1856 - Fitton, Edward. New Zealand: its Present Condition, Prospects and Resources - CHAPTER I. EARLY HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND...

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NEW ZEALAND.

CHAPTER I.

THE following pages are not intended to contain a detailed history of New Zealand; or to describe minutely every particular locality and branch of occupation among the present inhabitants of those Islands.

Such descriptions may be found in numerous publications bearing upon the history of New Zealand, and the early days of its colonization; but are, I believe, of less interest to most persons intending to emigrate, than books of more modest pretensions and less minuteness of detail, which treat more exclusively of the matters of immediate interest to the Colonists established in the country.

The chief object aimed at in this book is, to endeavour to give, in a small compass, such information as I have thought most valuable

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for persons who may have looked toward New Zealand as a future home for themselves, or some member of their families; and who are desirous of knowing what the prospects are of people now reaching New Zealand, as emigrants from England, without any previous colonial experience; as well as the present state of the country, and the condition and occupations of the inhabitants of the various settlements. With these objects in view, I have not hesitated to transcribe into these pages, observations and descriptions already published by persons who have written on the subjects to which I have to refer, where I believe such remarks to be of advantage to the reader. In such cases, I have generally preferred using the actual words of the person whose authority I quote, rather than transpose into my own language, ideas for the suggestion of which I have been indebted to others. In several parts of this book, allusion is made to publications treating of various topics of interest in New Zealand, which persons desirous of minute information may do well to consult; but, it is hoped, that this little volume will be found to contain all the information required by any one desirous of ascertaining, generally, the mode of

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life, and daily pursuits of New Zealand Colonists of the present day.

It must be borne in mind, by persons in England, and by those who have hitherto formed their ideas of a colonial life from accounts they have read of settlements in the vast districts of North America, or of the still unoccupied territories of Australia; that New Zealand, although but very recently much noticed as a field of emigration, is of small comparative extent, and is already so fully explored, that, but a small proportion of the whole amount of its soil which is available for European colonists is, at the present time, altogether unoccupied, either as grazing land, or for the purpose of cultivation. I mention this thus early in the book, because apparently a rather general impression prevails at home, that extensive tracts of land in New Zealand, which might be advantageously occupied by English agriculturists, have never yet been explored or entered upon; and I hope in the following pages to give such an account of the general mode of life, and pursuits of the various classes of Colonists, now established in New Zealand, as may serve to assist persons in Eng-and in forming their opinion (if still undecided

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in the choice of a colony) respecting the advantages offered by New Zealand as their future home, as compared with other more easily accessible countries.

Before entering upon a description of the mode of life and occupations which will probably fall to the lot of persons now emigrating to New Zealand, it will be well to inquire a little into the earlier history of these islands. I do not however think it advisable to enter very deeply into such matters, or to discuss the political history of the country, about which much has been published both in England and in the colony itself during the last few years. The reader will, I think, have little reason to regret a scanty outline of the past history of New Zealand until a very recent period; for the fragments of truth collected from the various traditions of the natives respecting their earlier annals, are so mixed up with falsehood and absurdity, that all that can be relied upon with certainty is nearly as follows:--

FIRST ARRIVAL OF INHABITANTS.--It is probably at least two hundred years, since a party of islanders from some of the numerous group near Torres' Strait, on the east of Australia, or perhaps even more northerly islands near the

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Chinese main land, arrived on the northernmost of the three islands, forming the group now called New Zealand. They appear to have brought with them nothing but the roots of a sort of potato called the "Kumera" or sweet potato, to the cultivation of which, even at the present day, when they are well skilled in the planting and harvesting of wheat, maize, and all the European fruits and vegetables, they still devote a considerable portion of their time and labour. In addition to these roots, which were perhaps a store of food accidentally remaining in their canoes on their debarkation, they brought with them neither animals, nor apparently any knowledge or art, beyond that of weaving rushes into mats for clothing, in which all the islanders of those seas are very expert, and also a knack of rude carving in wood for the adornment of their clubs and canoes.

The natives declare they have always possessed a few dogs; but this is very doubtful, at all events the renegade curs, which now haunt the unfrequented parts of the mountains and the stony river beds, and are dignified by the name of "Wild Dogs" by the English settlers, are evidently the neglected produce of some European mongrels, and are perfectly distinct,

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not only from the Dingo or native dog of Australia, but also from any of the indigenous dogs of the Polynesian group of islands.

