1863 - Hodder, Edwin. Memories of New Zealand Life. 2nd ed. - OBJECTIONS TO COLONIAL SOCIETY

       
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  1863 - Hodder, Edwin. Memories of New Zealand Life. 2nd ed. - OBJECTIONS TO COLONIAL SOCIETY
 
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COLONIAL SOCIETY.

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OBJECTIONS TO COLONIAL SOCIETY.

COLONIAL SOCIETY.

THERE are many strange ideas in circulation in England as to society in New Zealand; and many people, who would think of taking up their abode there for pecuniary, healthful, or other reasons, seem to possess so great a repugnance to colonial society, manners, and customs, that they are deterred. This arises in a great measure from confounding the history of the past with the present. In a young colony, greater improvements are made in a few years than there would be in an English county in a hundred. Another reason is, because people do not recognize a difference between settling in the bush, and in or near the towns; and again, because those who have gone there, and have had to encounter scenes and circumstances different from the even tenor of the way they may have always pursued in England, exaggerate their descriptions, and paint with too bright or else too dark a colour the actual facts of their colonial life.

Nelson ranks high in the social scale, and may be taken as a good type of the generality of settlements

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with regard to its society. It has different classes, and those classes again subdivided; yet, taken as a whole, it presents a united, influential, and independent community.

Its higher class or aristocracy is composed of leading ministerial, political, and commercial men. There is a Lord Bishop, and a goodly staff of clergymen, besides ministers of nearly every denomination. In the political world there is a Superintendent--the provincial King--and a Local Government--his Court, who represent, or are supposed to represent, the interests of each district in the province. Every member is dignified with an M.P.C. (Member Provincial Council) appended to his name. Then follows the official list of Speaker, Provincial Solicitor, Provincial Secretary, Executive Committee, and other dignitaries, whose office entitles them to position. There is a Board of Works, Central Board of Education, a staff of College Governors, a District Judge, benches of Magistrates, and all the other useful bodies necessary, or deemed necessary, to promote the well-being of the province, filled by able and influential men.

There is no end of Doctors in New Zealand. Every ship-surgeon who settles in the colony takes to himself the title of Dr. So-and-so. It sounds well, and every pretence to a title is winked at where so few exist. There are also a number of Majors, Colonels, Captains, and Lieutenants. Disappointment

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IN THE CITY.

is sometimes felt that the Captains are men retired from the command of merchant vessels; and that the Lieutenants are indebted to the Rifle Corps for titles. There are merchant-princes having first-rate commercial and private establishments, who rank high in general estimation, and whose influence is more felt, perhaps, than that of any other class.

The manners and customs of such a society (equal if not superior to the majority of English towns) do not materially differ from those in vogue in the old country. There is less formality, fewer restraints of etiquette, and less artificial life than in England, but more genuine heartiness and friendly feeling. Circumstances tend to knit people together; sympathies are shared in common. All are emigrants; all have reminiscences about the mother-country, which is invariably designated home; and nearly all have at some time or other--if they are old settlers especially--had to rough it, and bear privations and struggles.

The amusements of such a society are also similar to those in England. There is no Regent Street, but ladies can amuse themselves in the morning with shopping at the really very creditable stores. There is no Rotten Row, but there are good sound roads to ride or drive upon. There is no Coldstream Band in the Park in the afternoon, but there is a capital substitute in the Nelson Amateur and Volunteer Bands,

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which play once or twice a week; and in the evening the lovers of pleasure can generally find amusement at balls, concerts, or dinner-parties, either public or private. The "Times" only comes out by the monthly mail; but there are two bi-weekly provincial papers issued, deeply interesting to those in the locality--the "Nelson Examiner," on Wednesday and Saturday; the "Colonist," on Tuesday and Friday. The former paper is considered superior to any other newspaper in New Zealand. Those who wish can attend races and regattas, cricket clubs or volunteer rifle corps, subscribe to circulating libraries, and take summer tours to neighbouring settlements, in some cases either by land or water.

In religious matters there are weekly lectures and prayer meetings at the different places of worship; a Young Men's Christian Association, founded on principles similar to those of the Parent Society in London, where biblical and other classes are held, and occasional lectures delivered. Missionary and anniversary meetings are frequently occurring. "Bohea struggles," or tea parties, are common, and are generally far more interesting than in England, owing to the fact of everybody being known, which renders these public gatherings of a more social and family character. On Sunday, all the leading denominations are represented at the different places of worship. No one would expect to find such men as Melville, Baptist Noel,

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IN THE SUBURBS.

Binney, Punshon, or Spurgeon; nor would it be generally expected to find in the Established Church, as well as in the Dissenting Churches, so many really eminent and earnest men as are to be found in the ministerial office, not only in Nelson, but in most of the provinces.

