MAKERS OF NEW ZEALAND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13888, 27 April 1907, Page 4

MAKERS OF NEW ZEALAND

lII—ED'WARD GIBBON WAKEFIELD.

The name of Edward Gibbon Wakefield is connected with the history of tliree of Knglnnd's groat self-governing colonies, .ind in cach caso his influence on their future was important. His name is still remembered in Canada as that of the man who was the first to foresee for the Dominion the great future on which it has now definitely entered, and t<> utdicato tho system by which it might be Tcaliscd in a way to armiso attention ant) communicato some of his enthusiasm to others. Up till the time of Wakefield's residence in Canada—that is to say, early in tho sccond quarter of tho last contuiy—it was almost a joko to 6peak of what is now the Dominion as a, British colony. It was really a lingo unexplored territory, settled, in the neighbourhood of its great eastward-flowing river, by a French population, aliens to England in language, sympathies, and political ideals, and f.till resentful of tho late that had made them at least nominally British subjects. The English colonies, so-called, consisted of a few little settlements scattered along tho Atlantic coast, though dignified by the names of tho colonics of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, occupied mainly by tho Loyalist refugees from tho United States, to whom lmd ken added come settlers from the islands of Scotland, mainly settled in Princo Edward Island. Tho British settlement.?, or colonics, wero poor littlo unprogreesive communities; tho French colony—containing a much larger population—was more successful, indeed, hut wa3 also distinctly hostile in sentiment. It was to Wakefield's appreciation of tho possiblo future that- lay before this great unappreciated and unused country and to his proposals for its systematic occupation by self-governing colonies, assisted by private enterprise, that wcto owing England's gradual awakening to the value of Canada and the earliest developments of tho idea of self-government among the people already in the country. Tho reputation which his work in and for Canada brought him in England gave Wakefield a sympathetic hearing from a good many people of influence and position in Britain when he suggested Australia as a field almost unoccupied for trying the experiment of building up an ideal colony, untrammelled by suck difficulties as must bo met with in Canada. Tho times wero propitious tor such an experiment, and in some respect. 1 ; Australia seemed a suitablo place for it. England had, Tightly or wrongly, taken possession of tJio great island, not only as tho governing power, hut as the owner ot all tho land, ignoring any claim on the part of its native inhabitants, so that the great question underlying all successful settlement might there bo looked on as settled. Wliat remained, was to build up ;v colony on British lines to secure success. Tho South Australian Charter was granted by Parliament on tho application of a number of influential people—very much as that of Rhodesia was in comparatively recent times,—but-the idea, and tho plans on' which it was intended to work, it-out, wero entirely due to Wakefield originally, Tho weak as well':as tho strong point of. Gibbon ''Wakefield's- mind lay in an excess of, idealism. An enthusiastic believer in tho capability and destiuy of tho British people as tho founders of iMiv cations that might still remain part of:' tho-old one, ho was probably the first of'tho Imperialists of Englaud. His plan for tho. new colony was that it should as far as possible reproduco English conditions and tho peculiarities of English social life, under tlw impression, apparently, that only in somo such way as this conld tho jiew colony remain British in .sentiment. To carry out this plan it ' was proposed to encourage men of wealth to'buy largo'tstatea, and to lease the land on,favourable tenns'to yeoman tenants for long .periods. 110 and' those who acted on his suggestions had not taken into account tTio fact that tho conditions, tho vory atmosphere of a young colony, render impossiblo the transplantation to its ooil oi tho cut- and dried conditions that havo' grown up in an old country liko England. In practice'tho schemo proved ft- failure. Tho men—young men of tho farming class in England—had scarcoly coino to Australia before they asked themselves tlio questinu why they should bo . condemned to-work 011 other men's land in a country where all tho laud belonged to tho nation and where thero was land onoughifor half a dozen nations to.choose from. All the accessible land had already been allotted to tho littlo group of capitalists, according to tho programme, hut that only mado tho complaint tho worse, and, as might have been exacted, tho schomo, which liad been largely assisted by a guaranteed loan on tho credit of 1 tho British nation, broke down. Gibbon Wakefield, whilo ho had formulated tho scheme taken up by the Chartered Company of South Australia, had, it is only just to say, taken no share in carrying it out, and might claim that his plans wero not carried out in the broad-minded way he would have advocated. At anyrate, it is evident, from his connection with New Zealand settlementr-his third and last colonising experiment,—that experience had modified his views, if not as to what was desirable, at least as to what was possible in the extension .of English conditions to new and distant colonies. The South Australian Company had barely had time to show itself a failuro before Wakefield was engaged 011 plans for repeating the experiment, with a difference, in tho more hopeful climate of New Zealand. Th'e New Zealand Company undoubtedly owed its existence to Gibbon Wakefield, and it may be said that, warned by what had taken place in South Australia, 110 had determined that he and members ot his family should tako a leading part in the activo administration of tho new colony. In the caso of South Australia the colonising company had owed its position to ,1 Iloyal Charter, and most of its capital to money borrowed on t|ie faith of a Government guarantee of its bonds, .and,.of course, to the Crown lands banded over to it under tho charter; in tho new Britain beyond 'the seas it was intended to be ratirely independent of Government assistance, ind, as was Oupposed, of Goyeril«nent In 1838 tho Engiish Cabinet had fully decided not to undertake ik't/iiife of any mora colonies, and in wile 'of many representations made by or on behalf of the missionaries in the country, it seemed absolutely certain t[iat England would refuse -to tako possession of tho islands where-its missionaries had been preparing the way for more than iO years. It was under these circumstances, and in this apparently alien country, that Wakefield proposed to found by means of tho New Zealand Company an ideal English colony. Negotiations wero entered into with souio of the Native tribes, particularly those settled at the southern end of the North, and the northern end of the South Island, for the purchase of large tracts of land for tho purposes of tho young colony, and in September, 1839, the first body of emigrants actually sailed for New Zealand, arriving at Port Nicholson—now Wellington—in January of the following year. This was the beginning of New Zealand colonisation, and it undoubtedly had mure to do with the formal annexation of tho islands to tho British Empire than anything else. Tile earliest years of the New Zealand Company's settlements were even more troubled by Native dilliculties than those of the north, where the Maori population was more numerous, and although Gibbon Wakefield made, his home at Wellington, it was not until the Constitution had been granted Dial he look any very active, part in the public affairs of the colony which he, more than any other man, ha<l beeit the means of founding. As a matter of coursej he.was electcd a

