Part 16 (1/2)
THE NEW ZEALANDERS
”No hungry generations tread thee down.”
Some 785,000 whites, browns, and yellows are now living in New Zealand. Of these the browns are made up of about 37,000 Maoris and 5,800 half-castes. The Maoris seem slowly decreasing, the half-castes increasing rather rapidly. 315,000 sheep, 30,000 cattle, many horses, and much land, a little of which they cultivate, some of which they let, support them comfortably enough. The yellows, some 3,500 Chinese, are a true alien element. They do not marry--78 European and 14 Chinese wives are all they have, at any rate in the Colony. They are not met in social intercourse or industrial partners.h.i.+p by any cla.s.s of colonists, but work apart as gold-diggers, market-gardeners, and small shop-keepers, and are the same inscrutable, industrious, insanitary race of gamblers and opium-smokers in New Zealand as elsewhere. At one time they were twice as numerous. Then a poll-tax of 10 was levied on all new-comers. Still, a few score came in every year, paying the tax, or having it paid for them; and about as many went home to China, usually with 200 or more about them. In 1895 the tax was raised to 50, and this seems likely to bring the end quickly.
Despised, disliked, dwindling, the Chinese are bound soon to disappear from the colony.
Of the 740,000 whites, more than half have been born in the country, and many are the children, and a few even the grandchildren, of New Zealand-born parents. An insular race is therefore in process of forming. What are its characteristics? As the Scotch would say--what like is it? Does it give any signs of qualities, physical or mental, tending to distinguish it from Britons, Australians, or North Americans? The answer is not easy. Nothing is more tempting, and at the same time more risky, than to thus generalize and speculate too soon. As was said at the outset, New Zealand has taken an almost perverse delight in upsetting expectations. Nevertheless, certain points are worth noting which may, at any rate, help readers to draw conclusions of their own.
The New Zealanders are a British race in a sense in which the inhabitants of the British Islands scarcely are. That is to say, they consist of English, Scotch, and Irish, living together, meeting daily, intermarrying, and having children whose blood with each generation becomes more completely blended and mingled. The Celtic element is larger than in England or in the Scottish lowlands. As against this there is a certain, though small, infusion of Scandinavian and German blood; very little indeed of any other foreign race. The Scotch muster strongest in the south and the Irish in the mining districts. In proportion to their numbers the Scotch are more prominent than other races in politics, commerce, finance, sheep farming, and the work of education. Among the seventy European members of the New Zealand House of Representatives there is seldom more than one Smith, Brown, or Jones, and hardly ever a single Robinson; but the usual number of McKenzies is three. The Irish do not crowd into the towns, or attempt to capture the munic.i.p.al machinery, as in America, nor are they a source of political unrest or corruption. Their Church's antagonism to the National Education system has excluded many able Catholics from public life. The Scandinavians and Germans very seldom figure there.
Some 1,700 Jews live in the towns, and seem more numerous and prominent in the north than in the south. They belong to the middle cla.s.s; many are wealthy. These are often charitable and public-spirited, and active in munic.i.p.al rather than in parliamentary life.
[Ill.u.s.tration: MAORIS CONVEYING GUESTS IN A CANOE
Photo by Beattie & Sanderson, Auckland.]
Among the Churches the Church of England claims 40 per cent. of the people; the Presbyterians 23 per cent.; other Protestants, chiefly Methodists, 17 per cent.; and Catholics 14. Methodists seem increasing rather faster than any other denomination. Though the National School system is secular, it is not anti-Christian. 11,000 persons teach 105,000 children in Sunday-schools. In the census returns about two per cent. of the population object or neglect to specify their religion; only about one per cent. style themselves as definitely outside the Christian camp.
The average density of population throughout the Colony's 104,000 square miles is somewhat less than eight to the mile. Two-thirds of the New Zealanders live in the country, in villages, or in towns of less than 5,000 inhabitants. Even the larger towns cover, taken together, about seventy square miles of ground--not very cramping limits for a quarter of a million of people. Nor is there overcrowding in houses; less than five persons to a house is the proportion. There are very few spots in the towns where trees, flower gardens, and gra.s.s are not close at hand, and even orchards and fields not far away. The dwelling-houses, almost all of wood, seldom more than two storeys high, commonly show by their shady verandahs and veiling creepers that the New Zealand sun is warmer than the English. Bright, windy, and full of the salt of the ocean, the air is perhaps the wholesomest on earth, and the Island race naturally shows its influence. Bronzed faces display on every side the power of sun and wind. Pallor is rare; so also is the more delicate pink and white of certain English skins.
