48

ATTEMPTED REVIVAL OF MISSIONARY POLICY.

plate emigration, and who are weighing the advantages boasted by New Zealand, it is very frequently and very naturally a matter of surprise that so fine a colony as New Zealand is represented to be should not have succeeded in the twentieth year of colonisation, in drawing to its shores more than a handful of some 80,000 people; and, as a necessary sequence, doubts and fears arise that a country which has been so little able to attract or to retain population cannot be a country so good as is described. Hence, it has become necessary still to relate the history of the early and long-continued misgovernment of the colony; and to remind the reader that neither fine climate, nor soil, nor all the natural advantages of New Zealand quadrupled could be expected to attract population to the young colony whilst the young colony was staggering under the disasters of her first ten years.

But there is still another reason why the carly doings of our political missionaries in New Zealand cannot yet be passed over in silence, and it is this:-It is true that since Captain Fitzroy's recall Missionary Societies, Aborigines' Protecting Societies, Exeter Hall, and various professional and unprofessional philanthropists, all of whom choose ever to depict the Maori as the poor prayerful black man hunted to death by the white, have been less heeded in Downing Street; and true that, of late years, the old Church Missionary party in New Zealand has tampered less in the affairs of state. But the snake is scotched, not killed. Late events, the publication of Archdeacon Hadfield's intemperate pamphlet, the missionary view of the rebel natives' title to Waitera, various recent "sayings and doings" of the missionary party show, that the old missionary spirit, despite the sad warning of the past, is still alive, and that the reverend disciples of Exeter Hall would again attempt to rule New Zealand by prayer-book and persuasion, again attempt to make the Settler the Serf of the Savage and the bitter fruits this missionary government bore us in olden times are still noticed by me in the hope that seeing what these fruits were my readers will join with me in protesting against any second trial of that fatuous policy which proved so fatal in the first.

NAME.-It appears to me that the name which New Zealand bears is a very mean and sorry name. No man ever did less for any country he discovered than the Dutchman Tasman did for New Zealand. He came, saw, and left it. He never even set foot on its shores. It is doubtful whether he was even the first discoverer; and Cook, by virtue of his explorations, surveys, and descriptions, had far more right to name New Zealand than Tasman, even if Tasman, and not the Spaniard, was the true discoverer. The name, moreover, which Tasman gave, is the name of a flat little province of Holland, no more resembling New Zealand than a jelly-fish resembles the whale.

Two fresh names have been proposed-"Zealandia," and "South Britain"-and the latter might well, I think, be adopted. In great natural features-in size, in climate, in insular position, in duality of islands, in proximity to a great continent-New Zealand bears a strong general resemblance to Great Britain; and these, her natural features, combined with her splendid harbours, and naval stores of timber, ores, and

*New Zealand lies about a thousand miles from Australia; and even with the powerful steamers which in a few years may be plying on our waters, the communication between the two countries will not be an average one of less than four days. It may be objected, therefore, as a portion of Europe lies but twenty miles from England, that in this "proximity to a continent" there is no resemblance between New Zealand and Great Britain. But such an objection would, I think, be hypercritical rather than just. Two countries lying within a hundred hours' sail of each other are, substantially, proximate in position. Looking to the future, too, may we not say that New Zealand, in being further off from a continent, is better off? Is not England too near France rather than New Zealand too far from Australia? If Cherbourg were a few days instead of a few hours' sail from our shores, might not England put off a large portion of her defensive armour?

E

49

50

THE RENAMING OF NEW ZEALAND.

hemp, point to a strong probability of her eventually becoming the home of an enterprising, sea-going people, who, in another century or so, may well raise her into the "Britain of the South."

Precedents for changing the names of our colonial possessions are common; Swan River has been changed to West Australia, Port Phillip to Victoria, Van Diemen's Land to Tasmania, Moreton Bay to Queensland. I think, then, that there are substantial reasons why this re-christening process might be extended to New Zealand; whilst, if we look to things esthetic, and come to contemplate her Majesty's sons or grandsons reigning over her Majesty's colonies (a dynastic arrangement worthy the attention of Lord John Manners and statesmen who study the picturesque), we must surely admit that King of South Britain would sound better at a St. James's congress of British sovereigns, than King of New Zealand a title which might well incite waggish maids-of-honour to regale his Majesty with the song of the "King of the Cannibal Islands."

Unfortunate in her name as a country, New Zealand has been equally unfortunate in the matter of the naming of the divisions of her country. Under one of those happy inspirations which long distinguished the "how-not-to-do-it " policy of the Colonial Office, the three islands were officially christened New Ulster, New Munster, and New Leinster. The only reasonable suggestion ever offered as to the cause of this queer nomenclature is, that Captain Hobson, aided by some patriotic young Irish clerk of the Colonial Office, sought to create an antipodal Emerald Isle by stroke of official pen. Save that New Zealand produces a glorious potato, and does not produce a snake, New Zealand bears little more resemblance to Ireland, to Ireland alone, than to Crim Tartary or to Lilliput. Whilst, as to her being the Irish emigration field which these names would imply, I regret to say that the " Boys of the Shamrock," and their sweet Colleens are seldom seen in New Zealand. No land would suit them better; but, spite of priest or parson, Paddy still persists in being frost-bitten and liberty-bitten in the land of the "stars and stripes." Happily, however, this Colonial Office christening is gradually becoming a thing of the past; and, though "New Ulster," "New Munster," and "New Leinster," in common with

CONFIGURATION AND SIZE OF THE COUNTRY.

