THE MAKING OF A NATION

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1828, 20 March 1907, Page 10

THE MAKING OF A NATION

BEGINNINGS OF NEW ZEALAND

NATIONALITY.

THE GERMANS.

By GUY H. SCHOLEFIELD.

(All Rights Reserved.)

If we except the Forsters (father and son), who were with Captain Cook’s expeditions in the Pacific, then the first German pioneer of any imSortance who appears in New Zealand istory is, George Hempleman, the whaler, of Banks Peninsula. Born in Altona in 1799, of humble parents, Hempleman took to the sea ; and rose in the thirties to be captain of the whaler Bee. He first touched at New Zealand from Sydney in 1836, when he established a shore party at Peraki, Banks Peninsula. In the following year Hempleman negotiated the purchase from Tuhawaiki (Bloody Jack) of a large portion of Banks Peninsula, including some ' of the land wbicn came later within the scope of the purchase alleged to have been made by Captain L’Anglois, the originator of the French Akaroa settlement. Hempleman, in 1839, completed the pur : chase according to the manner of the times “ by payment of one big boat, by name the Mary Ann, including two sails and jib. 5 -’ The. purchase was never recognised by the Government, and up to the time of his death, in 1880, Hempleman was continuously fighting his claim. Hempleman brought with him to New Zealand a German wife. She died at Peraki ; he married again and removed from Peraki to German Bay, where by

Shis time were some of his fellowcountrymen. Curiously enough, Hempleman, after, some years’ residence, quite forgot his native language. The patois of the settlements on Banks Peninsula was a mixture of French, English, and Maori. There were only half a dozen or so Germans, and their tongue fell into desuetude.

Between the arrival of Hempleman and the foundation of Canterbury, New Zealand was visited by one or two German scientists. One was attached to a Russian warship—scarcely more than visionary—which visited New Zealand waters. He is said to have made a survey of Mount Egmont. When the company appeared in New Zealand, Dr Ernest Dieffenbach, of Berlin, was attached to the Tory as naturalist. Chronologically, Dieffenbach’s researches were the first of any scientific value in New Zealand. They were supplemented twenty years later by the efforts of two other Germans, Hochstetter and Julius von Haast. THE AKAROA GERMANS.

In the early years of company settlement in New Zealand quite a number of German colonies were planted. The first, that at Akaroa, was in reality, merely a branch of the French Akaroa colony. Amongst the Comte de Paris emigrants from Rochfort, who landed in August, 1860, were six Germans, who, finding themselves unable to secure sections together in Akaroa, decided to form a settlement of their own at a different locality in the harbour. They hit upon what is now German Bay. Here the first willow in Canterbury, supposed to have been brought from Napoleon’s grave at St. Helena, was planted by M. de Belligny, the naturalist to the expedition. The German colony at Akaroa had increased to fifteen in 1851, when all became naturalised British subjects. One of them, Mr Waeckerlie, erected the first flourmill in Canterbury.

