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HISTORY |
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White New Zealanders have long thought of their country as a model
of humanitarian colonization. Most Maori take a different view, however,
informed by generations of their ancestors witnessing the theft of land
and erosion of rights that were guaranteed by a treaty with the white
man. Schoolroom histories have long been faithful to the European view,
even to the point of influencing Maori mythology, but in the last couple
of decades revisionist historians have largely discredited what many New
Zealanders know as fact. Much that is presented as tradition, on deeper
investigation turns out to be late nineteenth-century scholarship, often
the product of historians who bent what they heard to fit their theories
and, in the worst cases, even destroyed evidence. What follows is
inextricably interwoven with Maori legend and can be understood more
fully with reference to the section on Maoritanga .
Pre-European history
Humans from southeast Asia first started exploring the South Pacific
around five thousand years ago, gradually evolving a distinct culture as
they filtered down through the islands of the Indonesian archipelago. A
thousand years of progressive island hopping got them as far as Tonga
and Samoa, where a distinctly Polynesian society continued to evolve,
the people honing their seafaring skills and navigational skills to the
point where lengthy sea journeys were possible. Around a thousand years
ago, Polynesian culture reached its classical apotheosis in the Society
Islands, a group west of Tahiti. This was almost certainly the hub for a
series of migrations heading southwest across thousands of kilometres of
open ocean, past the Cook Islands, eventually striking land in what is
now known as New Zealand ( Aotearoa ).
It is thought that the first of these Polynesian people, the ancestors
of modern Maori , arrived in double-hulled canoes between 1000 and 1100
AD, as a result of a migration that was planned to the extent that they
took with them the kuri (dog) and food plants such as taro (a starchy
tuber), yam and kumara (sweet potato). It seems likely that there were
several migrations and there may have even been two-way traffic,
although archeological evidence points to a cessation of contact well
before 1500 AD. The widely believed story of a legendary "Great Fleet"
of seven canoes arriving in 1350 AD seems most likely to be the product
of a fanciful Victorian adaptation of Maori oral history, which has been
readopted into contemporary Maori legend.
Arriving Polynesians found a land so much colder than their tropical
home that many of the crops and plants they brought with them wouldn't
grow. Fortunately there was an abundance of large quarry in the form of
marine life and flightless birds, particularly in the South Island,
where most settled. The people of this Archaic Period are often
misleadingly known as "Moa Hunters" and while some undoubtedly lived off
these birds, they didn't exist in other areas. By 1300, settlements had
been established all around the coast, but it was only later that there
is evidence of horticulture, possibly supporting the contention that
there was a later migration bringing plants for cultivation. On the
other hand, it may just signal the beginning of successful year-round
food storage allowing a settled living pattern rather than the short-lived
campsites used by earlier hunters. Whichever is the case, this marks the
beginning of the Classic period when kainga (villages) grew up close to
the kumara grounds, often supported by pa (fortified villages) where the
people could retreat when under attack. As tasks became more specialized
and hunting and horticulture began to take up less time, the arts -
particularly carving and weaving - began to flourish and warfare became
endemic, digs revealing an armoury of mere, patu and taiaha (fighting
clubs) not found earlier. The decline of easily caught birdlife and the
relative ease of growing kumara in the warmer North Island marked the
beginning of a northward population shift, to the extent that when the
Europeans arrived, ninety-five percent of the population was located in
the North Island, mostly in the northern reaches, with coastal
settlements reaching down to Hawke's Bay and Wanganui.
European contact and the Maori response
Ever since Europeans had ventured across the oceans and "discovered"
other continents, many were convinced of the existence of a terra
australia incognita , an unknown southern land thought necessary to
counterbalance the northern continents. In 1642, the Dutch East India
Company, keen to dominate any trade with this new continent, sent
Dutchman Abel Tasman to the southern oceans where he became the first
European to catch sight of the South Island of Aotearoa . He anchored in
Golden Bay, where a small boat being rowed between Tasman's two ships
was intercepted by a Maori war canoe and four sailors were killed.
Without setting foot on land Tasman turned tail and fled up the west
coast of the North Island and went on to add Tonga and Fiji to European
maps. He named Aotearoa "Staten Landt" later renamed Nieuw Zeeland after
the Dutch maritime province.
New Zealand was ignored for over a century until 1769 when Yorkshireman
James Cook sailed his Endeavour into the Pacific to observe the passage
of Venus across the sun. He continued west arriving at "the Eastern side
of the Land discover'd by Tasman" where he observed the "Genius, Temper,
Disposition and Number of the Natives" and meticulously charted the
coastline - the only significant errors were to show Banks Peninsula as
an island and Stewart Island as a peninsula - and encouraged his
botanists, Banks and Solander, to collect numerous samples.
Cook and his crew found Maori a sophisticated people with a highly
formalized social structure and an impressive ability to turn stone and
wood into fabulously carved canoes, weapons and meeting houses - and yet
they were tied to Stone Age technology, with no wheels, roads, metalwork,
pottery or animal husbandry. Cook found them aggressive, surly and
little inclined to trade, but after an initial unfortunate encounter
near Gisborne and another off Cape Kidnappers, near Napier , he managed
to strike up friendly and constructive relations with the "Indians".
These "Indians" now found that their tribal allegiance was not enough to
differentiate them from the Europeans and subsequently began calling
themselves maori (meaning "normal" or "not distinctive") while referring
to the newcomers as pakeha ("foreign").
Offshore from the Coromandel Peninsula, Cook deviated from instructions
and unfurled the British flag, claiming formal possession without the
consent of Maori, but was still allowed to return twice in 1772 and
1776. The French were also interested in New Zealand, and on his first
voyage Cook had passed Jean Francois Marie de Surville in a storm
without either knowing of the other's presence. Two years later, Marion
du Fresne spent five amicable weeks around the Bay of Islands, before
most of his crew were killed, probably after inadvertently transgressing
some tapu (taboo).
