THE NEW ZEALAND OFFICIAL 1990 YEAR BOOK

The interplay of earth movements and erosion has created the sedimentary rocks that cover almost three-quarters of New Zealand. Erosion of land produced sand, mud, gravel and other debris which was carried out to sea and accumulated in great thicknesses to form rocks such as sandstone, mudstone, greywacke and conglomerate. The shells and skeletons of sea creatures also accumulated and formed thick layers of limestone. Most sedimentary rocks are formed in near horizontal layers called strata. Earth movements later raised the rocks above the sea to form land, and in many places pressure tilted and folded the strata. Seas advanced and retreated over the New Zealand area many times and the sedimentary rocks represent almost every geological period since the Cambrian (see time scale). Their age is revealed by the fossils they contain or may be determined by various radiometric techniques.

As well as the sedimentary rocks of various ages, New Zealand incorporates in its complex structure metamorphic rocks (schist, gneiss and marble), and intrusive igneous rocks (granite, gabbro, diorite and serpentine). Many of these metamorphic and intrusive igneous rocks are hundreds of millions of years old.

Instrusive rocks are generally considered to have entered the outer crust in a molten state, often during periods of mountain building. Some may, however, result from the intense metamorphism (melting) of pre-existing sediments. Intrusive rocks contain large crystals and have a coarse-grained texture.

Metamorphic rocks are formed when previously existing rocks are subjected to high temperatures and pressures while buried deep within the earth's crust. During metamorphism new minerals and structures develop within a rock due to the great temperatures and pressures. Such metamorphism often takes place during relatively short periods of mountain building.

Volcanic rocks (basalt, andesite, rhyolite and ignimbrite), are the products of many volcanic eruptions that have characterised New Zealand's geological history. The most recognisable volcanoes in New Zealand now occur in the North Island, where a number are active. They include those in Tongariro National Park, White Island and Mount Tarawera. Others such as Mount Taranaki (or Egmont), and Rangitoto may be considered dormant at present although they are still regarded as significant hazards. Sporadic episodes of volcanic activity have also occurred in the South Island with Timaru, Lyttelton, Oamaru and Dunedin all having basaltic volcanoes less than 13 million years old.

The oldest rocks in New Zealand are found in Nelson, Westland and Fiordland. They have been dated back to the Paleozoic era about 570 million years ago. They include thick sedimentary rocks which suggest that to yield the great volume of sediments a large land-mass existed nearby at that time, although so far little has been deduced about its shape or position.

The history of the later part of the Paleozoic era, and the Mesozoic era, is rather better understood. For a vast span of time from the Carboniferous period, probably until the early Cretaceous period, an extensive depositional basin occupied the New Zealand region. At first, during much of the late Paleozoic, huge quantities of submarine lava and volcanic ash were included in the materials that accumulated. In the later Permian and Mesozoic times sediments were mainly sand and mud, probably derived from some landmass west of present New Zealand. These rocks have been compacted into hard greywacke (a type of sandstone), and argillite (hard, dark mudstone).

In the early Cretaceous period one of the main mountain-building episodes in New Zealand's history took place. Although basinal sedimentation continued through the Cretaceous period in eastern New Zealand, elsewhere this basin was compressed, and the sediments were intensely crumpled, broken and raised above the sea, probably forming a large, mountainous landmass. Some of the sediments, now exposed over much of Otago, alpine Westland, and parts of the Marlborough Sounds, were metamorphosed into schist and gneiss by high temperatures and the tremendous deforming pressures. This intense folding of the strata occurred approximately 100 million years ago in the mid-Cretaceous period. Slowly the mountains were eroded and gradually a land of low relief was produced. The sea gradually advanced over the eroded stumps of the Mesozoic mountains, beginning its transgression earlier in some areas than in others. In the early Cretaceous period the land became submerged in the region of present Northland and the eastern margins of the North and South Islands, and thick deposits of mudstone and sandstone accumulated in some of these areas. At the close of the Mesozoic era, and in the very early Tertiary era, the land became so reduced in size that little sediment was produced and only comparatively thin deposits of bentonitic and sulphurous muds, and fine, white foraminiferal limestone accumulated. During this time, New Zealand's main coal deposits accumulated in swamps on the surface of the old land. These became buried by marine deposits as the sea continued its transgression in the Eocene period. By the Oligocene period most of the land was submerged, and in shallow waters free of land sediments, thick deposits of shell and foraminiferal limestone accumulated. Scattered remnants of this Oligocene limestone are used for most of New Zealand's cement and agricultural lime.

After the Oligocene submergence, earth movements became more vigorous; many ridges rose from the sea as islands, and sank or were worn down again; sea basins formed and were rapidly filled with sediments. New Zealand's late Tertiary environment has been described by Sir Charles Fleming (Tuatara, June 1962) as follows: ‘The pattern of folds, belts and troughs that developed was on a finer scale than in the Mesozoic … the land moved up and down as a series of narrow, short, interfingering or branching folds. … We can think of Tertiary New Zealand as an archipelago … a kind of writhing of part of the mobile Pacific margin seems to have gone on.’ The thick deposits of soft grey sandstone and mudstone that now make up large areas of the North Island and some parts of the South Island, are the deposits that accumulated in the many sea basins that developed in the later Tertiary.

Late in the Cenozoic era, in the Pliocene and Pleistocene periods between 6 million and 1 million years ago, another great episode of mountain building took place. Earth movements became intense, and slowly pushed up the Southern Alps and New Zealand's other main mountain chains. It was during this period that the general size and shape of the present islands of New Zealand was determined. Much of the movement during this mountain-building period (the Kaikoura Orogeny) took the form of displacement of blocks of the earth's crust along fractures called faults. The total movement of blocks adjacent to major faults amounted to thousands of metres. It must have been achieved very slowly, probably by innumerable small movements, each less than a few metres. The blocks adjacent to ‘transcurrent’ faults moved both vertically and laterally along the faults. The New Zealand landscape today in some regions shows well-preserved, tilted fault blocks bounded by fault scarps (steep faces hundreds or even thousands of metres high). From Milford Sound to Cook Strait, an almost unbroken depression, formed by river valleys and low saddles on the intervening ridges, marks the line of New Zealand's Alpine Fault. Contrasting rock types occur on either side of the fault. This is illustrated by the 480 kilometre separation of Permian igneous rocks, which occur in Nelson and western Otago. Fault movements continue to the present day and have accompanied several major earthquakes of the past century. Many minor but revealing landscape features, such as scarplets or offset ridges, or streams, show where the movement has been occurring over recent centuries.

Erosion has transformed the landscape during this time, carving detailed patterns of peaks, ridges, valleys and gorges. The deposition of debris has built up alluvial plains, shingle fans and other construction forms. At the coast, waves have eaten back the headlands and built beaches, spits and bars. The late Pleistocene glaciers carved the fiords of Fiordland and the valleys occupied by most of the South Island lakes; there were also small glaciers on Ruapehu, where remnants survive, on Mount Taranaki and the Tararua Range. Sea-level changes accompanied the formation and later melting of global glacial ice, affecting the erosion and deposition of the rivers. These changes were responsible for the formation of many prominent river terraces.

Volcanic activity over the past few million years has played an important part in shaping the landscape. Banks Peninsula, a twin volcanic dome in Canterbury, also achieved much of its growth then. The largest volcanic outpourings of late geological times in New Zealand has been in the region between Tongariro National Park and the Bay of Plenty coast; andesite lava, scoria, and ash were erupted in the Pleistocene period and later, to build the volcanoes, Ruapehu, Tongariro, and Ngauruhoe. More than 8000 cubic kilometres of molten ignimbrite pumice and rhyolite lava erupted, building up the Volcanic Plateau, which is one of the largest and youngest accumulations of acid volcanic rocks in the world. Mount Taranaki is an andesitic stratovolcano, with the remnants of three other volcanic cones nearby; all are of Pleistocene age. In the Waikato there are eroded Pleistocene cones of andesitic composition associated with a number of alkaline eruptive centres. The largest is Pirongia, a basaltic andesite cone some 900 metres high. Auckland city and the area just south has been the scene of many eruptions of basalt lava and scoria in Pleistocene and Holocene times, and many small scoria cones can be seen there. Late Tertiary and Quaternary basaltic eruptions in North Auckland have built lava plateaus and many young cones. From these volcanic outpourings some valuable mineral resources have been derived. The ironsands mined on the west coast of the North Island are concentrations of magnetite and ilmenite, which have been eroded from volcanic rocks.

Compared with some other parts of the almost continuous belt of earthquake activity around the rim of the Pacific—such as Japan, Chile, and the Philippines—the level of seismic activity in New Zealand is moderate, although earthquakes are common. It may be roughly compared with that prevailing in California. A shock of Richter magnitude 6 or above occurs on the average about once a year, a shock of magnitude 7 or above once in ten years, and a shock of about magnitude 8 perhaps once a century, but in historic times only one shock (the south-west Wairarapa earthquake in 1855) is known to have reached this magnitude.

Other natural disasters and accidents are together responsible for more casualties than earthquakes. The most serious seismic disasters in New Zealand have been the Hawkes Bay earthquake of 1931 in which 256 deaths occurred, and the Buller earthquake of 1929 in which there were 17 deaths. The total resulting from all other shocks since 1840 is less than 15 deaths. The last earthquake to cause deaths occurred at Inangahua in 1968, when three people died, while the most recent damaging earthquakes have been at Edgecumbe in the Bay of Plenty in March 1987 and Dannevirke in May 1990.

The process of earthquake occurrence is understood in terms of a large volume of the earth's crust being subjected to strain by the relentless movement of the great plates of the earth's surface against each other. The strain eventually exceeds the strength of the rock, which ruptures. Energy is radiated outwards in the form of elastic waves, which can be felt at places near the origin, and detected by sensitive instruments at greater distances. In large shallow earthquakes the rupture may appear at the surface, forming or renewing movement on a geological fault. In regions where the majority of earthquakes are very shallow, such as California, there is a tendency for the earthquake origins to cluster near geological fault traces, but in regions of deeper activity, such as New Zealand, this is not so. There is little activity near the Alpine Fault, which stretches for some 500 kilometres from Milford Sound to Lake Rotoiti, and is considered one of the world's largest and most active faults.

Within New Zealand at least two separate systems of seismic activity can be distinguished. The Main Seismic Region covers the whole of the North Island except the Northland peninsula, and the part of the South Island north of a line passing roughly between Banks Peninsula and Cape Foulwind. The Southern, or Fiordland, Seismic Region includes southern Westland, western Southland, and western Otago. Less clearly defined activity covers the remainder of the two main islands, and extends eastwards from Banks Peninsula to include the Chatham Islands.

Shallow earthquakes, which are the most numerous, originate within the Earth's crust, which in New Zealand has an average thickness of some 35 kilometres. These shocks are responsible for almost all damage to property, and are widely scattered throughout the country. In historically recent times, the Main and Fiordland Seismic Regions have been significantly more active than the rest of New Zealand, but neither the Central Seismic Region., which lies between them, nor the Northland peninsula has been free from damaging shocks. The details of the present pattern are not necessarily unchanging, and could alter significantly after the occurrence of a major earthquake. Because of this, the broader geophysical setting, and the distance to which the effects of a large earthquake extend, it would be highly imprudent to treat any part of New Zealand as completely free from the risk of serious earthquake damage.

Many active regions of the Earth have only shallow earthquakes, but in others shocks have been known to occur at depths as great as 700 kilometres below the surface. It is thought that these deep shocks originate within the edges of crustal plates that have been drawn down or thrust beneath their neighbours. Such deep events are common in both the Main and Fiordland Seismic Regions of New Zealand, but their relative positions with respect to the shallow activity and to other geophysical features are rough mirror images. This is believed to indicate that in the North Island the edge of the Pacific Plate lies below that of the Indian Plate, while in the south of the South Island the Pacific Plate is uppermost and the Indian Plate has been thrust beneath it.

The most important system of deep shocks in New Zealand lies in a well-defined zone beneath the Main Seismic Region, stretching from the Bay of Plenty to Nelson and Marlborough. The maximum depth of occurrence is about 400 kilometres at the northern end, and decreases evenly to a depth of about 200 kilometres before the southern boundary of the region is reached. Along the whole of the system, there is also a regular decrease in depth from west to east. In northern Taranaki, near the western limit of this activity, a small isolated group of shocks at a depth of about 600 kilometres has also been recorded. In the Central Seismic Region only shallow shocks are known. The maximum depth of earthquakes appears to be less than 150 kilometres in the Fiordland Region where the deep activity is more concentrated than in the north, lying close to Lakes Te Anau and Manapouri.

Both earthquakes and volcanoes are found in geophysically disturbed regions, but large earthquakes are rare, although small earthquakes usually accompany volcanic eruptions. Regions of active volcanism are also subject to periodic outbreaks of small earthquakes, all of similar magnitude, and very numerous, known as ‘earthquake swarms’. Although the number of shocks may cause alarm, it is unusual for even minor damage to result. There is not often a simultaneous volcanic outbreak, but swarms are rare in non-volcanic regions. In New Zealand they have occurred in the volcanic zone that includes Mount Ruapehu and White Island, the Coromandel Peninsula, parts of Northland, and Taranaki.

