated body. Up to 1861 the appointments were actually under the Royal sign manual, but since then they have been made by the Governor of the Colony and not the Sovereign. Until 1891 they were for life. In that year a Liberal wave swept the polls, and amongst its effects the term of office of members of the Council was fixed at seven years, and the Speaker (hitherto appointed by the Governor) became an elective officer of the chamber. The number of members had not been definitely limited. It had once reached fifty-three, and it stood conventionally in the neighbourhoods of forty, the number fixed under the new organic law.

As in other Constitutions where there is one elective and one nominated chamber, it was found in New Zealand that political controversy tended to parliamentary deadlocks. Here too the Government of the day asserted its right to overcome the opposition of a nominated chamber by “ swamping" the recalcitrants with a host of new appointments. But this was not considered a satisfactory solution, and in 1914 the whole constitution of the chamber was recast on the elective principle. For this purpose the Dominion is divided into four electorates (two in each island) and at the next General Election, if the law is brought into operation, twenty-four members will be elected to form the Legislative Council, seven from each of the North Island divisions and five from those in the South Island. At subsequent elections, when the terms of appointment of all the present members will have expired, forty members will be eleqted. In addition the Governor may appoint not more than three members to represent the Maori race. The honorarium of members of the Legislative Council is £2OO per annum.

What has hitherto been the popular chamber—in contradistinction to the Legislative Council—is the House of Representatives, elected every three years on adult suffrage. In 1893 the vote was granted to women, and at the end of

o

36

that year they first voted in a General Election. The electoral boundaries are revised periodically to conform to the movement of population, so as to preserve as nearly as possible an equal value for all votes. At present there are seventy-six European electorates, but there is a re-division of the country into four electorates, for the return of four members by the Maori race. This provision—the logical outcome of a promise implied in the Treaty of Waitangi—became law in 1867. Native members have the right to address the House in their own tongue, but they are usually well educated men who find it easier to speak in English. The salary of members of the House of Representatives (called “ M.P.”) is £3OO per annum. The election of the Speaker is the first business of each Parliament, and he holds office for the period of the Parliament.

The Governor-General of New Zealand is appointed by the Sovereign, his salary of £5,000 and allowances of £2,000 a year being paid by the Dominion. Since 1889 the Governor has always been a peer, and he was granted the dignity of a Governor-General in May 1917.

The Executive Council is parliamentary, and the Prime Minister for more than forty years has been a member of the House of Representatives. There must always be one member of the Cabinet to represent in his person the native race, irrespective of the minister who happens to have charge of native affairs. The Cabinet conventions are much the same as those in Great Britain, a series of rulings by the Colonial Secretaries of the nineteenth century having reduced the Governor to the strictly defined position of a modern constitutional sovereign, who must always act on the advice of his ministers. Thus the dual responsibility of earlier Governors is practically abolished, and there is rarely friction between the Ministry and the representative of the Crown. The veto of the British Government on the legislation of the New Zealand Parliament, though still existing, has been little used of late years, owing partly to a better understanding of the separate spheres of legislation, but chiefly to the temporary settlement of the problem of Asiatic immigration, which had vexed Australasian statesmen for nearly thirty years.

The Civil Service of New Zealand has always been a

34

particularly creditable body, but until quite recently was under direct control of the Ministry as regards appointments and promotions. In 1912, however, an act was passed placing it under a commissioner and two assistant commissioners, who are responsible only to Parliament. The judiciary, officers of Parliament, members of the State railway service, the police and defence forces do not come under the commissioners. The State owns and operates the railways, the posts and telegraphs, an insurance department, and some large coal-mines, and it is landlord too of some millions of acres of occupied holdings. So the integrity of its large Civil Service is an important matter.

Another aspect of administration in which the honour of the Dominion is engaged is the control of native lands in the interests of the Maori, who are the communal owners. This has involved a mass of legislation throughout the whole life of the New Zealand Parliament, and the administration of native land laws and regulations through the Native Department, the Native Land and the Land Court (which must review all transfers of native land whatsoever) is jealously watched and guarded.

The Supreme Court of New Zealand consists of the Chief Justice and Seven puisne judges (two each at Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch, and one at Dunedin). The Court of Appeal is in two divisions, each consisting of the Chief Justice and the two senior judges and two of the other judges of the division. The decision, which is according to a majority, is final as regards the courts of New Zealand, but in civil proceedings the Court of Appeal may give leave to either party to appeal to the Privy Council.

The local government, which was formerly carried out by the Provincial Councils, was transferred on the abolition to elective County Councils (of which there are now 125), road boards (now numbering 130), and town districts (numbering 60). The town district is the intermediary stage between the village (which is taxed by the parent county) and the borough (which entirely controls its own revenue). Harbour boards (of which there are 35) have certain powers of rating, and there are various minor authorities of an ad hoc character, e.g. river boards, drainage boards, water boards, and tramway boards. The total revenue of local governing bodies in New

38

Zealand in 1913-14 was 4I millions and other receipts 2J millions. That of the General Government in 1915 was about 12J millions.

Local government in New Zealand has always been followed with keen public interest. Elections are contested on issues quite distinct from parliamentary politics, and the local bodies form in many cases a stepping-stone to membership of the General Assembly. v

CHAPTER VI

FARM AND FIELD

There was nothing very romantic about the economic life of the Australasian colonies in their early days. The colonists knew they could grow abundant crops for their own sustenance, but they were not always sure of a market beyond their own shores for any surplus yield over what they themselves required. They were well assured of depasturing teeming flocks, but their wool market was the solitary English one, and if Bradford prices were low the landowners of New Zealand were poor. The whole relation was too simple to be safe. All the eggs were in one basket.

The change from this state of things came early in the eighties, when it was discovered that meat and dairy produce, hitherto highly perishable, could by means of refrigeration be transported ffom one end of the world to the other and still retain their quality, flavour, and wholesomeness. Until this discovery landholding had been rather a precarious matter, but it was certainly simple. Now it became gradually more and more complex, but more consistently remunerative. With fully two generations of history behind her New Zealand is still essentially an agricultural country. That is to say, her prosperity depends in the main on the sale overseas of the surplus products of her broad acres. Such manufactures as there are—and they are not inconsiderable—are entirely for the local market, the output being too high-priced for competition abroad. But on the other hand landholding has become an industry of a highly specialized nature insteajl of the mere occupation which it was formerly.

