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Chapter I. the Past.

It would not be pertinent to the consideration of this subject to consider at any length or with extreme minuteness the history of the colonisation of New Zealand.

It would, on the other hand, be impossible with justice or safety to attempt to delineate our present position and our future tendencies without pausing to look back upon those portions of our national history which have led to our present social state. The times and modes of New Zealand settlements were varied and diverse. Our earliest progenitors, as a people, were drawn from very different classes in character and position. The runaway sailors from whaling ships, and escaped fugitives from justice in other lands, found homes and hospitality among those same Maoris whom the missionaries of every church had crossed the ocean to convert.

Various causes induced the government of Now South Wales and the English government to annex New Zealand to the Empire.

The treaty of Waitangi, agreed to as it was by a very large section of the native people, confirmed the destiny of these islands. Then followed the usual incidents of early colonisation—separation from the Mother Colony—the formation of an independent government—the birth of municipal institutions, jealousies, misunderstandings and wars between the original inhabitants of the country and the new-comers, and the accession of an ever-increasing European population. The first part of its history terminated in the charter of the constitution granting to New Zealand representative institutions and responsible government.

Since that time the four most prominent series of events, viewed in connection with the present subject have been the discovery and the working of rich gold fields in many parts of both islands; the Maori wars, commencing at Waitara; the land legislation in regard page 6 both to Crown lands and lands belonging to the natives; and the results of the Public Works and Immigration Policy initiated in 1870 by Sir Julius Vogel.

I do not allude to the repeal of that part of the constitution which provided for Provincial Government and administration, because it does not seem to me materially to affect the subject now being considered, viz., the production and distribution of wealth. With the establishment of English government in 1840, all the laws existing in Great Britain, applicable to this country, came into force here. Not only, however, did the statute and common law of our fatherland become thus transplanted, but those laws of social economy, by which, often unconsciously, we are so completely governed, also became a portion of our national existence.

Thus the laws of demand and supply, the laws of rent and labour, of taxation, of capital, of interest, and of wages; all these were brought into as full control in the infant colony of New Zealand as they were in the ancient cities and farm lands of Great Britain. Whatever liberties, civil and religious, our people held in England they held here. And the same direction which increasing wealth and growing opulence took in England they took also in New Zealand.

The different locations made in the colony, the incongruous and many-sided settlement of Auckland, the commercial establishment of Wellington and Wanganui, the Episcopalian colony in Canterbury, and the gathering of the clans in Otago and Southland, all tended to create the general desire and claim for political privileges, and to promote a keen emulation in the attainment of wealth. While the provinces were in existence, and the Provincial Governments had power to dispose of the waste lands of the Crown within their jurisdiction, each province developed a species of almost national characteristics in disposing of these lands.

Canterbury, strong in its conservative element and old-fashioned hereditary instincts, made laws which practically gave over millions of acres of rich land to privileged classes. Auckland, strong in its cosmopolitan origin and character, passed enactments of all sorts and conditions for the purpose of managing the territory belonging to it.

After the four settlements had become solidified, and when the re-action which followed the excitement of their foundation had overtaken them, the discovery of gold in Otago brought a vast influx of people, wealth, and energy to the middle island. What Gabriel's Gully did for the South, the war and afterwards the Thames did for the North, while the metropolitan position and character of Wellington, and the great wheat-fields and sheep-runs of Canterbury, gave wealth and population to those places. The tide of prosperity again ebbed, until in 1870 Sir Julius Vogel introduced his Public Works and Immigration Policy. Since that time page 7 the material prosperity of New Zealand has, without doubt, depended mainly upon the expenditure of borrowed money. I do not desire to criticise the manner in which the five and twenty millions have been spent—nor do I wish here to condemn that policy, nor approve it. It is sufficient to aver that whatever its ultimate consequences may be, the immediate effect was to restore life and animation to business, to settlement, to employment, and to speculation. But even the most casual observer cannot fail to observe that the stimulus which once quickened us almost to frenzy, now fails to rouse us from lethargy and depression. Millions of borrowed money do not now by their expenditure provide employment for the surplus labour of the people. So much and deeply is this felt, that in addition to borrowed money Government last year gave over a million of acres of land for public works. And yet there is suffering, want, and enforced idleness in our midst.