Earthquakes in 1989. The largest earthquake during the year was on 23 May, 800 kilometres south of Invercargill on the Macquarie Ridge. It was of magnitude 8.2, the largest in the world in several years. Despite its size, there was no damage because of its oceanic location. It was felt very strongly on Macquarie Island, however.

Within New Zealand, the largest earthquake was on 31 May at Te Anau. It was of magnitude 6.6 and was felt throughout the southern South Island. There was some damage in Fiordland and Central Otago, but this was limited because the focal depth was about 60 kilometres.

Most other earthquakes were small, causing more alarm than damage. On 8 August another deep earthquake, this one of magnitude 5.9, occurred south of Patea in southern Taranaki and was felt over much of central New Zealand. Numerous other smaller shocks generally followed the diffuse pattern of previous years.

Each year analysis of earthquake data from a network of record stations is completed by the Seismological Observatory of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. This analysis allows scientists to pinpoint the location, magnitude and depth of earthquakes—information that can be used to pick trends and in the theory of plate tectonics.

Although New Zealand lies in a zone of predominant westerlies, easterlies may predominate in individual months and, north of Taranaki, the mean wind flow is south of west.

New Zealand is thought of as a windy country because:

However, over most of the country for much of the time wind speeds are not high.

In practice the wind regime is complex. This is mainly due to the interaction of the wind with the rugged terrain. Cook Strait, which is the major break in the main mountain chain, is a region of relatively high mean wind speed in strong westerly and easterly airstreams. The wind speed is also enhanced near the Manawatu Gorge and Foveaux Strait. A notable but not very common wind in New Zealand is the warm, dry north-westerly föhn wind, which occurs east of the main mountains, and is best known in Canterbury. Easterly föhns can occur too but are fairly rare.

Wind speeds are generally lower inland compared with coastal locations, but occasional high winds occur depending on the type of terrain. Mean wind speeds over the sea are generally higher than over land (because of less factional drag) and this is reflected in higher average wind speeds at coastal locations compared with inland sites.

In the North Island winds decrease during late summer or early autumn, whereas in much of the South Island, winter is the least windy season. Sea breezes are common in summer in coastal locations of both islands.

The rainfall distribution is largely controlled by the mountains and the greatest mean annual rainfall occurs over the South Island mountains, which are also the highest. There is a large range of mean annual rainfall over the country from less than 400 mm in Central Otago to over 12 000 mm in the Southern Alps.

Much of the North Island has a mean annual rainfall in the range 1200–1800 mm. About the mountains values are above 2400 mm and less than 1200 mm in Manawatu, central and southern Hawkes Bay, the Hauraki Plains and parts of Wairarapa. The driest areas are about Hastings and Martinborough where annual totals are about 800 mm.

The mean annual rainfall distribution in the South Island is much more complicated, ranging from totals over 12 000 mm in the Southern Alps to much drier areas east of the mountains. The latter areas include much of north and central Canterbury, with annual totals less than 800 mm, south Canterbury and the Mackenzie Country with totals below 600 mm, to the very dry area of Central Otago with totals below 400 mm in places.

There is a marked difference in the seasonal rainfall for the North and South Islands. The wettest season, for virtually all the North Island and for Nelson, Marlborough and north Canterbury, is winter. For the West Coast and the Southern Alps the wettest season is spring, when the westerlies are strongest. Central and south Canterbury are wettest in summer, and Fiordland, Southland and southern Otago are wettest in autumn.

The driest season is summer for most of the North Island and the northern part of the South Island. The West Coast is driest in winter, as is much of inland Canterbury. Otago and Southland. Coastal parts of Gisborne, Hawkes Bay, Canterbury and south Otago are driest in spring as they are sheltered from the westerlies which prevail then.

Over most of the North Island there are at least 130 rain days annually (days with at least 1 mm of rain). East of the ranges there are some places which have less than 100 rain days annually. In the South Island there is a much greater contrast in annual rain days. In Fiordland and Stewart Island rain days exceed 200 a year, while on the West Coast they exceed 180 a year. In the very dry areas of Central Otago annual rain days number less than 80.

Seasonal rainfall does not vary greatly from year to year and its reliability in spring is particularly advantageous for agriculture. However, spring is the driest season in much of Hawkes Bay and coastal Canterbury.

Heavy rain and floods. Because of its rugged terrain and oceanic location New Zealand is susceptible to serious flooding, which occurs quite frequently. No part of the country is immune from flooding due to heavy rain and overflowing river systems. Although there are seasonal frequencies for different parts of the country, floods can occur at any time of the year. Sometimes only localities are affected, but whole provinces can experience flooding as well.

Tropical cyclones are relatively small intense weather systems which can wreak havoc in islands in the South Pacific if they pass nearby. The usual tropical cyclone season is November to March. Occasionally tropical cyclones move south into New Zealand latitudes by which time they have lost their ‘cyclone’ characteristics of a circular cloud system (which may have a central eye), very strong wind field and large amount of water vapour in their cloud system. By the time these weather systems move southwards into the Tasman Sea or the seas east of New Zealand they cover a much larger area with their cold front/warm front cloud system and somewhat weakened wind field. However, if one of these former tropical depressions passes close to or over New Zealand the combination of New Zealand's terrain, the large amount of remaining water vapour in the cloud system and the strong winds can produce heavy rain and flooding. A recent example was Cyclone Bola, which caused massive damage in the Poverty Bay/East Cape region in March 1988. Tropical depressions moving into New Zealand latitudes also have the effect of spreading warm, moist air over the country thereby noticeably increasing the humidity and maximum and minimum temperatures above those usually experienced.

Summer droughts are a big problem for farmers because high temperatures result in high soil moisture loss. However, droughts can occur in other seasons (e.g., autumn and spring) as well, being least common in winter. Droughts are relatively common in summer in Northland, Hawkes Bay, Wairarapa and Manawatu. In the South Island, Nelson, Marlborough and regions east of the Alps are prone to drought, especially in summer.

Mean annual temperatures decrease steadily from north to south; from 15°C in Northland to 13°C in Wellington to 10°C in Southland. Some inland parts of the South Island have mean temperatures below 8°C. Temperatures also decrease with altitude at the rate of 2°C per 300 metres.

January and February are the warmest months and July the coldest. The highest temperatures occur east of the main ranges and in Central Otago and reach the low to mid-thirties in most summers and sometimes the high thirties. The lowest temperatures occur on clear frosty nights especially in Central Otago and in the mountains. Minimum air temperatures of several degrees below zero are not uncommon in winter, but values below −10°C rarely occur away from the mountains.

All parts of the country, except the northern tip of Northland, experience frosts. Apart from the mountain areas, the coldest parts of the country in winter are Central Otago and the Mackenzie Country in Canterbury. There are considerable variations in frostiness even over small areas, as each place has its own microclimate. Spring air frosts are a problem for horticulturists in Central Otago and some pans of the lower North Island as crop damage can result if precautions are not taken.

The sunniest places, where annual sunshine hours exceed 2350, are near Blenheim, the Tasman Bay area from Nelson to Riwaka, and the Bay of Plenty area near Whakatane. Other areas with at least 2000 annual sunshine hours include Central Otago, coastal pans of Gisborne and Hawkes Bay, Manawatu, lowland parts of Taranaki and southern Wairarapa.

Despite the marked difference in rainfall between Westland and Canterbury, sunshine hours are similar. This is due to the fact that although rainfall on the West Coast is greater than east of the mountains, there are substantial fine periods. Also, in westerlies, cloud spreads from the mountains across Canterbury and prevailing north-easterly winds cause low cloud about the east coast.

There is also an increase in cloudiness down the east coast from Kaikoura to Invercargill with annual sunshine hours ranging from over 2000 in the north to 1600 in the south. This tendency continues further south.

Severe hail storms are small scale phenomena and therefore are not easily detected by the weather station network. Most reports therefore come from the media.

About nine severe hail storms occur on average each year although there is a large year-to-year variation (two to 17). The country can be divided into two approximate regions, east and west of the main ranges. In the eastern region, which includes central Hawkes Bay, part of the Waimea Plains south and west of Nelson, and a strip near the coast from central Canterbury to northern Otago, most of the severe storms between October and February, in the afternoon. In the western region, storms are less likely from February to May, but still more likely during the afternoon, although they occur at other times too. Wairarapa south of Pahiatua is less susceptible to severe hail storms than other parts of the country.

The incidence of thunderstorms in New Zealand is quite low by world standards. Fewer than 15 people have been killed by lightning strikes in New Zealand since about 1920. In coastal areas in the north and west of the country thunderstorms are most frequent in winter or spring. They usually occur at night or in the morning, although some occur in the afternoon. There are few thunderstorms in much of the east of both islands. Those that do occur are usually in summer afternoons. In the interior of the South Island most thunderstorms occur in spring.

The average number of tornadoes recorded in New Zealand is in excess of 30 a year. These can occur in any month and are most likely in the early afternoon. New Zealand tornadoes are generally much smaller than those occurring in other countries, such as the United States, and therefore the amount of damage is correspondingly much less. Most tornado reports come from densely populated areas, suggesting that many more tornadoes occur than are reported.

The permanent snow fields in New Zealand are, in the North Island, on Mt Taranaki, and a small area on the central plateau above 2300 metres, and in the Southern Alps above 2000 metres. Snow fails are highly variable from year to year. They usually occur in winter, but can occur in spring as well, even as late as November. Winter snow lines are about 1500 metres in the North Island. For the South Island they range from 1000 metres in the south to 1300 metres in the north. Snow lines sometimes fall below 600 metres in winter, but usually for no more than a few days. Snow occasionally falls down to sea level on the east coast of the South Island, but does not lie very long. Spring storms can cause severe losses of new-born lambs on the east coast.

Because of its oceanic environment most parts of New Zealand experience relatively high average humidity (70–80 percent) in coastal areas and somewhat lower inland. Humidity is usually highest overnight and in the early morning and lowest in mid-afternoon. Very low humidities (below 40 percent) occur in Canterbury when hot, dry föhn north-westerlies blow. Low humidities also occur behind cold fronts moving up the east coast of the South Island. Periods of up to a week of high humidity can occur in summer when a stationary anticyclone, east of the country', brings warm, moist air over much of New Zealand. High humidities also occur when former tropical cyclones move south into the Tasman Sea. Northland and Auckland also tend to experience high humidity in the summer.

Because of the absence of major heavy industry, its remote location in an oceanic environment and a relatively windy climate. New Zealand's air is much cleaner than in the Northern Hemisphere. However, where there are any large population centres, extensive motor vehicle usage or factories, air quality problems occur from time to time (e.g., photochemical pollution in Auckland on a few days in summer).

When the air pressure is abnormally high in the Indonesian region, it is correspondingly low in the South Pacific and vice versa. This phenomenon is called the ‘southern oscillation’. When southern oscillation episodes occur, the usual weather patterns in the southern Pacific, including New Zealand, are significantly altered.

An index, called the southern oscillation index, has been constructed using pressure recordings from Tahiti and Darwin. Usually there is a lag of some months between a major excursion of the oscillation, either positive or negative, and a characteristic weather regime developing. The period of the southern oscillation is very irregular, varying between about two and ten years with an average period of three to four years. However, once established, significant El Niño and La Niña episodes can persist for six to 12 months.

In general, negative values of the oscillation index are associated with an increase in the frequency of south-westerly winds over New Zealand, with below average rainfall in the north and east of the country. This phase of the southern oscillation is called El Niño. The most recent example occurred in 1986–87. However, 1982–83 was the period when the oscillation index reached its largest negative value this century and rainfall was well above normal on the west coast of the South Island.

The other major phase of the southern oscillation, when the index is positive, is called La Niña. Positive values of the index are associated with an increase in the frequency of northeasterly winds over the country with reduced rainfall in western areas. A recent La Niña episode occurred over the year from spring 1988–89 and was associated with a major drought on the east coast of the South Island.

The vegetation and wildlife of New Zealand today is made up of different bio-geographic elements. The Gondwanaland element consists of ancient plants and animals: conifers such as kauri (Agathis australis), frogs (Leiopelma), reptiles like tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus), large ground snails (Powelliphanta), and flightless birds such as the kiwi (Apteryx spp.) and the now extinct moa (Dinothiformes). A tropical element includes the nikau palm, kie kie (Freycenetia), tree ferns, many northern forest trees, tropical snails (Placostylis), and earthworms.An Australian element includes many ferns, orchids, small seeded tree species like manuka (Leptospermum scoparium), insects, and birds (such as the nectar-feeding tui (Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae), parakeets, and many wetland birds). A Pacific element includes trees like pohutukawa (Metrosideros excelsa), numerous ferns, and migratory birds like the shining cuckoo (Chalcites lucidus). A subantarctic or circumpolar element includes beech (Nothofagus), which occurs also in South America and Southern Australia and was once present on Antarctica, and the world's largest number of several characteristically southern bird groups such as penguins, albatrosses, and petrels. A South American element includes Fuchsia. A cosmopolitan mountain element entered New Zealand along the mountain and island chain from South-east Asia and includes plants such as buttercups, daisies, veronicas and gentians. A cultural element of recent human origin comes from all parts of the world (particularly Europe, North America, Australia and South Africa), and consists of trees, horticultural plants, weeds, mammals, birds, and many other groups.

