New Zealand of to-day. 1884-1887

Chapter I

Reasons for the necessity of a new work on New Zealand — Growing importance of the Australasian colonies — Publication of '•' Oceana." — Criticism still necessary—The source of Mr. Froude's misconceptions — His estimate of Sir George Grey — Colonial estimate — Mr. Froude's short stay in the colony — He is confuted by Mr. Griffin — He does not understand agricultural processes — The fallacy of his remarks on the Calliope dock — His invectives against the financial condition of the colony opposed to foreign testimony — Mr. Froude on the rising generation — Admissions to be found in the present work .

Chapter II

Short survey of the islands necessary to a right understanding of the country — The Province of Auckland — Its climate and products — The city and its suburbs — Its position as a port — The county of Eden — The north of Auckland — Coromandel and the Thames — Te Aroha— Grant and Foster's special settlement — Piako — Maori country to the east and south — Manukau and Waikato — Value of land — The Province of Hawke's Bay — Its area and climate — Napier — Country to the north — By rail to Woodville — Old coaching road — Woodville an important centre — Gisborne — The Province of Wellington — Difficulties in the past — Aspect to-day — The rich country at its back — Wairarapa East and West — By train to Mauriceville — Prosperity of the district — The Wellington- Contents. VI PAGB Manawatu Railway — Country about Johnsonville — View from Paikakiriki— Otaki — Its forests — Palmerston and the Manchester Block — Wanganui — On to Patea — Rapid progress of the West Coast — Value of land — Climate — Province of Taranaki — Its advantages to the small capitalist —A bush country — Farming at Opunake — On to New Plymouth — Flocks and herds . . . . . . .23

Chapter III

Pre-eminence of Canterbury — Port Lyttelton — By rail to Christchurch — Its buildings and gardens — Its population and climate — The Canterbury Plains — Country north of the city — The Amuri — By Springfield and Malvern — Importance of the Midland Railway — The counties of Ashburton, Geraldine, and Waimate — Their English appearance — By rail to Fairlie Creek — The Mackenzie Plains — Productiveness of Canterbury — Value of its land — Climate of Otago — Confi. gurationof its surface — Country about Oamaru — From Oamaru to Dunedin — A glance at the city — Depression there, and its cause — The Taieri Plains — Clutha and Southland — Agricultural progress in Southland — TheEdendale Estate — Invercargill and the Bluff — The county of Wallace — By rail to Kingston — The Lake District and Sounds — Value of land in Otago — The Province of Westland — Scenery on the West Coast — Hokitika to Greymouth — Cost of provisions — The Province of Nelson — Climate and population — Nelson as a place of residence — Mineral resources — The Province of Marlborough — Its happy seclusion — Character of the country — The best soils in private hands ......... 46

Chapter IV

The native race — Mistaken interference on its behalf — Its present condition — Mr. Griffin's estimate of its character — How the Maoris live — Their better case in Hawke's Bay — Tutiao Manihera on their declining numbers — The true causes of their decay — Their love of the marvellous — The sibyl Mere Taipu — A Tauranga prophet— Maori poetry — War-song and a lover's complaint — How the chiefs live — The taiaha — Abolition of the aukati — Excellent results there from — The King Country passed through the Native Land Court— Otfer of a National Park by the Nga huwharetos — Julia's act of bravery — Maoris in the Contents. VII 110 PAGE South Island — A native wedding — Prolonged festivities — Moral ....... 70

Chapter V

Decline of Maoris a negative, not a positive loss — New Zealand Court at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition — Apathy of the Colonial Government — Suggestions as to the Imperial Institute — New Zealand society — ■ Country-houses and farm-houses — The " lean-to " — The deferred-payment settler — Increase of settlement — Village settlements — Agricultural and Pastoral interests the backbone of the colony — Absurdity of . protection for New Zealand — Its cereals the envy of Australia — Relative yield in the North and South Islands — Mr. Maclvor on the effects of climate — Mr. Baker Proctor on the quality of New Zealand grain — It is compared with English grain — Cost of production — Influence of climate on stock — Cost of merino rams — Longwools — Export of stock — Success of long-woolled sheep — Mr. Griffin on New Zealand wools — Number of sheep in the North and South Islands — Decrease of merinos . ... .87