The following tabic, abridged from one prepared by Mr. J. B. Condliffe, M.A. (New Zealand), shows how important the produce of field and farm has always been in

36

37

the external trade of the Dominion. It is a percentage analysis of exports according to value :—■

But although new branches of production have made astonishing strides, wool remains king. Forty years ago, when there were only 11 million sheep in the Colony, the wool exported amounted to about 4 lb. per head of the flocks. To-day the sheep are 25 million, and the export of wool is more than 220 million lb., or upwards of 8 lb. per head of the flocks. This development is sufficiently astonishing without regard to any of the new industries of meat-freezing, tanning, and pelt- and fat-producing, which are based on what were not long ago the waste by-products of the sheep. In point of fact, the two industries have gone hand in hand. Before the days of refrigeration it did not pay the sheep-farmer to select too rigidly or to cull too severely, for the wool was the only crop which brought him a revenue. There was far too much meat in the country for requirements. It had no market value. But when meat became marketable beyond the borders of New Zealand this was soon changed. Selection for size of carcase also became lucrative, and the larger animals, bred for the purpose of meat, also produced heavier clips of wool. The table on p. 38 shows the development of the New Zealand flocks and the clip of wool, but it must be borne in mind that the sheep to-day is of much lower average age. In 1915 about 4 million sheep and 4J million lambs were slaughtered for food purposes, and still the flocks remained at the average level.

In 1914 the wool export amounted in value to about 9 million pounds out of the 25 millions of our exports. In fact, the wool cheque is rarely less than one-third of the whole receipts of the Dominion for exports.

38

As before stated, the development of the New Zealand flocks during the last thirty years has been largely conditioned by the finding of new markets for frozen meat. Half a dozen lines of large meat-carrying steamers are to-day running constantly between New Zealand and England, which is practically the sole market for New Zealand meat, and the export has grown at an amazing rate. Although the statistics show that there were in 1915 about 25 millions of sheep in New Zealand, 8£ millions (most of which do not appear in the figures) were slaughtered in that year for food, and of these more than 6 millions were exported to the United Kingdom. Nine years ago the number exported was only millions.

Coincident with the growth of the freezing industry there has been a steady movement also in the area of the holdings in New Zealand. Between 1889 and 1910 about 4 million acres of land formerly held in areas of more than 10,000 acres was subdivided into smaller areas. The proportions of the sheep flocks changed correspondingly. Between 1891 and 1915 the flocks numbering more than 10,000 sheep decreased by almost one-half (from 408 to 229), but the smaller flocks almost doubled. The 12,000 flockowners of 1891 were 22,000 in 1915.

New Zealand's reputation for frozen meat is based on the production of light carcases of very tender quality, which have always commanded prices in the London market second only to those for English mutton. " Canterbury lamb" is the special product of the fine grassland of the province of Canterbury, and is now almost as well known in Great Britain as is Welsh mutton. The native qualities of the meat have established its reputation, but the good repute of all New Zealand meat—and indeed of most of our exports—is secured by a rigid State inspection and control. Every carcase of meat that is slaughtered is examined by a qualified veterinarian

42

and certified by the affixing of a metal certificate. This is another manifestation of the policy of State control which has done so much for certain of our staple industries.

The co-operative spirit has entered very largely into the freezing industry, most of the abattoirs and meat-preserving works being owned by companies the shareholders of which are the sheep-farmers and graziers whose animals are purchased as raw material by the works. It is practically the same system as underlies the dairying industry.

Until quite recently it was not practicable tp export beef in a frozen state. “ Chilling ” was the process by which beef was carried to the United Kingdom from the nearer fields of North and South America; but chilling could not be sustained for sufficiently long to cover the voyage from Australasia. Cattle had consequently less value from the meat point of view and tended to give place to sheep on all suitable lands. In quite recent years, however, the cold storage of beef has been so improved as to make it possible to ship from New Zealand to England in good condition ; and the export of beef to England is now expanding rapidly. Ten years ago only 7,000 tons of beef was exported in the course of the year. For the last year the quantity was almost 50,000 tons, and the value about 2 million pounds. In fifteen years from 1896 the herds of New Zealand increased from 1 to 2 million head.

But in regard to cattle the export of beef is by no means the staple. This takes us back to a very remarkable development in the industrial economy of New Zealand. Behind this, also; was the magic of refrigeration. In the old colonial days butter and cheese-making were almost entirely on a scale for home consumption. On many farms they did not trouble to run a dairy at all, but obtained butter from their neighbours. The quality on the whole was indifferent, and neither butter nor cheese would keep long enough to ship to England. Australia was the only outside market. Borrowing the idea from Denmark, the Government of New Zealand offered a substantial prize for the first 50 tons of cheese produced on the co-operative system, which seemed to embody the germ of success in dairying, if not, indeed, of all small farming. The effect was complete and almost instant. Whereas the individual farmer -can rarely make butter or cheese con-

43

sistently of a fixed quality; cannot afford the machinery which is essential for success; and cannot produce sufficiently large quantities to establish a reputation for a brand, the co-operative factory, using the milk from a great number of adjacent farms, can do all of these things. It can buy expensive machinery ; it can pay highly skilled managers; it can collect milk from miles around and so produce a large quantity of a given quality and brand. For this to succeed it was necessary that there should be a constant market. Here again refrigeration bridged the gap between the producer of perishables at one side of the world and the consumer at the other. Creameries and dairy factories, erected by capital contributed by the owners of the cows, sprang up all over the country. Henceforward the farmer had two sources of revenue. He was paid a proper price for his butter-fat delivered daily at the factory; and he drew his dividends yearly or half-yearly from the profits of the factory.

In the ten years before refrigeration was introduced New Zealand exported only 1,800 tons of butter and cheese. In the succeeding ten years the export was 23,000 tons, and during the ten years ended 1914 it was 380,000 tons. In 1915 New. Zealand received 6 million pounds for her exports of dairy produce. Nine hundred factories and skimming stations, using the milk of 800,000 dairy cattle, had supplied the local market liberally and produced that surplus for exchange abroad. During the period of the year when England's nearer sources of supply—Denmark, Canada, Holland, and Siberia—are out of action, the butter and cheese from New Zealand reaches the London market in a constant succession of large-steamers specially designed for this trade. The principal dairying districts of New Zealand are Taranaki, Auckland, Wellington, and Otago.