Northern (subtropical), central (temperate), and southern (subantarctic) marine areas are recognisable as such by their characteristic species; for instance rock oyster, blue mussel and dredge oyster, respectively. Bull kelp is a notable southern species. Some very unusual marine animals occur, including black coral and ancient brachiopods in the southern fiords and sea daisies—starfish relatives which live on sunken wood at a depth of 1000 metres. The complex sea floor means that shore, continental shelf, and deep water species occur close together, resulting in diverse marine life.

Uniqueness is a feature of the natural life of New Zealand. Foremost is the absence—apart from two species of bat, of local land mammals, which had not evolved at the time New Zealand became separate. Many flightless birds and insects have evolved. The most remarkable birds were some 12 species of moa, forest and shrub browsers that took the place of large herbivores in other parts of the world. Moa became extinct during Maori times, but other flightless birds remain, including kiwi, kakapo (a nocturnal parrot—the largest in the world), and weka (a scavenging rail). Flightless insects are numerous, including many large beetles and cricket-like weta.

The absence of mammals also meant that birds became important as seed-dispersing agents, so that most forest plants bear small berries, including the giant conifers (podocarps), the smaller canopy trees, and even some forest-floor herbs. Some alpine plants produce berries, dispersed by the New Zealand pipit and the kea (mountain parrot).

As a consequence of the great physical and climatic upheavals which New Zealand has undergone the forest has been influenced by extinction. Coconut palms once occurred in New Zealand, and fossil remains of kauri, now limited to the northern North Island, have been found south to Canterbury. Some tropical plant groups are represented by a single species, surviving only on protected islands, or in the far north. Some, like Tecomanthe are known from only a single plant in the wild.

The range of bird species is also very limited in comparison with other temperate land masses of similar size. Considerable natural extinction has occurred. The endemic family of wattle birds contains only four species. One of these, the huia, is now extinct. On the other hand, there has been great diversification among smaller life-forms, such as tiny forest-floor snails, spiders, aquatic caddis flies, lichens, mosses and liverworts. Of note is the diversity of alpine plants such as daisies (Celmisia, Senecio), veronica (Hebe), native carrot (Aciphylla) and buttercups. Many of these plants produce rosettes of large leaves, which seem to adapt the plants to cold, windy, subantarctic conditions in the relatively recently-formed high mountains. Other plants adapted to cold, windy conditions are cushion plants, some of which form remarkable mounds called ‘vegetable sheep’.

In the forest and along its margins there are shrubs with tangled and criss-crossed branches bearing tiny leaves. Sometimes these shrubs are the juvenile forms of tree species, but more often are the adult itself. Nowhere else in the world is this peculiar growth form so abundant. It may be an adaptation to browsing by the now extinct moa, or it may help plants to adapt to cold or dry conditions.

Although many New Zealand plants and animals occupy very specialised habitats, droughts, high winds, floods, and erosion mean that many species need to be highly adaptable. Accordingly, many insects, such as native bees, gather food from a wide variety of sources, and some forest species, like beech, regenerate best after the parent forest has been destroyed (by volcanic eruption for example).

However, the overwhelming character of the land-based wildlife is its dependence on forest, and its vulnerability to introduced predators such as rats. The forests and natural grasslands have also been severely modified by introduced browsers such as possums, deer and goats, and some introduced plants, like marram grass, have taken over the places where native species would normally grow.

A vast proportion of the native animals and plant species are found only in New Zealand. Virtually all insects, spiders and snails, and all earthworms are restricted to New Zealand, as are most birds and plants, most freshwater fish (27 species), and all reptiles (38 species).

Table 1.9 summarises the numbers of native and introduced species in New Zealand today, although many figures are approximate and may change after future scientific investigation.

Forests. Apart from mountains above bush-line, swamps, coastal dunes, and some dry inland basins, most of New Zealand was originally forest-covered. The forests were reduced by a third by Maori clearance before European settlement, and a further third by European clearance over the last 150 years, so that now only 23 percent of New Zealand remains forested. Much occurs in mountainous areas, and most is now protected.

There is a wide range of natural forest types. Around the coast is a fragmented narrow band of plants with varying degrees of salt tolerance, (including mangroves, nikau palm and mostly tropical Pacific species, such as karaka and pohutukawa. Coastal forests are particularly important habitats for marine birds (for example various petrels and penguins), and offshore islands form refuges for tuatara, flightless insects and snails. The characteristic New Zealand forest type is warm temperate evergreen rain forest. In the far north this is dominated by kauri and various broad-leaved species, though little original forest remains. Swamp forest dominated by the podocarp kahikatea (Dacrycarpus dacrydioides) was once extensive, and remains prominent in the western South Island. Elsewhere the podocarps (rimu, totara, matai, and miro) are associated with a diverse range of broad-leaved evergreen tree species, ferns, vines and epiphytes, forming dense and complex multi-storeyed communities at low altitudes. The range of species gradually diminishes with both increasing altitude and increasing latitude. Evergreen beech forest is characteristic of the central and southern North Island and South Island, above 300 metres altitude. These montane forests have fewer species than lowland forests, and extensive areas may be dominated by a single tree species. The bush-line, usually of mountain or silver beech, is located generally between 1350 and 1500 metres.

A wide range of secondary forest types have developed since human arrival, notably kanuka forests east of the main divide, manuka and kanuka forests in northern New Zealand, and a range of broad-leaved tree and tree-fern forest types on abandoned farmland.

Cool moist climates produce an abundance of ferns in New Zealand forests, not only giant tree ferns, but also filmy ferns which clothe tree trunks, and ground ferns.

Wetlands. A rise in sea-level inundated coastal valleys formed during the ice-age. This created extensive estuaries, rich in worms, molluscs and eelgrass, which are important habitats for marine birds, such as oyster-catchers, and a refuge for migratory waders. In the north the estuaries support dense groves of low mangroves, while elsewhere there are extensive rush and sedge wetlands which are spawning grounds for whitebait or inanga (Galaxias spp.). The numerous rivers of New Zealand created extensive freshwater wetlands dominated by harakeke or flax (Phormium), raupo (Typha) and sedges. These have mostly been drained but are extensive in the western South Island. Numerous small swamps and lakes have been formed to the lee of sand dunes deposited along western coasts by prevailing westerly winds. Lakes, swamps and bogs made by glaciers are features of the South Island high country.

Dune lands. Coastal sand deposits were once colonised by the now threathened pingao (Desmochoenus spiralis), a sedge used for traditional Maori weavings. The areas have been stabilised by marram grass, lupins and pines, which have displaced native species, and so few remain in their natural state.

Grasslands. When Europeans arrived in the nineteenth century much of the eastern South Island was covered by short tussock grassland or silver tussock and fescue, which had become established after Maori fires removed forests. Before the Maori the only naturally occurring lowland tussock was in the dry interior of Central Otago. Pastoral farming and introduced grasses have now largely destroyed short tussock grassland. However, at higher altitudes, especially above the bush-line, extensive areas of natural tall snow tussock (Chionochloa spp.) occur.

Shrublands. Natural shrublands are rare and usually occur where soil or water factors restrict forest development, such as the margins of coastal estuaries and other wetlands, and rocky bluffs. Immediately above the bushline, a narrow band of diverse shrubland often occurs, dominated by the heath Dracophyllum, shrub daisies, hebes, and alpine podocarps. The most extensive shrublands occur in the once-forested dryland of eastern New Zealand, where small-leaved sometimes spiny shrubs occur, notably matagouri (Discaria), tauhinu (Cassinia), and divaricating coprosmas. These shrublands are stages in the re-establishment of forest. Fernland, particularly bracken fern (Pteridium esculentum), once a staple Maori food, is very widespread throughout deforested New Zealand hill country. Like shrubland it serves as a nurse-bed for forest species.

Alpine vegetation. Large-leaved herbs, mat plants, and cushion plants occur throughout the tall tussocks, and in places dominate and form herb fields of great beauty in flower. Scree supports a range of specialised, often fleshy, drought-resistant plants. Alpine bluffs support a scattered cover of shrubs, herbs and cushion plants, adapted to extreme climate and sometimes possessing very strange form, such as the vegetable sheep (Raoulia spp, Haastia spp).

Introduced vegetation and wildlife. The New Zealand landscape is now dominated by introduced animals and plants. Over 1500 exotic plants grow wild, some (like rye-grass, browntop, gorse and sweet briar), over large areas. Although introduced plants have seldom colonised extensive areas of native vegetation, wild animals (deer, pigs, goats, possums, stoats and rats) are widespread, and some introduced birds, such as blackbirds, occur everywhere. Urban vegetation is largely exotic and domestic stock dominate agricultural areas throughout the lowlands.

Introduced plants and animals have greatly increased the diversity of species in New Zealand. However, their increase has been associated with a decrease in the area dominated by native species. Today a large number of native species are very rare and seldom seen. In recent years the urgency for measures to ensure the survival of endangered species has become a world-wide concern.

The ancestors of Aotearoa's earliest inhabitants are thought to have reached the western Pacific some 4000 years ago, and gradually made their way along the Melanesian chain of islands. Long ocean journeys became possible for them with the introduction of the sail and the invention of the outrigger, which stabilised canoes in rough seas. They reached Fiji and Tonga by about 1000 B.C., and in this area many of the distinctive features of Polynesian social organisation and language developed. About 2000 years ago there was a further eastward movement to the Society, Marquesas, and Cook Islands, at the heart of the Polynesian triangle. Probably from this region, the most isolated parts of Polynesia were settled—New Zealand, Hawaii, and Easter Island. There has been much controversy as to the nature of, and reasons for, undertaking such long ocean voyages. Some would have been accidental, the result of canoes being blown off shore. At other times, refugees from defeated tribes or over-populated areas may well have set off into the unknown, confident that they were likely to make a safe landfall somewhere. Knowledge of stars, currents, bird migrations, and the signs of distant land was such that the possibility of controlled journeys over even thousands of kilometres cannot be discounted. The canoe or canoes which brought the first successful colonists to Aotearoa must have carried men and women, dogs, rats, vegetables for cultivation, and a variety of tools and ornaments for practical use and as models for those to be made subsequently. Such a well-equipped expedition is unlikely to have been completely accidental.

Polynesian people, known today as Maori, were living in New Zealand by about the tenth century A.D., although earlier dates have been considered until quite recently. They had come in one or more groups from the same general area of eastern Polynesia, known to them as Hawaiki. There are traditions of numerous voyages from Hawaiki, and of a number of famous canoes, whose occupants were the founders of tribal groupings which remain distinctive today. Some of these stories probably refer to migrations within New Zealand; a few to voyages elsewhere in Polynesia. After the initial period of settlement there were probably few or no continuing contacts with the outside world. Maori culture developed characteristics which reflected both its Polynesian roots and its new physical environment.

Maori agriculture. By the twelfth century settlements were scattered over most of the country. At first their inhabitants tried to reproduce a tropical Polynesian economy. Their ideal subsistence base was kumara (sweet potato) horticulture, supplemented by fishing, hunting, and plant gathering, but there was no typical form of subsistence. In the tropical Pacific the kumara is a perennial and can be propagated by direct transfer. Under New Zealand conditions it was necessary to store the crop over winter in sunken cellars and underground pits to provide tubers for winter consumption and seed tubers for spring planting. This adaptation of kumara cultivation was a great agricultural achievement. Gourds were also grown widely, and taro was important in a few favoured northern areas, while yam and paper mulberry cultivation was barely possible. Kumara would not grow in the southern part of Te Waipounamu (the South Island). Here people lived by hunting, fishing, and food gathering, and moved seasonally between areas with different resources.

In the early centuries of settlement the plains of Te Waipounamu, in particular, supported huge numbers of large flightless birds called moa. These provided an excellent food source, substituting for native land mammals, which were almost non-existent. Until moa numbers were seriously depleted, by hunting and by the destruction of the forest cover on which they depended for food, the eastern South Island seems to have been the most densely peopled part of New Zealand. The decline of the moa was probably accompanied by climatic changes which made horticulture more difficult and made the inhabitants more dependent on fish, shellfish, and marine mammals. After about 1400 the population of the South Island fell. In the most closely settled parts of Te Ika a Maui (the North Island), such as the Tamaki isthmus (now the site of Auckland city), hunting and trapping declined rapidly, and fishing and shellfish gathering provided the main sources of protein. Here cultivations were more extensive and productive, and most people lived in settled communities, in which pa (earthwork forts) became increasingly common as the population grew, and competition for the most valuable land led to greater conflict.

Maori social organisation. Maori society comprised groups of varying size: whanau (extended families of perhaps 10 to 30 people), hapu (subtribes, with up to 500 members) and iwi (tribes). Membership of these groups was usually based on descent from a common ancestor. There were also waka, loose groupings of tribes whose claimed descent from people who had sailed on the same migratory canoe. Components of the system changed over time. Large whanau evolved into hapu, and large hapu came to be considered tribes, while other related branches declined. In everyday life hapu were probably the largest significant groups. They were the basis of the larger settlements and probably formed the normal fighting units in warfare. In response to major external threats, however, people would congregate at a few large pa, setting aside quarrels to face the common tribal enemy. Settlement styles varied greatly, influenced by patterns of subsistence, climate, and the extent to which local relationships were peaceful or warlike. James Cook's 1769 expedition observed pa sizes ranging between three and 500 houses. People lived in dispersed hamlets, in large fortified pa and, in some areas, in isolated households. As with economic life, there was no single characteristic form of social organisation.

