CHAPTER LIV. OTAGO--DUNEDIN.
[Image of page 553]
CHAPTER LIV.
OTAGO--DUNEDIN.
IT must be understood that New Zealand has a double form of government, resembling in some of its features that of the United States. There is a great federal congress in the United States which concerns itself with the affairs of the whole empire, and there is also in each State a separate smaller legislature, which is never-
[Image of page 554]
theless a legislature complete in all its functions, making laws for its own State. So in New Zealand, there is the General Assembly, which sits at Wellington, and is endowed with all those parliamentary powers which belong to the parliaments in the Australian colonies, and there is also a Provincial Council in each province, which manages the revenue of the province, sells the land of the province, and within certain limits makes laws for the province. And as in each of the United states there is a governor elected by the people, so in each of the provinces of New Zealand there is a corresponding officer called the superintendent. And this superintendent has his own cabinet, --his own set of responsible advisers, --as the governor of the colony has his cabinet, who of course sit in the General Assembly. There are at present eight provinces in New Zealand, four in the Northern and four in the Middle Island, --and there is also in the Middle Island the county of Westland, which has also a quasi-provincial establishment. The provinces are Otago, Canterbury, Nelson, Marlborough, with the county of West-land in the Middle Island, --Wellington, Taranaki, Hawke Bay, and Auckland in the North Island. There are therefore eight separate governments, and a half-government, under the general government. On the 1st of January, 1872, the total population of New Zealand was estimated at 267,000 in round numbers, so that the average population of these separately governed states is not above 30,000 each. But in truth the population of three of the provinces, Taranaki and Hawke Bay, in the Northern Island, and Marlborough, in the Middle Island, is below 10,000 each. And yet in these, as in the others, there is a separate paid legislature, and separate paid officials. In the United States no territory has been held entitled to be proclaimed a State till it has gathered together for itself a population of 100,000 souls, and the average population of the States is about 100,000 each. The stranger in New Zealand is certainly tempted to think that this copying of State government has been premature, if not in itself unnecessary.
There can hardly be a doubt, I think, that New Zealand is over-governed, over-legislated for, over-provided with officials, and overburdened with national debt. That it will have strength to struggle through with all the weight imposed upon it is not improbable. It has a magnificent climate, rich mineral gifts, good soil, --and among its people a resolution to succeed which is in itself equal to half a battle won. It is from this elasticity of pride on the part of the New Zealanders themselves that these burdens have sprung. "Don't tell us that 5,000 human beings are not enough to justify a
[Image of page 555]
OTAGO.
separate legislature, cabinet, government, and the rest of it. If the things be good in themselves we will have them, let the cost be what it may. We are not afraid of expense!" It is thus they seem to speak of themselves and their affairs; and so the thing is done. And certainly there has hitherto been no ruin, no collapse, no crying out for external assistance, although the costliness has been very great.
The superintendent of each province may sit in the General Assembly if he be returned by any constituency. When I was in New Zealand, all the eight superintendents were in the Assembly, and one of them was in the cabinet. From this it follows that the General Assembly and the Provincial Assemblies never sit at the same time. The session of the General Assembly may last for about three months. It is considered that those of the Provincial Assemblies should complete their work in about six weeks. As the General Assembly was sitting when I was in New Zealand, I saw none of those Provincial Assemblies at work.
Otago is the most populous, and I believe I may add the richest, province in New Zealand, and its capital, Dunedin, is its largest city. According to the census of 1871 the population of the province was 69,491, being something above a fourth of that of the whole colony. Dunedin contains about 21,000 people. The settlement at Dunedin was founded on 28th of March, 1848, when a small band of Scotch emigrants, under Captain Cargill, first landed, and pitched their tents on the present site of the town. The rise, both of the province and of the town, has been very quick, having been greatly accelerated by the rushes after gold made from the various Australian colonies. It seems that from the first finding of gold in New Zealand, the gold-fields there have exceeded in popularity those of Australia. The higher rate of miners' wages would seem to justify this, were it not rather the result than the cause. I found that New Zealand still enjoyed much of the charm of novelty in reference to other pursuits as well as that of gold. The wool growers, graziers, agriculturists, and miners of the younger colony were, I will not say, envied by Australians generally, but regarded as having had almost unfair advantages bestowed upon them. The climate has had much to do in producing this happy condition. It is, however, an undoubted fact that during the last ten years there has been a considerable re-emigration from the Australian colonies to New Zealand.
