Land Owners were Legislators

in Early New Zealand

THE Government took such good care to protect the Maoris that it was quite difficult to buy land in early New Zealand. On the other hand, the speculator was frustrated. In the long run the genuine settlers found farms. Indeed, local pres­sure on the officials to release land for settlement sometimes made them go to the extreme of kind­ness, as for instance in Governor Fitzroy’s ‘ Penny -an-Acre’ Proclamation of 1844.

Even when a man got his land, life was not easy. Markets were limited and far away. The export of wool became important about 1850, and was for years the only commodity to export, though Sydney took some cargoes of flax, flour, and potatoes, mostly prepared by Maoris. In the North Island many settlers were ruined by the Maori Wars. In spite of these difficulties and uncertain­ties, Wakefield’s historic colonising principle of the sufficient price—designed so that immigrants who brought in capital would find labourers to help them develop their farms—and the aristocratic connexions of his backers in England had brought out many immigrants of birth and breeding. These talented and cultivated men, once they had laid out their money in farm land and put their affairs in order, found scope for their abilities in politics. The early colonial assemblies were packed with men of education closely concerned with the ownership and working of land. Provinces, created in 1853, with almost the character of separate states within a federation, favoured a rather un­even distribution of landed property, as each had power to dispose of its own unoccupied lands. These landowning legislators, like the eighteenth century country gentlemen in England, though not lacking in public duty, at the same time paid due attention to their own interests, favouring the easier distribution of the national land. Before 1870, many of these gentlemen settlers returned to England to end their days, having increased their capital in the young colony.