King Edward's realm: Story of the making of the Empire

by C. S. Dawe

6. Since 1870, when the war ended, the whole of New Zealand has made steady progress. In the course of the next ten years, such a stream of emigrants came flowing in that the population almost doubled itself. All skilled labourers who came found ready employment and good pay. It was a time when much money was spent on public works. The New Zealand Government had raised a loan of ten millions from men of capital in England. The money thus borrowed was devoted to three purposes: (1) to improve the means of communication by constructing roads, railroads, bridges, telegraphs, and coasting-vessels; (2) to purchase lands from the natives whenever they were willing to sell; and (3) to aid men of the right stamp to emigrate from Britain.

7. New Zealand is, as I have intimated, an eminently British Colony. The colonists are almost entirely of British descent. Their trade is nearly confined to the British Empire, seven-tenths of it being with the mother-country, and nearly all the rest with Australia, India, and Fiji. The discovery of the method of keeping meat frozen in cold air chambers during the passage of a vessel through the tropics has been a great boon to New Zealand, and a great advantage to our own land, enabling British workmen to purchase excellent meat at a moderate price.

8. A moment's reflection on these facts will serve to bring home to our minds the mutual advantages accruing to the mother-country and her colonies, when in friendly relations with each other. We observe that New Zealand has received the aid of British troops in her war with the natives; she has been able to raise a large loan for public works at a moderate rate of interest from men of property at home; and she enjoys here a ready market for her produce.

9. The mother-country, on her part, has been able to provide new homes for her surplus population in a country like their own; she has secured seven-tenths of the trade of New Zealand, increasing thereby the amount of profitable employment for her workpeople; she has drawn from the colony supplies of cheap food to help fill the hungry mouths of her millions, and quite recently she has received the substantial aid of 6,000 New Zealand troops in her war in South Africa.

(12) A DIFFICULT BRITISH STATE TO BUILD

(South Africa).

1. The story of South Africa, since the British gained a footing there, is marked by many a dark spot of misfortune and disaster that we would gladly forget. When Britain, in 1806, took possession of the Cape, the country was occupied by Boers, Hottentots, and Kaffirs. The building up of a British state, with such conflicting elements, has been a work of extreme difficulty, which has put the best qualities of the British race to a severe test, and much of the work still remains to be done.

2. The Home Government, for many years, only valued the Cape as a military post and naval station, occupying a commanding position on the waterway to India. They shrank, accordingly, from extending British rule in South Africa beyond the narrowest limits, and for many years made no attempt to colonize the country. It was not until 1820 that a body of picked emigrants, numbering 5,000, were landed at Algoa Bay, and, having been taken 100 miles inland, were put in possession of farms of 100 acres each.

3. The first three years were years of blight which killed the growing grain, and then came a flood which washed away their cottages and gardens. Many of the emigrants were good artisans but bad farmers. They had been set out like so many plants, in well-ordered rows, and told to grow where they were placed. But the experiment was bound to fail. Before long many of the men deserted their farms and found work as artisans, whilst those who were fitted for farm-work added the derelict farms to their own, and thus in time each one found himself in the sphere for which he was best adapted.

4. The coming of the British settlers had a marked effect on the government of the colony. The governor was no longer able to rule simply as he thought best. The new-comers were not disposed to be treated as children. They wanted law and government, but insisted on their right to question the acts of the governor, and to see that he governed according to law, and not merely according to his own will and pleasure. It is interesting to find from an official report made to the House of Commons that,—"The introduction of the English settlers, and the right of discussion which they claimed and exercised, have had the effect of exciting in the Dutch and native population a spirit of vigilance and attention, that never existed before, to the acts of the government, and which may render all future exertion of authority objectionable that is not founded upon the law."