Dunedin is a remarkably handsome town, --and, when its age is considered, a town which may be said to be remarkable in every
[Image of page 556]
way. The main street has no look of newness about it. The houses are well built, and the public buildings, banks, and churches are large, commodious, and ornamental. It strikes a visitor as absurd that there should be six capitals in New Zealand, a country which forty years ago was still cursed with cannibalism; --but it strikes him as forcibly with wonder that it should so quickly have possessed itself of many of the best fruits of civilization. This prosperity has come, I think, less from any special wisdom on the part of those who endeavoured to establish New Zealand colonies on this or another scheme than from the fact that in New Zealand British energies have found a country excellently well adapted for their development. In regard to Otago and Dunedin, it was the intention of the founders, or at any rate of those who instigated the founders, to establish an especially Presbyterian settlement. Doubtless many Scotch families did come out to it, and Scotch names are predominant. The Scotch have always been among the best, --or perhaps the very best, --colonizers that the world has produced. But Otago is by no means now an exclusively Presbyterian province, nor is Dunedin an exclusively Presbyterian city. In the now united provinces of Otago and Southland the Presbyterians are less than half the population. As to Dunedin we have heard lately more of its desire to have a Church of England bishop of its own than of any other propensity. And it is going to have a bishop, --I may say has got one, though when I was there the prelate had not yet arrived. A former bishop did indeed come out, --but he was not approved of, and was returned, having never been installed. It is marvellous to me that the Australian and New Zealand sees can find English clergymen to go out to them. The pay is small, --generally not exceeding £500 a year. That bishops do not become bishops for money we are all prepared to admit. But the power also is very limited, the patronage almost none at all, and the snubbing to which they are subjected is excessive. It seemed to me that this latter process was exacerbated by the small remnant of baronial rank which is left to them. The colonial bishop is still called, my lord; --and of course wears an apron-- and lawn sleeves when he is in church. But there is a growing determination that the clergymen of one Church shall have no higher rank than those of another, --and that a Church of England bishop, therefore, shall have no special social position in his colony. At present this feeling is less strong in New Zealand than in Australia, and is to a certain degree restrained by the quiet, unproclaimed action of colonial governors, who like these bishops, and do
[Image of page 557]
DUNEDIN.
what in them lies to preserve the rank. But the operation of the colonist's mind, even when he belongs to the Church of England, works in the other direction. I shall no doubt be told that bishops do not undertake their duties with any view to the places that may be assigned to them in. walking out of rooms, --as to patronage, or even to power. But we know that authority cannot be maintained without its outward appendages, and that clerical authority has needed them quite as much as civil or military authority. Dunedin did not like the first bishop chosen for the see, because he was supposed to have lent his countenance to some High Church ceremonials. He was, therefore, sent back again. The salary offered is small, and as yet uncertain. No house, or "palace," is provided. I was told that it was considered indispensable that the new bishop should be a member of Oxford or Cambridge, a gentleman distinguished for piety and eloquence, -- and a man of fortune. "Upon my word I think you are very exigeant," I said to my informant. He answered me by assuring me that they had now got all that they asked. The colonial sees always do find bishops. There are six at present in New Zealand, --with a population about half as great as that of Manchester, of which not more than two-fifths belong to the Church of England.
The Provincial Council was not sitting, but I was shown the chamber in which it is held. The members sit, like Siamese twins, in great arm-chairs, which are joined together, two and two, like semi-detached villas. I was specially struck by what I cannot but call the hyper-excellence of the room. There has been, in most of the New Zealand provinces, a determination that the Provincial Assembly shall be a real parliament, with a Speaker and Speaker's chair, reporters' galleries, strangers' galleries, a bar of the house, cross benches, library, smoking-room, and a "Bellamy,"--as the parliament refreshment-rooms are all called, in remembrance of the old days of the House of Commons at home. The architecture, furniture, and general apparel of these Houses, --such of them as I saw, --struck me as being almost grander than was necessary. The gentlemen as they sit are very much more comfortable than are the members in our own House at home, and are much better lodged than are the legislators in the States of the American Union. The Congress of Massachusetts sits in a building which has indeed an imposing exterior, but the chamber itself inspires less awe than does that of Otago.