member of the first Parliament, which met in Auckland in May, 1854. Most of

tho members were really representative ■men—representative, indeed, of the very best elements that- had been attracted to

the enlerprise of founding a new nation. Of partjes, indeed, in the sense in which

we understand the term now, there were none in the first Parliament; hut there

was a large proportion of men who under other conditions, or in a more advanced community, might well have been the leaders of parties. Amongst them all by far the most impressive personality was that of Edward Gibbon Wakefield. Dignified, and rather portly, with a calm, thoughtful face and dome-like head that would have attracted attention and respect in the world's greatest Assembly, anybody could see at a glance when lie rose to speak that lie was in all respects the mail of largest experience and of the widest outlook among New Zealand's first legislators. The speeches he made were but few, and only on the one or two leading questions that went far in the making of the colony. On two questions he left his mark, and it is right they should lie connected with his memory in this coutnry. The first was bis insistence on the necessity for an executive Government—responsible to the Parliament,-in-stead of one responsible to the Cabinet in London; the other was his demand that of all lands purchased by the Government from the Native owners at least one-third part should lie set apart for small holdings, and should be preserved from becoming part of the estates of capitalists. Itis speech sounds even now—s3 years after it was made —to one who can remember it like a far-away echo of that part of the present Government Land Bill which aims at curtailing great landed estates in New Zealand. These two'were the first and the last contributions made by Kdward Gibbon Wakefield to the legislation of the colony lie had in a very special sense made liis own. Neither of them could bo given effect to at onco, and before the assent of the Home Government could be obtained he had passed finally out of the ranks of active service.

It is interesting to remember, and there would soem to be some risk of forgetting, that in tlio early loss of Gibbon Wakefield New Zealand was deprived of the man who was individually perhaps more its founder than any other man, and also that we have in him the earliest link that joins Canada and Australia with this colony. He was also a great man, as well as a great idealist. Full of the enthusiastic faith of our Empire builders in -the capabilities and destinies of the race, he was large-minded enough to correct his ideas by experience so as to avoid in his plans for New Zealand the ideas of landlordism which he. had found failures in South Australia. Had he lived to take a leading part in the active politics of this colony which he must have taken had he survived, there can be little doubt he might have assisted in preventing many errors made in our first- halfcentury of experiment.