THE CHATHAM ISLANDS. The New Zealand Company found it a matter of no little difficulty at first to recruit emigrants for a country so remote and so disturbed as New Zealand. It was under the necessity of looking outside the United Kingdom for settlers, and it turned naturally to the Teutonic nations. The company’s title to the Chatham Islands had not so far been assailed when, iii 1841, it opened negotiations for the sale or the group to certain persons “ officially connected with Hamburg and the other free cities of Germany, acting on behalf of a colonisation , company now forming in that country.” The directors of the New Zealand Company congratulated themselves on negotiating with “ the representatives of communities so little likely to be animated at any time by political hostility to Great Britain as the free cities of Germany ” (this was prior to the consolidation of the German Empire) ; they proposed to restrict the purchasers from making any part of the group a penal settlement; and they intended “ to make it a condition of the transfer that British subjects with their ships and goods shall at all times be placed in the ports of the Chatham Islands on the same footing as th 6 national flag of the Hanse towns or the subjects of the sovereign Power for the time being.” Unfortunately for the negotiations, the British Attorney-General decided that the charter of the New Zealand Company gave it no authority to purchase the group, and that, therefore, the proposed sale was illegal. Although the negotiations were brought to an end by this decision, interest in New Zealand as a field fox- emigration had been kindled in Germany. THE HAMBURG SOCIETY. According to tlie Rev. Mr Wohlers it was the ready sale of the sections in Wellington that prompted the company to lay out a larger settlement in Nelson. This was notified in 1841, and the proposal, including a free cabin passage to New Zealand, looked so profitable upon paper that a branch of the New Zealand Company of London was established at Hamburg. Our Missionary Society was thereby tempted to buy an allotment in the Nelson settlement. Three hundred pounds, a small sum in rich England, was truly a large sum for our Missionary Society, but they saved thereby the passage money of their missionaries and obtained, also, a foothold in New Zealand. In 1842 Mir John N. Beit, of Hamburg, while on a visit to London, heard of the settlement which the company was about to establish at Nelson, aud he made proposals to the Hamburg firm of Ghapoaurouge and Co. As a result of negotiations, the firm secured six allotments in Nelson, of which one was for the North German Mission Society. An option was also secured over forty-four additional sections. The terms offered to German settlers were practically the same as those offered . to the British emigrants. A nobleman, Count Rantzau, was the leading spirit in the emigration society at Hamburg, and one of the cardinal aims of this society, as with the Soots, was ihe planting of their particular branch of the Protestant Church in the newland. A Lutheran mission had. just, been, established at Hamburg,. under the- style, of .the North German Mission Society, and four missionaries, vere selected to accompany the first ei pedition. The day after Christmas, ls42v-the ship, Stt- Pauli, with.l4o ©migrants pn hoard in charge of Mr Beit,

dropped down the waters of the Elbe, which had also cradled the first ship of George Hempleman.

THE SETTLEMENT AT MOUTERE. The land for the Gorman settlers was in the Moutere Valley. It was a ten hours’ journey from Nelson in those days, but every two or three hours on the march the new-oo.ners encountered the hut of some British settler who had arrived earlier. In spite of the terrors engendered by news of the massacre of Wairau, which reached Nelson a day or two after the arrival of the St. Pauli, the missionaries established themselves m the wilds. The settlement was greatly disheartened by this calamity, and no advance was made. Many of the German immigrants, who had to depend on their earnings, were in sore straits. Some found work, and were building themselves whares, but others were helpless. Mr Tuckett, who had assumed control of the settlement on the death of Captain Wakefield, determined to send out a number of the impoverished German families to their countrymen at Moutere, and he gave them road work to enable them to get a start on their land.. One of the missionaries, M,r Riemenschneider, became their spiritual pastor, and Mr Wohlers left with Mr Tuckett in the schooner Deborah to find a virgin mission field amongst the Southern Maoris. He settled at Ruapuke, the home of Tuhawaiki (Bloody Jack), in Foveaux Strait. This was in 1844, four years before the arrival of the first four ships in Otago, and a year before Bishop Selwyn’s pilgrimage to the South. In 1849, the year after Otago was founded, Mr Wohlers was reinforced by Brother Honore, and, journeying to. Wellington, he met Brother Wolkner, who had also been sent out by the Mission Society to assist at Nelson. Mr Wc ikner afterwards joined the; Angli-

can Ghurch, and was murdered by Bauhaus at Qpotiki in 1865.