Chapter VI

The Frozen Meat Trade — Disappointment and its causes — The first shipment — Its success and importance — New Zealand a better mutton-producing country than Australia, or the River Plate — Relative prices in London — Freezing establishments and the process of freezing — Actual and probable export — Fluctuations in value — Facility of production — Initial difficulties — The " freight-ring " and its consequences — It is broken down — Present cost of production— A further abatement probable — How to thaw frozen mutton — Large profits made by the middle-men — The only remedy — Value of mutton exported — New Zealand cattle — Their freedom from disease — Their export to the United States — Prosperity of the dairying and meat-preserving industries — Difficvdties encountered — Increased export of minor products — Advantages offered by dairy factories — Their produce absorbed by Australia — Dairying in the North Island — In the South Island

Chapter VII

Past and present — Millions of virgin acres yet uncultivated — How tussock land is reclaimed, and the cost Contents. VIII PAGE — Reclamation and capabilities of fern land — How bush is cleared — Swamp land, its drainage and sub sequent fertility — The Piako Swamp — The Eureka and Fencourt stations — Irrigation in the county of Ashburton — The Waimakariri water-race — Trifling cost of an abundant water-supply — Agricultural implements — The " reaper and binder " — English and American machines compared — The results of good cultivation — Minor agricultural industries — Ostrich farming — The importation and breeding of horses — The New Zealand Stud and Pedigree Com pany — Musket — Martini-Henry — Nordenfeldt and his pedigree — Stallions and brood-mares — Prices obtained for yearlings — For hunters and draught-horses — Hop-gardens — The cultivation of tobacco — The production of flax, and its cost — The farmers of Waikato attempt to grow beet — Moral . . . 134

Chapter VIII

The colony more than pays its way — What depression in New Zealand really means — Increase of deposits in the savings' banks — Increased value of real estate and personalty — Private indebtedness of the colonists — Public debt of the colony — Position of speculators in land — Depression and the farminginterest — The clouds disperse — Exports to Australia — The present a good time for immigration — People who should not emigrate — The young gentleman emigrant — Experience of Mr. Pennefather — That of the author — Gentlemen cadets — The Agricultural College at Lincoln — New Zealand as a home for the rich — For those with a small, or no capital — Visit of Messrs. Hazell and Hodgkin to New Zealand — Their opinion — Professional agitators and relief-works — The " unemployed " take a holiday — What certain mayors think of the "unemployed" — The majority of the colonists are industrious — Wages now current — The "swagger" objects to thrift — Jim — Tom — Big Jim — One-eyed Jim — Working men's clubs ........ 159

Chapter IX

Why free passages are not granted— Nominated emigration — Hostility of trade unions to the admission of skilled labour — Assistance given to small farmers — The classes most benefited by emigration — How to find employment on arrival — Wages of married couples — Cost of living — Building societies — The Contents. IX PAGE 207 226 new settler begins to realize his position — Village homesteads and their advantages — They are maligned by the "unemployed" — Letters in their favour — Vote of censure on a detractor — Special settlements — Their popularity — Mr. J. C. Firth's generous offer — How a family man possessed of fifty acres may ' prosper — The special settlement of Waharoa— Others likely to follow in the steps of Mr. Firth — Purchase of a freehold for cash — Under the deferred-payment system — Perpetual leases — Their origin — Their com parative unpopularity — Things to be remembered by the emigrant . .... 184

Chapter X

New Zealand reached in forty days — Life on board a direct steamer — The tourist lands at Auckland — Destruction of the Pink and White Terraces — Belt of subterranean agitation — Description of White Island — Premonitory symptoms — A terra-firma on sufferance — Mount Tarawera— The eruption described by an eye-witness — Destruction of Wairoa — The day after the eruption — The theory of mud volcanoes — Loss of life among the Maoris — Dr. Hector's theory — Appearance of Tarawera on the 13th of June — The mountain as viewed from the east — The Great Fissure — Vast area covered with pumice-sand — Mud deposit — The pillar of cloud — The eruption a purely hydro-thermal phenomenon — Analysis of the grey deposit — Subsequent fertility — Fate of Te Heuheu

Chapter XI

Auckland to Wellington — Wellington to Christchurch — The Otira Gorge — How to visit the Mackenzie country — Distances between the hotels — Charges — Lakes Tekapo and Pukaki — Mount Cook — Trip to the Sounds — A passenger's " log "—Mr. Green's description of Milford Sound — Invercargili to Queenstown — Lake Wakatipu — Lake Wanaka, one of the finest lakes in the world — Climate of the Lake District — Large trout — Return to Dunedin — Lakes Te Anau and Manipori — Vegetation at the western lakes .........