The basis of the language of almost the whole group of islands between China and New Zealand is the Malay dialect, to which the Maori or native New Zealand tongue bears a strong resemblance; and this affinity of language, in addition to their bronze colour, and general personal appearance, has been considered a distant connecting link between the inhabitants of the main land of Malacca and the New Zealand natives.

It is at least tolerably certain respecting the original people of these islands, that they did not come from Australia, which is the nearest main land to New Zealand. They differ from the native Australians in stature, complexion, and the texture of their hair; being tall, active and intelligent, with fine straight hair, regular features and mahogany or bronze complexions; and have always been skilled in, and fond of, the management of boats on the open sea; while the Australian aboriginal is swarthy, and stunted in his growth, and scarcely ever uses any kind of canoe except for the temporary purpose of crossing a river.

The cause of their arrival in the islands was

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perhaps the desire of escape from slaughter or slavery to hostile tribes, or possibly an unexpected storm at sea may have driven the first canoes with their occupants to their landing-place upon some portion of the northern island. But, whatever may have brought them to the islands, the earlier inhabitants appear, at any rate, not to have left all feuds behind them; and, if they brought little else with them, they imported to their new habitations a mutual animosity, and eagerness for the extermination, and flesh for convivial purposes, not only of such neighbours as happened to be located near them, but even of more remote ones, who were of sufficient importance to be worth plundering or extirpating. And their history, if it could be clearly unravelled, would probably be little more than a series of alternate warfares and banquetings, and the retiring of the weaker or vanquished tribes or families to other more remote districts. This turbulent existence eventually scattered the population, not only over the whole of the north island, but also drove some of them to seek shelter in the large plains and wooded districts in the less genial climate of the southern portion of the islands. 1

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The first Europeans who visited them were probably the Dutch; we know, at any rate, that the Dutch navigator Tasman touched at the northernmost point in 1643, and the name of New Zealand has been given to the group, in honour of the country to which it owes its discovery. The visits of Captain Cook, which first attracted the attention of Englishmen to New Zealand, threw but little light upon the past history of the then Cannibal Islands. The earliest visit of Cook took place in 1769, during his first voyage of discovery. He made the land at Poverty Bay, to which he gave that name from the apparent sterility of the country; and afterwards, proceeding on a southern and western course, he passed through Cook's Straits, thus ascertaining the fact of there being more than one island in the group. On a second visit, in the year 1773, he approached the islands from the south, after a cruise in the Southern Ocean, and, after passing up the whole west coast of the middle island without finding any harbour, he sailed on a northerly course again through

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Cook's Straits from the western side; and later in the same year, after visiting the Society Islands, the Friendly Islands, and the Marquesas, he came down from Otaheite, lying north-east of New Zealand, and touched at the Bay of Plenty, so named by him from the appearances of fertility being greater there than in his former landing-place. And thence steering south and to the eastward of the middle island, he saw in the distance, the lofty and well wooded promontory, which he named Banks' Island (after Sir Joseph Banks). This supposed island was afterwards found to be a peninsula, connected with the extensive level territory, now so well known as the Canterbury Plains, and containing, besides other shelter for ships, the harbours of Akaroa once a French settlement in New Zealand, and Lyttleton the port town of the Canterbury settlement.

The favourable reports of Cook respecting the harbours to be found in many parts of the New Zealand coast, induced many whaling vessels, who frequented those seas, to visit the till then almost unknown country; and it was not long before adventurers established melting houses and boat stations in many of the small inlets, for the purpose of capturing and trying

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out the oil of the whales, which were in those days very often, and are even now occasionally seen within a very short distance from the shore. And it is to these pioneers of the multitudes who have since made their homes in New Zealand, rather than to any regularly organized expeditions of discovery, that we are chiefly indebted for the first knowledge of the most available harbours and inlets of the coast.

The example of these rough sailors, who were themselves not much less uncivilised than the savages among whom they were located, can have effected little towards introducing Christianity, or abating cannibalism.