In dairying, too, the State insists on exercising control over the quality of the export. Every case of butter and cheese which is intended to be sent abroad passes through the grading stores and receives the cachet of the State expert. If "marks" have to be deducted in the grading, the factory is at once advised of the reason, and is thus enabled to rectify the trouble. Careful selection of herds has developed a high yield per cow for so young a country ; and disease has been reduced to a minimum by the powers of inspection and destruction which are given to the State

4i

veterinarians. Any cow which is discovered to be diseased is at once destroyed and the owner is compensated. For geographical reasons the cultivation of cereals in New Zealand has become practically a home industry. It is almost confined to the feeding of stock and producing flour and oatmeal for the home population. The yields per acre are indeed very high, and are unexcelled in any other country, a result which is due rather to the unfailing water supply and the abundant sunshine than to any special qualities of the soil. The wheat yield per acre is generally at least 50 per cent, higher than that of Australia, and it is very regular, fluctuating between about 24 and 35 bushels per acre. The average for three decades has been 29 bushels. As an item of export wheat has fallen into a third-fate position, and during the last decade or two it has scarcely ranked at all. The total yield of the Dominion is so small—varying from 5 to 9 million bushels—that it only comes into demand abroad when there happens to be an unexpected shortage. Landowners have come to expect a more constant and therefore a more profitable demand for dairy produce and meat, and consequently they tend more and more to grow wheat purely for feed and flour.

In oats too New Zealand is accustomed to look rather to local needs than to export trade. The area under oats is fairly constant, say from 350,000 to 400,000 acres, and the total yield is remarkably steady. The lowest average yield in the last ten years was 31-83 bushels per acre and the highest 4871. Yet the export in that time has twice been more than 4 million bushels and twice less than 100,000 bushels. The grain requirements of the world are met by fields of production so much larger and so much nearer that the New Zealand farmer has no encouragement to grow except for his own needs. A drought in Australia occasionally offers a chance market for a chance surplus. As an illustration of the development of new sources of wealth from the pastoral industry, the following export figures, for the year ended May 1916, are striking :

Tons.

Tons. Tallow 1,000

Sheepskins 10,000

„ (with wool) 1,400

Sausage skins 2,000

Hides (no) 300,000

4 2

{From the New Zealand Official Year Book.)

FLOCKS AND HERDS.

Sheep.

Number.

1886 15,174,000

1906 20,108,000

1915 24,901,000

Size of Fj.ocks.

IB.JI. 1915.

Under 500 8,272 n,539

500-1,000 1,691 4,728

1,000-2,000 969 I , . - iTI \ 5,626 2,000-5,000 666 ) ■"

5,000-10,000 287 558

10,000-20,000 239 191 20,000 and upwards 169 38

12,293 22,680

Cattle.

Number.

1881 699,000

1894 SBs,ooo

1906 1,811,000

ign 2,020,000

The cows Intended for dairy purposes in 191 1 numbered 804,000.

4

CHAPTER VII

FORESTS, MINES, AND LABOUR

A primary industry peculiar to New Zealand and dating back to the very origin of the Colony is the preparation of hemp or Phormium tenax, which is chiefly used for making rope. Found growing generally in sedgy waste places, the "flax," as it is popularly called, furnishes from its sword-shaped leaves a fibre of extreme strength. It was used by the Maori for a multiplicity of purposes, both woven and spun into rope. Its qualities were soon ascertained by the ships of war which visited New Zealand, and a hundred years ago the Admiralty made experiments and gave an opinion that Phonuiitm tenax was a most valuable material for rope-making.

From being a house-industry with the natives, the preparation of flax has been made a factory industry by the whites. Unfortunately, chiefly for lack of supervision, its history has been a constant alternation of booms and slumps. This has been due in large measure to the fact that the hemp, being found on waste land, was taken up fitfully and worked out when prices were high, little regard being paid to the quality of the leaf cut and none to the prospects of future crops. The case for State regulation here was so good that the paternal Seddon Government passed a grading law, which insisted on the inspection of every bale of fibre submitted for export. There was much controversy over the details, but grading of hemp has established itself by public approval, and has apparently conduced considerably already to transform " flaxmilling" from a mere sporadic depredation of the swamps—a thing of booms and depressions—to a regular and prosperous industry. Millers now take pains to cut their leaf by annual rotation so as to ensure a continuous supply, and it is consequently less common for mills

rr jj 1 j 43

44

to be closed down in bad seasons, throwing the employes out of work. The output has become more regular. Whereas before the days of grading the export varied from 2,000 to 20,000 tons per year, since the law was passed the range of variation has been between 17,000 and 28,000 tons The quality too has become more even. Every bale is sent out of the country with the State certificate as a guarantee of its quality; and where it has been “ marked down ” for any defect in quality of leaf or in preparation, this is reported to the mills for correction. At the census of 1911 there were 8x flaxmills in operation, and the export of hemp for the year ended May 1916 was about 25,000 tons, valued at

Timber was an obvious primary industry in a country so richly afforested as the explorers found New Zealand to be. The quest for spars was one of .the strongest inducements to the naval explorers of France and Britain to visit the group. With the exception of Canterbury all the provinces were liberally endowed with timber, so liberally indeed that they had no appreciation of its value. The best trees were cut out for building houses, for firewood and for fencing, and the rest of the bush was ruthlessly burned to clear the ground for grass. This sort of thing had gone on without restriction for fifty years when the urgency of settling the land gave it another fillip. In reality the New Zealand forests have been unprotected almost up to the present time. The kauri pine, a very valuable timber tree which grew only in North Auckland and was believed to take as much as a thousand years to attain maturity, is now in imminent danger of extinction. The New Zealand forests were estimated in 1909 to contain sufficient timber of all varieties to last for another fifty years at the existing rate of destruction. Of late there has been a good deal of scientific tree-planting, but it is doubtful whether anything that can be done in this way will do much to replace the forests which have been, or are being, destroyed. In 1914 83 million superficial feet of timber was exported, chiefly to Australia, and largely by means of schooners and other light draft vessels which navigate the northern rivers and tidal mouths. Much of this timber is the flavourless and odourless white pine, which is of great value for making butter and cheese cases. At the same time there is a

45

considerable import of timber for special purposes—pine from Oregon and hardwoods from Australia.