Chapter XII

Hostile criticism induced by "Oceana" — Its libellous character — The New Zealand Press itself deserves Contents. X PAGE 242 271 reproach — Itsjoccasional insincerity — Weakness ofthe Stout-Vogel Administration — Sir Julius Vogel — Sir Robert Stout — The Hon. John Ballance — The Land Acquisition Bill — Useful measures passed by the late Ministry — New Zealand and responsible government — Too much centralization — The Roads and Bridges Act is repealed — The Hospital and Charit able Aid Bill — Sentimental feeling against a poor rate — Necessity for the rate — The Land Act, 1885 — Suspension of land sales for cash — Attempt to create a Crown tenantry — The barmaid question — Peddling attempts at legislation — Immigration neglected — Sir Dillon Bell on the Stout- Vogel land policy — Immigration in the Argentine Republic — What it has done for the United States — What it would do for New Zealand — The Ministry, wedded to its theories, is defeated — Sir Harry Atkinson becomes Premier — Sketch of his policy. ....

Chapter XIII

Unpopularity of Sir Julius Vogel's proposed tariff — Effect of Protection in the United States — In Victoria — An Otago skit on Protection — Serious questions which confront the Government — Condition of the State tenantry — Mr. Ballance refuses to modify existing contracts — Decision of the Supreme Court as to the right of mortgaging State leaseholds — Land nationalization a myth — The future of the State railways — The Wellington-Manawatu Railway — The Belmont viaduct — Success of the line — The Midland Railway — Captain Russell's motion — Its effects — Importance of Midland Railway — Mr. Avigdor's report — The forests and coal-fields which it taps — Extracts from the Report of Mr. Blair, Assistant Engineer-in-chief to Government — Advantages of construction by a private company — Probable cost — Mismanagement of Government railways — Better results in the Argentine Republic — Sir Harry Atkinson on the general dissatisfaction — His remedy a makeshift — The State railways should be sold, and all new lines made by private companies .

Chapter XIV

Necessity for the re-adjustment of State education — Steady increase in the annual appropriation — Theoretical perfection of the system — The result not commen- Contents. XI PAGE surate to the cost — The only remedy — Insufficient accommodation — A death-blow to purely secular education — Effects of the syllabus — Teachers' protest against examination papers — Shortcomings of can didates for junior scholarships — The Educational Institute advises a return to the three R's — The secular system finds many opponents — The responsibility of Government with regard to religious instruction — The religious difficulty more apparent than real — The vagaries of school committees — Certain purists are shocked at the immorality of Terence — Truth versus squeamishness — The New Zealand University — Scholarships for the promotion of science — The Minister of Education on the educational system — Unpopularity of the University, and its cause — A mixed system of education likely to result from present difficulties .... 300

Chapter XV

The prosperity of the townsfolk — Their expenditure rests on a solid basis — Dividend-paying -companies — Industries in operation — Value of their productions — The Timaru Harbour — Its history, receipts, and expenditure — Its past and present condition — The necessity for harbours of secondary importance — The harbours of Lyttelton, Dunedin, Wellington, and Auckland — Importance of the Calliope dock — Relative foreign trade of the provinces — The mercantile marine — Gold-mining — Successful and non-successful mines — Coal-miuing — Its present condition and future prospects — Large deposits of iron-ores — The timber trade — The fungus and kauri-gum trades — Condition of the manufacturing industries — A tooblind emulation and its results — So great zeal is pardonable in a new country . . . . .331

Chapter XVI

The Federation Enabling Bill — Reasons for its rejection by New Zealand — Imperial Federation alone possible — The Colonial Office and colonial feeling — The fate of South Carolina — Separation a myth — Something of what is implied by Imperial Federation — Lord Derby a failure- — Effects of his policy — The good offices of Mr. Forster — New Zealand and the Colonial Conference — Mismanagement of British interests in the Pacific — The muddle at Samoa — England's duty — Letter from Malietoa to the Contents. XII PAGE Governor and Ministry of New Zealand — The Queen of Raratonga visits the colony — Colonial feeling with regard to annexation — Count Hatzfeldt on the Colonial Office — The House of Representatives on Imperial interests in the Pacific .... 362 Appendix 387 MAPS. Ma p of New Zealand, to face chapter II. Map of the Hot Lake District, to face chapter X.