The establishment of the Botany Bay penal colony in neighbouring
Australia aroused the first commercial interest in New Zealand and from
the 1790s to the 1830s New Zealand was very much part of the Australian
frontier. By 1830 the coast was dotted with semi-permanent sealing
communities which, within thirty years, had almost clubbed the seals
into extinction. Meanwhile the British navy was rapidly felling giant
kauri trees for its ships' masts, while others were busy supplying
Sydney shipbuilders. By the 1820s whalers had moved in, basing
themselves at Kororareka (now Russell, in the Bay of Islands), where
they could recruit Maori crew and provision their ships. This
combination of rough whalers, escaped convicts from Australia and all
manner of miscreants and adventurers combined to turn Russell into "the
Hellhole of the Pacific", a lawless place populated by what Darwin, on
his visit in 1835, found to be "the very refuse of Society".
Before long, the Maori way of life had been entirely disrupted. Maori
were quick to understand the importance of guns and inter-tribal
fighting soon broke out on a scale never seen before. Hongi Hika from
Ngapuhi iwi of the Bay of Islands was the first chief to acquire
firearms in 1821, adding 300 muskets to his stock by trading the gifts
showered on him by London society when he was presented to George IV as
an "equal". Vowing to emulate the supreme power of the imperial king, he
set about subduing much of the North Island, using the often badly
maintained and inexpertly aimed guns to rattle the enemy, who were then
slaughtered with the traditional mere . Warriors abandoned the old
fighting season - the lulls between hunting and tending the crops - and
set off to settle old scores, resulting in a massive loss of life. The
quest for new territory fuelled the actions of Ngati Toa's Te Rauparaha
, who soon controlled the southern half of the North Island.
The huge demand for firearms drove Maori to sell the best of their food,
relocating to unhealthy areas close to flax swamps, where flax
production could be increased. Even highly valued tribal treasures -
pounamu (greenstone) clubs and the preserved heads of chiefs taken in
battle - were traded. Poor living conditions allowed European diseases
to sweep through the Maori population time and again, while alcohol and
tobacco abuse became widespread, Maori women were prostituted to pakeha
sailors, and the tribal structure began to crumble.
Into this scene stepped the missionaries in 1814, the brutal New South
Wales magistrate, Samuel Marsden , arriving in the Bay of Islands a
transformed man with a mission to bring Christianity and "civilization"
to Maori, and to save the souls of the sealers and whalers. Subsequently
Anglicans, Wesleyans and Catholics all set up missions throughout the
North Island, playing a significant role in protecting Maori from the
worst of the exploitation and campaigning in both London and Sydney for
more policing of pakeha actions. In return, they destroyed fine artworks
considered too sexually explicit and demanded that Maori abandon
cannibalism and slavery; in short Maori were expected to trade in their
Maoritanga and become Brown Europeans. By the 1830s, self-confidence and
the belief in Maori ways was in rapid decline: the tohunga (priest) was
powerless over new European diseases which could often be cured by the
missionaries, and Maori had started to believe the pakeha , who were
convinced that the Maori race was dying out. They felt they needed help.
The push for colonization
Despite Cook's "discoverer's" claim in 1769, imperial cartographers had
never marked New Zealand as a British possession and it was with some
reluctance - informed by the perception of an over-extended empire only
marginally under control - that New South Wales law was nominally
extended to New Zealand in 1817. The effect was minimal; the New South
Wales governor had no official representation on this side of the Tasman
and was powerless to act. Unimpressed, by 1831 a small group of northern
Maori chiefs decided to petition the British monarch to become a "friend
and the guardian of these islands", a letter that was later used to
justify Britain's intervention.
Britain's response was to send the pompous and less-than-competent James
Busby as British Resident in 1833, with a brief to encourage trade, stay
on good terms with the missionaries and Maori, and apprehend escaped
convicts for return to Sydney. Feeling that New Zealand was becoming a
drain on the colony's economy, the New South Wales governor, Bourke,
withheld guns and troops, and Busby was unable to enforce his will.
Busby was also duped by the madness of Baron de Thierry, a Brit of
French parents, who claimed he had bought most of the Hokianga district
from Hongi Hika and styled himself the "sovereign chief of New Zealand",
ostensibly to save Maori from the degradation he foresaw under British
dominion. In a panic, Busby misguidedly persuaded 35 northern chiefs to
proclaim themselves as the " United Tribes of New Zealand " in 1835. As
far as the Foreign Office was concerned, this allowed Britain to
disclaim responsibility for the actions of its subjects.
By the late 1830s there were around two thousand pakeha in New Zealand,
the largest concentration around Kororareka in the Bay of Islands, where
there were often up to thirty ships at anchor. Most were British, but
French Catholics were consolidating their tentative toehold, and in 1839
James Clendon was appointed American consul. Meanwhile, land speculators
and colonists were taking an interest for the first time. The Australian
emancipationist, William Charles Wentworth, had "bought" the South
Island and Stewart Island for a few hundred pounds (the largest private
land deal in history, subsequently quashed by government order) and
British settlers were already setting sail. The British admiralty
finally began to take notice when it became apparent that the Australian
convict settlements, originally intended simply as an out-of-sight, out-of-mind
solution to their bulging prisons, looked set to become a valuable
possession.
It was a combination of these pressures and Busby's continual
exaggeration of the Maori inability to control their own affairs that
goaded the British government into action. The result was the 1840
Treaty of Waitangi , a document that purported to guarantee continued
Maori control of their lands, rights and possessions in return for their
loss of sovereignty, a concept poorly understood by Maori. The annexed
lands became a dependency of New South Wales until New Zealand was
declared a separate colony a year later.