THE MECKLENBURG EMIGRATION Returning to Nelson, Mr Wohlers found the Gorman colony considerably augmented and strengthened. It had gone through a period of great vicissitude. Before the company was compelled by its own precarious position to cease giving work to the settlers, Oount Rantzau planned another pedition He bought four more allotments in Nelson, and Messrs Chapeaurouge and Ob. three. The new expedition was recruited in Mecklenburg only, and the brothers Charles and Fedor Rolling, yeomen, were- in charge. There were forty-three families altogether, and the expedition sailed in the Norwegian ship Skiold, in 1844. On arriving in Nelson, the Mecklenburgers found their fore-run* ners of the St. Pauli in such straits .owing to the depressed condition of the settlement that they were terribly discouraged. In fact, shortly after their arrival half of the Mecklenburg-, ers, and almost the whole of the_ St, .. Pauli immigrants left for Australia, in . the hope of finding more peaceable, conditions than the mana of Te Rauparaha and Rangihaeata would permit in New Zealand. The Kelhng •brothers, who were the heart and soul of the Skiold expedition, started a farm at Waimea East, called, after their patron, Rantzau, and hfere they were able to give employment to many of their fellow-countrymen. A Wlien Mr Wohlers returned to Nelson at the end of the forties, he found the Germans recovering from their depression. A few of. the labourers possessed,; their own allotments, and others on their way to take possession: MpsL of the mechanics lived in the town.or. Nelson in circumstances very sinulaj" ;;. to those of mechanics in small German towns. The Duke of burg-SchAverin had appointed the Rev. * J. W. G. Heine pastor of the meat, and Mr WoMeam wh© -was rm

ed with power from the Mecklenburg congregation to-ordain a minister, performed this ceremony in the town of Nelson. At the time of his visit the Germans in the country were about to erect a building to serve jointly as school and chuich. SLEEPY HOLLOW.

A short passage from the memoirs of Mr Wohlers is so cognate to the object of these articles that it should be quoted. He writes :—' - . "The bond of union amongst tho Germans was the church; in other • relations they were on the road towards blending with their neighbours. Nelson, which Iks in a deep gap between high mountains, lias always remained a sleepy place Even later, when V it became the capital of a province, it manifested so little political life that it received the nickname of 'Sleepy Hollow" a!] over New Zealand. Is it possible that the German admixture may have .. been conducive to the political quiet of the place? At home I „ -have occasionally heard people who have never been actual foreigners express, displeasure that Germans in foreign countries so eoon neglect both their German language and manner© and assume both the language and customs of the foreigners. That is true in - New Zealand, but not only German® do it, but others do the earn©.”

- The German mission selected lands at> Moutere, oalling the plot Sarau; and gradually the settlement increased and took heart. Some of those who wont to Australia returned to Nelson ; those in the settlement brought out friends from the Fatherland, and within a few years there were 350 Germans, with two nation-d churches, at Moutere and Waimea East. Mr Fedor Kelling receive! at the hands of the Emperor William 1., for his services to his countrymen, the Cross of the Order of tho Ciown. Tie average congregation of the Lutheran Church in Nelson in 1844 was sixty. One of the four missionaries sent out by the North German Society in 1842, Mr Engst, went to tho Ohatham Islands, and remained iiieie throughout many native troubles, including the imprisonment and escape of the Hauhaus. He is now eiglity-n-ne years of age, and has ready for publication, in German, a complete aistory of the group. The pakeha population of the Chatliams in 1867 humbere i 115, of whom twenty-two were Germans. ’ MILITARY SETTLERS. ...

" The Maori troubles of the fifties indicated clearly to the pakehas in New Zealand that settlement could only proceed, in some districts at any rate, under .protection of the rifle, and a n ch< me of military settlements was propounded and partly put into effect.. Mr Fedor A. Felling, who had now twenty years of colonial experience, , and had been a member, in 1859-60, of. the House of Representatives, was asked by the Government to report. upon the practicability of obtaining Germans as military settlers. Germany was already well advanced in the struggle for consolidation, and many of her ‘adult men had seen active war service to supplement their military training. Mr Kelling suggested obtaining 1000 men from Germany and settling them in villages on the borders of the native country, all subaltern officers being Germans. The Government adopted his report, and decided to begin by founding a military settlement in Taranaki, now devastated by Wiremu Kingi’s war. Mr Kelling was appointed to recruit' the settlers in Germany. A GHA3N OF HISTORY.