For most Maori life was fundamentally a communal experience, in which all aspects of living were inter-related. Economic and social activities were shared, and carried out on behalf of the whole community. Land, which was by far the most important form of property, belonged to the tribe as a whole, although smaller groups had traditional rights to use particular areas and resources. Kaumatua (elders) headed families. Communities were nominally—and to a significant degree, actually—ruled by rangatira (chiefs), whose positions were hereditary but had in practice to be reinforced by performance. Nor could rangatira ignore public opinion as expressed at tribal meetings by kaumatua. Chiefs and their possessions were to some extent tapu (sacred) and thereby protected against harm. Tapu also safeguarded cultivations and burial grounds, and functioned as an agency of social control more effective than any police force. Tapu was regulated by tohunga (priests or experts). Those of highest status interpreted the will of the gods and embodied tribal history' and knowledge; lesser tohunga were specialists in such things as carving, tattooing, and canoe-building.

Relations between tribes. Tribal groups interacted through both trade and warfare. Regional specialities such as greenstone (jade) and titi (muttonbirds) were often transported long distances for bartering, probably at first mainly by ocean-going canoes. Knowledge also was transferred between tribes; Cook found at some landfalls that news of his coming had preceded him.

Making war was probably an important feature of life from the earliest times, although particular areas might be free of it for long periods. Competition for status and authority, and the desire for mana (prestige), motivated both individuals and whole tribes. Reasons for continuing conflicts were seldom absent: the importance of the concept of utu (the principle that acts should be repaid equally) meant that at least one party to a dispute usually felt justified in carrying it on. War was also a means of gaining control over land, which was valued for its fertility or its resources, such as stone for tool-making. But fighting was usually seasonal, fitting in with the cycles of subsistence, and conducted by small' raiding parties carrying out sporadic attacks which produced few casualties. The construction of elaborate fortified pa in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries suggests that warfare intensified in that period. Particularly in the warm, fertile northern part of Te Ika a Maui, where an increasing population made natural resources scarcer and more valuable. At times, economic pressures or military defeat displaced hapu or whole tribes into less desirable areas, whose occupants were in turn driven out or enslaved. But in many regions there was unbroken occupation by the same group of people over long periods.

Life in pre-European New Zealand has been seen by various writers as embodying ‘manly’ virtues, ideal communism, nature-centred spirituality, or healthy rural simplicity. It had elements of all these qualities, but it could also be ‘nasty, brutish and short’. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Maori were relatively tall and sturdy, free from infectious diseases, adequately fed, and fairly unlikely to die violently. But the average life span was only about 30 years, similar to that in most societies up to the twentieth century. Many adults suffered from arthritis brought on by constant physical labour, and from gum infections and tooth loss resulting from their diets.

By the late eighteenth century there were probably rather more than 100 000 ‘New Zealanders’, all but a few thousand of them living in the North Island. Fiercely protective of their social identities, they were deeply attached to the land which gave them physical and spiritual life. Their ways of living had evolved many local variations. They had no concepts of nationhood or race; as they began to encounter Europeans, they saw them as members of another, if stranger, rival tribe.

There is no convincing evidence to support ingenious theories that New Zealand was the landfall for one or several long-forgotten European voyagers before the 1640s. It seems clear that the first arrivals from overseas for several centuries were the members of a Dutch East India Company expedition commanded by Abel Tasman. He was sent in quest of the riches of the Great South Land which was supposed to balance the land mass of Eurasia in the Northern Hemisphere. On 13 December 1642 he sighted ‘a large, high-lying land’ which he named Staten Landt. It was the west coast of the South Island of the soon-to-be-renamed ‘Nieeuw Zeeland’. Tasman anchored a few days later, and lost four men when local Maori interpreted an exchange of trumpet fanfares as a prelude to battle. Sailing away up the west coast of the North Island, he did not again attempt to land, and so found none of the ‘treasures or matters of great profit’ which were the object of his voyage. Aotearoa was now represented by a jagged line on European maps, but Tasman's experience did not encourage explorers or fortune-seekers to follow in his wake.

Europeans did not return until 1769. This time those seeking the mythical southern continent were British, the expedition's ostensible purposes were scientific, and its leader was the great explorer James Cook. On his first visit he circumnavigated New Zealand; his published journal and the reports of the scientists and artists on board made it known to the outside world. He returned in 1773–74 and 1777. There were misunderstandings and violence: a Maori was killed at Cook's first landfall and, in 1773, ten of his men were killed and eaten at Arapawa Island in the Marlborough Sounds. But he persevered, finding most encounters characterised by mutual curiosity and eagerness to barter. His respect for the Maori as ‘noble savages’ excited European imaginations, and foreshadowed attitudes which were to be important later.

Other explorers soon followed, the Frenchman Jean de Surville only two months after Cook first arrived. Ill-treating the local inhabitants, he set the scene for the blunders which three years later led to the deaths of his countryman Marion du Fresne and some two dozen of his crew. Julien Crozet, du Fresne's second-in-command, massacred about 250 Maori in retaliation. Further expeditions under the Englishman Vancouver, the Frenchman D'Entrecasteaux, and the Italian Malaspina (leading a Spanish fleet) ensured that New Zealand was not again forgotten in Europe.

Trade and religion. Two early British schemes to colonise New Zealand came to nothing. But soon after a penal colony was established at Fort Jackson (now Sydney) in 1788, commercial exploitation of Aotearoa's resources became practicable. New Zealand became, in economic terms, an offshoot of New South Wales. In 1792 the first sealing vessel in New Zealand waters left a gang at Dusky Sound in Fiordland. Americans soon played a major role in sealing, which was mostly carried out in the far south, from Dusky Sound to Otago. It reached a peak in the first decade of the nineteenth century, after which over-exploitation brought a shift in the focus of activity to the newly-discovered sub-antarctic Campbell and Macquarie Islands.

Deep-sea whaling in New Zealand waters began in 1791, and remained important for about half a century, reaching a peak in the 1830s. Most whalers were American or British, although Australian, French, and Portuguese vessels were involved late in this period. Increasingly whaling vessels called at New Zealand harbours, notably the Bay of Islands, for rest, recreation, and replenishment of supplies. While whalers' visits were usually brief, they became frequent enough to have a significant impact on local Maori communities. From 1829 bay whaling stations were established around the coasts of the South Island and the southern half of the North Island. These bases were usually quasi-permanent, and often became focal points for European settlement, as their activities included farming and trade.

Flax was seen as an important commodity from Cook's time. It was the intended economic basis for several abortive colonisation schemes. A boom in flax exports from the late 1820s proved to be short-lived, but it did result in more settlers joining the bay whalers and the already well-entrenched missionaries. Scraping flax was very laborious work, and the ropes and cordage made from it varied in quality. Timber was the next major primary product, with exports reaching a peak about 1840. Mills were opened around the richly-forested northern coasts, most notably around Hokianga Harbour, where a number of European timber millers settled, and a shipyard was established in 1826. Agricultural exports also increased. Potatoes (introduced by Cook or du Fresne) and pigs (landed at the orders of Governor King of New South Wales in the 1790s) were being traded with visiting ships by the early 1800s. From this time wheat and maize were cultivated by Bay of Islands Maori. By 1836 it was said that New Zealand was ‘becoming a perfect granary for New South Wales’. Missionaries had introduced horses and cattle in 1814, and later set up demonstration farms. Bay whalers and other traders also grew crops and ran stock. European enterprise developed side by side with such Maori adaptations as the rapid acceptance of the potato as a staple food.

New Zealand's first mission station was established at Rangihoua in the Bay of Islands in 1814, under the auspices of the Church of England's Church Missionary Society. The man most responsible for its formation was Samuel Marsden, senior chaplain to the New South Wales penal colony from 1800 until his death in 1838. An entrepreneur as well as a stern propagator of the faith, he was a successful breeder of sheep and cattle, pioneered grape growing in New South Wales, and owned mills and ships. Under his supervision the society's mission at first comprised men with practical skills, who were encouraged to engage in trade. Indeed they had no choice, as the first station was on a site too poor to support even subsistence agriculture. The community barely survived isolation, internal squabbles, and the uncertain patronage of local chiefs. Preaching the faith did not really begin until the determined Henry Williams arrived to set up a new station at Paihia in 1823. The establishment of a farm inland at Waimate in 1831 was followed late in the decade by expansion of Anglican missions southwards as far as the Waikato, Rotorua, and Gisborne, and (in 1839) to the coast north of Wellington. From 1827 Maori language translations of the Bible were made, and the teaching of reading and writing in Maori was emphasised. The Wesleyans had opened a mission in the Hokianga area in 1823, and also set up stations further south in the 1830s. A Roman Catholic Marist mission, led by Bishop Pompallier, began in Northland in 1838. From the mid-1830s many Maori converted to Christianity. Movements which blended Maori and Christian ideas also developed. An example was that of Te Atua Wera/Papahurihia in the Bay of Islands-Hokianga area. They were part of the adjustment of traditional social patterns to new realities.

It is difficult to assess what effect the presence of Europeans—around the coasts and venturing into the interior in the last few years before 1840—had on the indigenous inhabitants. It has been asserted that the Maori population declined by nearly 50 percent between 1770 and 1840; and, alternatively, that it was about the same in both years. Both sides put the 1840 figure at between 100 000 and 125 000. Differences of this scale over such a basic issue suggest how difficult it is to make firm statements about Maori society in the period. Areas such as the Bay of Islands and the Hokianga, where contact with Europeans was greatest, underwent in a few decades changes which had taken centuries to transform Europe. Maori society was resilient and able to adapt to the revolution in technology and ideas with which it was confronted. The European impact varied greatly. In the Bay of Islands there was an intermittent pakeha (non-Maori) presence from the 1790s, and permanent settlers from 1814; these numbered several hundred by 1839. In contrast, areas such as the Urewera mountains had not been visited by Europeans when British sovereignty was declared. Other regions had varying exposure to direct and indirect contact.

European diseases seem to have first reached epidemic proportions in the 1790s. The Maori initially had no immunity to them, and they were made more vulnerable by their communal lifestyle. Dysentery, diphtheria and influenza took many lives in the following decades. But some of the world's most lethal diseases, including yellow fever, typhus, and cholera, were not introduced, and by 1840 immunities to the more common types of sickness were beginning to develop. Some health problems resulting from pakeha presence were very localised—alcoholism and prostitution were confined to the few zones of intense contact. Other effects were widespread. European-introduced animals were both a source of food and rivals for scarce resources, while new plants such as potatoes and corn eventually became staples of Maori diet. The ability to purchase desired European goods depended on income-generating activities which often necessitated debilitating labour, such as raising commercial crops, felling and transporting timber, and stripping flax. Sometimes whanau or hapu moved to unhealthy lowland areas to be close to now-valued resources. New fashions in clothing, such as the wearing of European suits or blankets, regardless of their unsuitability in hot or wet weather, also increased susceptibility to sickness.

The nature of Maori warfare was altered by the introduction of muskets in the early 1800s. These were first used in small numbers as close-combat weapons of the traditional kind. By 1818 the Ngapuhi confederation—because of geography the pioneers of much social change in the period—discovered that the firing of many weapons at a distance created enough terror to enable the rout of an enemy to be completed by traditional means. From 1820, when their great chief Hongi Hika returned from a missionary-inspired visit to England with 300 muskets, Ngapuhi and their allies rampaged across the North Island on a series of expeditions which took many lives, settled old scores, and raised the mana of the victors to unprecedented heights. As muskets became widely available, other tribes took advantage of temporary leads in local arms races to attack their neighbours. By 1840 the balance of power was such that inter-tribal warfare had virtually ceased. One result of these campaigns was the migration of perhaps 30 000 people and, as a consequence, intractable disagreements about land rights in some areas.

Maori people were eager to adopt European goods and ideas: muskets, agricultural techniques, literacy, and Christianity were all enthusiastically embraced, and some (such as firearms) rapidly became necessities. Some Maori even travelled the world as crew members on European ships. But pakeha innovations were used in Maori ways for Maori purposes. If they did not serve these purposes they tended to be abandoned. The increased rate of conversions to Christianity just before 1840, for example, can be understood in terms of changes in Maori society, as well as seen as a consequence of more effective missionary activity. Social dislocation which resulted from inter-tribal fighting fed a need for spiritual explanation. But the new religion was also fashionable, and the mana which was granted to the literate brought many eager students to mission schools. Missionary teaching was a means to the end of gaining European knowledge. For Maori the most important function of a pakeha was to provide trade goods. Europeans lived in New Zealand on Maori terms, and in 1839 there were still only a few more than 1000 scattered over the whole country.