The rainier, softer skies of the western coasts have their result in smoother skins and better complexions on that side of the Islands than in the drier east. On the warm sh.o.r.es of Auckland there are signs of a more slightly-built breed, but not in the interior, which almost everywhere rises quickly into hill or plateau. Athletic records show that the North Islanders hold their own well enough against Southern rivals. More heavily built as a rule than the Australians, the New Zealanders have darker hair and thicker eyebrows than is common with the Anglo-Saxon of Northern England and Scotland. Tall and robust, the men do not carry themselves as straight as the nations which have been through the hands of the drill-sergeant. The women--who are still somewhat less numerous than the males--are as tall, but not usually as slight, as those of the English upper cla.s.ses. To sum up, the New Zealand race shows no sign of beating the best British, or of producing an average equal to that best; but its average is undoubtedly better than the general British average. The puny myriads of the manufacturing towns have no counterpart in the Colony, and, if humanitarian laws can prevent it, never should. The birth-rate and death-rate are both strikingly low: the latter, 9.14 per 1,000, is the lowest in the world. The birth-rate has fallen from 37.95 in 1881 to 25.96 in 1897. The yearly number of births has in effect remained the same for sixteen years, though the population has grown thirty per cent. larger in the period. The gain by immigration is still appreciable, though not large.
Their speech is that of communities who are seldom utterly illiterate, and as seldom scholarly. I have listened in vain for any national tw.a.n.g, drawl, or peculiar intonation. The young people, perhaps, speak rather faster than English of the same age, that is all. On the other hand, anything like picturesque, expressive language within the limits of grammar is rarely found. Many good words in daily use in rural England have been dropped in the Colony. Brook, village, moor, heath, forest, dale, copse, meadow, glade are among them. Young New Zealanders know what these mean because they find them in books, but would no more think of employing them in speaking than of using ”inn,”
”tavern,” or ”ale,” when they can say ”hotel,” ”public-house,” or ”beer.” Their place is taken by slang. Yet if a nation is known by its slang, the New Zealanders must be held disposed to borrow rather than to originate, for theirs is almost wholly a mixture of English, American, and Australian. Most of the mining terms come from California; most of the pastoral from Australia, though ”flat” and ”creek” are, of course, American. ”Ranche” and ”gulch” have not crossed the Pacific; their place is taken by ”run” and ”gulley.” On the other hand, ”lagoon” has replaced the English ”pond,” except in the case of artificial water. Pasture is ”feed,” herd and flock alike become ”mob.” ”Country” is used as a synonym for grazing; ”good country” means simply good grazing land. A man tramping in search of work is a ”swagman” or ”swagger,” from the ”swag” or roll of blankets he carries on his back. Very few words have been adopted from the vigorous and expressive Maori. The convenient ”mana,” which covers prestige, authority, and personal magnetism; ”whare,” a rough hut; ”taihoa,” equivalent to the Mexican _manana_; and ”ka pai,” ”'tis good,” are exceptions. The South Island colonists misp.r.o.nounce their beautiful Maori place-names murderously. Even in the North Island the average bushman will speak of the pukatea tree as ”bucketeer,” and not to call the poro-poro shrub ”bull-a-bull” would be considered affectation. There is or was in the archives of the Taranaki Farmers'
Club a patriotic song which rises to the notable lines--
”And as for food, the land is full Of that delicious bull-a-bull!”
In Canterbury you would be stared at if you called Timaru anything but ”Timmeroo.” In Otago Lake Wakatipu becomes anything, from ”Wokkertip”
to ”Wackatipoo”; and I have heard a cultured man speak of Puke-tapu as ”Buck-a-tap.”