To digress, George Fife Angas was a director of the company under whose allspices the colony of South Australia was founded. Despairing of getting proper assistance from the Imperial Government in the despatch of emigrants, he entered into negotiations with European countries, and was eventually successful in settling with German oolonists large tracts of agricultural land in South Australia. The Gerinan settlements of Rlumenthal, Garcsdorf, and Waterloo, with their * schools, are to-day t the best

results of German colonisation under the British flag. Sir George Grey, who was Governor of the colony at the time, was so impressed with the result that some years later, when he was Governor of Gape Colony, he gladly acceded to a suggestion that the remnant of the German Legion, which England had enrolled on the recommendation of Baron von Stutterheim for the Crimean war, should be settled in Gape Colony, and kept enrolled for service in LCaffraria. The Imperial Government failed to redeem its promise to bring out the fanilies of the men, or German females from whom they could select wives, and finally in 1857 Sir George Gi ,y prevailed upon the Kaffrarian Government to undertake the responsibility. In the event the Hamburg firm of John Cesar Godeffroy and Son transported to East London two thousand selected Germans, chiefly women and children, and the Gorman colony of Haffraria became permanent. In 1862, Sir George Grey was Governor of New Zealand, when the same firm (Goddefroy and Son) wrote offering to provide a stream of German immigrants to New Zealand on similar ■terms. The Government closed with . them for the transportation of 1000 souls, who were to bo selected by Mr ■‘•'oiling, and on arrival in Now Zealand would be quartered in two villages of 500 each. A site had been selected for the first if the German military villages at Pikipara, in Taranaki, and . Mr Rolling was already in Europe when the war broke out. Mr Domett wrote immediately instructing him not to pro. . coed with the recruiting, but merely to collect tho names of probable emigrants. Mr Rolling's reply was that the news or the war had already reached Germany through . other sources, and had deterred a number of proon Me emigrants from volunteering. The Hamburg firm who had contracted for tho transport also found difficulties. They were at the time despatching three ships of emigrants to Queensland, and they insisted’ that their own agents should do the selecting. Trie Gorman Government, too, stepped in at this stage, and objected to the terms under which the settlers were to be enlisted. They would not allow Germans to bind themselves to do road work or give military service. Hie one was soiling into slavery, and the other enlisting soldiers for foreign wars. Messrs Godeffroy wrote to Sir George Grey in the following strain:—

These proposals would be considered as enrolling troops on foreign service, which is strictly prohibited all over Germany. As to the wish to get road work performed bv the Ger an immigrants below the current rate of wages to other workmen in the province of Taranaki, it resembles the coolie importation into the West Indies. All tli cse conditions must be entirely done away with if succee® is to attend the German immigration into New Zealand.

Thus ended the negotiations. It should be mentioned that about the same time a Prussian named W. Klaschke, who had served through several wars before coming out to Taranaki in 1848, made an offer to the Government to bring out about five hundred Germans of the agricultural and forest classes to man certain redoubts in the Tataraimaka district. This offer was also lost sight of ;n the turmoil of the time. A small body of Germans in 1866 readied New Zealand from Australia and settled at Pukepapa, near Marton. They took kindly to the soil and. thrived, but a number who came at the same time and settled in the towns fared less successfully. THE' VOGEL POLICY.

In the new policy of Sir Julius Vogel immigration was a strong feature, and agents were sent to England and' Europe with very wide powers of discretion. They were particularly active in the Northern countries, which produced a class of emigrant better suited for amalgamation with the British than the Southern Europeans. The German Government took cognisance of the emigration tendency, and in 1873 announced that it would expel from the country any emigration recruiter who was not of German nationality. The same threat was made again in 1877, but by this time New Zealand had obtained all the immigrants that were urgently required, and foreign recruitting was stopped. The number of persons who left Germany in 1874 was 73,793, and needless to say a large number of these reached New Zealand. One of the immigration camps estabished at Porangahau in that year was composed entirely of Germans and German Poles, who had been asked for by the Hawke’s Bay Provincial Government.