The vagueness of their instructions allowed early Governors of New South Wales to view New Zealand as a political as well as an economic ‘dependency’, and also to encourage plans for settlement. In 1804 Governor King ordered investigations into charges that brutalities had been inflicted on Maori by a ship's captain. This was the first of many attempts to regulate the behaviour of British subjects in New Zealand. In 1814 the Maori people were declared to be ‘under the protection of His Majesty’, and the missionary Thomas Kendall was appointed as a justice of the peace to maintain order in co-operation with local chiefs. He had no effective force at his disposal. Prisoners had to be sent to Sydney for trial. In 1817 Britain declared New Zealand to be outside its legal jurisdiction, although British subjects could be charged for serious crimes committed there. Schemes for colonisation continued, and in 1826 settlers selected by the first New Zealand Company arrived. While many went straight on to Sydney, some established themselves at the Hokianga. As trade and settlement increased. New Zealand moved further into the British sphere of influence. In 1832 James Busby was appointed British Resident at the Bay of Islands. He was a ‘watchdog without teeth’, having very few legal powers (he was not even a justice of the peace) and no reliable means of coercing British subjects. His authority rested on occasional visits by British warships. In 1837 one of three Europeans who had plundered the home of a Kororareka storekeeper was hanged in Sydney. British subjects fomenting disorder in New Zealand were clearly now subject, at least potentially, to legal retribution.

In May 1837 a combination of the remnants of the earlier New Zealand Company and others interested in profiting from Edward Gibbon Wakefield's ideas of transplanting the pre-industrial English class structure to the colonies formed what was soon to be named the New Zealand Company. An attempt at the ‘systematic colonisation’ of New Zealand was now imminent. Wakefield's vision was of the migration of integrated communities comprising all social strata from gentry to respectable working folk, while excluding the nobility and the very poor. The key to success was to set a ‘sufficient’ price for land. If land was too cheap it would be bought by both speculators and labourers, with undesirable consequences; but the price was to be low enough to enable working-class people to settle on the land after some years of thrift and honest toil, their purchases financing a fresh influx of labourers and ensuring continued economic growth. The eventual form of settlement owed little to this theory, but Wakefield's energy and the strength of his backers ensured that large-scale colonisation would take place. The company sent an expedition in 1839 to find a site for a colony. It acted in haste because the decision to annex New Zealand had already been made, and it wished to buy land before its dealings could be regulated by officials. Even before word reached England that any land had been bought, ships full of emigrants had departed, the first (the Tory) arriving at Port Nicholson (Wellington) on 22 January 1840.

British sovereignty over New Zealand was established in international law by New South Wales Governor Gipps' proclamation on 14 January 1840 that his frontiers included New Zealand, and that Captain William Hobson was appointed his Lieutenant-Governor there. Hobson arrived at the Bay of Islands with a small entourage of officials on 24 January, and at Waitangi on 6 February 1840 he obtained from local Maori chiefs the first signatures to the Treaty of Waitangi'. The significance of this document has been debated ever since. In its English-language original all rights and powers of sovereignty were ceded to Queen Victoria, while in return the possession of land, forests and fisheries was secured to the chiefs, with the Crown alone having the right to purchase land. The Queen extended her protection and all the rights and privileges of British subjects to the Maori people. The Maori-language version, hastily translated by the missionary Henry Williams, was couched in considerably vaguer terms, partly because of the difficulty of conveying European legal concepts. Maori signatories assented to the Queen taking over the rights of ‘kawanatanga’ (governorship). As the only local example of the exercise of such authority was the ineffective James Busby, it is unlikely they understood the possible implications of their agreement. Over the next few months signatures to several differing versions of the treaty were collected around the country. Important tribes such as Ngati Maniapoto and Waikato did not regard it as a matter deserving serious consideration, and failed to sign; Ngapuhi were resented for their role as first signatories. To further complicate matters, on 21 May 1840, while signatures were still being sought, Hobson proclaimed British sovereignty over the North Island by virtue of the treaty, and over the South and Stewart Islands on the basis of Cook's discoveries. In 1841 New Zealand became a colony in its own right, and the capital followed a shift in the balance of European settlement from its first site at Russell in the Bay of Islands to the new town of Auckland on the Tamaki isthmus, which was both strategically located and surrounded by land ideal for farming.

New Zealand Company settlements were founded at Wellington in 1840, Wanganui and New Plymouth in 1841, and Nelson in 1842. By 1845 the company had brought about 9000 settlers to the country. In 1842 the main towns had non-Maori populations of 3800 in Wellington, 2900 in Auckland, 2500 in Nelson, 900 in New Plymouth, 650 in Russell and Hokianga combined (which shows how quickly this area was bypassed by settlers), and 200 in Akaroa, where colonists were landed by the French Nanto-Bordelaise Company in 1840. These European enclaves were ‘mere encampments on the fringe of Polynesia’; their very existence was dependent on the tolerance of local Maori. This could scarcely be relied on, as the New Zealand Company had bought land in such haste, and with such little regard for the communal nature of Maori land tenure, that war was at least threatened at each of their sites within a few years. In 1843 a number of Europeans were killed in the Wairau area when they illegally tried to arrest two Ngati Toa chiefs. Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata, for resisting the survey of land that the chiefs denied having sold. Tribes-people led by these chiefs were involved in fighting in the hinterland of the Wellington settlement in 1846; again, Maori were opposing settler encroachment onto land that the Maori held was still theirs. There were several attacks on the town of Wanganui in 1847. In Taranaki the two races teetered on the brink of war for nearly 20 years. After two official investigations of the company's land purchase, the New Plymouth settlers were left to occupy a few thousand acres adjacent to the town. The scarcity of land suitable for agriculture blighted life within the towns. Uncertainty of tenure, and the mediocre quality of much of what was available, slowed sales and Jed to the acquisition of an increasing number of sections by absentee speculators (a problem which had impeded development in the New Zealand Company towns from the beginning). The resulting under-employment of Wakefield's ‘respectable’ labourers and artisans produced recurrent poverty and unrest. Only the later settlements of Otago and Canterbury could be considered successes. Otago was established in 1848 under the auspices of the New Zealand Company and in co-operation with the Free Church of Scotland. Canterbury folowed in 1850, with the support of the Church of England. There were only 2000 Maori in the whole of the South Island, and land purchases there were not disputed at the time.

New Zealand's first Governors—Hobson and Robert FitzRoy—were hamstrung by their acute lack of resources. The British Colonial Office required its colonies to be self-supporting; they were expected to pay their way through customs revenue and land sales. But the New Zealand state was at first unable to obtain much land, despite its monopoly on purchases from the Maori. The latter were not eager to sell at less than a fair market price, which the state could not afford to offer them. The imposition of customs duties drove away traders and raised the price of imported goods. The administration, at times insolvent, survived on Maori goodwill and economic assistance, and minimal financial support from London. In 1844 FitzRoy abolished customs duties, imposed a property tax, and allowed limited direct land dealings beween settlers and Maori. The practical effect of these measures was the loss of his only potential sources of substantial revenue. The measures were insufficient to conciliate the Ngapuhi chief Hone Heke, who was concerned at the decline of the Bay of Islands as a centre for European trade and settlement, and at the government's efforts to diminish chiefly authority by partially replacing it with its own. Heke's quarrel was with the state alone; he wanted to preserve the valuable Maori-European economic relationship. He allied himself with the resourceful chief Kawiti, who adapted traditional pa design to successfully withstand artillery bombardment and inflicted a serious defeat on British regular troops at Ohaeawai in mid-1845. Their combined forces had the better of a ten-month campaign which ended after an inconclusive engagement at Ruapekapeka in January 1846. Heke continued to be the most powerful man in the North until his death in 1850, and government influence there remained low. No punishment was imposed on the ‘rebels’.

FitzRoy was replaced during the Northern War by George Grey, who was to rule as Governor until 1853, and again (less autocratically) from 1861 to 1868. Backed, as his predecessors had not been, by adequate financial support from Britain, he was better equipped than they to mollify pakeha grievances about the slow growth of the colony. The European population had reached only 32 500 by 1854, when an elected General Assembly first met in Auckland. Demands for local self-government had nevertheless been voiced since 1840, when a New Zealand Company-appointed regime had ‘ruled’ for several months at Port Nicholson until Hobson declared it illegal. The ‘Wakefield’ settlements were led by well-educated gentry and middle-class families who expected to govern themselves. After Grey successfully argued against the implementation of an 1846 British Act conferring representative institutions, on the grounds that the state of race relations in the North necessitated his being in total control, constitutional associations in several centres agitated for elected assemblies.

The British Constitution Act of 1852 conferred a General Assembly with two chambers—an elected House of Representatives and a nominated Legislative Council—and divided the colony into six provinces (centred on the five Wakefield settlements and Auckland), each with an elected Provincial Council and headed by a separately-elected Superintendent. The vote was granted to all pakeha men aged 21 or more who met minimal property-owning requirements. Maori were in practice nearly all disfranchised. The Provincial Councils were subordinate to the General Assembly, and were barred from legislating on a range of subjects, including customs duties, currency, the justice system, postal services, and marriage. The central settler government was competent to act in most areas, but ‘native’ policy remained in the hands of the Governor until 1864, and foreign policy was made by the British government. In areas of domestic policy the General Assembly was not completely its own master. The Governor was empowered to reserve New Zealand legislation for the Sovereign's assent, and the Sovereign could disallow legislation after the Governor had assented to it. Both these powers were used, although rarely. The United Kingdom Parliament also had the authority to pass legislation applying to New Zealand, even overriding New Zealand legislation. After considerable confusion, Parliament's right to appoint ministers whose advice the Governor was normally obliged to take was recognised, and in 1856 Henry Sewell became Premier and formed the first responsible ministry.

Despite the comparatively wide franchise, for several decades only a minority of European males participated in electoral politics. The property test eliminated some, and many who were eligible did not register on the electoral rolls. Until 1879 polls in which fewer than half of those registered voted were common. Most people had more pressing concerns. A small group of men with sufficient leisure time to engage in politics easily dominated the scene, many were elected and re-elected unopposed. While there was a rapid turnover of MPs and ministries in the absence of any party organisation, there was considerable continuity in administration. A core of able men was essential for any ministry which was to last for long.

Most politicians put the interests of their own provinces before the colony's. Having been firmly established for several years before responsible central government came into effect, the provinces had taken over many key matters, including immigration, roading, land administration, policing, education, and hospitals. In 1856 their entitlement to land revenue and a share of customs duties was confirmed. In return they accepted responsibility for colonisation and development. Wide regional and local disparities resulted. The North Island provinces, particularly Auckland and Taranaki, had little land to sell and were always short of funds. Th South Island counterparts, especially Canterbury and Otago, had ample land and were to profit from economic booms which accompanied gold rushes in the 1860s, when they embarked on ambitious road, harbour, tunnelling, and immigration programmes. Wealthy provinces resented central government interference in their affairs, and southerners saw their revenues threatened by increased military expenditure in the North Island in the 1860s. Poor provinces looked to the capital for salvation from insolvency. Within each province the main towns were dominant, and little money reached outlying districts. This stimulated a desire for local autonomy which bore fruit in the creation of the new provinces of Hawkes Bay, Marlborough, Southland, and later Westland. Except for Hawkes Bay, they conspicuously failed to prosper, and their Lilliputian crises brought the whole system into disrepute. Nevertheless, European settlers identified strongly with their own communities, and the difficulty of communication between the areas they occupied made considerable regional autonomy essential.

In the 1840s the Maori were still preoccupied with their own concerns. Inter-hapu and intertribal competition was of paramount importance, and society remained fragmented. The very use of the word ‘Maori’, which implied the existence of a common race and culture, was mainly confined to pakeha until the 1850s. European innovations provided new ways to pursue traditional social and economic rivalries. Christianity offered literacy, a skill prized as a new basis for competition. Introduced foodstuffs such as potatoes and pigs, which could be raised in abundance with comparatively little effort, transformed the conspicuous production and ceremonial display of food—the yardstick shifted from quality to quantity. Maori participated vigorously in the colonial economy, exporting potatoes, wheat, and pigs throughout Australasia, and to the Californian goldfields. Maori farmers produced the bulk of New Zealand's exports to the Australian diggings. Horses, sheep, schooners, and flour mills were acquired as symbols of wealth as well as means to its creation. However, Maori agricultural production declined after an 1856 slump in the market in Victoria. European farmers had the advantage of individualised land tenure and, with access to credit, could make better use of technological innovations.

The first census of the Maori population in 1857–58 put the total at about 56 000, less than the pakeha population and only half of Dieffenbach's 1843 estimate. Both figures are doubtful, but the trend was clear. To the toll of diseases such as influenza, whooping cough, dysentery, and measles was added the effects of tuberculosis, bronchitis, and other respiratory tract infections, and low fertility caused by the previous generation's ill-health. High mortality rates contributed to the survival of belief in tapu and makutu (magic). The rituals of Christianity were widely adhered to, but for many Maori offered only partial explanations of an unsettled world.