A species of by-product of the ancient kauri forests of Auckland which is still systematically worked, is the gum of the fossil kauri, a sort of resin used chiefly in making varnish. Gum-digging is principally in the hands of immigrant Croats and other Jugoslavs from the subject provinces of Austria. Probing in the peaty soil with long sharp spears, the digger detects the presence of hard lumps of resin, digs them up and sorts them into sizes and qualities for the market. More than 8,000 tons per year on an average is exported, American buyers taking rather more of it than the British. Year in and year out, kauri gum has figured more prominently in the exports than any other mineral except gold. For the last quarter of a century it has brought in about half a million pounds sterling a year. Fruit-growing has only lately come much into favour in New Zealand. Commercial orchards do not yet exceed 50,000 acres in extent; but this industry also promises to profit greatly by the improved means of conveying perishables to the great centres of population of the Old World. The development of fruit-growing in Nelson, Hawkes Bay, Canterbury, and Otago has been considerable, and during the last few seasons 60,000 cases of apples on an average have been exported to South America. Canning is also practised. Here again the State assists by demonstration and education, and an Act was passed in 1913 providing for the raising of not more than .£25,000 a year for the establishment of fruit stores and canning factories and other forms of assistance. Vine-growing has been made successful in Hawkes Bay and the north of Auckland, but the strength of the temperance movement is a serious discouragement to wine-making.

Sea fisheries in the waters around New Zealand are a source of great wealth to the home population. There are 1,600 fishing-boats registered as permanently employed in sea fishing, and in 1911 there were twenty fish-curing and preserving works, the output being valued at about In 1914 the export of fish—much of it fresh fish in cold storage —was worth £40,000, but more than twice that amount was spent in the import of fish from abroad. The oyster fisheries,

49

which also have been put under State control to prevent their destruction, are a very important department, New Zealand oysters being a much-appreciated luxury. About 8,000 sacks of oysters are sold each year. The beds in Foveaux Strait, between the South Island and Stewart Island, are believed to be inexhaustible; but those in the North Island have more than once had to be protected. Private picking is now no longer permitted there. The State itself does the picking and marketing. Seal and whale fishing—the magnet which drew European seamen to the “beaches” early in the nineteenth century—are now suffering from the unlicensed operations of earlier generations; but the New Zealand Government is applying protective measures which promise to preserve what is left and to build up a new industry.

Although the gold production of New Zealand, largely facilitated in recent years by the abandonment of alluvial mining and the perfection of the cyanide process of extraction, has amounted up to the present in value to 90 million pounds, there can be little doubt that the coal measures, which are widely distributed from end to end of the Dominion, are of superior economic value. Much of the coal is of indifferent quality, and few of the seams have been traced for more than a few miles, the formation of the ground being generally faulty. But the coal proved to exist amounts to more than 1,000 million tons, and is probably double that quantity. There is little anthracite, but the known deposits of bituminous coal amount to 370 million tons : and some of this, on the west coast of the South Island, is the finest steam coal in the Pacific. The amount of coal raised has trebled in the last twenty years, and is now more than 2 million tons a year ; but in spite of this expansion there has been a constantly increasing demand. The State has opened several mines to supply coal retail to the householder, but yet the import of this commodity has increased year by year, until to-day it is valued at about half a million a year. One factor in this demand is the separation of the rich coalfields of Westland from the"chief centres of population—a separation which it is hoped will be reduced soon by the completion of the railway tunnel through the Southern Alps. The coal exported, amounting now to about a third of a million tons, is chiefly steam coal for ships leaving New Zealand ports.

50

It has previously been said that New Zealand is not a manufacturing country. But this is only true in so far as its external trade is concerned. Though possessing plentiful coal and water power, the Dominion lacks the essential condition for cheap manufacturing of a considerable home market. Nevertheless the self-reliant spirit finds expression in a very vigorous development—sometimes under tariff protection—of such industries as iron and brass-founding, tanning and fellmongering, printing, clothing, boot manufacturing, ham and bacon curing, furniture-making, soap and candle works, coachbuilding, fruit preserving, and agricultural implement making. Most of these trades, it will be seen, are either an advanced stage in the preparation of agricultural products or are in the nature of food manufacturing, personal clothing, and machinery repairs. For twenty-five years past there has been a steady increase of protection for such industries for the benefit of social conditions in the Dominion, and pari passu a reduction of the duties on the food necessaries of life. Engineering must always be important in a country enjoying such physical conditions and urgently requiring improved communications. Railways, roads, bridges, and shipping must have their providing industries, to say nothing of mining in its varied aspects.

As the outcome of the grave depression of the eighties, New Zealand entered the reconstruction period with very definite views on social improvement. The old regime had passed irrevocably. The new must be built up on the ashes, The demand for land for the landless, elsewhere referred to> was met in the first instance by passing an Act, in 1892, which authorized the State to assume compulsorily large private estates which seemed suitable for closer settlement. At first these estates, when cut up into farms, were leased in perpetuity at a rental of 5 per cent, on the capital value with costs added ; but in 1908 a renewable lease for thirty-three years at a reduced rent of 4J per cent, was substituted. A few years later a law was passed, after many years of controversy, allowing the holders of these leases to acquire the freehold. These subdivision laws have been of great benefit to the Dominion. Up to March 1915 282 estates, aggregating 1$ million acres, had been acquired at an average cost of about £$ per acre. There are now on this land, in place of the 282 original

51

owners, 6,000 selectors with their families. A vast area of Crown lands has also been thrown open for settlement on various tenures to encourage selectors; and the tenants of the State to-day number altogether 33,000, occupying 20 million acres of land. Adding 46,000 freeholders, there are altogether 74,000 landholders in New Zealand, theii holdings aggregating 40 million acres,, which is 60 per cent, of the whole land of the Dominion.