The following figures show the volume of German immigration in the early sixties:—

The war and the gold rushes both brought small voluntary contingents of Germans to New Zealand.;

THE JACKSON BAY SETTLEMENT

There were already a few Germans settled in Stewart Island. Germans also, chiefly Pomeranians and Prussians, were amongst the lost tribes of Jackson’s Bay in the seventies. The Vogel Government was extremely anxious to get a settlement established in this remote spot, whei’e the hardearned products of fishing and agriculture often lay for months awaiting transport. And it was a motley congeries that was eventually placed there, partly by the General Government and partly by the province of Westland. Germans and Poles- were established at Smoethwater, South of Jackson’s Head; British, Canadians, and Germans at Arawata: Scandinavians at Waiatoto; and Italians at Okuru. The Resident Agent for the Westland Government (Mr D. Macfarlane) was l’ather optimistic for. the success of the settlement in spite of its diverse elements. He wrote: —

If they are not above being shown and taught a little, and can be induced to abandon some of their old world notions of the fitness of things, and above all if they come possessed of plenty of muscular power and the will to use it, it does not so much matter whether they have been town or country bred, British or foreign. Given the will and ability to work, and. there can be no doubt of their success as colonists.

But it was soon evident the Jackson’s Bay settlers were an unhappy party. There were too manv elements, and there was not enough encouragement. In 1875 Mr Matthies, a Pomeranian, who had settled with his family in Westland, returned to the Fatherland to -recruit for the settlement. He was imprisoned for a breach of German law, and died in prison. The Germans , at Jackson’s Bay so far were doing well, and in 1876 124 new arrivals from Germany joined the settlement. It must be confessed that they succeeded better than most of the foreigners, but the locality was too isolated for successful settlement, and a large number of them left for more favoured spots. One party of Germans left for Palmerston North. The Poles were reported on unfavourably bv the immigration officers, who remarked chiefly their inordinate vanity and disinclination for drudgery. As against this, however, there are some instances of conspicuous success k amongst Polish emigrants, fianacially in the North Island. The

late Hon. S. E. Shrimski, formerly a member of the Legislative Council, was a Prussian Pole by birth.

SOME DISTINGUISHED GERMANS.

Notable amongst the individual Germans who did a great deal of scientific and exploration work were Dr Schmidt, who was lost near Gatlins in 1855 while exploring for the Otago Provincial Council; Mr Von Tuuzelman, a pioneer of the Otago back country; Jacob Louper, a German Swiss, the sole survivor of the Whitcombe expedition from Canterbury t-o the West Coast in 1863; and Mr Weber, a civil engineer and prominent pioneer in Hawke’s Bay. Ferdinand von Hoohstetter, a native of Wurtemberg,' arrived in New Zealand in 1858 with the Austrian scientific expedition in the Novara. He was employed by soveral of the provincial Governments to make scientific reporta on difierent parts of the colony, and made valuable contributions, both be. fore leaving New Zealand and afterwards, to our scientific literature. His. colleague was Julius von Hiaast, a native of Bonn, who joined Hoclistetter in Auckland. He afterwards beoame provincial geologist of Canterbury and settled in New Zealand. An illustrious Prussian name in the annals of the Maori wars is that of Gustavus Ferdinand von Tempsky, of the Forest Rangers.

The only German names apjiearing on the early councils are those of Conrad Hoos and H. H. Lahman (both of Westland). The latter was born in Australia. Though it is possible, aa the Missionary Wohlers suggests, that the German element may have been partly responsible for the political quiet of Nelson in the early days, it is soarcely possible to trace any effect of the German immigrants upon the character of New Zealand to-day. German natives in New Zealand at the last census numbered only 4162, or 1.47 per cent, of the total immigrant population.

1873, on the recommendation of ■Mr Gustave Beethre, Belgian ConsulGeneral in Australia, the New Zealand Emigration Commissioners endeavoured to induce a stream of emigration from Belgium to New Zealand. They were quite unsuccessful. The thrifty, hardworking Belgians were closely attached to their native land, and well served by., a paternal Government. There was no inducement to them to leave their native land.

Total European immigrants. Germans. Otago, 1861 23,217 194 Southland, 1862... 2,364 41 Canterbury, 1863 3,917 84