Chapter I

The necessity of a new work on New Zealand — Growing importance of the A -stralasian colonies — Publication of "Oceana" — Critici: rstill necessary — The source of Mr. Froude's misconceptions — His estimate of Sir George Grey — Colonial estimate — Mr. Froude's short stay in the colony — He is confuted by Mr. Griffin — He does not understand agricultural processes — The fallacy of his remarks on the Calliope dock — His invectives against the financial condition of the colony opposed to foreign testimony — Mr. Froude on the rising generation — Admissions to be found in the present work. " New Zealand as it is " was written during the earlier months of 1882, yet most of its pages have already become obsolete. And that, because iu a newly-peopled country important events hurry one after the other with lightning speed ; and half a century of changes in the old world is comiDressed into a single decade in the new.

For the development of a young commonwealth must, in proportion, proceed with greater rapidity than that of a state which has for many centuries been thickly peopled, whose very buildings witness to its hoary age, whose statute-book has been com piled by the travail of successive generations, B which can dwell upon a long past with pardon able pride, and contemplate the future with a confidence begot of experience. A young colony is, after all, but as a child whose troubles are, for the most part, yet in store, and the greater part of whose wisdom has yet to come. It is apt to cry for the moon, nor comprehends that the beauteous orb is beyond its grasp. It is apt to be occupied with trifles to the de triment of more important matters ; to ex claim, "I must," "I will," before it has mastered the grammar of possibilities.

Yet all the long while it is growing despite itself, is casting to one side the garb of babyhood and assuming that of early youth. So, during the last five years, New Zealand has advanced a far-reaching stage toward a greater maturity. Direct steam communication has been established between its islands and the mother country ; the frozen meat trade has become an established fact ; the land laws have been so extended as to meet the requirements of its poorest citizen ; private companies have been, for the first time in the annals of the colony, formed for the construction of important railways ; de centralization, or in other words a casting upon the shoulders of local bodies responsibilities which were formerly undertaken by the central govern ment, has been happily initiated ; and lastly, which the colony could very well have done without, some malignant fairy suggested to Mr. Froude the publication of " Oceana."

Mr. Fronde's " Oceana." 3 It is altogether unnecessary to enlarge upon the growing importance of her colonies to the mother-country — a fact as to which, although none too soon, she has become fully alive. The seven Australasian colonies cover an area of 3,075,736 square miles, exceeding the area of the United States of North America, and but some 700,000 square miles less than that of Europe. And of all these vast possessions, New Zealand is, perhaps, the fairest gem in the Imperial crown — the young England of the southern hemisphere, sea-laved as her parent, peopled by the same race, animated by the same dogged resolution, and regarding the mother-country with sentiments of loyalty and love. Imagine, then, the feelings of astonishment and annoyance with which the people of New Zealand read the pages o£ " Oceana."

Foreign officials, appointed by their respective governments to study the colony, had, after travelling through its entire length and breadth, reported in its favour ; but Mr. Froude, after a three weeks' sojourn of comparative isolation, could barely find words in which to measure his disgust. Adverse criticism, more especially of men who have won their laurels in other fields of literature, must always be a disagreeable duty. Indeed, some might be disposed to assert that it would be better to leave a book of the character of "Oceana" to the judgment of posterity; that, if contrary to truth, it must soon meet a deserved oblivion ; that, in any case, having b been written three years ago, it were better not to stir the mud of a forgotten past. But any such arguments would be beside the mark.