Simultaneously with this assistance to the land-seeking classes, something had to be done to improve the situation of the large portion of the workers who were in no way connected with the land. Sweating, long hours, and low pay had become widespread during the depression : and, as the outcome of a royal commission on the subject, certain laws were passed. Shop hours were limited : it was forbidden to pay wages in goods : and a system of. supervision of factories and workrooms was inaugurated. The most far-reaching of these laws was the Act passed in 1894 to encourage the formation of industrial unions of men and associations of employers and to facilitate the settlement of disputes by arbitration. The principle of collective bargaining was adopted as basic. All industrial disputes were referred first of all to a Board of Conciliation, which took evidence and came to a decision. But if either side objected to the decision the case went to the Arbitration Court. There the whole process was gone through de novo. The Arbitration Court was intended to be a Court of Appeal, and its president was a Jud«e of the Supreme Court, but in practice it soon had to hear practically all cases, for both parties were very rarely satisfied with the judgment.

Prosperity conspired with the framers of the Act to make it succeed. Between 1896 and 1906 the wages of the registered workers increased 18 per cent., and the registered workers themselves increased in number 75 per cent. The male wages increased 13 per cent, and the female 39 per cent. For some years almost all the decisions of the court went in favour of the workers, whose wages constantly rose. Prices were rising at the same time, but Parliament consented again and again to increase certain customs duties and so protect the home worker against the competition of cheaper products from abroad. The conservation of a standard of living has always been more sought after by New Zealand statesmen

52

of recent years than mere cheapness of living. The real prosperity of the Dominion is based on the production of foodstuffs and raw material for the British market. It is recognized that all classes in the country cannot directly benefit from what is essentially a class industry, and the protection given to town workers both by the wages courts and by the customs tariff constitutes them a home market of high purchasing power, besides enabling them to take advantage of the fine system of education which the country affords.

In 1896 27,000 factory workers were organized in unions : in 1906 34,000 : and in 1914 74,000. Employers' associations in 1905 embraced 3,270 employers: in 1914 5,800. The constitution of the industrial courts has been altered on several occasions. In 1915 34 agreements between workers and employees were approved : 93 disputes were settled on the recommendation of Conciliation Councils: and 71 by judgments of the Arbitration Court. Though strikes have not been altogether eliminated in New Zealand, there were none at all from 1894 to 1907. Up to 1914 only 51 strikes had occurred within the scope of the Act and 93 outside. The men were successful in 25 and the employers in 84. The total number of strikers was 17,300 and the total loss of wages is estimated at ,£529,000, probably a much smaller sum than would have been involved in a period of twenty years in the absence of any regulating legislation.

The situation of the New Zealand workers has been improved in many ways. Fixation and protection of wages are important: but the splendid free education, the liberal system of old age pensions and the provision for the erection of workers’ dwellings (still in a little developed stage) are all of great social value.

5°

OCCUPIED LANDS, 1911.

CHAPTER VIII

SOCIAL CONDITIONS

We have seen in a general way how the different colonies of British people tame to New Zealand and established their homes there. I say " British " people, because New Zealand is quite unique in the British character of its population. The whole non-British element in the country is less than 2J per cent.; and the British tendency of New Zealand policy and relations conforms very closely to this constitution of the population.

Some years ago, in an exhaustive investigation of the origins of the New Zealand people, I came to the conclusion that their extraction was proportioned as follows :

English 50 per cent.

Scots 20 „

Irish 18

Maori 5

Foreign 2j u '

Indefinite ... 4j „

The real foundation of the Colony may be said to date from 1814, when Samuel Marsden established at the Bay of Islands a mission composed entirely of Englishmen. Thenceforward for nearly thirty, years all sorts and conditions of men came to the " beaches" as whalers, traders, and runaways. The English origin of the Colony was reaffirmed in 1840 by the migration of several associations of pioneers to Wellington, to Taranaki, to Wanganui, and to Nelson. These adventurers were organized by an English association actuated by the Wakefield principle of colonizing by planting in the new lands sectional offshoots of English society, from the bishop and the earl at the top to the domestic and the

' See Royal Colonial Institute Proceedings February 1910.

51

55

labourer at the bottom. In one of their reports the directors of the New Zealand Company say :

The aim of this company is not confined to mere emigration, but is directed to colonization in its ancient and systematic form. Its object is to transplant English society with its various gradations in due proportion, carrying out our laws, customs, associations, habits, manners, feelings—everything of England, in short, but the soil. We desire so now to cast the foundations of the Colony that in a few generations New Zealand shall offer to the world a counterpart of our country in all the most cherished peculiarities of our own social system and national character, as well as in wealth and power.

This may not have been a democratic foundation, but it formed the basis of a very healthy democratic development. In point of fact all the various classes of English- society were represented in the first expeditions which sailed to Port Nicholson and Canterbury; and New Zealand to-day owes an immense debt to the foresight and the public spirit which took to its shores at the beginning so many men of good family and high intellectual attainments. Oxford and Cambridge were in at the birth of New Zealand, and the public life of the Colony in later generations profited tremendously by their contribution.

The earliest English emigrants came largely from Sussex, Kent, and Warwick, but thenceforward the ships sailed from Plymouth, and the bulk of the emigrants were sturdy and independent sons of the West Country—Devon and Cornwall. The Wakefield principles were best expressed in the constitution of the Canterbury settlement, which was organized by a Church of England society. These people were almost entirely English ; in fact membership of that Church was one of the essential qualifications in the early days of the association. In later decades there were some further organized settlements of English people, but generally when the seeds of the settlement had once been planted the ties of kinship were sufficient to induce a continued stream of English immigration. The desire to improve their conditions—and here and there the mere spirit of adventure—have on the whole been the chief actuating motive in English colonization.

Scotland has given two most valuable contributions to the national character of New Zealand; the one a fervent belief in the efficacy of religion and education, the other an unconquerable habit of frugal industry. By virtue of

56

these the influence of the Scots in New Zealand is considerably wider than the percentage of Scots extraction would suggest. The Irish, on the other hand, though very much in evidence in the earliest provincial and national councils, have not exercised such a coherent influence on New Zealand fife. The individual character of their contribution is probably to be ascribed to the fact that there was no organized Irish colonization and the emigrants were largely leaderless.

Of the foreign element in New Zealand there is nothing much to be said. A Danish bishop, exiled after the war of 1864, had much to do with the influx of Scandinavians in the seventies. They are to-day the most considerable body of foreigners in New Zealand ; yet they number only ij per cent, of the whole population. A few German whalers settled at Akaroa before 1840, and a shipload or two of their countrymen from Mecklenburg founded their own separate villages near Nelson a few years later. Of the French occupation of Akaroa in 1840 scarcely a vestige remains. Sixty Gallic pioneers were absorbed in the population of New Zealand, and French names still remain on the topography of Banks Peninsula. Otherwise French influence does not exist.