Settlement and the early pioneers
Even before the Treaty was signed, there were moves to found a
settlement in Port Nicholson, the site of Wellington, on behalf of the
New Zealand Company . This was the brainchild of Edward Gibbon Wakefield
, who desperately wanted to stem American-style egalitarianism and hoped
to use New Zealand as the proving ground for his theory of "scientific
colonization". This involved preserving the English squire-and-yokel
class structure by encouraging the settlement of a cross-section of
English society, though without the "dregs" at the bottom. It was
supposed to be a self-regulating system, whereby the company would buy
large tracts of land cheaply from the government then charge a price low
enough to encourage the relatively wealthy to invest, yet high enough to
prevent labourers from becoming landowners. The revenue from land sales
was then to fund the transportation of cheap labour to work the land,
but the system ended up encouraging absentee landlordism as English "gentlemen",
arriving to find somewhere altogether more rugged and less refined than
they had been promised, hot-footed it to Australia or America.
Between 1839 and 1843 the New Zealand Company dispatched nearly 19,000
settlers and established them in " planned settlements " in Wellington,
Wanganui, Nelson and New Plymouth. This was the core of pakeha
immigration, the only substantial non-Wakefield settlement being
Auckland , a scruffy collection of waterside shacks which, to the horror
of New Zealand Company officials, became the capital after the signing
of the Treaty of Waitangi. Maori welfare and social justice had no place
in all this, despite the precarious position of pakeha settlements,
which were nothing but tiny enclaves in a country still under Maori
control. Transgressing the protocols of the local iwi was likely to have
graver implications than offending the pakeha government.
The company couldn't buy land direct from Maori, but the government
bought up huge tracts and sold it on, often for ten or twenty times what
they paid for it. Maori must have been well aware that they were being
swindled and could have negotiated better prices themselves, but sold
almost the whole of the South Island in a number of large blocks. Some
was bought by two more organizations expounding the Wakefield principle:
the dour Free Church of Scotland founded Dunedin in 1848, while the
Canterbury Association established Christchurch in 1850, fashioning it
English, Anglo-Catholic and conservative. In 1850 the New Zealand
Company foundered, leaving well-established settlements which, subject
to the hard realities of colonial life, had failed to conform to
Wakefield's lofty theories and were filled with sturdy workers from
labouring and lower middle-class backgrounds.
In 1852 New Zealand achieved self-government and set about dividing the
country into six provinces - Auckland, New Plymouth, Wellington, Nelson,
Canterbury and Otago - which took over land sales and encouraged
migrants with free passage, land grants and guaranteed employment on
road construction schemes. The same people drawn to the Wakefield
settlements heeded the call, hoping for a better life away from the
oppression and drudgery of working-class Britain. The new towns were
alive with ambitious folk prepared to work hard to realize their high
expectations, but many felt stymied by the low-quality land they were
able to buy. At this point Maori still held the best land and were doing
quite nicely growing potatoes and wheat for both local consumption and
export to Australia, where the Victorian gold rush had created a huge
demand. Pakeha were barely able to compete, and with the slump in export
prices in the mid-1850s, many looked to pastoralism. The Crown helped
out by halving the price of land, allowing poorer settlers to become
landowners but simultaneously paving the way for the creation of huge
pastoral runs and putting further pressure on Maori to sell land.
Maori discontent and the New Zealand wars
The first five years after the signing of the Treaty were a disaster,
first under governor Hobson then under the ineffectual FitzRoy.
Relations between Maori and pakeha began to deteriorate immediately, as
the capital was moved from Kororareka to Auckland and duties were
imposed in the Bay of Islands. The consequent loss of trade from passing
ships precipitated the first tangible expression of dissent, a famous
series of incidents involving the Ngapuhi leader Hone Heke , who
repeatedly felled the most fundamental symbol of British authority, the
flagstaff at Russell . The situation was normalized to some degree by
the appointment of George Grey , the most able of New Zealand's
governors and a man who did more than anyone else to shape the country's
early years. He was economical with the truth and despotic, but
possessed the intelligence to use his deceit in a most effective (and
often benign) way. As Maori began to adapt their culture to accommodate
pakeha in a way that few other native peoples have - selling their crops,
operating flour mills and running coastal shipping - Grey encouraged the
process by establishing mission schools, erecting hospitals where Maori
could get free treatment, and providing employment on public works. In
short, he did what he could to uphold the spirit of the Treaty, thereby
gaining enormous respect among Maori. Sadly, he failed to set up any
mechanism to perpetuate his policies after he left for the governorship
of Cape Town in 1853. Under New Zealand's constitution, enacted in 1852,
Maori were excluded from political decision-making and prevented from
setting up their own form of government; although British subjects in
name, they had few of the practical benefits and yet were increasingly
expected to comply with British law.
By now it was clear that Maori had been duped by the Treaty of Waitangi:
one chief explained that they thought they were transferring the "shadow
of the land" while "the substance of the land remains with us", and yet
he now conceded "the substance of the land goes to the Europeans, the
shadow only will be our portion". Growing resistance to land sales came
at a time when settler communities were expanding and demanding to buy
huge tracts of pastoral land. With improved communications pakeha became
more self-reliant and dismissive of Maori, who progressively began to
lose faith in the government and fell back on traditional methods of
handling their affairs. Self-government had given landowners the vote,
but since Maori didn't hold individual titles to their land they were
denied suffrage. Maori and pakeha aspirations seemed completely at odds
and there was a growing sense of betrayal, which helped to replace
tribal animosities with a tenuous unity. In 1854, a month before New
Zealand's first parliament, Maori held inter-tribal meetings to discuss
a response to the degradation of their culture and the rapid loss of
their land. The eventual upshot was the 1858 election of the ageing Te
Wherowhero , head chief of the Waikatos, as the Maori "King", the leader
of the King Movement behind which Maori could rally to hold back the
flood of pakeha settlement. Initially just the Waikato and central North
Island iwi supported the King, but soon Taranaki and some Hawke's Bay
iwi joined in a loose federation united in vowing not to sell any more
land. This brave attempt to challenge the changes forced upon them gave
Maori a sense of purpose and brought with it a resurgence of ancient
customs such as tattooing. While some radical Maori wanted to completely
rid the country of the white menace, most were moderates and made
peaceful overtures that pakeha chose to regard as rebellious.