The work has been circulated in tens of thou sands, it has been almost universally read, it still occupies a place on the book-shelves of public libraries and of private houses, it is still potent for harm. So great isthe reputation of its author, that his impressions are accepted with confidence by the masses of his fellow-country men, and it will require many a persistent en deavour before the evil which has been wrought, is even partially overcome. Although, then, it must necessarily be a disagreeable duty to criticise adversely the work of a man who possesses the undoubted attainments of Mr. Froude, to do so becomes an imperative duty towards the colony ; and it but remains to regret that a scholar so distinguished in the paths of literature should have lent his authority to such crude, ill-founded, and altogether misleading statements.

Had he taken the trouble to push his investigations wider afield, or condescended to explore the rich mines of information which lay ready for his inspection, his conclusions must have been different, and his book would have been a valuable addition to the many works which have been written about the Colony. To one conversant with the politics and public instincts of New Zealand, the source whence Mr. Froude derived the larger portion of his misconceptions can admit of no reasonable doubt. The Source of His Misconceptions. 5 The want of charity in his deductions ; the hurried pace at which the colony is represented as advancing to its funeral pyre ; the gloomy stormclouds which lower in the horizon, only to be uplifted by the imposition of a land, io place of a property tax ; — all these vivid descriptions and anticipations bear the mark of a well-known hand.

The words may be those of Mr. Froude, but all along the line it is Sir George Grey who inspires the words. Indeed, on his almost every page relating to New Zealand, Mr. Froude cannot repress the admiration with which he regards " The Knight of Kawau." He admits that Sir George " has bitter enemies as well as warm friends," but merely deduces therefrom " that he is still an effective power in New Zealand politics." In his eighteenth chapter he goes on to describe " the evangelical softness " of Sir George Grey's speech, how he said grace before every meal, and gathered his people about him every day for "worship;" and, on a later page, he declares that " the week which we passed at Kawau was one of the most interesting which I remember in my life, and our host certainly was one of the most remarkable men.

It is sad to think that in all human likelihood I shall never see Sir George Grey again. When he dies, the Maori and the poor whites in New Zealand will have lost their truest friend, and England will have lost a public servant, among the best that she ever had, whose worth she failed to understand." It would be impertinent to criticise Sir George Grey's private character; nor is an investigation into the causes which led to a non-appreciation of his merits by the Colonial Office, or into the reasons which induced him to take up his abode on the lovely island of Kawau, material to the purpose of the present work. But his career as a politician — so much of it, at least, as relates to the colony — and the impression left by that career on the public mind, are subjects for legiti mate comment, and necessarily affect the value of Mr. Froude's deductions.

The Lyttelton Times, in many respects the best edited paper in New Zealand, and certainly not an organ of the landed interest — for it is never weary of vaunting its democratic tendencies — describes the political career of the late Governor and Premier in the following terms : " Sir George Grey represents little except himself. Had he chosen, he might have been generally accepted as a New Zealand tribune of the people, as the selected exponent of advanced radicalism in the colony. But his transparent selfishness has ruined his chance of playing so respectable and honourable a part. His behaviour since the battle over the Representation Act of 1880 has been calculated quite as much to disgust advanced liberals as anybody else. Hence the poor figure he is now reduced to cut in the House. Session after session he appears there with a number of bills, some useless, some harmful, some impracticable.

He is great at moving adjournments of the House." The Press on Sir George Grey. 7 On the occasion of a No Confidence motion moved by Sir George Grey during the session of 1885, Sir Robert (then Mr.) Stout, a radical of the radicals, declared that, "If the present Government has borrowed much, he (Sir George Grey) borrowed more; if they have made many appointments, he made more ; if in certain direc tions they have not stepped out boldly, he did not step out at all." The Otago Daily Times, when reviewing the political outlook on Sir Julius Vogel's return to the colony in 1884, makes the following remarks as to the then position : " Major Atkinson was confessedly at his wits' end, without a policy, and his hopes spent. His jeremiads accentuated the depression which his proverbial philosophy could not alleviate. . . .

But we looked askance at the option which was left us, of the dangers of Sir George Grey, or the weakness of Mr. Mont gomery. If Sir Julius Vogel had not landed in New Zealand, a coalition would probably have been effected between these two elements — the one representing radicalism of the Mirabeau type and North Island interests, the other narrow mindedness and short sight. We should ere now have had a land tax, and most probably a pro gressive land tax." Lastly, the Neiv Zealand Times, a Wellington daily, asserts that, " The general verdict, in and out of Parliament, is that the leadership of Sir George Grey would be highly mischievous." Nor has the publication of "Oceana" in any way ameliorated the prospects of Sir George's political career. On the contrary, it has served but to emphasize the previous and general verdict.