But, if the natives received little moral improvement from these hardy seamen, they, at least, learnt from them the cultivation of the potato, and the use of iron for their implements, as well as the advantages attending the rearing of pigs, as a stock of food available at all times, in preference to the precarious banquet afforded by the victims in an occasional hostile foray. And it was not many years before the keeping of pigs became very general among them; and also the cultivation of the potato and American maize, were added to that of their own much esteemed Kumera. The pro-

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geny of some of these pigs, and also of others more recently imported by the settlers, escaping into the unfrequented districts in many parts of the country, have increased amazingly, and become perfectly wild, and in some places very mischievous, by uprooting and devastating unfenced cultivated portions of land.

There had been, previous to the arrival of the English, no quadrupeds whatever in New Zealand, either in a wild or domesticated state, excepting perhaps the dog; but very soon afterwards, not only dogs became numerous, but also the common ship-rat, which has now penetrated into every part of the country, and is very prolific and troublesome in all buildings, especially near the river-beds.

A few goats have also, like the pigs, escaped from their owners, and bred in the mountainous districts; but excepting these fugitives, there are in New Zealand, even now no wild animals of any sort--no reptiles, but a small sort of lizard, and, excepting on the sea-coast, no fish, but eels, which are plentiful in all fresh-water-pools, and which the natives are very skilful in capturing.

There is on all parts of the sea-coast a great abundance and variety of excellent fish, which

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are easily captured, either with nets or hooks, but none of them penetrate more than two or three miles up the estuaries of the rivers.

The birds, especially the water-fowl and marsh-birds, are in some places both numerous and tame. The singing birds, of which a few have very musical notes, are only found on the outskirts of woods and small patches of bush.

Notwithstanding the cannibal propensities of the natives in their relations with each other, the Englishmen from Sydney and elsewhere, engaged in the whaling-trade, kept up a tolerably frequent intercourse with the tribes on the coast; exchanging iron and trinkets, and latterly guns and ammunition for supplies of whalebone, obtained by the natives from carcases thrown upon the shore. And when the possession of pigs and potatoes became general among them, many of the bays on the coast, both of the north and of the middle island, became the permanently appointed rendezvous for the refitting and provisioning of the large sea-going whale-ships, who purchased such supplies as the inhabitants could furnish. By these means, not only did the natives become acquainted with a system of barter, but the language of both parties began to be mutually understood, and a few of these

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intelligent savages even joined the whaling crews, and became skilful, not merely in the use of the oars, but also as "headsmen" in managing the boats, and harpooning and killing the whale.

This increased intercourse with the natives gradually led to a more extended system of trade between Sydney and the mixed population, --consisting partly of sea-faring adventurers, partly of missionaries, who presently made their appearance, and also of some natives, who had made their head-quarters in that part of the north island, now called Auckland. And the attention of the British Government, at first in Australia, and afterwards of the Home Authorities, was drawn to the growing community, as well as to the lawlessness and frequent turbulent outbreaks among the natives and the Europeans, who had taken up their abode in the country.

Occasionally, in later times, before the arrival of a British Governor, large tracts of the country were purchased from the natives, at almost nominal valuations, by such visitors among them as anticipated, that a day might arrive, when land in New Zealand would be valuable. This practice of land barter, at last,

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became very general; and, while all parties tried to overreach one another, the same portion of land was often sold several times over by different chiefs, each of whom pretended to be the real owner of the territory bargained for, to as many different purchasers. Such a mode of dealing soon gave rise to many violent disputes, until, on the establishment of the British Government in the islands, some sixty years after Cook's first visit, it was proclaimed, that, in future, the Crown alone of Great Britain should have the right of purchasing land from a native of New Zealand; and, while certain previous purchases by Englishmen from natives were acknowledged as valid, many others were disallowed, or much curtailed in extent; and subsequently, by regularly conducted agreement and purchase from the natives, a very large portion of the land, both in the north and in the middle island, became the property of the British Government.

The native population at the present day are very unwilling to alienate any portion of the territories which have been reserved to them; however, within the last two years, a very fine district, the Ahuriri, in the north island, bordering upon Wellington, has been made over to

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the British Government; and there are, it is said, still some hopes, that a portion of the beautiful territory around New Plymouth may, ere long, be formally purchased by the Government from the native possessors of the soil.

In this very brief narrative of the earlier events attending the colonizing of New Zealand, I have intentionally omitted all notice of the proceedings of the New Zealand Company; as their past transactions can but little affect persons emigrating to New Zealand in the present day, excepting that a portion of the annual revenue of the colony is appropriated for the liquidation of the liabilities of the Company, which are not yet entirely paid off.