By now, most settlers felt that the Treaty of Waitangi had no validity
whatsoever and sided with the land sellers to drive the government to
repress the Maori landholders. There had been minor skirmishes over land
throughout the country, but matters came to a head in 1860, when the
government used troops to enforce a bogus purchase of land at Waitara,
near New Plymouth. The fighting was temporarily confined to Taranaki but
soon spread to consume the whole of the North Island in the New Zealand
Wars , once known by pakeha as the Maori Wars and by Maori as te riri
pakeha (white man's anger). Maori were divided: most of the supporters
of the King movement, particularly the Waikatos, traced their whakapapa
(genealogy) back to the Tainui canoe and some others chose this
opportunity to settle old grievances by siding with the government
against their traditional enemies. Through the early 1860s the number of
pakeha troops was tripled to around 3000, providing an effective force
against Maori who failed to adopt a co-ordinated strategy. The warrior
ethic meant there was no place for more effective guerrilla tactics,
except in the east of the North Island, where Te Kooti kept the
government troops on the run. Elsewhere Maori frequently faced off
against ranked artillery and, though there were notable successes, the
final result was inevitable. Fighting had abated by the end of the 1860s
but peace wasn't finally declared until 1881, when the Maori fastness of
the "King Country" (an area south of Hamilton which still goes by that
title) was finally opened up to pakeha once again.
British soldiers had been lured into service with offers of land and
free passage and, as a further affront to defeated Maori, many of them
were settled in the solidly Maori Waikato. Much of the most fertile land
was confiscated - in the Waikato, the Bay of Plenty and Taranaki - with
little regard to the owners' allegiances during the conflict. By 1862
the Crown had relinquished its right of pre-emption and individuals
could buy land directly from Maori, who were forced to limit the stated
ownership first to ten individuals and later to just one owner. With
their collective power smashed, there was little resistance to voracious
land agents luring Maori into debt then offering to buy their land to
save them.
Throughout this period, Maori tradition was ignored by settlers and an
Anglo-Saxon world view came to dominate all aspects of New Zealand life;
by 1871 the Maori language was no longer used for teaching in schools. A
defeated people were widely thought to be close to extinction: Anthony
Trollope in 1872 wrote "There is scope for poetry in their past history.
There is room for philanthropy as to their present condition. But in
regard to their future - there is hardly a place for hope."
Meanwhile, as the New Zealand Wars raged in the North Island, gold fever
had struck the South. Flakes had been found near Queenstown in 1861 and
the initial rushes soon spread to later finds along the West Coast. For
the best part of a decade, gold was New Zealand's major export, but the
gold provinces never had a major influence on the rest of the country,
nor does the gold era retain the legendary status it does in California
and Victoria. The major effect was on population distribution: by 1858
the shrinking Maori population had been outstripped by the rapidly
swelling horde of pakeha settlers, a number which doubled during the
first three years of the gold rush, most settling in the South Island
where relations with Maori played a much smaller part. The South Island
prospered, with both Christchurch and Dunedin consolidating their roles,
serving the surrounding farms and more distant sheep stations. Dunedin
became the largest town in the country, the influx of the "New Iniquity"
radically changing the city's staunch front of the "Old Identity".
Consolidation and social reform
The 1870s were dominated by the policies of Julius Vogel , an able
Treasurer who started a programme of borrowing on a massive scale to
fund public works. Within a decade what had previously been a land of
scattered towns in separately governed provinces was transformed into an
single country unified by improved roads, an expanding rail system, 7000
kilometres of telegraph wires and numerous public institutions. Almost
all the remaining farmable land was bought up or leased from Maori and
acclimatization societies sprang up with the express aim of anglicizing
the New Zealand countryside and improving farming . New Zealand quickly
began to realize the agricultural expectation created by fertile soils,
a temperate climate and relatively high rainfall. Arable farming was
mostly abandoned and pastoralism was taking hold, particularly among
those rich enough to afford to buy and ship the stock. With no extensive
market close enough to make perishable produce profitable, wool became
the main export item, stimulated by the development of the Corriedale
sheep, a Romney-Lincoln cross with a long fleece. Wool continued as the
mainstay until 1882, when the first refrigerated shipment left for
Britain, signalling a turning point in the New Zealand economy and the
establishment of New Zealand as Britain's offshore larder, a role it
maintained until the 1970s.
From 1879 until 1896 New Zealand went into the "long depression", mostly
overseen by the conservative "Continuous Ministry" - the last government
composed of colonial gentry. During this time trade unionism began to
influence the political scene and bolstered the Liberal Pact (a Liberal
and Labour alliance), which, in 1890, wrested power from those who had
controlled the country for two decades and ushered in an era of
unprecedented social change. Its first leader, John Ballance , firmly
believed in state intervention and installed William Pember Reeves ,
probably New Zealand's most radically socialist MP, as his Minister of
Labour. Reeves was instrumental in pushing through sweeping reforms to
working hours and factory conditions that were so progressive that no
further changes were made to labour laws until 1936. On his own
initiative, with no apparent demand from workers, he introduced the
world's first compulsory arbitration system , which went on to award
numerous wage rises, so increasing the national prosperity. He had
become too radical for most of his colleagues, however, and only
remained in office until 1896. When Ballance died in 1892 he was
replaced by Richard "King Dick" Seddon , a blunt Lancastrian who became,
along with Grey, one of the country's greatest, if least democratic,
leaders. Following Ballance's lead he introduced a graduated income tax
and repealed property tax, hoping to break up some of the large estates
(something eventually achieved much later, as technological changes made
dairying and mixed farming more prosperous). New Zealand was already
being tagged the "social laboratory of the world", but more was to come.