Two or three generations of evolution have moulded not quite the social system which the pioneers intended to establish. The classes are not so sharply defined in New Zealand as in the old land, and they are based on slightly different foundations. The nobility, of course, has no fixed place in oversea societies. The " services," too, provide as yet no social caste. Success in business or as landowners, and prominence in the professions (Law, Medicine, the Church, and Higher Education), if combined with good character, give social prestige, which mere prominence in politics does not give.

The social condition of the mass of the people in New Zealand is very high—higher probably than anywhere else in the world. The statement that the private wealth of the adult population is £433 per head means little. In a population of one million 14,000 people paid income tax in 1914-15, all in receipt of less than £3OO a year beJhg exempt ; and these taxed incomes, including those of corporations, amounted to an average of £I,OOO. As throwing some light on the lower grades of income, We find that in 1914 the deposits in the savings bank amounted to £l9 per head of population

57

and per head of the depositors (who were almost half the population). One in seven of the population was insured, and the value of the policies averaged .£39 per head of the population and -£254 per insured person. The friendly societies had 75,000 members and an average capital of £23 ns. per member.

These figures, in so far as they indicate the capacity for saving surplus income, are an evidence of a very high standard of wealth, but they are only a truthful index to social conditions when read in conjunction with such facts as the educational statistics provide. Partly owing to the keen enthusiasm of the Scots of Otago and the English of Canterbury, New Zealand had at a very early stage a comprehensive system of education. The first university college, that of Otago, was opened in 1869. Far removed from the religious controversies which wrecked the educational ambitions of the old country, the General Government of New Zealand in 1877 made education both free and compulsory and separated it from religious teaching. Two generations of New Zealanders have now grown up in the full enjoyment of these advantages and so comfortably situated in regard to income that they have generally been able, if they wished, to further their own education after school days and to indulge the tastes thus developed. High intellectual prizes are not usually attainable in young countries, but a high average standard of education is attainable, especially where the facilities are cheap and universal and the wages are high. In New Zealand more than 90 per cent, of the people between the ages of ten and seventy-five years can read and write. Education is not merely free. Being also compulsory, it follows the children into the least accessible parts of the country, wherever four or five can be assembled. In sparsely peopled regions, also, they are permitted to travel free on the railways to the nearest suitable schools. In recent years secondary education has also been made much cheaper, so that to-day only 16 out of every 100 scholars who pass on to secondary schools have to pay any fees at all.

The annual expenditure per head of population on primary education in New Zealand is about 205., exactly half as much again as in England. On education altogether it is 245. yd. per head. Although compulsion ends theoretically at the

58

age of fourteen as in England, only one-half of the children leave school on reaching that age. At the different colleges of the University of New Zealand (one in each of the four main centres) there were in 1914 about 2,100 students in attendance, and of these 860 were holders of scholarships and studentships. A considerable number of young New Zealanders go every year from their own colleges to the universities of Great Britain and America—and occasionally of Germany—and a certain proportion of them are yearly returning to their native land as teachers or in suitable commercial positions.

All this preliminary groundwork means that literature, poetry, art, and music flourish in a healthy infancy. It was in New Zealand that Alfred Domett and Samuel Butler got much of their literary inspiration. New Zealand has produced her novelists (Farjeon, Marriott Watson, G. B. Lancaster), her poets (Arthur Adams, W. Pember Reeves, Jessie Mackay). She is producing an artist or two. She has produced not one or two songsters, and music has its throne, however humble, in practically every home in the .Dominion. In their daily life the NewZealanders have a newspaper press which produces quite frequent samples of literature and which is on the highest plane from the standpoints of expert journalism, efficient technique, and high moral and political tone. It is astonishing to find a community of one million souls in possession of 63 daily newspapers, besides a host of triweekly and weekly journals and a number of very fine illustrated weeklies. This multiplicity of journals is an interesting manifestation of that strong local patriotism which both grew out of and supported the old provincial system of government. The importation of books, magazines, and papers from abroad (especially from England) is also very heavy, the general level of education being indicated by a ravenous appetite for reading. About 400 public libraries share each year in the State subsidy to libraries (amounting to about ss. in the pound on nominal income) ; and school libraries receive similar encouragement. In each of the chief cities there is an art gallery to which additions are being made each year, both of the works of New Zealand artists and of those of Royal Academicians.

Though modern communications have to some extent reduced distances, the social development of New Zealand

59

is still largely conditioned by the distribution of the people. Only four-tenths of the population live in cities and towns of more than 10,000 people. The remainder may be regarded as quite rural. This has an important bearing on the public health, an aspect of social welfare in which figures do offer valid comparisons. The death-rate per 1,000 of population in New Zealand was only 9-47 in 1913, as compared with 137 in England and Wales, 177 in France, and 14-1 in the United States. But the special pride of the eugenists of the Dominion centres in the statistics of infant mortality. By the help of a vigorous educational campaign the rate of infant mortality was reduced from 67-52 per 1,000 births in 1905 to si'3B in 1914. No country in the world for which there are reliable figures can show anything approaching such a record. Here are some selected from the statistics of 191 2:—

Deaths per 1,000

births.

New Zealand 5 1

Australia 7 2 t> t 1 1 nr^l— <-ir

England and Wales 95 ™ *a

France 7&

Germany 147

Even with the lowest infant death-rate in the world New Zealand realized that much could still be done to reduce it, and that the fears engendered by a falling birth-rate might be more than groundless if infant mortality could be correspondingly reduced. The movement, which was led byLady Plunket (wife of the Governor) and Dr. F. Truby King, took the shape of an education programme on child-feeding. As in other countries, the birth-rate has fallen in New Zealand from 35'4° P er i> ooo °f population for the period 1882-6, to 25-15 per 1,000 for the period 1910-14. But the death-rate has fallen at the same time ; so that to-day only two countries in the world (Bulgaria and Australia) have a higher rate of natural increase. From*a eugenic standpoint a low birth-rate is not undesirable so long as the infants born can be kept alive and the increase of the race preserved. In any case, the birthrate in New Zealand is greater than that of England and Wales. The New Zealanders are essentially an outdoor people, and much addicted to open-air sports and games. For thirty years or more Rugby football has been the national game of the boys and young men. There are very few schoolboys indeed who have managed to avoid their apprenticeship of this robust game.