So striking an unanimity of opinion, shared in by " all sorts and conditions of men," for mulated alike in Wellington, in Canterbury, in Otago, and probably by a majority in Auckland, forms a convincing proof that Mr. Froude, when accepting Sir George Grey as the representative mouthpiece of the colony, fell into a most unfortunate error. Nor were Mr. Froude's opportunities of acquiring personal information more fortunate. He remained but three weeks in the colony, and even during one entire week of these poor three he was dallying in the charmful groves of Kawau. Of the two remaining weeks, he spent one at Ohinemutu, doing as in duty bound the Lake country of the North Island ; while the balance of his brief sojourn he would appear to have devoted to the city of Auckland and its suburbs, and in the armchair of a club, to have brought his investi gations to an abrupt conclusion.

" In trying to see everything," he complacently observes, " we should see nothing properly, and we had to limit our ambition. There has not been time for local varieties of character to form among the colonists. After learning what people were thinking and saying in Auckland, we should know tolerably what they thought and said elsewhere." No assumption could have been more baseless, and Mr. Froude Confuted by Mr. Griffin. 9 from it have resulted the many errors which are charged against Mr. Froude by those who know the colony. To make apparent the lack of knowledge that pervades those pages of " Oceana " which relate to New Zealand, it may be as well to select a few of the more damaging of Mr. Froude's theories and compare them with realities. Moreover, when ever the materials at the author's disposal admit of so doing, the refutation shall come from an alien pen.

In his fourteenth chapter Mr. Froude says : " The English race should not come to New Zealand to renew the town life which they leave behind them, with a hand-to-mouth subsistence as earners of wages on improved conditions. They will never grow into a new nation thus." And in the following chapter he exclaims : " It was disgusting to see, on one side, a beautiful country opening its arms to occupation, holding out in its lap every blessing which country life can offer ; and on the other, cities like Auckland, crammed like an overcrowded beehive, the bees neglecting the natural flowers and feeding on borrowed sugar." Now, let us turn to the Report of Mr. G. W. Griffin, consul at Auckland in the year 1883 for the United States of America — a Report which was drawn up by that gentleman for the better information of the U.S. Government.

On page 23 we find these words : " The increase of the population of New Zealand has been very general all over the colony, and has not been, as in Victoria and New South Wales, a growth chiefly in the towns. . . . The growth of New Zealand in wealth has been commensurate with the increase of her population." "The roads in new countries," generalizes Mr. Froude, " are not macadamized ; they are mere tracks smoothed with a spade, and in wet weather and in soft soil, hoof and wheel cut considerable holes in them. Travelling therefore has its difficulties." It is true that in some districts of the province of Auckland there exists, owing to the nature of the soil and subsoil, an absence of hard road-making material ; but, had he thought fit to travel a little farther south, Mr. Froude might have driven, until thoroughly worn out, over thousands of miles of smooth, broad, and well macadamized roads.

However, Mr. Froude did not think fit so to travel, and it was only by a mere accident that, driven out of his course by a sudden squall and his cockle-shell of a boat having been cast upon a sandy beach, he was enabled even to describe the interior of a New Zealand farmhouse. At sight of this, he exclaims prophetically: "One day there will be homesteads such as this all over New Zealand, when the municipalities can borrow no more and the labourers must disperse or starve." Alas for Mr. Froude, the prophecy was born at least a quarter of a century behind its due time, and, even as it was uttered, the valleys of New Zealand were already dotted with pleasant homesteads, and its plains stood thick with corn. The Cold Clays of Waikato. 11 Then Mr. Froude relates how he met a certain Mr. F , one of the largest landowners in the North Island, who " was experimenting on Californian methods, introducing American farm machinery, &c." This gentleman was no doubt the well-known Mr. J. C. Firth, owner of the Matamata estate, and of whom more hereafter ; but it is altogether incredible that any Mr. F — — could have told Mr. Froude that he was introduc ing American farm machinery.