In 1893, New Zealand was the first nation in the world to enact full
female suffrage , undoubtedly in line with the liberal thinking of the
time, but apparently an accident nonetheless. The story goes that Seddon
let an amendment to an electoral reform bill pass on the assumption that
it would be rejected by the Legislative Council (an upper house which
survived until 1950), thus diverting the ill will of suffragists. Others
contend that female suffrage was approved not for any free-thinking
liberal principle but in response to the powerful quasi-religious
temperance movement, which hoped to "purify and improve the tone of our
politics", effectively giving married couples double the vote of the
single man who was often seen as a drunken layabout. In 1898 Seddon
further astonished the world by weathering a ninety-hour continuous
debate to squeeze through legislation guaranteeing an old age pension .
Fabian Beatrice Webb, in New Zealand that same year, allowed that "it is
delightful to see a country with no millionaires and hardly any slums".
By early this century, the radical impetus had faded along with the
memory of the 1880s depression, and pakeha could rest easy in the
knowledge that their standard of living was one of the highest in the
world. But things were not so rosy for Maori, whose numbers had dropped
from an estimated 200,000 at Cook's first visit to a low of 42,000 in
1896. However, as resistance to European diseases grew, numbers started
rising, accompanied by a new confidence buoyed by the rise of Maori
parliamentary leadership. Apirana Ngata, Maui Pomare and Te Rangi Hiroa
( Peter Buck ) were all products of Te Aute College, an Anglican school
for Maori, and all were committed to working within the administrative
and legislative framework of government, convinced that the survival of
Maoritanga depended on shedding those aspects of the traditional
lifestyle that impeded their acceptance of the modern world.
Seddon died in 1906 and the flame went out of the Liberal torch, though
the party was to stay in power another six years. This era saw the rise
of the " Red Feds ", international socialists of the Red Federation who
began to organize Kiwi labour. They rejected the arbitration system that
had kept wage rises below the level of inflation and prevented strikes
for a decade, and encouraged strikes , the longest at Blackball on the
West Coast, where prime movers in the formation of the Federation of
Miners, and subsequently the Federation of Labour, led a three-month
stoppage.
The 1912 election was won by William Massey's Reform Party, with the
support of the farmers or "cow cockies". Allegiances were now
substantially polarized and 1912 and 1913 saw bitter fighting at a
series of strikes at the gold mines of Waihi, the docks at Timaru and
the wharves of Auckland. As workers opposed to the arbitration system
withdrew their labour, the owners organized scab labour, while the
hostile Farmers' Union recruited mounted "specials" to add to the
government force of "special constables". All were protected by naval
and military forces as they decisively smashed the Red Feds. The Prime
Minister even handed out medals to strike-breaking dairy farmers.
Further domestic conflict was only averted by the outbreak of war
Coming of age: 1916-1945
Though New Zealand had started off as an unwanted sibling of Mother
England, it had soon transformed itself into a devoted daughter who
could be relied upon in times of crisis. New Zealand had supported
Britain in South Africa at the end of the nineteenth century and was now
called upon to do the same in World War I . Locally born pakeha now
outnumbered immigrants and, in 1907, New Zealand had traded its self-governing
colony status for that of a Dominion, giving it control over its foreign
policy; but the rising sense of nationalism didn't dilute a patriotism
for the motherland far in excess of its filial duty. Altogether ten
percent of the population were involved in the war effort, 100,000
fighting in the trenches of Gallipoli and elsewhere. Seventeen thousand
failed to return, more than were lost in Belgium, a battleground with
six times the population.
At home, the Temperance Movement was back in action, attempting to curb
vice in the army brought on by the demon drink. Plebiscites in 1911,
1914 and 1919 narrowly averted national prohibition but the "wowsers"
succeeded to the point that from 1917 pubs would close at 6pm for the
duration of the war. Six o'clock closing entered the statute books in
1918: not until 1967 did its repeal end half a century of the " Six
o'clock swill ", an hour or so of frenetic after-work consumption in
which the ability to tank down as much beer as possible was raised to an
art form. This probably did more to hinder New Zealand's social
development than anything else: pubs began to look more like lavatories,
which could be hosed down after closing, and the predilection for
quantity over quality encouraged breweries to churn out dreadful watery
brews.
The wartime boom economy continued until around 1920 as Britain's demand
for food remained high. Things looked rosy, especially for pakeha
returned servicemen, who were rehabilitated on newly acquired farmland;
in contrast, Maori returned servicemen got nothing. These highly
mortgaged and inexperienced farmers began to suffer with the rapid drop
in produce prices in the early 1920s, fostering a sense of insecurity
which pervaded the country. Political leadership was weak and yet New
Zealand continued to grow with ongoing improvements in infrastructure -
hydroelectric dams and roads - and enormous improvements in farming
techniques, such as the application of superphosphate fertilizers,
sophisticated milking machines and tractors. New Zealand remained a
prosperous nation but was ill prepared for the Great Depression , when
the Wall Street Crash sent shock waves through the country. The already
high national debt skyrocketed as export income dropped and the Reform
government cut pensions, health care and public works' expenditure. The
budget was balanced at the cost of producing huge numbers of unemployed.
Prime Minister Forbes dictated "no pay without work" and sent thousands
of men to primitive rural relief camps for unnecessary tasks such as
planting trees and draining swamps in return for a pittance. With the
knowledge of the prosperous years to come it is hard to conjure the
image of lines of ragged men awaiting their relief money, malnourished
children in schools and former soldiers panhandling in the streets.