60

Here again the intense local patriotism of the old provincial days has stimulated rivalry and produced a very high standard of efficiency. School has played against school, district against district, union against union, province against province, each arena being the trying-out ground for the one above. Some of the premier clubs in the "different provinces have been practically invincible for considerable periods of years, and their careers have been watched with the greatest interest and pride by the whole province. Under these competitive conditions Rugby football has reached a pitch of excellence in New Zealand not even achieved in its homeland. The All Black team which visited England in 1905 was only once defeated (by Wales), and it scored 830 points against 39 scored by the various opposing teams. •

Other international tours have shown that the New Zealanders still remain first, but that the South Africans are a very good second, England and Australia following* In Australia, of course, cricket is the national game. At the wickets New Zealand is not nearly so successful, though cricket is now being carefully fostered in the schools and colleges. Hockey and tennis are also popular with both sexes, and school and provincial contests are frequently held.

As in most new countries, horses are much prized in New Zealand. Two of the most popular outings of the year are the annual agricultural show and the periodical race meetings. Most of the provincial towns have their jockey club, and each of the provincial capitals has a metropolitan club which holds several—in some cases four—race meetings in the year, some of them extending over three days. New Zealand-bred horses have achieved noteworthy successes both in Australia and in England. Betting on horse-races is illegal and the newspapers may not publish “tips” or betting news. But to provide an outlet for the speculative passion the''Government permits betting by means of the licensed totalizator. Information on this subject is classified, strangely enough under “ Law and Crime," in the New Zealand Official Year Book; but there are also revenue figures which show that the State in 1914-15 received from totalizator tax (this being at the rate of 2J per cent, on the total amount passed through the machines). On 260 days of racing the public staked 4J million pounds in this way.

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Another interesting aspect of social life in New Zealand is the problem of liquor control. A strong temperance movement culminated in 1893 in the passing of a local option law, and at every election since then there has been a warm contest for superiority between the opposing views. Female suffrage intensified the keenness in these polls to an extraordinary extent. Since 1896 more than 95 per cent, of the persons qualified to be electors have been enrolled and generally about 80 per cent, of these have voted. It argues a very high degree of political interest that 521,000 votes should be recorded by electors out of a total population of all ages of only one million. "Nolicense" was carried in one district (Clutha) as long ago as 1893. In 1902 two more districts carried it, and since then the number of districts having no-license has been increased to 12 out of a total of 68. For some years past there has been provision for a " National prohibition" poll, under which, if three-fifths of the votes recorded in the Dominion are in favour of no-license it will become effective throughout the Dominion. The first of these polls in 1911 showed a slight majority of the votes in favour of prohibition, but the succeeding one reversed the position. Feeling on the licensing question has always been remarkably stable.

(From the New Zealand Official Year Book.)

CHAPTER IX

THE IMPERIAL OUTLOOK

During the whole of the colonial period New Zealand’s isolation was so complete, even from her nearest neighbour Australia, that one wonders that the statesmen of the Colony had any outlook at all on the affairs of the Empire and the world beyond.

Yet, strangely enough, it was New Zealand that over and over again led the Australasian colonies in matters of Imperial policy. Such questions did not arise very early in her history, but when they did she was able to express an opinion on them and to give a lead. There were special reasons which made her jealous of her own defence. The Colony had actually been founded in face of a threat of forestalment by the French. No sooner was this danger warded off than native wars threatened its existence from within; and the militia, so often a mere conventional figure in British Constitutions, was brought into being and put into the field. •

As soon as responsible government was set up the Colony had perforce to legislate for its own defence against internal troubles; and a few years later the British Parliament, frightened by the growing expense of the Maori wars, decided that self-governing colonies should bear their own burdens of internal defence and should contribute also to those of external defence. In iB6j, while New Zealand was still in the throes of the Maori War, the Imperial Government insisted on being paid for the troops that were serving there. The demand was enforced by ceaseless disputes between the Colonial Government and the Imperial commander, to say nothing of the constitutional arguments between the' Colonial Government and the Colonial Office; and it helped the

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colonists to make up their minds to end the war with their own resources. “ Self-reliance " became a popular catchword with politicians. The last Imperial troops were withdrawn early in 1870, and New Zealanders since have always mentioned with pride that they brought the war to a close with their own troops and in their own way. From 1866 to 1872 (when peace was declared) the field campaign was practically maintained by the colonial troops under their own officers.

These long years of militia warfare, almost unique in nine-teenth-century colonization, gave the New Zealand character that penchant for military life which showed itself again and again in the succeeding generation. Self-reliance became a prized trait of New Zealand character. Henceforth neither public nor politicians ever expected their country to be defended by any hands but their own, and in land defence New Zealand has always maintained a force commensurate with the menace to which she thought herself exposed.

After the withdrawal of the Imperial troops from the colonies more than one colony allowed a considerable interval to elapse before any local forces were organized. Most of them, in fact, awaited the report of Sir W. F. D. Jervois and Sir Peter Scratchley in 1876; and even then the new Russian scare was required to set some of them in motion. New Zealand alone possessed all the time a force in being which could have presented an efficient front to an •invader. The last occasion on which armed force on any considerable scale was used against the Maori was in 1881. But the instinct of self-defence was strongly developed, and the volunteer system of New Zealand was always something worthy of consideration.

When the war in South Africa broke out New Zealand needed only the inspiration of Seddon to throw herself wholeheartedly into the conflict. There was no prepared skeleton of an expeditionary force. Seddon merely offered 200 mounted riflemen, and they were accepted. They fitted well enough into the guerilla formations which so soon held the field in South Africa. But they were a mere advance guard of what was to follow. By voluntary enlistment the number of men was raised again and again until the total sent to the front was not much short of 10,000.

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After the Boer War, defence fell back on the old volunteer system, reinforced now by a considerable leaven of experience from the veldt. But the campaign in favour of universal military training grew in influence and was brought finally to a successful conclusion in the Defence Act of 1909.

This measure reasserts the liability of all male inhabitants of the country for service in the military forces. The actual system is that every male from the age of fourteen to twentyfive undergoes a gradual training, and thereafter remains for five years in the reserve. Conscientious objection on religious grounds is recognized, but must be met by service in a noncombatant branch. Persons failing to register for service are liable ,to a fine and deprivation rights.

