The Ideal Society and Its Enemies: The Foundations of Modern New Zealand Society, 1850-1900

by Miles Fairburn

Overview

In this challenging and provocative study of the nature of settler society in 19th-century New Zealand, Fairburn focuses on the lives of the common people and presents a rigorous and original description of the place and time which is radically different from those of previous historians. An important book that will have a major impact on our understanding of New Zealand's past, it is also a significant contribution to the study of new societies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781775581871
Publisher:	Auckland University Press
Publication date:	12/01/1989
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	316
File size:	3 MB

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The Ideal Society and Its Enemies

The Foundations of Modern New Zealand Society 1850-1900

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By Miles Fairburn

Auckland University Press

Copyright © 1989 Miles Fairburn
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-77558-187-1

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CHAPTER 1

Natural Abundance

Of the themes constituting the Arcadian conception of New Zealand, the most common was the notion of New Zealand as a land of natural abundance. The premise for the other themes running through the literature, the idea was never shaken by such upheavals as war or depression or natural disaster, and its adherents crossed all boundaries of class, religion, political persuasion, and region. The assumption had all the power of a legend. Not only was it taken for granted and extraordinarily popular, it also had its own predictable rhetoric and met with little resistance let alone reasoned scepticism.

The legend was indiscriminately applied to every part of New Zealand; it was geographically egalitarian. Rarely was any part of the country considered lacking in nature's bounty. At one remove we can see this in the rhetorical conventions used to describe the lowlands. They were variously likened to 'gardens', compared favourably to areas of the Old World celebrated for their productiveness, or depicted in absolute hyperbole as if their fecundity had burst the bounds of meaningful comparison. We can see some of these devices operating in the emigrant advice book of the widely read New Plymouth settler, Charles Hursthouse, the most sustained bucolic evocations of the colony ever written. He gushes over 'the blooming fertility' of the countryside around Christchurch; he boosts the Hutt Valley as a 'little Sicily of fruits, flowers, butter, eggs, poultry, and garden produce'; and proclaims that the south of the Auckland Province was entitled to rank as the 'Garden of New Zealand'. In his account of four years' travelling through the colonies, David Kennedy (1876) wrote of Nelson's allegedly inexhaustible resources: 'The heavens look benignly upon it — the climate is the most enjoyable in the colony', 'by universal consent, [it] is called the "Garden of New Zealand"'. In 1880 the Rev. James Buller relied on the same superlatives to capture the essence of Taranaki and the whole of its hinterland through to Taupo:

From Wanganui, the traveller can penetrate to the inland lake of Taupo; or going northerly, he can visit New Plymouth, about 130 miles distant. Nothing can exceed the fertility of this part of the country: when all apprehension of native disturbances are permanently settled, it will, without doubt, justify the name that has been given to it — 'the garden of New Zealand.'

The stylisation of New Zealand's fertility was well represented in an article, 'Dunedin to Christchurch in 1888', published in the New Zealand Reader (1895). The reader, intended for children in the standards, was the first explicit attempt by the Department of Education to provide New Zealand themes in its prescribed texts. The writer describes what he calls his first impressions of New Zealand after a long visit to the Australian Colonies. No one, he says, gave him a hint of the 'sumptuous fertility of these beautiful islands', nor a word 'about the astonishing soil, so catholic in its fertility that it will grow everything worth growing, and so rich that it grows everything well'. Then in an imagined rail trip from Dunedin to Christchurch these general ideas of New Zealand's abundance are given a detailed pastoral shape, as the train moves through the landscape. Past Waitati he travels, through 'grass land spangled with marguerites just as in English meadows, and whole choirs of the Old-country song birds'. After Seacliff, to the left, stands 'fat pasturage and close strong crops of grain. The rich cocksfoot grass escaping out of the paddocks runs riot on the banks; and the clover overflowing grows along the line. Then, on a sudden, we are out on a level of tussock-land that stretches to the sea; on the other side billow after billow of meadow, with plump cattle, sheep, and horses grazing, and corn-land rolling away in hill and dale right away back, so it seems, to the very first of the distant hills.' A little later the author takes the reader past the 'splendid levels' of Maheno and Totara: 'What land! What stock! The fat, huge-framed, straight-backed cattle literally wade in sweet grass, and the horses are "pictures" both in breed and condition. Wheat and potatoes in larger fields than we see them at Home fill up the intervals between the pastures where the polled Angus and the Devon live in plenteous ease.' After going by 'rich growths of English trees' at Oamaru, the writer picks out 'exquisite pasturage, knee-deep and clovered', and 'so past Studholme, and on through the same monotony of fertility'. Then 'away again through "distressful" levels of corn and herds of fat kine to Orari'. Around Ashburton, the adjectives of luxuriance change little. The soil is rich and, as 'everywhere along the line, there are all the most obvious evidences of comfort and substance. Fat cattle, and fat, rosy, well-dressed children, are unmistakeable proofs.' And so on, and so on, the author takes us to Christchurch. Significantly, although he attempted to demonstrate how varied and interesting the landscape was, compared with the dreary 'plains' of the United States or India, the overflowing produce of the countryside encountered again and again leaves an overwhelming impression of monotony — a 'monotony of fertility'.