51

"Eaheinomauwe," "Tavai-Poenammoo," "Te Ika a Maui," and the like nomenclatural jargon, still disfigure some of our maps, they are now, happily, becoming names obsolete, or names current only with the map-engravers of Cockaigne. By the Constitution Act of 1853, New Zealand was divided into six great provinces: Auckland, Taranaki, Wellington, Nelson, Canterbury, and Otago. Two more-Hawke's Bay and Marlborough-have since been added, and, as New Zealand delights to style herself the "Britain of the South," she will, probably, as her population increases, subdivide these provinces into Kents, Norfolks, Devonshires, Derbyshires, Cumberlands, Perthshires, Ayrshires, Tipperarys, and Tyrones.

CONFIGURATION.-New Zealand consists of two large islands, the North and the South, parted by Cook's Strait, a fine channel some 150 miles in length, by 50 in breadth; and of a small island, called Stewart's Island, rather larger than Hampshire, parted from the main by Foveaux Strait, a channel some 50 miles in length, by 20 in breadth, and of the Chatham Islands, a group lying about 400 miles due east of the province of Canterbury.*

The group, trending about north-east and south-west, extends from about 34° to 48° south latitude, and from 166° to 179° east longitude. The length of the country, from Cape Maria Van Diemen to the South Cape, exceeds 1000 miles. The greatest breadth, on the meridian of 38°, is about 200 miles; whilst the sweep of the coast-line embraces full 1000 leagues.

It has been estimated that New Zealand possesses an area of some 75,000,000 acres-about the same as that of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland—and a rough apportionment of this area has been made as follows:

Waste mountain ranges, broken forest tracts, coast sand-hills, lakes and rivers

} One-third.

A glance at the map shows, I think, that this is the best geographical definition of New Zealand. As compared with the two great North and South Islands, the third island is of such small extent as to be little more than an Isle of Man appendage. Geographically, we do not define this country as Great Britain and Ireland and the Orkneys and the Isle of Wight; but as Great Britain and Ireland. Again, the fashion of speaking of New Zealand as consisting of three islands, makes the large or true South Island appear the middle island, and thus invests it with certain attributes of centrality and superiority of position to which it is not fairly entitled.

22

52

CENTRAL AND COMMANDING POSITION,

Cultivable forest and "light bush" lands Cultivable or pastoral open country; chiefly fern, flax, or grass-covered plains, valleys, and dales.

One-third.

One-third.

From the experience which has been gained in the working of a small portion of it, these 50,000,000 acres of available wild land might probably be reduced to cultivation, at an average cost of about 31. per acre; and their mean productive capability, under even the rudest farming, might be taken as equal to the permanent grazing of four sheep, or to the growth of 25 bushels of wheat per acre.

POSITION.-New Zealand is popularly styled the antipodes of England; but the true geographical antipodes of Great Britain, the veritable "Ultima Thule," is an island called Antipodes, 700 miles to the south-east. The happy size of New Zealand, her defiant insular position, naval stores and harbours, fertile soil, and bracing breezy climate, may well crown her Island Queen of the Pacific, and future Britain of the South. Close to on the west, she has the busy marts and markets of Australia. Close to on the north, the thousand Polynesian Islands, slumbering in their summer seas, but needing only the magic touch of steam to open new worlds to our commerce. She stands on Europe to the

what will be the great Panama highway from southern gold-fields. Within easy sail on the one side, she reaches the Dutch and Spanish colonies, China and our Indian possessions; on the other, California, Mexico, Chili, and Peru. She stands in the centre of the Austral Ocean, midway between ocean's greatest capes, Cape Horn and Good Hope; and so before the doors of Australia, that every wool and gold ship has pass within sight of her southern shores.*

to

* The islets 60 miles south of Stewart's Islands (the Snares) belong geographically to New Zealand; and these form the land-mark which Australian homeward-bounders occasionally sight in running past New Zealand. The reader should understand that vessels bound to Australia and New Zealand go out by the Cape of Good Hope, and return by Cape Horn. This is mainly owing to the prevalence of westerly winds, which are so strong and constant between Australia and Cape Horn that no vessel could force a passage this way to Australia or New Zealand against them. In going out, a vessel passes Australia to get to New Zealand, which lies 1200 miles nearer the Horn; and of course, Australian vessels coming home have to pass New Zealand to get to the Horn. Thus,