As more European colonists arrived, questions of land ownership became more pressing. The traditional Maori practice was to reinforce claims to land by regularly using its resources. From this perspective, settlers who paid for land, built houses, and planted crops were generally accepted, but people who piled goods on the shore and disappeared were not taken seriously. From 1840 Maori people quickly became aware of the significance to the pakeha of the land deed itself, and the permanent nature of the alienation which followed its transfer. Yet they offered much land for sale over the next two decades. Many Maori were anxious to have settler communities in their midst as a guarantee of long-term progress. Land sales gave a unique opportunity to vindicate claims to customary title over rivals. The ceremony of payment was usually a vital part of the transaction, while the price paid was less important. Tensions between claimants often made sales acrimonious. Few chiefs obstructed sales on principle, just as few were committed to a policy of selling land. The goal was rather the advantage of one's own hapu.

Extensive land purchases by the Crown during Grey's first governorship were masterminded by his able lieutenant Donald McLean. Most of the South Island was bought for only £15 000, and 13 million hectares throughout New Zealand had been obtained by 1853 at a total cost of £50 000. McLean made huge purchases in the Manawatu, Wairarapa, and Hawkes Bay, while the boundaries of settlement advanced more slowly in the Auckland area. Maori tribes remained in control of a broad belt of territory stretching across the North Island from Taranaki to the Bay of Plenty and the East Coast. Grey's successor, Thomas Gore Browne, was unable to buy much land in this region, even when McLean resorted to secret deals and other underhand tactics in response to increasing settler pressure. Maori attempts to prevent land sales culminated in a pantribal movement, the Kingitanga, which in 1858 installed the venerable Waikato chief Te Wherowhero as King Potatau I. Its promoters hoped to end the chronic disputes by placing all Maori land under the King's mana and making its ownership subject to the decisions of his magistrates. But Maori society had no precedents for allegiance to a central judicial or administrative authority. Tribes of the Tainui confederation generally supported the King, but many others did not. The Kingitanga meant more to the chiefs, as a means of bolstering their mana—threatened by European-inspired individualism—than it did to their followers.

Grey hoped to gradually transform the Maori into brown-skinned pakeha, who would ultimately be absorbed into a predominantly European population by inter-marriage. Grey's policy would require radical changes in Maori lifestyle, which he encouraged in a variety of ways. He financed English-language education of Maori children, fostered Maori agriculture and commerce with gifts of ploughs, mills, seeds, and schooners, and employed Maori and pakeha on ostensibly equal terms in the police forces that he controlled. In his second term Grey established a scheme for local administration under which Maori runanga (assemblies) would gradually introduce European concepts of law. The purpose of these ‘new institutions’ illustrates Grey's overall aim: the ‘amalgamation of the races’ was to occur on pakeha terms. Britain had asserted since 1840 that its law applied throughout Aotearoa, but in 1860 much of the North Island was still effectively beyond government control. The war which now broke out had much to do with the contest for land, but it was also a struggle for authority over the people that the land sustained, and for mana.

Fighting began in Taranaki in March 1860, when British troops attempted to remove Te Atiawa tribes people from land at Waitara which the Crown had allegedly bought, but which most of its claimants had refused to sell. Te Atiawa were soon reinforced by the Taranaki and Ngati Ruanui tribes, and later by Kingite forces from the Waikato region. In June, 350 Imperial troops were heavily defeated when they assaulted a pa at Puketakauere which contained both dummy and concealed defensive positions. For a year the civilian pakeha population remained virtually under siege in New Plymouth, while the British military vainly sought to engage the Maori in a decisive battle. Eventually the British embarked, under cover of a series of redoubts, on a laborious advance which had achieved no tangible success by the time a truce was agreed in March 1861. Fewer than 1000 Maori warriors had not lost any territory to some 3500 opponents, and were also able to keep the considerable resources plundered from abandoned European properties.

With Grey's return in 1861 the focus shifted to the Waikato. Imperial troops were steadily augmented, a military road was constructed from Auckland to the Waikato River, and the heartland of Kingite power was invaded in July 1863. British forces eventually numbered 14 000 effective troops (more than were available for the defence of England) and were led by a highly competent staff under General Sir Duncan Cameron, but they had great difficulty pushing back Maori opponents who never numbered more than 2000 at one time. Given the inability of the Maori economy to sustain an army continuously in the field, and the many obstacles to effective inter-tribal military co-operation, the Kingite resistance was remarkably successful, but by mid-1864 the Waikato Basin had been occupied up to the Puniu River. The search for a decisive victory now led Cameron to Tauranga, where he was stunningly defeated in a frontal attack on a superbly-designed fortress at Gate Pa, but was able to partially avenge this reverse at Te Ranga a few weeks later.

The territory occupied in the ‘Waikato War’, about 400 000 hectares, was confiscated by the colonial government, but fighting was far from over. Imperial troops campaigned on the west coast in 1865–66, while colonial units and allied kupapa (pro-government Maori) fought in the east. Both opposed adherents of the new religion of Pai Marire, which combined elements of traditional Maori beliefs, Christianity, and the innovations of its Taranaki prophet, Te Ua Haumene. In 1868, with Imperial forces now withdrawn from active service and ‘native’ policy firmly in the hands of the settler government, a grave crisis abruptly confronted pakeha New Zealand. Belated attempts to implement years-old land confiscations provoked a campaign by the Ngati Ruanui chief Titokowaru, who with a few hundred warriors repeatedly defeated much larger colonial forces until dissension among his followers brought his advance to an end. Simultaneously, the Rongowhakata prophet Te Kooti Rikirangi conducted a brilliant guerrilla campaign in the Poverty Bay area after escaping with some 160 prisoners of war from exile in the Chatham Islands. He proved far less adept than Titokowaru at pa construction and defence, however, and armed support for his cause dwindled until he was forced to seek sanctuary in Kingite territory early in 1872. The zone of effective Maori autonomy had now shrunk, but it still encompassed the ‘King Country’ in the central North Island, South Taranaki, and the Urewera district. Pakeha sovereignty was now an established fact, but it was by no means absolute.

The huge Grey/McLean land purchases were the basis for an expansion of European economic activity. The Canterbury settlement, whose social composition came closest to Wakefield's ideal, was for a few years the colony's best approximation to a concentrated agricultural community. Soon, however, it became the most important base for a rapidly expanding pastoral economy. From the late 1840s, sheep grazing spread across the open country along the east coasts of both islands. Australian ‘squatters’ sold surplus merinos to New Zealand colonists with capital, and from the early 1850s many crossed the Tasman themselves to take up cheap long-term grazing leases. Grey reduced the price of rural land in 1853, ostensibly to help small farmers. The main effect, however, was to allow runholders to consolidate their holdings. By the mid-1860s many had secure tenure. During this ‘golden age’ of pastoralism, overseas prices for wool rose steadily, and sheep numbers increased from 750 000 in 1855 to 10 million in 1870. Wool was king, and the pastoralist came in some ways to resemble Wakefield's rural gentleman, pre-eminent economically, socially, and politically in his domain. But the scale of pastoral farming was very different from the intensive agriculture Wakefield had envisaged. Much of the work (e.g., shearing) was seasonal and undertaken by itinerant labourers; station homesteads were often quite primitive, and usually far from neighbours. Transience and loneliness thus accompanied economic growth.

The quest for wealth from a second staple product—gold—brought more hardship and isolation in the 1860s, even as the population rose rapidly. Beginning in 1861, a series of gold rushes transformed Otago virtually overnight. The province's population increased fivefold (to 60 000) between 1861 and 1863. Then the main focus of activity shifted to the west coast of the South Island, where by 1867 there were 29 000 inhabitants in an area almost unoccupied three years earlier. Mining declined rather quickly in Otago, more slowly in Westland. From the 1880s expensive dredging techniques revived the industry in both regions. The ‘diggers’ had profited less than had merchants, bankers, and farmers. Farmers also benefited from the influx of British troops during the Waikato war. Briefly, their provisioning was one of the colony's main sources of income. Equally briefly, small mixed farms became profitable.

In the 1860s, while the European population of the North Island rose to 97 000, the South Island's European population increased to 159 000. Unequal growth brought political change in 1865, when the capital was moved south to Wellington and the South Island gained 13 additional parliamentary seats. Otago was transformed from an obscure Presbyterian outpost into the foremost commercial and industrial province, with a quarter of the colony's pakeha population producing one-third of its exports. Secondary industries, largest in Otago and Auckland, manufactured a wide range of products for local markets, and by 1871 about 10 000 people were employed in manufacturing. The larger towns now contained groups of artisans and labourers with some capacity for combined action. In Dunedin the unemployed demanded relief work as boom turned to slump in the late 1860s.

The Otago-based businessman and politician Julius Vogel became Colonial Treasurer in 1869, and dominated political life until his departure for London in 1876 as Agent-General (a post which combined diplomacy and business promotion). When he took office the income-generating British troops had almost all left and the colony had just survived the severe military crisis of 1868–69. Dependence on world commodity prices had proved to be a mixed blessing, since receipts for wool and gold exports had slumped. The average wool price had fallen to 11 pence per pound in 1870 from 16 pence in 1860. Faced with the prospect of a serious depression, Vogel persuaded his cabinet colleagues to approve a programme of public borrowing to finance growth. Twenty million pounds were borrowed in a decade, mostly from Britain. The role of the state grew; there were four times as many civil servants in 1877 (some 7200) than a decade earlier. A large publicly-owned infrastructure of transport, communication, and other services was established. The 234 kilometres of public railways in 1873 became 1840 kilometres by 1880. One-third of public expenditure in the decade to 1881 went on roads and bridges, which had more practical effect than railways in improving communications in most areas. Also. 6500 kilometres of telegraph lines were built in the 1870s (their construction had begun for military reasons in the previous decade). Expensive harbour projects were undertaken around the country, and there was a boom in residential, business, and public building. Government spending in 1872 was said to be 13 times that of Canada on a per capita basis.

The 1870s was a decade of large-scale emigration from Europe. Most migrants went to America, a significant fraction to Australasia. The arrival in New Zealand within nine years of 115 000 government-assisted immigrants contributed to the near-doubling of the non-Maori population to 490 000 in 1880. Organised communities of Scandinavian, English and Irish came out under special settlement schemes. The first group were prominent in the clearing of the ‘Great Bush’ which covered much of the southern half of the North Island. This unremitting toil, like that of the railway and road builders, laid the foundations for much future development. The immediate result of Vogel's policies, however, was a substantial enlargement of New Zealand society without any corresponding strengthening of the economy. The colony had become more rather than less dependent on Britain as a source of both capital and income. By 1881 more than 90 percent of export revenue came from the United Kingdom, whereas Australia had taken over half New Zealand's exports in the 1860s. Wool had regained the status of largest overseas earner from gold.

The development of a centralised colonial economy linked by modern communications had political implications. While the implementation of ‘Vogelism’ was much influenced by regional pressures, it transformed the balance of power between centre and provinces. Provincial governments, designed in part as agents of colonisation, were now proving superfluous in this role. In 1871 the central government took over sole responsibility for immigration and railway construction. Opposition to some of Vogel's policies by provincialists in the House led ultimately to the end of the provincial system in 1876, over the protests of wealthy Canterbury and Otago. A network of county councils now joined existing borough councils, road boards, and harbour boards as the units of local government. Regional education, hospital, and land boards soon followed.

A credit squeeze in 1878–79 ushered in some 15 years of economic stagnation, during which export and import prices and wages all fell roughly in proportion. Burdened with the overseas debts incurred in the 1870s, New Zealand remained dependent on the ability of a depressed British working class to buy its primary products. The most promising development was the beginning of frozen meat exports with the voyage of the Dunedin to the United Kingdom in 1882. This trade grew slowly at first. While there were 21 freezing works in 1892, they were not working to capacity. By then, however, meat exports exceeded £1 million in value annually, second only to wool. Experimentation produced new breeds of ‘sheep, which provided good quality mutton as well as wool and were suited to the country's dryish pastures. In 1882 New Zealand's first dairy factory opened at Edendale in Southland. Exports of dairy produce also grew slowly, with banks reluctant to finance small farmers’ production of perishable butter and cheese. Mechanisation in processing was paralleled by technological innovations in farming itself. Horse-drawn reapers and binders began to replace men. Traction engines and mechanical threshing mills appeared in the 1880s, as a boom in wheat production saw exports peak at more than £1 million in 1883. Local manufacturers ingeniously adapted agricultural equipment to local needs. The introduction of shearing machines in the late 1880s further reduced the demand for rural labour.

Other products enjoyed fluctuating fortunes. Most important in Auckland ‘province’ (provincial identity long outlived the institutions themselves), timber processing became the country's largest manufacturing enterprise between 1875 and 1885. A substantial export trade in kauri timber was vulnerable to erratic prices, as was the ‘poor man's industry’ of extracting kauri-gum (resin) deposits. Coal was exported from Westland from the mid-1880s. Urban manufacturing continued to grow until about 1886, after which the availability of cheap imports brought a decade of decline. By 1886 the number of industrial workers, including those making handicrafts, had reached 39 000. Most industries were small concerns serving local needs. In 1891 one-third of factory employees produced clothing and textiles, while a fifth made building materials, and another fifth food, drink, and tobacco products. Local manufacturers received some protection in 1888, when the Atkinson ministry imposed a 20 percent tariff on imported goods which competed with locally-made products. Not for the last time, a conservative government proved willing to use the power of the state for economic ends. The low-cost, low-wage conditions under which New Zealand industry operated were highlighted by the report of the 1890 ‘Sweating Commission’, which revealed exploitation of women and children in industry. The failure of the 1890 Maritime Strike by seamen, watersiders, miners, and railwaymen emphasised the relative weakness of urban labour in a mainly rural, export-dependent economy.