Throughout the 1920s the Labour Party had gradually watered down some of
its socialist policies in an attempt to woo the middle-ground voter. In
1935 they were swept to power and ushered in New Zealand's second era of
massive social change, picking up where Seddon left off. Labour's leader
Michael Joseph Savage felt that "Social Justice must be the guiding
principle and economic organization must adapt itself to social needs",
a sentiment translated by a contemporary commentator as aiming "to turn
capitalism quite painlessly into a nicer sort of capitalism which will
eventually become indistinguishable from socialism". State socialism was
out, but "Red Feds" still held half the cabinet posts. Salaries reduced
during the depression were restored; public works programmes were
rekindled, with workers on full pay rather than "relief"; income was
redistributed through graduated taxation; and in two rapid bursts of
legislation Labour built the model Welfare State , the first in the
world and the most comprehensive and integrated. State houses were built
and let at low rental, pensions were increased, a national health
service provided free medicines and health care, and family benefits
supplemented the income of those with children.
Maori welfare was also on the agenda and there were moves to raise their
living standards to the pakeha level, partly achieved by increasing
pensions and unemployment payments. Much of the best land had by now
been sold off but legal changes paved the way for Maori land to be
farmed using pakeha agricultural methods, while maintaining communal
ownership. In return, the newly formed Ratana Party , who held all four
of the Maori Parliamentary seats, supported Labour, keeping them in
office until 1949.
New Zealand's perception of its world position changed dramatically in
1941 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The country was forced to
recognize its position half a globe away from Britain and in the
military sphere of America. As in World War I, large numbers of troops
were called up, amounting to a third of the male labour force, but
casualties were fewer and on the home front the economy continued to
boom. Foreign wars aside, by the 1940s New Zealand was the world's most
prosperous country, with a fabulous quality of life and the comfortable
bed of the Welfare State to fall back on
More years of prosperity
The Reform Party and the remnants of the Liberals eventually combined to
form the National Party which, in 1949 wrested power from Labour. With
McCarthyite rhetoric, National branded the more militant unionists as
Communists and succeeded in breaking much of the power of the unions
during the violent and emotional 1951 Waterfront dispute - variously
described as a strike and a lock-out. From the late 1940s until the mid-1980s,
National became New Zealand's natural party of government, disturbed
only by two three-year stints with Labour in power. The conservatism
always bubbling under had now found its expression. Most were happy with
the government's strong-arm tactics, which emasculated the militant
unions and the country settled down to what novelist C.K. Stead viewed
as the Kiwi ideal: "to live in a country with fresh air, an open
landscape and plenty of sunshine; and to own a house, car, refrigerator,
washing machine, bach , launch, fibre-glass rod, golf clubs, and so on."
While the egalitarian myth still perpetuated by many Kiwis may never
have existed, by most measures New Zealand's wealth was evenly spread,
with few truly rich and relatively few poor.
The exception at least in economic terms were Maori, many now migrating
in huge numbers to the cities, especially Auckland, responding to the
urban labour shortages and good wages after World War II. By the 1970s
the deracination of urban Maori was creating social unrest which, left
unchannelled, resulted in high Maori unemployment and a disproportionate
representation in prisons. Increasing contact between Maori and
Europeans exposed weaknesses in the pakeha belief that the country's
race relations were the best in the world. Pakehas took great pride in
Maori bravery, skill, generosity and good humour, but were unable to set
aside the discrimination which kept Maoris out of professional jobs.
On the economic front the major changes took place under Walter Nash 's
1957-60 Labour government, when New Zealand embarked on a programme
designed to relieve the country's dependence on exports. A steel rolling
mill, oil refinery, gin distillery and glass factory were all set up and
an aluminium industry was encouraged by the prospect of cheap power from
hydroelectric project on Lake Manapouri . When Keith Holyoake took over
at the helm of the next National government, Britain was still by far
New Zealand's biggest export market but was making overtures to the
economically isolationist European Common Market. New Zealand was
becoming aware that Britain was no longer the guardian she once was.
This was equally true in the military sphere, where New Zealand began to
court its Pacific allies, signing the anti-Communist SEATO (South-East
Asia Treaty Organization) document, and the ANZUS pact, which provided
for mutual defence of Australia, New Zealand and the US.
Dithering in the face of adversity 1972-1984
In a landslide victory, the third Labour government took control in
1972. Again it was to only last a single three-year term, largely due to
the difficulties of having to deal with international events beyond its
control. Most fundamental was the long-expected entry of Britain into
the Common Market. Some other export markets had been found but New
Zealand still felt betrayed. Later the same year oil prices quadrupled
in a few months and the treasury found itself with mounting fuel bills
and decreasing export receipts. The government borrowed heavily but
couldn't avoid electoral defeat in 1975 by National's obstreperous and
pugnacious Robert "Piggy" Muldoon , who denounced Labour's borrowing and
then outdid them. In short order New Zealand had dreadful domestic and
foreign debt, unemployment was the highest for decades, and the
unthinkable was happening - the standard of living was falling. People
began to leave in their thousands and the "brain drain" almost reached
crisis point. Muldoon's solution was to " Think Big " a catch-all term
for a number of capital-intensive petrochemical projects designed to
utilize New Zealand's abundant natural gas to produce ammonia, urea
fertilizer, methanol and synthetic petrol. Though undoubtedly self-aggrandizing
it made little economic sense. Rather than use local technology and
labour to convert New Zealand vehicles to run on compressed natural gas
(a system already up and running), Muldoon chose to pay international
corporations to design and build huge prefabricated processing plants
which were then shipped to New Zealand for assembly, mostly around New
Plymouth.