One of the best criteria of the attractiveness of Nelson society is that, with very few exceptions, all who have amassed money and returned to England with the intention of settling there, have soon grown tired of English society, with its restraints, fashions, and formalities, and have been glad to go back again to their adopted country.

In the country villages, which lie from ten to twenty or thirty miles away from the city, society is altogether upon a different basis. The population is generally insufficient to form distinct classes--to be recognized as such--and therefore, of necessity, all stand upon the same level.

The small farmer, with his twenty-five acre section--the large farmer, with his hundreds of acres--the village minister, doctor, schoolmaster, and storekeeper, are all one in the social scale, and are generally all on visiting terms.

The houses are scattered, and are inferior to those in the city. Very little attention is paid to keeping up appearances; and fashion is regulated by taste, not by rule. Ladies are not ashamed to be seen

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ornamenting their gardens; nor would they blush to receive a visitor when engaged in kneading the week's batch of bread. The proprietor of a farm--it matters not whether he is a magistrate or member of the Council--does not deem it derogatory to drive his own bullocks occasionally, or be seen in the village in a blue smock-frock. The ministers of congregations are not ashamed to mend their own fences, groom their own horses, chop fire-wood, or turn their hands to any useful work. Those who cannot afford to keep servants, or have not room in their houses to accommodate them, manage to do without; and the daughters, if there are any, instead of practising music all day, reading James's novels, or stitching at crochet, lend a willing and helping hand in domestic affairs. Those who do keep servants do not hesitate to churn butter, attend to the dairies, and engage in household occupations, or be seen with a market-basket in their hands out of doors.

Amusements are of a different class. In the village where I lived there were only two or three pianos, and the lovers of music used frequently to drop in of an evening where these were, to spend a social evening together. Open houses are generally kept among friends in these small communities--"Come when you can, we shall always be glad to see you, and you know we never make a difference for strangers," is the usual invitation; and is not the unmeaning, com-

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AMUSEMENTS.

mon-place nothing, it is in some places, but is taken in the homely, friendly way in which it is given. Many have been the pleasant evenings I have spent in this way, generally meeting a few friends who have dropped in for a similar purpose. Sometimes Amateur Concerts are given by the musical folks of the village, at the Institution or School-room; one of the pianos is lent for the occasion, and the gatherings are always more like overgrown family parties than public entertainments. Musical ladies and gentlemen of good position generously take part in the concerts, not considering it improper to render amusement to their neighbours, when rational amusement is usually so difficult to be obtained.

During the summer months, shooting parties, pedestrian tours, and pic-nics are the principal amusements. There is a place called the Rabbit Island, about nine miles from Richmond, which can only be reached by carts at low tide; this is a famous resort for pleasure parties. It is a beautiful island, with mountains of white sand, and valleys of shells, good rabbit-shooting, and a fine hard, level, sand beach. The pic-nic parties are generally very numerously attended; bullock-drays are put into requisition for conveyances; tents are carried, as there is little brushwood on the island; and, no matter if the weather is fair or foul, once there, it is imperative to remain for ten or twelve hours until the tide runs out, and

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the creek which forms the island can be crossed. Then there are hill and gully excursions,-- these materially assist in giving that beautiful, healthful ruddiness to the complexion which characterises the colonial young ladies;--and a thousand rural treats, immeasurably surpassing the artificial enjoyments of more polite society.

Life in the bush, or backwoods, in districts far remote from town or village, separate almost from the rest of the world, has circumstances peculiar to itself. The settler's home is his world; if there are one or two families together, they live under a patriarchal dispensation, and their society is just what they make it. It has its enjoyments, like every other life, and it has innumerable deprivations. The usual programme, as far as my observation has gone, is, to rise when "the smiling morn tips the hills with gold," plod on throughout the day, digging, ploughing, felling trees, fence-making, or something of a kindred nature, leave off work in the evening when it gets too dark to see to do any more, and lounge over a large log-fire with a pipe in one's mouth for the remainder of the evening. Vary this by spending an idle day on Sunday, an exile from the public worship of God and the privileges of the sanctuary, and then commence a repetition of the programme on Monday morning.

Of course this need not be so. Bush-life may be made an Eden, intellectual recreations may be enjoyed,

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INDEPENDENCE.

social family pleasures abound, and the wilderness-home be made a very temple of domestic happiness: to repeat what has been said before--Bush-life is just what you make it.

There are a few general remarks which it may not be out of place to give here.