The intellectual average is good. Thanks in great part to Gibbon Wakefield's much-abused Company, New Zealand was fortunate in the mental calibre of her pioneer settlers, and in their determined efforts to save their children from degenerating into loutish, half-educated provincials. Looking around in the Colony at the sons of these pioneers, one finds them on all sides doing useful and honourable work. They make upright civil servants, conscientious clergymen, schoolmasters, lawyers, and journalists, pus.h.i.+ng agents, resourceful engineers, steady-going and often prosperous farmers, and strong, quick, intelligent labourers. Of the ”self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control” needful to make a sound race they have an encouraging share. Of artistic, poetic, or scientific talent, of wit, originality, or inventiveness, there is yet but little sign. In writing they show facility often, distinction never; in speech fluency and force of argument, and even, sometimes, lucidity, but not a flash of the loftier eloquence. Nor has the time yet arrived for Young New Zealand to secure the chief prizes of its own community--such posts and distinctions as go commonly to men fairly advanced in years. No native of the country has yet been its Prime Minister or sat amongst its supreme court judges or bishops. A few colonial-born have held subordinate Cabinet positions, but the dozen leading Members of Parliament are just now all British-born. So are the leading doctors, engineers, university professors, and preachers; the leading barrister is a Shetlander. Two or three, and two or three only, of the first-cla.s.s positions in the civil service are filled by natives. On the whole, Young New Zealand is, as yet, better known by collective usefulness than by individual distinction.
The grazing of sheep and cattle, dairying, agriculture, and mining for coal and gold, are the chief occupations. 47,000 holdings are under cultivation. The manufactures grow steadily, and already employ 40,000 hands. A few figures will give some notion of the industrial and commercial position. The number of the sheep is a little under 20,000,000; of cattle, 1,150,000; of horses, 250,000. The output of the factories and workshops is between 10,000,000 and 11,000,000 sterling a year; the output of gold, about 1,000,000; that of coal, about 900,000 tons. The export of wool is valued at 4,250,000. Among the exports for 1897 were: 2,700,000 frozen sheep and lambs; 66,000 cwt. cheese, and 71,000 cwt b.u.t.ter; 433,000 worth of kauri gum; 427,000 worth of grain. The exports and imports of the Colony for the year 1897 were a little over 10,000,000 and 8,000,000 sterling respectively. It would appear that, taking a series of years, about three-quarters of the Colony's trade has been with the mother-country, and nearly all the remainder with other parts of the Empire. The public debt is about 44,000,000; the revenue, 5,000,000. The State owns 2,061 miles of railway.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A RURAL STATE SCHOOL
Photo by BEATTIE & SANDERSON, Auckland.]
Socially the colonists are what might be expected from their environment. Without an aristocracy, without anything that can be called a plutocracy, without a solitary millionaire, New Zealand is also virtually without that hopeless thing, the hereditary pauper and begetter of paupers. It may be doubted whether she has a dozen citizens with more than 10,000 a year apiece. On the other hand, the average of wealth and income is among the highest in the world.
Education is universal. The lectures of the professors of the State University--which is an examining body, with five affiliated colleges in five different towns--are well attended by students of both s.e.xes.
The examiners are English; the degrees may be taken by either s.e.x indifferently. Not two per cent. of the Colony's children go to the secondary schools, though they are good and cheap. It is her primary education that is the strength and pride of New Zealand. It is that which makes the list of crimes light. Criminals and paupers are less often produced than let in from the outside. The regulations relating to the exclusion of the physically or mentally tainted are far too lax, and will bring their own punishment. The colonists, honestly anxious that their country shall in days to come show a fine and happy race, are strangely blind to the laws of heredity. They carelessly admit those whose children to the third and fourth generation must be a degrading influence. On the other hand, the Colony gains greatly by the regular and deliberate importation of English experts. Every year a small but important number of these are engaged and brought out.
They vary from bishops and professors to skilled artizans and drill-instructors; but whatever they are, their quality is good, and they usually make New Zealand the home of their families.
With wealth diffused, and caste barriers unknown, a New Zealander, when meeting a stranger, does not feel called upon to act as though in dread of finding in the latter a sponge, toady, or swindler. Nor has the colonist to consider how the making of chance acquaintances may affect his own social standing. In his own small world his social standing is a settled thing, and cannot be injured otherwise than by his own folly or misconduct. Moreover, most of the Islanders are, or have been, brought face to face with the solitude of nature, and many of all cla.s.ses have travelled. These things make them more sociable, self-confident, and unsuspicious than the middle cla.s.ses of older countries. Such hospitality as they can show is to them a duty, a custom, and a pleasure.
The Islanders are almost as fond of horses and athletics as their Australian cousins. They are not nearly such good cricketers, but play football better, are often good yachtsmen, and hold their own in rowing, running, jumping, and throwing weights. Fox-hunting is a forbidden luxury, as the fox may not be imported. But they have some packs of harriers, and ride to them in a way which would not be despised in the gra.s.s counties at Home. There are fair polo teams too.
They are just as fond of angling and shooting as the race elsewhere.