The New Zealand Company was originated in England about the year 1837, in consequence of the general attention directed to the evils arising from the frequently fraudulent and ill defined transfer of their territories by the native chiefs to adventurers, who attempted, by these means, to obtain possession of the islands. The original intention of the Company was, solely to act as mediators between the natives and intending purchasers of their territories; so that a distinct understanding might be entered into by the parties on either side, which would

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prevent a recurrence of the hostilities to which the land barters had given rise.

Much opposition in Parliament having, however, been experienced by the projectors of this intention, it was found necessary to organize a Company, in order to carry on the project, and, under their auspices, a large extent of territory was purchased from the natives, and many ships full of emigrants left England for the colonies, which were projected by the Company.

Owing, however, to various impediments experienced by the Company in endeavouring to carry out their operations, not only from want of the support of the Home Government, but also from the strenuous opposition of interested persons in New Zealand itself, great delays occurred in the adjustment of the various claims to, and subsequent instalment of the right owners in the occupation of, portions of land sold by the Company, to purchasers who had emigrated under their auspices from England.

Very great hardships and disappointments, arising from these causes, were incurred by the earlier emigrants, and eventually the New Zealand Company found it necessary to abandon their project altogether, and to resign all future management and disposal of lands exclusively to

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the representatives of the British Government in New Zealand.

The Company was finally broken up in 1851, having, however, previously established the colonies of Wellington, Nelson, New Plymouth, and Otago. A large portion of their debts still remains unliquidated, the payment of which has been charged upon the annual revenues of the colony, until cleared off.

Meanwhile, in the early days of the whale-fisher's visits, the Christian Missionary had not been idle. In the year 1807, it was first proposed to send Missionaries to New Zealand, but a terrible catastrophe prevented their departure at this time for the intended field of their labours. Owing to some misunderstanding, very probably caused by misconduct of the white people, in their intercourse with the natives, the entire crew of a British vessel, called the Boyd, who had touched at a place, named from this circumstance Massacre Bay, were lured ashore in ignorance of hostilities, and murdered and eaten by the savages. This for a time put a stop to all hopes of missionaries taking up their abode among them. Nevertheless, in 1812, two missionaries ventured to go to these cannibals. They settled at the Bay of Islands.

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The missionaries found the inhabitants as fierce as they expected, nor were they rewarded by any change in their behaviour during many years that they continued their labours among them. If there was any change in the ferocity of the natives towards each other, it was for the worse; for a chief called Hongi, who had obtained a passage to Europe, in one of the vessels that visited his shores, got guns and ammunition from England on his return, and leading his army through the land, destroyed many thousands of his countrymen, who, with their spears and clubs alone, could of course make but feeble stand against the bullets of their assailants. Yet, notwithstanding these discouragements, more missionaries came. The New Zealanders were pleased at the arrival of their teachers, but would not attend to their warnings; and a space of twenty years had made but little improvement in the religious condition of the islands. A few years more however had effected a vast alteration, and at the time of his death, which occurred nearly thirty years after the commencement of his labours, one of the same missionaries, who had first preached the Gospel among them, the venerable Mr. Marsden, had lived to know, that there were at

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least 6000 Christian Maories--to see the once barbarous district of Auckland, the seat of the British Government, and the centre of a flourishing trading community,--and to learn that a Bishop of New Zealand, the present well-known Selwyn, had been appointed, to superintend the religious affairs of the islands of New Zealand and the surrounding seas.

It is not necessary here to describe the progress of the missionaries in New Zealand. A detailed account of their efforts, and eventual, though gradual success, may be found in the annals of missionary labour, and in more recent times (among the publications of the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts) in the journals of Bishop Selwyn. Nor is there any occasion, for a minute history of the establishment of the British Government in the islands. It is sufficient on this point to observe, that at the present time, each of the six chief settlements has a Local Government, or Provincial Council, of its own, for the arrangement of matters, relating to subjects of exclusive interest, within that particular province: while a General Council for the whole islands, legislates for the entire colony of New Zealand, under the superintendence of a Governor, who receives his ap-

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pointment, and occasional instructions, from the Colonial Office at home. There has as yet been only one full session 2 of the General Assembly of New Zealand, held at Auckland, since the passing of the late Bill for the Constitution of New Zealand; there has also been one full session in each province of the several Provincial Councils, and a second session is now holding their sittings.