In one respect the New Zealand legislatures have preferred American customs to those which they left at home. They are paid
[Image of page 558]
for the performance of their legislative work. The pay of a member of the Provincial Council in Otago used to be £1 a day. It is now 19s. 11 1/2d. When this information was first given to me, I own that I disbelieved my informant, attributing to him an intention to hoax a stranger. But I was assured that it is so. And it was arranged in this way. The legislature, bent on economy, reduced the salaries of various provincial officers, and with that high-mindedness for which all legislative chambers in free countries should be conspicuous, reduced their own allowances from 20s. to 12s. a day. But, on trial, it was found that the work could not be done for the money. The Otago gentlemen who came from a distance, could not exist in Dunedin on 12s. a day, --which, if it be considered that a member of parliament should be paid at all, is surely very low in a country in which a journeyman carpenter gets as much. A proposition, however, to raise the sum again to 20s. was lost by a small majority. The rules of the House did not permit the same proposition to be again brought before it in the same session, and therefore in another notice the nearest sum to it was named--and carried. The moderation of the members was shown in the fact that a fraction under, and not a fraction over, the original stipend, was at last found to satisfy the feeling of the House. I think that in Otago a more general respect would be felt for its legislature if the gentlemen sitting in it altogether repudiated the receipt of the small sum, perhaps £50 per annum, which is paid for their services.
The chief products of Otago are gold and wool; --but agricultural pursuits are extending themselves in all parts of the province. The number of free-selectors, or "cockatoos," is increasing, and by their increase declare their own prosperity. Individually, they almost all complain of their lot, --saying that the growth of their corn is precarious, and its sale when grown effected at so poor a price as not to pay for the labour of producing it. The farmers are in debt to the banks, and their lands are not unfrequently sold under mortgage. But such complaints are general all the world over. No man is contented unless he can make a fortune, --and no man is contented when he has made a fortune. The squatters, the miners, the cockatoo farmers, and the labourers working for him, all say the same thing. They regret that they ever left England. It is a mistake to suppose that the colony is a blessed place. Argyleshire or even County Galway is much better than Otago. But in Otago all men live plenteously. Want is not known. If a man fails as a free-selector, he still lives plenteously as a labourer. I will quote a few words from a printed despatch respecting Otago, sent home by Sir
[Image of page 559]
SUCCESS OF THE PROVINCE.
George Bowen, the Governor of the colony, in 1871-- "After the lapse of only twenty-three years"--from the first settlement of the province, --I find from official statistics that the population of the province of Otago approaches nearly to 70,000, that the public revenue, ordinary and territorial, actually raised thereon exceeds £520,000; that the number of acres farmed is above a million; that the number of horses exceeds 20,000; of horned cattle 110,000; and of sheep 4,000,000. The progress achieved in all the other elements of material prosperity is equally remarkable; while the Provincial Council has made noble provision for primary, secondary, and industrial schools; for hospitals and benevolent asylums; for athenaeums and schools of art; and for the new university which is to be opened at Dunedin in next year." I found this to be all true. The schools, hospitals, reading rooms, and university, were all there, and all in useful operation; --so that life in the province may be said to be a happy life, and one in which men and women may and do have food to eat, and clothes to wear, books to read, and education to enable them to read the books.
The province is now--(1873)--twenty-four years old, and has 70,000 inhabitants, and above four million sheep. Poor Western Australia is forty-five years old, and, with a territory so large, that an Otago could be taken from one of its corners without being missed, it has only 25,000 inhabitants, and less than one million sheep, --sheep being more decidedly the staple of Western Australia than of Otago. I do not know that British colonists have ever succeeded more quickly or more thoroughly than they have in Otago. They have had a good climate, good soil, and mineral wealth; and they have not had convicts, nor has the land been wasted by great grants. In founding Western Australia but little attention was paid either to climate or soil; --land was given away in huge quantities, and convicts were introduced to remedy the evils, and to supply the want of labour which that system of granting lands produced. And in Western Australia gold has not been found. I know no two offshoots from Great Britain which show a greater contrast.
Otago possessed no railways in 1872, --but a whole system of railways was in preparation, --partly as yet only on paper, and partly in the hands of working contractors. This system, indeed, is one intended to pass through the entire middle island, and to be carried out in conjunction with an equally extended system in the northern island. For, where public works are concerned, millions are spoken of in New Zealand with a reckless audacity that staggers
[Image of page 560]
an economical Englishman. Debt does not frighten a New Zealand Chancellor of the Exchequer. Legislators in New Zealand take a pride in asserting that every New Zealander bears on his own shoulders a greater debt than do any other people in the world. Telegraphic wires run everywhere in Otago, and before long railways in the low countries will be almost as common. As it was we determined to travel by coach into the next province of Canterbury, --finding that the boats were uncertain, and that the coach ran three times a week from Dunedin to Christchurch. The coach takes three days, travelling about sixty miles a day, and stopping during the night. We were told that the journey was harassing and tedious, but it would not be so harassing and tedious as that we had already made; --and then, by this route, we should see the country.