During the period of our history since the establishment of Responsible Government, we have at least kept pace with the British Parliament in the widening and enlargement of political privileges. With Triennial Parliaments, manhood suffrage, no property qualification, and the ballot, it becomes difficult to rouse the enthusiasm of the people upon any question of pure politics, save upon the abolition of plural voting, the tenure of land, and one or two other questions which will yet perhaps arouse the determination of the people. The formation of a State Bank, the proper adjustment of taxation, and subjects of a like nature, belong to the questions of policy and not privilege. While the rights of the people as a whole have been widely recognised, the rights of the majority in questions of taxation and other matters of policy have not been so fairly dealt with.

It is, however, to the social and economical aspects of legislation that I invite enquiry. Social questions generally, those especially of the gravest character, have not attracted much attention. Some few reforms have, it is true, been effected. We can judge by analogy something of the importance of those questions which have remained utterly untouched. The principal foundation of freedom is undoubtedly the franchise. He alone is politically free who has a voice directly or indirectly in the making of the laws by which his life, his liberty, and his property are to be governed. So he alone is socially free who has the right to earn for himself the means of subsistence. To give me the franchise and yet afford me no opportunity to exercise it would be mockery; so to give me the right to earn my livelihood in any way I choose, and yet not afford me any opportunity to do so, is mockery also. Here is the bed-rock of the controversy. Here is the moot question which has agitated Europe for the last fifty years. How far can Government interfere to give employment? How far ought it to do so? How far can Government control the distribution of wealth? How far ought it to do so?

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I do not propose to enter into this question at all. I have mentioned it to shew that it exists, although dormant. And to shew also that while political privileges and rights have been conceded to the labouring and industrial classes, analogous social privileges and rights have been utterly ignored and passed by in silence.

What then, so far, have been the results of the historic existence and legislation of the last twenty years to the people of New Zealand?

We have increased from about 200,000 to over half a million in number. We have built railways, erected telegraphs, and purchased fleets. Villages have grown to towns, and towns to cities. Commerce, manufactures, productions of all kinds, and wealth generally have marvellously increased. Art, science, and literature have been developed. Great ocean steamers give us direct communication with Europe, and the electric wire flashes to us beneath the seas the daily news of the whole earth.

On the other hand, we have sold our Crown Lands—parted like Esau with our birthright for a mess of pottage,—and we have spent the proceeds. We have allowed millions of acres of Maori lands to go into the hands of land-sharks and speculators. Our indebtedness has grown from seven and a-half millions of pounds to over thirty millions. We have increased our taxation by comparison beyond that of any other people.

There are, however, results still worse than these. Not only have we parted with the fertile lands of the colony, but we have allowed individuals to obtain titles to estates more vast and valuable than those of the great landed aristocracy of Britain, while the great majority of the people are absolutely landless. The figures published in the recent Doomsday Book are in their bald simplicity absolutely appalling. These great territories we have made immensely valuable by the expenditure of borrowed money. By the same expenditure also we have created a mighty commerce, which has enriched the merchants and traders of this and other lands.

We have raised manufacturies, wherein local and foreign capitalists have invested monies which yield a great percentage. We have enabled banks and insurance societies, whose shareholders are mostly foreigners, to pay large dividends. In a word, we have created a vast aggregate amount of wealth. But at what a cost to the community as a whole. Our public lands, which might have enriched all the people, are gone, and we have borrowed and spent for Government and local purposes about thirty millions, for which the people have to pay a million and a-half each year! This terrible burden is placed, not upon those who have gained permanent benefit by the lavish expenditure of public money, but upon the very classes who have received from it no lasting advantage whatever.

It is a mistake to suppose that times of great prosperity benefit page 9 all alike. To the great land-owner, the opulent capitalist, they are in a material sense permanently beneficial. But to the industrial classes, as a rule, they are but gleams of transient sunshine. While they last employment is plentiful, wages are high, and things go merrily. Let them, however, pass and yield to those periods which we call "bad times," and we see at once how little under our present vicious social system the industrial classes benefit by so-called good times. Employment becomes scarce—wages fall—expensive habits (save the mark!) induced by prosperity must be abandoned and curtailed—and soon want, like an armed man, enters and takes possession. For however prosperous a period may be, the industrial classes receive but their wages—while the landowner and capitalist receive their rents and interest, and besides that receive all the permanent wealth that is created; so here as elsewhere poverty marches with progress. I venture to say there is a larger proportion of poor to-day in New Zealand than there was at any past period of her history. There are more rich people, and the rich are richer than they ever were before. Wealth has accumulated, but in the hands of a few. Debts and burdens have increased, incurred to make the wealthy still richer, and are borne by the many. It may be laid down as an axiom that under present social conditions national prosperity is temporary in advantages for the many, and permanent only for the few; the many forming the industrial class, the few being the owners of land and capital.