In addition to these supposedly fertile lowlands, New Zealand possessed, usually in its interior or its mountains, a huge store of mineral wealth, or of some other riches, hidden from us for the moment, but certain to be discovered in the future. For example, Charles Hursthouse quoted a despatch from Governor FitzRoy to Lord Stanley stating that, 'Beneath the productive surface of these teeming islands are mineral stores as yet hardly known. If from merely scratching some projecting corners of the land, some twenty valuable minerals have been discovered, (coal, iron, silver, lead, copper, tin, nickel, manganese, alum, sulphur, cerium, bismuth, cobalt, and asphaltum,) what may not be anticipated after a few years of research in the interior?' Sir George Grey in 1867, after securing the support of the Taupo tribes, claimed that by making the interior of the country safe again, the European population could safely spread inland, 'developing the great resources of valuable districts which are now but little known, and the advance of this Northern Island in wealth and population will consequently be very rapid'. The Evening Post in an editorial of 3 January 1889 effused: 'Even the ground which is comparatively valueless on the surface for either pastoral or agricultural purposes is in a vast number of cases teeming with mineral wealth of one kind or another beneath.'

What is significant here is the irrational character of FitzRoy's, Grey's, and the Evening Post's belief. Although little was known about the resources in the interior they nonetheless supposedly exist in great quantity. The power of this illusion seems to have intrigued Samuel Butler. Erewhon, Butler's novel, starts off with the hero, a shepherd on a back-country station, speculating about what lies beyond the range. He acknowledges, to begin with, that no one knows. But as he dwells upon the question he becomes certain that gold must be present. It must be, he tells himself, since people deny gold is there and people always deny the presence of gold until it is found in abundant quantities. The hero's train of thought is at first glance surprising since it is the reverse of the prevailing tendency as manifested by Grey and FitzRoy, to believe in the wealth in the interior when there is little evidence for it. However, Butler was a shrewd observer of human folly and the hero's extraordinary logic is typical of Butler's use of irony to draw attention to the illogicality of wishful thinking in the colony: proof of the existence of gold depends no more on the will to believe than it does on the will to disbelieve.

What was beyond it? Ah! who could say? There was no one in the whole world who had the smallest idea, save those who were themselves on the other side of it — if, indeed, there was any one at all. Could I hope to cross it? This would be the highest triumph that I could wish for; but it was too much to think of yet. I would try the nearer range, and see how far I could go. Even if I did not find country, might I not find gold, or diamonds, or copper, or silver? I would sometimes lie flat down to drink out of a stream, and could see little yellow specks among the sand. Were these gold? People said no; but then people always said there was no gold until it was found to be abundant: there was plenty of slate and granite, which I had always understood to accompany gold; and even though it was not found in paying quantities here, it might be abundant in the main ranges. These thoughts filled my head, and I could not banish them.

Even scientific writers presumed that the hinterland was filled with riches. In his Handbook of New Zealand (1883), James Hector had this to say about the soils of the Volcanic Plateau region: 'Towards the coast, and in some limited areas near the larger valleys, such as the Waikato and the Thames, and also where volcanic rocks of a less arid description appear at the surface, great fertility prevails, and any deficiencies in the character of the soil are amply compensated for by the magnificence of the climate'. On the eastern side of the Volcanic Plateau, there are 'occasional areas of fertile alluvium of considerable extent. It is only the latter portions of this district which can be considered as adapted for agriculture, while the remainder affords some of the finest pastoral land to be met with in any part of the colony.' On the south-eastern side of the South Island 'The alluvial soils of the lower part of the Canterbury Plains, and of Nelson, Otago, and Southland, are the most remarkable for their fertility'. The western side was somewhat more modestly endowed. Here 'the rapid fall of the rivers carries the material derived from the mountain-ranges almost to the sea-coast, so that comparatively small areas are occupied by good alluvial soil; but these, favoured by the humidity of the climate, possess a remarkable degree of fertility.'

The details of natural abundance discussed up to now have features which are not entirely compatible with the pure Arcadian tradition of ideal-society thinking. Although the overall idea of natural bounty fits the classical tradition, what does not is the implication that man has changed the fertility of the lowlands and that people have yet to discover the riches of the hinterland. In the New Zealand version man has a dynamic relationship with the abundance, whereas in the classical descriptions of Arcadia it is passive. The difference reflects the incorporation into the New Zealand version of the Victorian imperative of material progress, the belief that material betterment stimulates moral growth which in its turn produces more material growth and so on in an everlasting upward spiral.