Factory outfalls often jeopardized traditional Maori shellfish beds, and
where once iwi would have accepted this as inevitable, a new spirit of
protest saw them win significant concessions. Throughout the mid-1970s
Maori began to question the philosophy of pakeha life and looked to the
Treaty of Waitangi to correct the grievances that were aired at
occupations of traditional land at Bastion Point in Auckland , and
Raglan, and through a petition delivered to parliament after a march
across the North Island.
Maori also found expression in the formation of gangs - Black Power, the
Mongrel Mob and the bike-oriented Highway 61 - along the lines
graphically depicted in Lee Tamahori's film Once Were Warriors , which
was originally written about south Auckland life in the 1970s. Fortified
suburban homes still exist and such gangs continue to be influential
among Maori youth, a position now being positively exploited to bring
wayward Maori youth back into the fold.
Race relations were never Muldoon's strong suit and when large numbers
of illegal Polynesian immigrants from south Pacific islands -
particularly Tonga, Samoa and the Cook Islands - started arriving in
Auckland he responded by instructing the police to conduct random street
checks for "over-stayers", many of whom were deported. Muldoon opted for
a completely hands-off approach when it came to sporting contacts with
South Africa and in 1976 let the pig-headed rugby administrators send an
All Black team over to play racially selected South African teams.
African nations responded by boycotting the Montreal Olympics, putting
New Zealand in the unusual position of being an international pariah.
New Zealand signed the 1977 Gleneagles Agreement requiring it to "vigorously
combat the evil of apartheid" and yet in 1981 the New Zealand Rugby
Union courted a Springbok Tour , which sparked New Zealand's greatest
civil disturbance since the labour riots of the 1920s.
Modern New Zealand: A maturing nation
Muldoon's big-spending economic policies were widely perceived to be
unsuccessful, and when he called a snap election in 1984, Labour were
returned to power under David Lange . Just as National had eschewed
traditional right-wing economics in favour of a "managed economy",
Labour now changed tactics, addressing the massive economic problems by
shunning the traditional left-of-centre approach. Instead, they grasped
the baton of Thatcherite economics and sprinted off with it. Under
Finance Minister Roger Douglas's Rogernomics , the dollar was devalued
by twenty percent, exchange controls were abolished, tariffs slashed,
the maximum income tax rate was halved, a Goods and Services Tax was
introduced, Air New Zealand and the Bank of New Zealand were privatized,
and state benefits were cut. Unemployment doubled to twelve percent, a
quarter of manufacturing jobs were lost, and the moderately well-off
benefited at the expense of the poor; nevertheless, market forces and
enterprise culture had come to stay. As one of the world's most
regulated economies became one of the most deregulated, the longstanding
belief that the state should provide for those least able to help
themselves was cast aside.
In other spheres Labour's views weren't so right-wing. One of Lange's
first acts was to refuse US ships entry to New Zealand ports unless they
declared that they were nuclear-free. The Americans would do nothing of
the sort and withdrew support for New Zealand's defence safety net, the
ANZUS pact. Most of the country backed Lange on this but were less sure
about his overtures towards Maori who, for the first time since the
middle of the nineteenth century, got legal recognition for the Treaty
of Waitangi. Now, Maori grievances dating back to 1840 could be
addressed.
The rise in apparent income under Rogernomics created consumer
confidence and the economy boomed until the stock market crash of 1987,
which hit New Zealand especially hard. The country went into freefall
and all confidence in the reforms was lost. Labour's position,
consolidated in the 1987 election, now became untenable, and in the 1990
election National's Jim Bolger took the helm. Throughout the deep
recession National continued Labour's free-market reforms, cutting
welfare programmes (a policy dubbed "Ruthanasia" after its perpetrator
Ruth Richardson) and extracting teeth from the unions by passing the
Employment Contracts Act, which established the pattern of individual
workplaces coming to their own agreements on wages and conditions. By
the middle of the 1990s the economy had improved dramatically and what
for a time had been considered a foolhardy experiment was seen by
monetarists as a model for open economies the world over. Meanwhile, the
gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen and New Zealand's
classless society is increasingly exposed for the myth it always was.
While many have relished the good life, those at the bottom of the pile
have suffered. In her resignation speech, Cath Tizard , the most popular
and charismatic Governor-General New Zealand has had for years, levelled
a thinly veiled attack at the government for its record on health care,
but succeeded only in raising anti-monarchist hackles at her vice-regal
intervention. Nonetheless, the kind of republican rabble-rousing
championed across the Tasman in recent years largely falls on deaf ears
in Aotearoa , where, despite the maturing of the nation in the last
decade or so, and a progressive realignment with the Pacific and Asia,
most seem happy to maintain links with Britain.
Ever since New Zealand achieved self-government from Britain in 1852, it
had maintained a first-past-the-post Westminster style of parliament,
with the exception of the scrapping of the upper house in 1950 and the
provision for four (later five, and now six) Maori seats. Maori can
chose to vote for their general or Maori candidate but not both. Through
the late 1980s and early 1990s both parties had promised electoral
reform and, in the depths of the recession in 1993, New Zealand voted
for Mixed Member Proportional representation (MMP), a system which
purports to give smaller parties an opportunity to have some say. In the
two MMP elections since then, this has certainly proved to be the case.
In 1996, National and Labour shared the majority of the vote, but the
balance of power was held by New Zealand First , a new Maori-dominated
party headed by former National MP, Winston Peters , who shaped their
policies of reducing Asian immigration, increasing government spending
and accountability, and getting long-term unemployed back to work. They
eventually formed a coalition with National under Jim Bolger and
introduced a new Maori spirit in parliament, with far more Maori MPs
than ever before and maiden speeches received with a waiata (song) from
their whanau (extended family group) in the public gallery.