New Zealand is essentially a colony of self-made men. In the majority of cases, those who now exercise the greatest influence and hold the highest positions are men who have worked their way up from comparative poverty to social eminence and prosperity. A false pride shrinks from the survey of an up-hill life, and will not endorse the sentence, "sweet are the uses of adversity;" but an honest pride is ever ready to attribute prosperity to its proper source, and will magnify the strong right arm and energetic mind that has laughed at obstacles and overcome them. Colonial independence--liberty, equality, and fraternity--thus has its origin. Although the relative spheres in society of the settlers when in England may have been wholly different, some moving in high circles by virtue of educational advantages, still, nearly all who are now in New Zealand went there actuated by the same motive--to obtain a better position and improve their pecuniary condition. Those who have had young families growing up around them, seeing the utter impossibility in their own overcrowded country of ever placing them in

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positions of comfort and independence, have gone there with the certainty of success as the warrant for leaving the homes of their childhood, determined to endure hardships and privations in order to accomplish this praiseworthy end. The same motive that has actuated the educated man and the capitalist, has also led the mechanic and the labourer. Leaving England for the same object, prosecuting their labours in the far-off land for the same ends, is it strange that an equality in interest generates a social equality? Is there shame in this?

Nearly all the old settlers in the colony, although now widely differing in point of station--some holding high and influential offices, while others plod on in comparative obscurity--can look back together to their early struggles and privations, shared in common, bearing together the burden and heat of the day, and trace step by step their progress through long years of hard work, self-denial, and economy, to their present relative standings in society. There are some highly-refined minds who would think it a disgrace to be linked in such associations, who would be ashamed to stretch out the hand to a mechanic who has risen in the world by reason of steady industry and persevering energy, and now stands on the same level with themselves. Such people will not approve of colonial society. There, it is a matter of small moment whether you were appreciated in fashionable

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circles at home for your very limited notions of true independence. New Zealand is the race-course of labour, with prosperity and influence--real practical influence--at its goal; and he who speeds forward on the way, with nerve and strength strained to the work, is the man who ranks the highest. The present head of society in Nelson--his Honour the Superintendent--was merely a working man when he arrived in New Zealand; and now, by his own indefatigable exertions, has risen to a position which he has honourably and ably sustained with credit to himself and the colony.

There are evils arising from this state of things: wealth is often made the passport to position, without any other qualification in its possessor. That man has not stepped beyond his proper sphere, if his competency ensures his success; but wealth, unsupported by talent, being a man's only recommendation, he acts a part discreditable to himself, and in the end mortifying to his constituents. Filling offices for which he has no ability, to the exclusion of men of intelligence and mental prowess, the consequence is that the progress of the colony is hindered.

Another evil is, that the race for riches is often undertaken and eagerly prosecuted to the entire rejection of all intellectual culture; and many melancholy instances occur of men who, when they have reached the goal, have found that the charms it pre-

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sented in imagination have had no place in reality, from the fact that the talents which could alone give power to enjoy them, have been sacrificed in the contest. What remains for such a case? Facts have proved, unfortunately, in too many cases, that the favourite of fortune finds no pleasure in the society which his circumstances entitle him to enjoy. He cannot understand, and therefore cannot appreciate, the refinements and intellectual luxuries of life, and he has recourse to enjoyments which appeal to the senses only to mock them; finds nothing more congenial than the society which is found in ale-houses, who sponge upon his wealth, and drag him down to an abyss of moral degradation.

These are the extremes--all between is a fair open field for enterprise, where the capitalist and the labourer, the man rich in mental wealth, as well as the humble and illiterate, may all find success proportionate to their abilities, and society congenial to their tastes.

There was a time in the history of New Zealand when prosperity, with few exceptions, smiled at once on all its inhabitants. Since then, some of the "short cuts" to wealth have been shut up, and "No thoroughfare" hangs over many an avenue that once led to fortune. For the past few years, complaints have been made of "Hard times," "temporary depressions," and the like; and certainly, in many of the provinces,

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PROSPERITY.

the complaint has not been without foundation. At the present time, however, it may be said that the colony is in a flourishing condition. If independence is not to be obtained so rapidly as a few years back, nevertheless, it is to be obtained; if money is not in abundant circulation, still, money's worth is always at hand to tender to every man his fair day's fee, and prosperity is as much the beacon-light to New Zealand as ever.

The labouring man or mechanic, whose capital consists in a strong pair of sinewy arms and a determined will to work his way up in the world, can invest his capital in no better country. The careworn tradesman, unshackled from the thousand ills to which his trading flesh was heir in England, and unfettered from the galling antipathies unfortunately rife at home, breathes in a more congenial atmosphere.

All who adopt the colonial motto, "Work, work!" and bear in their hands "the banner with the strange device, Excelsior!" find in New Zealand, if not an independence, at least a comfortable living among comfortable folk;--but idlers meet with the same reception Beau Brummel did in Manchester--"Friend, thou art not wanted here."


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