To convey the necessity of improvement, the literature implicitly arranges the details of natural plenty into three related categories. The first consists of the country's 'natural advantages', the second is what shall be called 'bush cornucopia', and the third material growth. What distinguishes them is the extent to which each was affected by human effort, the last two representing progressive transformation of the first. The connection with the classical model is not altogether lost, for material growth can only occur because natural abundance permits it. The first type of natural plenitude consisted of all the elements of nature bestowed on New Zealand which gave its potential for vast productivity. These were usually described as New Zealand's 'natural advantages', which implied that they were entirely an act of providence and had nothing to do with the human hand. The natural blessings of New Zealand, some of which have already been mentioned, included a 'salubrious' climate; a naturally productive soil; plenty of land; proximity to the major trading routes; a long coastline and naturally good harbours; luxuriant forest cover; ample fauna though not in variety; and a wide range and an ample store of minerals. Ernst Dieffenbach in his Travels in New Zealand (1843) commented on the fineness of the country's climate and the abundance of its vegetation cover. In the 1850s an army surgeon, formerly stationed in Auckland, A. S. Thomson, wrote, 'The moisture of the New Zealand climate is evidenced by the luxuriousness of its vegetation and the heavy night-dews — but this moisture is a very different thing from the raw dampness of many countries; it produces an exquisite softness of the skin, and the inhabitants rarely suffer from that unpleasant "glazed" feeling of the skin so often experienced in dry climates' Thomson went on to 'prove' the health-giving properties of the climate with statistics showing that the rate of mortality and infectious diseases amongst his troops in Auckland was far lower than at any other station in the Empire. Thomson's statistics were so widely used that they stimulated a sub-legend about New Zealand as a haven for the invalid and the delicate and contributed to the later idea of New Zealand as an ideal place to bring up children — plenty of fresh air and sunshine.

William Swainson, Attorney-General 1841 — 1856, wrote in his book New Zealand and its Colonization (1859), that 'The salubrity of New Zealand has been established by the experience of years. For persons of delicate constitution it is probably unequalled, save by Madeira. Families have actually left Madeira to settle in New Zealand.' Swainson went on to assert that New Zealand's climate was superior to that boasted for every country in Western Europe. In his Britain of the South Charles Hursthouse pronounced the climate as a perfect balance between excessive fineness and rigour. He accepted Governor FitzRoy's notion that the interior contained vast mineral resources. With a coastline of 3,000 miles in extent, finely divided into a multitude of bays, creeks, caves, estuaries, and anchorages, New Zealand, he thought, possessed some of the finest naval and commercial harbours in the world. Unlike nearly every other writer, Hursthouse did not consider that nature had given New Zealand an intrinsically rich soil. 'It is a virgin soil of fair average fertility, but nothing more' — and inferior to that of North America, he added. Fortunately, the climate, he said, acted as an '"elemental guano"', which more than compensated for the less than superior soil fertility, as it exercised a 'peculiarly genial, "manure-acting",' influence. That there was plenty of land available for a growing population, at least potentially, he made clear in a table of statistics on the progress of each province. One of the nine columns showed that the total area of land in cultivation or fenced was 500,000 acres. Another column, headed 'Rough estimate of area in Acres as yet required from the Natives', showed a total acreage of 47 million. He did not think New Zealand's indigenous fauna was varied or particularly useful but 'The teeming growth, perpetual verdure, and vigorous freshness of her forests, have been the admiration of every visitor since the days of Cook'.

The Rev. T. H. Braim, in a survey of the Australasian colonies as a field for emigration published in 1870, claimed that Tasman gave such a glowing description of New Zealand's climate and soil that Benjamin Franklin entertained the idea of forming a colony here.

Julius Vogel, in his Handbook of New Zealand published in 1875 by the New Zealand Government, made much of all these merits natural to New Zealand, and many historians have implied that Vogel invented them. They do not realise that Vogel was merely going through the customary rites expected of literary description of New Zealand, and that had he failed to intone the country's marvellous resources his British and New Zealand readers would have thought something was amiss.

The centrality of the natural advantages theme in folk-belief is suggested by its unvarying content regardless of the variety of people who expressed it. Thus the Governor, Sir Hercules Robinson, in an after-dinner address to the Canterbury Agricultural Association in the late 1870s, said: 'Nature has, indeed, been most bountiful to New Zealand. She has given her beautiful scenery, a magnificent climate, a soil of unsurpassed fertility, an extensive sea-board, a commanding position' — and the allusions are repeated almost exactly by the Dunedin District Judge, John Bathgate, in his book New Zealand: Its Resources and Prospects (London, 1884). The basis of the country's remarkable prosperity, he says, is 'undoubtedly to be found in the fertility of the soil, and the delightful climate' while the long coastline, which gave most inland areas good access to the sea, and the richness of the soil, more than compensated for its distance from the British market.

(Continues...)

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Table of Contents

Contents

Title Page,
Epigraph,
Acknowledgements,
Introduction,
Part One. The 'Insider's View' of New Zealand as an Ideal Society,
Prologue,
I. Natural Abundance,
II. The Labourer's Paradise,
III. The Middle-Class Paradise,
Part Two. The Enemies of the Ideal Society?,
Prologue,
IV. A Hierarchical Society?,
V. A Class-Divided Society?,
VI. A Society of Cohesive Local Communities?,
Part Three. The Real Enemies of the Ideal Society,
Prologue,
VII. Frontier Chaos,
VIII. Constraints on Chaos,
IX. Friends or Enemies?,
Retrospect,
References,
Bibliography,
Index,
Copyright,