Unfortunately, most were political neophytes and NZ First self-destructed
in short order after a spate of scandals. Bolger's poor handling of the
situation saw his support wane, and his attendance at a Commonwealth
leaders' conference left the field open for a palace coup, in which
Jenny Shipley became New Zealand's first female prime minister. Her
brand of right-wing economics and more liberal social views succeeded in
holding the coalition together but failed to bolster the polls on the
lead up to the 1999 election. Suddenly, out of left-field came the Green
Party , long-sidelined but newly resurgent under MMP. The vagaries of
the MMP system meant that, on a nail-biting election night, the Greens
were teetering between getting no seats at all and racking up six seats,
a tally they eventually achieved with the counting of special votes.
They formed a government with Labour and the Alliance, and sent New
Zealand's first Rastafarian MP to parliament, one Nandor Tanczos .
Resplendent in waist-length dreads and a new hemp suit he has become
both a bogeyman for the opposition and something of a hero to
disenfranchised youth. As if the political landscape weren't topsy-turvy
enough, the staunchly conservative Wairarapa district returned the
world's first transgender MP, Carterton's former mayor, Georgina Beyer .
Nine years in opposition left Labour (the senior coalition partner) with
a considerable agenda for change, and they haven't held back. Logging of
beech forests on the West Coast has been stopped, the Employment
Contracts Act has been replaced by more worker-friendly legislation, and
they've unilaterally abolished knighthoods. Support remains strong, but
some are already voicing doubts about how long the honeymoon period can
last.
Meanwhile, Maoritanga looks set to play an ever increasing role in the
life of all New Zealanders as Maori consolidate the gains of the past
few years. In the twenty-first century the number of New Zealanders who
consider themselves Maori may well surpass the number of pakeha , and it
remains to be seen just how significant that will be.
Chronology of New Zealand history
c. 1000AD Arrival of first Polynesians .
c.1350 Mythical arrival of the "Great Fleet" from Hawaiki.
1642 Dutchman Abel Tasman sails past the West Coast but doesn't land.
1769 Englishman James Cook circum-navigates both main islands and makes
first constructive contact.
1772 French sailor Marion du Fresne and 26 of his men killed in the Bay
of Islands.
1809 Whangaroa Maori attack the Boyd ; most of the crew killed.
1814 Arrival of Samuel Marsden , the first Christian missionary.
1830s Sealing and whaling stations dotted around the coast.
1833 James Busby installed as British Resident at Waitangi.
1835 Independence of the United Tribes of NZ proclaimed.
1840 Treaty of Waitangi signed; capital moved from Kororareka to
Auckland.
1840s Cities of Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin, Nelson, New Plymouth,
Wanganui and Wellington all established.
1852 NZ becomes a self-governing colony divided into six provinces.
1858 Settlers outnumber Maori .
1860-65 Land Wars between pakeha and Maori.
1860s Major gold rushes in the South Island.
1865 Capital moved from Auckland to Wellington.
1867 Maori men given the vote.
1870s Wool established as the mainstay of the NZ economy.
1876 Abolition of provincial governments. Power centralized in
Wellington.
1882 First refrigerated meat shipment to Europe. Lamb becomes
increas-ingly important.
1890 NZ becomes "social laboratory" with introduction of compulsory
arbitra-tion and graduated income tax.
1893 Full women's suffrage ; a world first.
1898 Old-age pension introduced.
1910s Rise of organized labour under the socialist Red Federation.
Strikes at Blackball, Waihi and Auckland.
1914-18 NZ takes part in WWI with terrible loss of life.
1917 Temperance Movement gets pubs closed after 6pm. Only repealed in
1967.
1920s Initial prosperity evaporates as the Great Depression takes hold.
1935 M.J. Savage's Labour government ushers in the world's first Welfare
State with free health service, family benefits, state housing and
increased pensions.
1941 Bombing of Pearl Harbor and WWII begins NZ's military realignment
with the Pacific region.
1947 New Zealand becomes fully independent from Britain.
1950 Parliament's upper house abol-ished.
1951 NZ joins ANZUS military pact with the US and Australia.
1950s NZ comfortable as one of the world's most prosperous nations.
1957-60 Infrastructure improvements: steel mill, oil refinery, and
numerous hydro-electric power stations built or planned.
1960s Start of immigration from Pacific Islands . Major urbaniza-tion of
Maori population.
1972-75 Third Labour government. NZ econ-omy struggles to cope with huge
oil price hikes and Britain's entry into the Common Market.
1975 Waitangi Tribunal established to consider Maori land claims.
1975-84 National's Robert "Piggy" Muldoon tries to borrow NZ out of
trouble, investing heavily in ill-considered petro-chemical projects.
1976 African nations boycott Montreal Olympics because of NZ's rugby
contacts with South Africa.
1977 NZ signs Gleneagles Agreement banning sporting ties with South
Africa.
1981 Springbok Tour . Massive protests as a racially selected South
African rugby team tours NZ.
1983 NZ signs Closer Economic Relations (CER) Treaty with Australia.
1984 The "Hikoi" land march brings Maori grievances into political
focus.
1984 Labour regains power under David Lange. Widespread privatization
and deregulation of NZ's protectionist economy. Refusal to allow
American nuclear warships into NZ ports severely strains US/NZ
relations.
1985 French secret service agents bomb Greenpeace flagship the Rainbow
Warrior in Auckland Harbour.
1987 New Zealand becomes a Nuclear-Free Zone .
1987 Stock market crash devastates NZ economy.
1990-96 Jim Bolger leads National govern-ment, pressing on with Labour's
free-market reforms and further dismantling the welfare state.
1996 First MMP election returns an alliance of National and NZ First.
1997 Jenny Shipley ousts Bolger to become NZ's first woman Prime
Minister.
1999 Labour regain power under Jenny Shipley in coalition with the
Alliance and the Green Party. The Greens' Nandor Tanczos installed as
NZ's first Rastafarian MP and Labour's Georgina Beyer becomes the
world's first transgender MP
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