The wars of the 1860s had brought both unprecedented Maori unity and new divisions. Alliance with the pakeha had offered some tribes the opportunity to settle old scores. While some kupapa fought defensive actions on their own soil, others ranged across the North Island in a manner reminiscent of the large supra-tribal war parties of earlier in the century. Co-operation and resistance continued to be twin motifs of Maori response to the pakeha for several decades after overt warfare ended. On balance, it seems that in this period collaboration was the less successful means of preserving tribal autonomy.

Kupapa and ‘rebels’ both suffered from the land confiscations of the 1860s. Fertility and strategic location were more important considerations for the settler government than the owners' part in rebellion. The operations of the Native Land Court, established under the Native Lands Act 1865, which permitted the leasing or purchase of land from Maori named in the court's certificates of title, efficiently parted the Maori from much of their remaining land. From 1873, the court operated under a system that was even more clearly weighted in favour of Maori wishing to sell land. In the 1880s land in the King Country itself—where King movement supporters had continued to live in effective independence—began to come before the court, and this paved the way for its purchase. Construction of the Auckland-Wellington railway through Ngati Maniapoto territory symbolised the end of an autonomous Maori zone. By 1892 less than one-sixth of the country remained in Maori ownership, and a quarter of that was leased to Europeans. Most Maori-owned land was rugged and bush-clad. Maori were now only 7 percent of the population; epidemics had reduced their numbers to 42 000 by 1896. Living in poor conditions—many in insanitary, makeshift camps—they grew scarcely enough for their own needs and relied increasingly on public works and seasonal work on European farms.

Yet Maori society remained resilient and adaptable. This was a time of intense political activity, of large tribal and supra-tribal meetings held in splendid new meeting-houses, and of negotiations with pakeha politicians. ‘Loyal’ Maori had been rewarded with four seats in the House of Representatives in 1867 and Maori MPs became increasingly skilled advocates of Maori rights. Ngati Kahungunu kupapa leaders organised a Repudiation movement to challenge the Hawkes Bay land sales of the 1860s. Kepa te Rangihiwinui, who had been one of the pakeha's main military allies, led an anti-land-sales group in Wanganui in the 1880s. In Te Waipounamu, the prophet Te Maiharoa led a heke (migration) of Ngai Tahu, which peacefully reoccupied tribal land in the Waitaki valley for two years, until evicted by armed police in 1879. In Taranaki, land proclaimed confiscated was left in Maori hands for more than a decade before pakeha settlers sought to occupy it. Here Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kakahi, based at Parihaka, led a movement of passive resistance which attracted wide support, and was only subdued in 1881 by a massive show of military force. The two leaders and many of their followers were temporarily exiled to the South Island. Maori spiritual values remained strong. King Tawhiao's Tariao (‘morning star’) faith recognised guardian spirits and ancestors, and drew on the teachings of Te Ua. Te Kooti proved ultimately more significant as founder of the comprehensive and sophisticated Ringatu faith than as a warrior. The mission-trained Te Whiti claimed God's special protection for the Maori and preached predestination.

While Maori people now participated in the pakeha economy, they generally did so in family groups rather than as isolated individuals. The Maori remained separated from pakeha life by language and culture, as well as by geography. While there was no rigid segregation, they were still a distinct ethnic and social group. In the context of nineteenth-century European expansion world wide, this was no small achievement.

Although 1890 came to be seen as a watershed year in New Zealand history, its significance was less apparent at the time. A general election resulted in a fragile majority for the loosely-organised team supporting Liberal leader John Ballance, who differed from Premier Harry Atkinson chiefly in proposing a graduated land tax which would encourage large landowners to reduce the size of their holdings and allow more small farmers on to the land. In Dunedin and Christchurch, increased awareness of political issues among wage-earners after the defeat of the Maritime Strike had electoral consequences, with the return of candidates sympathetic to labour. In rural electorates, by contrast, abstention from voting remained the most typical form of political activity. The abolition of plural voting had reduced the direct political power of those who owned property in several constituencies, but there was still a ‘country quota’ which gave rural voters 28 percent more strength than was justified by their share of the total population.

Ballance became assured of a viable majority in the House only after Atkinson alienated a number of members by stacking the Legislative Council with new appointees, in a bid to establish an unassailable majority there. The conservative ‘Continuous Ministry’ at last left office, leaving a legacy of constitutional controversy which did much to unify the Liberal alliance. Ballance now sought to make his own appointments to the upper house. After two years' argument the British Colonial Secretary instructed New Zealand's Governor to acquiesce. This ended the Governor's substantive role in politics. An Act set a seven-year term (as against tenure for life) for future legislative councillors and reduced the upper house to the effective status of a debating chamber. These events, together with the extension of the franchise to women in 1893—a result of the unwillingness of the new Liberal leader Richard John Seddon to alienate a powerful feminist-temperance alliance—gave New Zealand politics a markedly more democratic appearance.

Liberal legislation at first focused on land issues. The Land and Income Assessment Act 1891 imposed a modest, and modestly-graduated, tax on unimproved land values. This tax was a minimal imposition on prospering pastoralists, who sold up (when they did so) because rising land prices made it worthwhile. In 1892, Minister of Lands John McKenzie offered Crown lessees an optional 999-year lease without revaluation—this was freehold tenure in all but name. By 1907 more than 5000 Crown tenants had taken up some 1 million hectares under this tenure. These measures fostered Liberal support in the countryside, and in the 1893 election the party doubled its rural representation. Overall it now held 51 of the 74 European seats. The Advances to Settlers Act 1894 offered state loans to (non-Maori) settlers at reasonable interest rates. Its chief beneficiaries were not new ‘bush farmers’, but established farmers who could borrow to make improvements.

The success of these policies was much enhanced by a steady rise in export receipts after 1894. This income allowed the government to borrow for public works construction, land purchase, and loans to farmers, and enabled farmers to service their mortgages from increased earnings. By the end of the 1890s the full impact of refrigeration was bringing significant economic changes. In 1901 there were nearly 5000 dairy farmers, and by 1911—when they totalled one-third of all farmers—there were three times as many. The trend towards intensive farming was firmly established, as small-scale production became commercially viable. Before 1890 it took many sheep or a substantial herd of cattle to make a living; by 1900 a few hundred sheep or a handful of dairy cattle would suffice. Subsistence farming, widespread in the nineteenth century, now declined. Farming became a business, and increasingly a family business, as mechanisation brought a decline in the number of rural labourers. There were now three farm-produced export staples rather than one, although earnings from wool continued to be greater than those from meat or dairy products.

Townspeople profited from an expanding rural economy. Urban workers also benefited from legislation sponsored by the Liberals' first Minister of Labour, William Pember Reeves. The Factories Act 1894 provided for regular inspection of factories, closely regulated the conditions of employment of women and children, and restricted the working week in most industries to 48 hours. The Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1894 set up a mechanism for peacefully settling industrial disputes, and in the process elevated unions to equal status with employers in the bargaining process. Disputes not resolved by negotiation were to be settled by a central Arbitration Court, whose decisions were binding. Registration of unions was voluntary, and direct collective bargaining remained an option. But the collapse of unionism after 1890 made the new system appear attractive, and most unions sought the recognition offered. Union membership soared from some 8000 in 1896 to 57 000 in 1910. Reeves was not present to witness this growth of the labour movement. In 1896, unable to win support from his colleagues for a new round of radical legislation, he became Agent-General in London. His departure left urban wage-earners without an effective voice in the government, which was now dominated by the populist improvisation of Seddon, McKenzie, and a latter-day Vogel, Colonial Treasurer Joseph Ward.

Growth of the public sector. The Liberals created 12 new government departments, of which two were particularly notable. The Labour Department, initially set up in 1891 as the Bureau of Industries, was envisaged by its first Secretary, Edward Tregear, as a ‘benevolent bureaucracy’ which would act as a buffer between capital and labour. His staff, who numbered 83 full-timers and many part-time inspectors by 1908, administered Reeves' legacy. The Department of Agriculture, also created in 1891, increasingly assumed important regulatory functions. Systematic grading and branding of export produce was carried out at major ports. Farm inspectors ensured hygienic milking and milk storage, and campaigns against pests and stock diseases were stepped up. The Journal of Agriculture was founded in 1910. In 1893 the government took over direct control of the railway system, and set about expanding it. The country had 3200 kilometres of line by 1896 and 4800 kilometres by 1914. The North Island main trunk line was completed in 1908. Railways opened up whole areas for settlement—notably the hinterland of Auckland ‘province’—by making practicable the movement of supplies and farm produce. Provision of railways and roads remained of vital importance in local and national politics, and not only for economic reasons. Improved communications did much to reduce the demoralising isolation of backblocks living.

Other government functions also expanded. In 1903 the state asserted its control of all future hydro-electric power generation, and in 1911 the first large power station was completed at Lake Coleridge in Canterbury. Old-age pensions were introduced in 1898 to assist the growing numbers of destitute elderly people. As immigration grew relatively less important and family size also fell—women who married in 1880 averaged 6.5 live births, compared with 2.4 for those who married in 1923—the proportion of the aged in the population grew. Young people also benefited from the government's increased social role. The 1877 Education Act had set up a colony-wide system of primary education, through which four-fifths of the country's five to 15-year-olds were receiving instruction by 1891. After George Hogben became administrative head of the Education Department in 1899 the primary school service was much improved, the secondary system expanded, and technical education introduced. Activity in all these areas (and in others, such as health) required many more civil servants. In the past, government ministers had made most appointments, and controlled much of the day-to-day administration of ‘their’ departments. This became impractical as the functions of the bureaucracy grew more specialised. From 1912 appointment on merit, job classification, and standardised procedures were the norm. As in other western economies at this time, private bureaucracies were also growing, and wage and salary earners made up an increasing proportion of the work-force.

By 1900 the Liberal Party had a mass organisation as well as strong leadership. The Liberal-Labour Federation united regional associations through a national council and annual conferences. For the first time ordinary' people could become members of a political party. But, while the Liberals remained dominant in Parliament after Ward became Prime Minister on Seddon's death in 1906, social and economic forces gradually split the alliance between urban wage-earners and small-to-middling farmers which sustained them in power. As they became more established, small dairy and mixed farmers grew more critical of the government which had in many cases given them their start on the land. Demand for the freehold became a rallying cry. Free trade, unrestricted access to Maori land, and freedom from government regulation and from the spectre of socialist trade unionism, were other demands. The New Zealand Farmers' Union, launched in 1899, spread especially rapidly in newly-opened North Island districts. Its leadership soon comprised established as well as struggling farmers, and increasingly it supported the new Reform Party, led by William Ferguson Massey, which also gained the backing of protection-dependent urban businessmen after dropping free trade as party policy.

Meanwhile, urban workers grew disenchanted with the government as their share of the country's growing prosperity diminished after 1900. Real wages fell as the Arbitration Court delivered more miserly and belated award increases. In addition, up to 10 percent of the work-force continued to be intermittently or seasonally unemployed. Although this was much less than the one-third comparably affected in Edwardian England, rising national income was clearly being distributed unequally. Both the arbitration system and the political member unions to refuse arbitration and take direct action to achieve radical goals. Many leading militants had come from Australia, where an Irish-dominated working-class culture had developed nationalist, anti-British characteristics. In the decades around 1900 there was much movement of labour between New Zealand and Australia as economic conditions fluctuated. Many sheep-shearing gangs followed a regular seasonal route through both countries. A few socialists came from the United States, where revolutionary organisations like the Industrial Workers of the World preached the overthrow of capitalism through the unification of worker's into ‘one big union’ with the strength to confront the state.

Losing support at both ends of the political spectrum, the Liberals failed to gain a clear majority in the 1911 election, and in 1912 enough MPs crossed the floor of the House to bring down the government. Massey now led a Reform Party government which in effect offered a more efficient administration of the Liberals' heritage. He moved first to defeat the challenge from the left. A 1912 dispute at the Waihi goldmine, over whether workers should accept arbitration under the 1894 Act, eventually ended in police-backed violence. In 1913 a ‘lock-out’ on the Wellington waterfront led to a general strike by watersiders, seamen, and coalminers. This was defeated after thousands of middle-class and farmer ‘special constables’, supporting the regular police and sustained by logistical backing from the military, fought with unionists on the streets of Auckland and Wellington. Clearly unable to overthrow the government by direct action, the militants turned to more conventional politics. A total of six ‘Social Democrat’ and Labour MPs were elected in 1914, and in 1916 a Labour Party was formed. If any one cause united Labour supporters behind their new party, it was opposition to military conscription, which was introduced in 1916 as New Zealand troops began to suffer the torments of the Western Front. The ‘Great War’ also marked the development of a sense of national identity in many New Zealanders. Since 1870, when dissatisfaction with Imperial troop withdrawals and declining prices on London markets had led to talk of secession and alliance with the United States, pakeha New Zealanders had taken for granted a position of loyal subordination within the British Empire. Remoteness from its centre was offset by the guarantee of security provided by the Royal Nan', and the facts of economic dependence. Throughout the period from 1875 until World War II, roughly 80 percent of New Zealand's exports were sold to the United Kingdom, and at least half its imports came from that country. Failure to join the Australian federation (created in 1901) was in large part an acknowledgment that New Zealand's most vital interests lay elsewhere. The ‘colony’ was officially renamed a ‘dominion’ in 1907, but this was seen as recognition of autonomy rather than full nationhood.