Leaving Dunedin, we rose up a long wooded hill, with a view to the right over the land-locked arm of the sea down to Port Chalmers, which is the port for Dunedin. It was a most lovely drive. The scenery of the whole country round Dunedin is beautiful, and this is the most beautiful scene of it all. After a drive of about sixteen miles we breakfasted at a place called Waikonaite, at which we found the landlord firing guns up the chimney to put out the fire. In spite of this little confusion, we were excellently provided, -- getting a much better coach breakfast than used to be common in England. I may now say a few words on the disagreeable nature of New Zealand names. Wai is the most customary prefix to the names of places, and signifies water. When divided in this manner, from what follows, it would seem to form a very simple addition; -- but in truth it makes the word complex, difficult to catch, and almost impossible to be remembered. There are no less than twenty-eight post-towns beginning with Wai, and of course the post-towns are but few in comparison with the less important places. In the north island Nga, or Ngate, is the prefix which the reader most frequently meets in records of the early days of New Zealand. It signifies son, and corresponds with the Scotch Mac and the Irish O. In Dr. Thomson's history of New Zealand he recapitulates no less than forty-five subdivisions of one tribe, the names of forty of which begin with Ngate. The sound, however, has not found favour with the colonists, and has been dropped in the names which they have adopted. From Waikonaite the coach goes on to Palmerston, --which sounds more familiarly to English ears. As far as this place, a distance of about thirty-five miles, the road is as good as any in England; --but then there comes a change, and
[Image of page 561]
NEW ZEALAND RIVERS.
thence on to the bounds of the province the road was very bad indeed. The first night's rest was, for the coach, at a small town called Oamaru, and for us at a squatter's house four miles further on. This we reached at nine P.M., and left the next morning at six A.M; --hours at which in fully civilized countries one does not expect a stranger to entertain one; but we found our hostess expecting us at dinner, and in the morning she got up and gave us our breakfast. Twelve miles of as miserable a road as ever I travelled brought us to the Waitaki river, which is the boundary of the province. It was a piercingly cold morning, and we felt aggrieved greatly when we found that we had to leave the coach and get into a boat. But the dimensions of our own hardships lessened themselves to our imagination when we found that two of the boatmen descended into the river, and pushed the boat for half a mile up the stream. During a part of the way three men were in the water, and yet the boat hardly seemed to move. For this service we were charged 2s. a piece, which sum was not included in the coach fare. Pitying the men because of their sufferings, I gave them something over "to drink." It was taken, but taken without thanks, and with evident displeasure, and handed over with the ferry money to the employer. In New Zealand, and in some much lesser degree in Australia also, you may ask any man, or any number of men to drink, without running the slightest risk of displeasing them; but the offer of money is considered to be offensive. The drinking must be done at the bar of a public house; and the money must be paid to the publican and not to your friend who drinks. I think I have elsewhere described the practice of shouting or "standing drinks all round," which I found to be in full force in New Zealand. Even servants will refuse money offered to them. A poor girl whom I had injured, knocking down into the mud the line on which all her clothes were drying, though she was in tears at the nuisance of having to wash them again, refused the money that I offered her, saying that though she was only a poor Irish girl without a friend in the world, she was not so mean as that. Another girl told my wife, in perfectly friendly confidence, that she did not think that she ought to take money. It is odd that so excellent a lesson should be learned so quickly. The pity is that in the course of years it will doubtless be unlearned.
There are many such rivers as the Waitaki running into the sea on the eastern coast of New Zealand, very dangerous in crossing, and the cause of many accidents. We were then in the depth of
[Image of page 562]
winter, and they are not then full. It is after the winter rains, and after the snows, when the mountains give up their load of waters, that the streams become full, and the banks overflow. In the spring the coaches often cannot pass, and are occasionally washed away bodily when the attempt is made. At other rivers besides the Waitaki there is a custodian, who is in some degree responsible for the safety of travellers, and who seems always to charge 2s. a head, whether he preside over a ferry with boat and boatmen, or simply over a ford, across which he rides on horseback showing the way.
When across the Waitaki, we found ourselves in the great Church-of-England province of Canterbury.
