New Zealand

by Reginald Horsley

Within a year of her "declaration of independence," though things were very much in the rough, there was promise of that colonial splendour which has since—in the short space of sixty-eight years—been amply fulfilled.

The difficulties were grave indeed. The land question was a source of constant friction, and of ready money there was little or none. Notwithstanding fairly substantial help from the mother country, in spite of the newly imposed customs dues and the sale of Crown lands, the new country's imports surpassed the exports nearly ten times over. No wonder money was scarce and, owing to the paucity of meat other than pork, food very dear.

But these drawbacks could not stifle enthusiasm, and in each of the towns—now rapidly casting behind them the character of mere settlements—growth was steady, and the energy of the inhabitants astonishing.

The mineral wealth of the colony was attracting attention—iron, copper, manganese, coal and lime were known to exist; the great variety of magnificent timber trees promised to become an important source of revenue, and New Zealand flax had already established a reputation which it has never lost. The character of the land in parts was such as led some even then to prophesy that New Zealand would become one of the grazing grounds of the world; though it is doubtful if the prophets foresaw the immense revenue which was to be derived later from the exportation of meat for consumption by the hungry folk in the northern hemisphere. With the future so rose-tinted, it is no wonder that the shadows of the present had little power to depress the sanguine colonists.

The Legislative Council had lost no time in passing beneficial Acts, the citizens were inclined to be law-abiding, and trade, of a sort, flourished. The architecture in the towns was not exactly classic; but all looked confidently forward to the time when the weather-board house with from two to six rooms should be replaced by the mansion, and the tiny general store make way for the splendid palace of the merchant prince. Compare pictures of a street in Auckland or Wellington in 1842 with photographs of the same street to-day, and admit that the expectation has been fulfilled.

The children who had accompanied their parents to the new land were not allowed to run wild, and education was not entirely neglected. The power of the Press, too, had already made itself felt by the issue of nine newspapers. These had neither the dignity nor the imposing size of the mighty dailies of to-day, being for the most part smaller than a single page of any of them, while one, at least, was printed in a mangle! Yet there they were and, if most of them died, they have left descendants to be proud of.

Keeping in view that these forward steps of the infant colony were made within one year of her assumption of independence, that the colonists had to struggle against real financial troubles, that, in many cases, their claim to the land they had bought was disputed, and—most sinister obstacle of all—that they were face to face with a proud, intellectual, warlike race, not altogether friendly, and outnumbering them by five to one,—keeping all this in view, is it not admirable that those strenuous men of yesterday and their worthy descendants of to-day should, in little more than half a century, have raised New Zealand from a tiny colony of eight scattered settlements to a dominion of the Empire?

We have seen how Governor Hobson opposed what he held to be the illegal acts of a Company engineered by men not likely to take blows "lying down." The Directors in England represented their case as just, and claimed some twenty million acres as fairly purchased. The British Government accepted their statement, allowed the claim, and on the 12th of February, 1841, gave the Company a Royal Charter of Incorporation.

The Company were jubilant. It now mattered not if grumbling Maori should declare that their lands had been unfairly acquired, and aver, as they did aver, that the purchases of the Company were "thievish bargains"; the power of Britain was behind the Company, who could henceforth defy opponents of whatever colour.

Not quite. There was Governor Hobson to be reckoned with, and his counterblast was terribly effective. He refused—under the proclamation of the previous year—to give the Company Crown grants for any of their purchases.