The physical elementary training which boys undergo at the New Zealand schools from the age of twelve to fourteen years is regarded as purely educational and not military. On reaching the age of fourteen, however, or on leaving school, the boy is transferred to the militia in the ranks of the senior cadets, but he is not yet liable to be called out to fight. After four years as a senior cadet he becomes a territorial soldier and is liable to be called out at any time for service in the Dominion. But here, normally, the liability ends. The law does not contemplate compulsion for service abroad. In the Great War the original Expeditionary Force and its reinforcements, raised by voluntary enlistment, amounted to considerably more than the whole territorial establishment before compulsion "by commando" was applied in 1916.

Up to April 1915 the registrations for service under the Act were :

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Of 8,223 recruits for the territorial service examined in 1914 only 5 per cent, were declared totally unfit for service. The territorial force, which is the first line of defence after the Imperial Navy, is maintained at a strength of about 30,000, which is more that double that of the volunteer force in the last year of its existence (1909-10). It is in reality the New Zealand army, and must be able to take the field at once on the outbreak of war. The field army consists normally of two mounted rifle brigades (one for each island), and two divisions (one for each island also). The rest of the force comprises the reserves, the coast defence troops, and the lines of communication troops. The democratic complexion of the New Zealand army is well illustrated by a comparison of the scale of pay with that of the British Army :

The rifle-clubs have always been a healthy institution amongst people devoted to shooting, and after the demonstration the Boers gave of the value of irregular riflemen, New Zealand directly encouraged this organization. In sparsely settled districts it is not always convenient for men to assemble for training, and here the rifle club, as an organized reserve of the territorial force, is extremely valuable. In fact, about 35 per cent, of those who are enrolled for service in the territorial force are absorbed and trained by the rifle clubs, which furnish the second line of defence. In 1915 there were 240 clubs (some of them mounted), with an enrolled strength of 8,770. Behind the clubs, again, is the National Reserve, a movement entirely voluntary on the part of persons who are under no liability for service at all. It received a considerable impetus when the Great War broke out, and the reservists are now organized in platoons, squadrons, and batteries, in order to fit into the establishment if required.

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The training of all forces does not necessarily take men away from their homes and occupations. The territorials are expected to do in the year

(a) Thirty drills {2O being outdoor).

(6) Twelve half-day or six whole-day parades (field exercises).

(c) Seven days’ camp training.

(d) A prescribed course of musketry

The senior cadets do

(a) Fifty drills.

(b) Six half-day parades.

(c) Musketry course.

Rifle clubs carry out a prescribed course of musketry and eighteen afternoon and evening drills.

It remains to be said that the principle of universal service had been thoroughly recognized by the people of New Zealand some time before it became a matter of law, for it seemed to be the logical corollary of the universal suffrage. Moreover, a very large percentage of boys over fourteen years of age had for years received preliminary training in school cadet corps. As a consequence, the outbreak of the Great War found New Zealand not only disposed to assist with enthusiasm, but possessing a considerable body of trained and partially trained men.

In the matter of naval defence, too, New Zealand has always held advanced views. She strongly favoured fortifying Thursday Island, in the north of Australia, at a time when even the Australian Colonies were very divided on the question. Whereas from the first Australia has favoured the idea of a separate navy, New Zealand has always inclined towards subsidizing the Imperial Navy. Under the agreement of 1887 a sum of £20,000 a year was paid as a subvention. In 1903 this was increased to £40,000 a year, and in 1908 it was again voluntarily increased to £lOO,OOO.

Close on the heels of this last decision the New Zealand Government, at a critical moment in British naval policy, came forward in 1909 with the unconditional offer of a-battle-cruiser to the British Navy. Later in the year, at an Imperial Defence Conference, this vessel was designated as the flagship

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of a proposed new China fleet to maintain the balance of power in the Pacific. This agreement, however, was abandoned in view of later developments in the European sphere. Australia then decided to create a fleet of her own, while New Zealand released her gift ship from all conditions as to where she was to be used. She had actually decided upon forming a separate squadron as the nucleus of a New Zealand navy —and had acquired a third-class cruiser for use as a training ship—but, the war intervening, the scheme has been held in suspense. New Zealand’s gift ship has taken part in all the great battles in the North Sea, while her smaller units have done good general service under Admiralty orders. Throughout her history New Zealand has been always attached to the idea of single control of naval forces by the British Admiralty in time of war —another manifestation of her loyalty to the British connection.

Printed in Great Britain by UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE ORESIIAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON

THE RESOURCES OF THE EMPIRE

" A mine of valuable, well arranged, and easily assimilated information." —Land and Water.

" Dr. Watson Grice's aim has been to give the facts and to eschew controversies, and that is what an ' information' series should do."— Times.

" It must be read from cover to cover by those who wish to learn itslessons. It is an excellent and indispensable foundation for all the schemes, of settling the men who return from the war with a distaste for city life on the lands of the Empire."—Ofo^nwr.

"Dr. Grice succeeds in putting the position clearly, with a complete avoidance of all controversial conclusions."— Economist.

" An admirable digest of the considerable researches that have recently been made into the power of production of the Colonies."— Westminster Gazette.

" Dr. J. Watson Grice takes a survey of the whole Empire, showing what it produces and indicating its possibilities."— Evening Standard.

" Though small in bulk, the book is yet rich in material and matter."— Canada.

" This is the first of a series of little books dealing with the Empire as a whole and with its component parts, and it packs into small compass a surprisingly large amount of information about the resources and the trade of that amazing array of countries and peoples, scattered all over the globe, who are bound by the ties of Empire into a confraternity which is mighty because it stands not only for wealth and power, but for the eternal principles of justice and freedom."— Field (Special Empire Number, July 14, 1917).

THE DEFENCES OF THE EMPIRE

" It sets forth the essential conditions of Imperial Defence in a clear and cogent fashion. The why and wherefore of many arrangements, much criticized by the ill-informed, will become plain to those who read it."— Observer.

" Admirably suited for use in secondary schools."— Land and Water.

" An excellent survey."— Times.

" The story of the reorganization of the whole plan of our naval distribution in the ten years before the war, the resources and the purpose of the British Army as it existed in 1914, and the development of defensive measures in the Colonies is impartially and succinctly told."— Westminster Gazette.