The following remarks, made in anticipation of the intelligence of the first session of the General Assembly of New Zealand for 1854, are transcribed from No. 157 of the Australian and New Zealand Gazette.

"The constitution of New Zealand has conferred upon the Colony a system of government, without precedent in the southern hemisphere, or indeed in any other British Colony. It consists of a Representative of Her Majesty, deprived of the former despotic power of Colonial Governors, which exceeded by far the power, practically accorded to Her Majesty by the British Constitution, and endowed with the prerogatives, usually exercised by the Sovereign, whom he is deputed to represent. Next in

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order to the Governor, is an Upper Chamber, composed of his own nominees, who are supposed to represent, at a respectful distance, the British House of Peers. Nominally below these, but really above them, is a Lower House, analogous to the British House of Commons, which, though nominally of less moment than the House of Peers, has contrived to possess itself of a power, far beyond that of the Upper House; a feat, which its colonial imitation has yet to accomplish, though it possesses all the materials for the establishment of the same degree of power. The machinery of Government, as at home, is set in motion by a Ministry, composed of Members of either House, and subject to the like influences in holding and surrendering office. In short, we have in New Zealand, almost an exact counterpart of the British constitution.

"The novelty of the New Zealand constitution consists in a number of gubernatorial departments, for the most part independent of all the acts of the general government, save only those of the Governor himself, not as a member of the general government, but as the delegate of the authority of the Crown. For this purpose, the Colony is divided into six Provinces,

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each of which elects its own Governor and Council, to whose hands the entire management of the affairs of the Province is committed, their acts being altogether irrespective of those of the general legislature; and uncontrollable by that body as such. The result is the same, as though Great Britain were divided into six provinces, each having its own provincial government, and framing its own ordinances, irrespective of Parliament, acknowledging in fact no head but Her Majesty.

"These provincial governments are not, as they were called, during the discussions on the bill conceding them, 'municipalities,' in any sense of the term; but are as full and complete as the general government itself; they are in fact, the exact counterparts in principle of the states forming the American Union. The constitution of New Zealand is, therefore, a mixture of the constitution of Great Britain with that of the United States. The Provinces form the States, and the General Assembly the Congress, but in a monarchical form.

"This form of constitution is a novel one, as blending intimately monarchical and republican principles, the latter being in all the ordinary affairs of the Colony rendered predominant;

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whilst the monarchical principle, to use an ordinary phrase, seems better adapted for show than use. Taken altogether, it is a most singular form of government, to have emanated from a monarchical legislature; but it appears to work extremely well."

Unfortunately, however, these bright anticipations were frustrated. The session was frittered away in a series of altercations, which have rendered a great part of the debates, and the members concerned in them, and in the transactions of this, their first session, ridiculous; if not positively injurious to the colony; and the early outset of New Zealand, as a self-governing colony was not distinguished by any beneficial result to the country.

It unfortunately happened, that during the absence on leave to visit England of the Governor, Sir George Grey, since then promoted to the Cape Colony, the administration of New Zealand was left in the hands of Lieutenant-Governor Wynyard; during whose tenure of office, as "Officer administering the Government of the Colony," the meeting of the General Assembly for 1854 took place. To the honest but mistaken endeavours of this officer to select a ministry, capable of assisting him in con-

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ducting the proceedings of the first session, the very unsatisfactory result of the earliest session of a local Parliament in New Zealand must in a very great measure be attributed.

Any detailed account of the proceedings of a session, so little creditable to the colony, or to the members concerned in it, would be altogether out of place in these pages. A second session of the several Provincial Councils has already taken place; and it is to be hoped, that the session of the General Assembly for the present year (1855) may extinguish the unfortunate impression which its earliest meeting may have left upon the minds of some persons, who have not had opportunity or inclination to examine into the real causes of the futility of the session for 1854.

Colonel Sir T. Gore Brown, the late Governor of St. Helena, has recently been appointed to the post, left vacant by the promotion of Sir George Grey, and from his tried integrity, and capacity for administration, the best wishes and expectations of the friends of good government in New Zealand seem likely to be realized for the future.