Wartime support for Britain modified attitudes of dependence. The 6500 volunteers who went to the South African War (1899–1902) saw themselves as superior mentally and physically to their British regular-force counterparts. The experience of World War I—103 000 New Zealanders served abroad, and some 18 000 died, out of a total population of little more than a million—reinforced claims of military excellence. These were enhanced by the heroic assault on Chunuk Bair in August 1915, during the Gallipoli campaign; achievements at Passchendaele in October 1917; and the role of the New Zealand Division in helping stop the great German advance in the spring of 1918. Although Massey claimed (unconvincingly) that in signing the Treaty of Versailles he did not act as the agent of a sovereign state, many New Zealanders felt they had earned statehood. The country was now a minor colonial power in its own right, having annexed the Cook Islands in 1901 and bloodlessly conquered German Samoa in August 1914. Prowess at the ‘national sport’ of rugby football had also become a source of (mostly male) patriotic pride after an all-but-undefeated tour of the British Isles by a representative team in 1905–6.

War had widened domestic divisions. While farmers profited from the commandeer system, under which the British government guaranteed purchase of New Zealand's main exports, the cost of living rose in towns and cities, and by 1919 real wages were lower than at any time since the turn of the century. The Protestant Political Association, which claimed to have 200 000 members in 1919, vigorously opposed ‘Rum’, ‘Romanism’ (i.e., Roman Catholicism) and ‘Rebellion’ (i.e., the Labour Party). Massey won his first decisive electoral victory in 1919. Reform now had 46 seats to the Liberals' 20 and Labour's eight. But the government had won only 36 percent of the vote, and Labour's share had reached 24 percent. Throughout the 1920s the existence of a three-party system was to lead to much greater fluctuations in seats won than in voting patterns.

Political instability reflected economic uncertainty. Soldiers had returned to promises of a ‘land fit for heroes to live in’—the state would put them on farms, or at least provide loans for this purpose. But government resettlement policies further fuelled a rise in land values initially sparked by wartime guarantees of markets. Between 1915 and 1925 some 40 percent of occupied land changed ownership, much of it for a great deal more than it was worth. Rural prosperity ended abruptly in 1921–22, when export prices fell sharply. In response, the government legislated. The Meat Export Control Act 1922 established a board to handle beef and mutton exports, and a 1923 Act regulated dairy exporting. Massey's successor as Reform Party leader and Prime Minister, J. Gordon Coates, was responsible for the Rural Advances Act 1926, which created a new section of the State Advances Department to grant rural first-mortgage loans, and also for the Rural Intermediate Credit Act 1927. Coates' government implemented a substantial public works programme, building hydro-electric power stations, railways, and roads. It also introduced a child allowance in 1926. Once again, a purportedly conservative administration was expanding the state's economic role.

Urban wage-earners, whose incomes were cut during the 1921–22 slump, looked to Labour to protect their interests. Labour now had to modify its radicalism to expand its appeal. It could not hope to govern without rural votes, which were denied Labour so long as they were seen as advocates of land nationalisation. Meanwhile, dissatisfaction with Coates' leadership grew among businessmen who resented his promotion of state activity, and farmers who had looked to him to break the bitter cycle of falling returns, fixed mortgage repayments, and increasing costs. The temporary beneficiaries of this disillusionment were the Liberals, who (renamed United and again led by the now ageing and ailing Ward) won more seats than either of their rivals in the 1928 election by opting for the old policy of borrowing for development. But, as export prices plummeted, depression deepened and borrowing proved impracticable. In 1930 United and Reform formed a coalition which comfortably won the 1931 election. This government moved to assist farmers through a 25 percent devaluation of the currency, a series of mortgage adjustment Acts, and lowered freight and interest rates. These measures did little to reduce growing support for radical monetary reform, which was advocated by the Douglas Credit movement and influenced Labour policy.

Giving priority to defending farmers' incomes worsened conditions in the cities. Most wages and salaries were cut by 10 percent in both 1931 and 1932. Such savage deflation in an already contracting economy led to an eighth of the work-force being unemployed by 1933. Government determination that the jobless should earn the meagre relief provided under the 1930 Unemployment Act (which levied a special tax on all males aged over 20) resulted in labour-intensive make-work projects and the establishment of spartan camps for single men in isolated areas. Sporadic outbreaks of violent protest in the main cities in 1932 were blamed by Prime Minister George Forbes on a ‘lawless minority’ and Communist agitation. His response was the Public Safety Conservation Act, which empowered the government to proclaim a national emergency and assume Draconian powers when public order was thought to be endangered. ‘Disloyal’ public servants, including those who protested against wage cuts, could now be dismissed under the Finance Act 1932. Resentment of the government became widespread.

Other social and economic developments. New Zealand's non-Maori population grew from 625 000 in 1891 to almost 1.5 million in 1936. This increase was uninterrupted, but slowed markedly in the 1930s as hard times led to fewer births and a net outflow of migrants. Until then immigration was continuous—there was a net inflow of some 200 000 between 1901 and 1928—but immigrants were a steadily diminishing proportion of the population. For this reason, and also because there was an even balance of the sexes among immigrants in later decades, the proportion of women to men increased. At the height of the gold rushes in the 1860s there had been only five pakeha women in the colony for every eight men. The ratio had reached nine to ten by 1901, and 97 to 100 by 1936. As unmarried men grew relatively fewer, some of the characteristic problems of frontier societies—such as alcoholism, crime, and loneliness—became less prevalent. The transience (enforced by the ephemeral nature of much employment) which had seen a majority of income-earners changing localities several times each decade also gradually diminished. The rural frontier moved forward more slowly, and in the 1930s contracted as many marginal back-country farms were abandoned.

There was a gradual but persistent movement of population from rural to urban areas, although this was arrested in the 1930s by the growth of public works camps. In 1896, 29 percent of the non-Maori population lived in towns of more than 8000 people; by 1936 the figure was 49 percent. The opening-up of the North Island's farming hinterland before World War I, and industrial development between the wars, saw its share of the population rise from half in 1900 to 65 percent in 1936. Non-Maori people were nearly all of northern European origin. Gold had attracted 5000 Chinese migrants by 1874, but discrimination and restrictions on immigration saw their numbers fall to little more than 2000 by 1916. About the same number of people of Yugoslav birth were living in New Zealand in 1911—most in the North Auckland peninsula. By 1936 some 1200 Indians were resident in the country.

Mechanisation brought substantial productivity increases in the primary sector, whose share of the total work-force fell from 42 percent in 1896 to 30 percent in 1926. Some primary industries declined in absolute terms, not merely relatively, as resources were concentrated on the three major export products. Kauri-gum production fell from a 1903 peak, the flax industry declined in the 1930s after fluctuating wildly, and gold and timber had ceased to be significant exports by 1914. Coal mining, which had expanded chiefly to provide fuel for the growing railway system, stagnated as railway construction slowed down. Urbanisation was paralleled by the growth and diversification of secondary industries. By the 1920s manufacturing's share of the gross domestic product was only slightly less than that in Australia and the United States, despite New Zealand's relative lack of protective barriers. Industry was typically small-scale, mixed, and unsophisticated, and processed imported components. In the 1920s motor-vehicle assembly and metalworking expanded significantly. By 1926 some 45 percent of the work-force were employed in the tertiary sector (providing services and doing ‘white-collar’ work). New Zealand had become a predominantly urban, yet farming-dependent, nation. It remained Britain's outlying farm as it developed many of the social and demographic characteristics of an industrialised society.

Even after 1890, Maori resistance to pakeha dominance was occasionally physical. In 1895 Urewera Maori obstructed a survey until overawed by a military party. In 1898, 120 men of the regular army confronted followers of the Hokianga tohunga Hone Toia. Serious bloodshed in this ‘Dog Tax War’ was averted only by the timely intervention of the MP Hone Heke Rankin. In 1916 ‘the last shooting in the Anglo-Maori wars’ occurred when armed police fought a gun battle with followers of the Tuhoe leader Rua Kenana (founder of the Wairua Tapu religion), killing two of them. Increasingly, resistance took new forms. Petitioners sought the aid of the Crown in persuading the New Zealand government to honour the terms of the Treaty of Waitangi, which now gained a status among Maori which many had not granted it in 1840. The King movement set up its own parliament (Kauhanganui) under a constitution promulgated in 1894. More significant—even though pakeha legislators refused to acknowledge it—was the rival Kotahitanga parliament, promoted chiefly by kupapa leaders, which met annually from 1892 to 1902.

Expansion of the ‘native schools’ system in the 1870s (there were 57 by 1879) laid the basis for an influx of gifted students into church boarding-schools such as Te Aute and St Stephen's Colleges in succeeding decades. A group of former Te Aute students took the Irish-Maori MP James Carroll as their mentor (he held a general electorate from 1893 to 1919, having earlier represented Eastern Maori). They called themselves the Young Maori Party and advocated the wholesale adoption of pakeha culture. ‘There is no alternative but to become a pakeha’, said Maui Pomare, who had become the first Maori Health Officer in 1900. Pomare and his assistant Te Rangihiroa (Peter Buck), who was Director of Maori Hygiene from 1920, worked for improvements in sanitation and living conditions. The Maori population rose from 45 500 in 1901 to 57 000 in 1921, due to a decline in the frequency of epidemics, the gradual acquisition of immunity to them, and an increase of numbers in the child-bearing age group. Life expectancy rose from around 25 years in 1890 to 35 in 1905. But Maori health was still comparatively poor. The death rate in the influenza pandemic of 1918 was seven times that for Europeans.

Although Carroll was Minister of Native Affairs, the Liberals transferred 1.2 million hectares of Maori land to pakeha ownership. Reform alienated a further 1.4 million hectares. ‘Maori landowners, rather than the squattocracy, were vanquished by the state's promotion of closer settlement.’ Improvements in Maori farming came through communal initiatives. In the 1890s the Ngati Porou iwi, who retained much land on the East Coast of the North Island, embarked on large-scale pastoralism. By the mid-1920s they owned a million sheep, as well as a dairy factory, a finance company, and a co-operative store. Apirana Ngata (himself a Ngati Porou) as Native Minister sponsored a 1929 Act which channelled state credit to Maori farmers through the Department of Native Affairs. By 1937, the 750 000 acres being developed under this scheme were supporting about 18 000 people, most of whom lived in communities on or near the land they were working. Ngata, although, a member of the Young Maori Party, believed in fostering a communal rural lifestyle which continued Maori traditions.

While Maori in Parliament became skilful practitioners of taha pakeha (the European aspects of living), local leaders continued to have the most effective influence over Maori community life. None gained more stature than Te Puea Herangi, a member of the Waikato kahui ariki (paramount family), who came to prominence in the Kingitanga by leading a campaign against the conscription of Waikato Maori during the First World War. In 1921 she established a model pa at Ngaruawahia, and from the 1920s she was a figure of national importance for Maori. With her support. Ngata's land development schemes allowed Waikato communities to preserve their traditional way of life while productively occupying their own lands.

Gordon Coates was the first pakeha politician to provide leadership on Maori issues. As Minister of Native Affairs between 1921 and 1928 he was determined to ‘remove the old grievances so that economic and social change could proceed’. Among many initiatives, he established the Sim Commission to investigate the Waikato and Taranaki land confiscations (its findings largely upheld Maori grievances), and also the Maori Purposes Fund to make grants for educational, social, and cultural activities. With Ngata as Native Minister from 1928 to 1934 the momentum of reform continued. But the leadership of these two politicians began to be challenged by the spiritual leader Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana, who was an advocate for the interests of the ‘morehu’—detribalised, non-chiefly common people—to whom he offered a vision of spiritual and material betterment. His teachings seemed increasingly attractive as the depression worsened. Maori are thought to have comprised some 40 percent of the jobless, and by 1933 three out of every four adult male Maori were registered as unemployed.

The Labour Party won power in the 1935 election, when it gained a total of 59 seats (counting a few sympathetic independent MPs) compared to the 19 retained by the Coalition government's candidates. In 1938 it was re-elected, with an increased share of the vote and 53 seats to the new National Party's 25. These successes inaugurated a 14-year tenure of office which, like the Liberal era of the 1890s, was to establish new patterns and set the terms of economic and political debate for the next 40 years. Like the Liberals, Labour benefited by being elected as the economy recovered from depression. And, as with the Liberals, the administration of Labour's achievement was eventually to be taken over by its conservative opponents.

Labour won office because it was seen to represent a genuine alternative to the orthodox economic policies which had entailed hardship for too many. In addition, although export prices and the general economy were recovering in 1935, dairy produce receipts were still low. Discontented dairy' farmers, who approved Labour's promises of guaranteed prices and cheap credit, were decisive in turning the Coalition's defeat into a rout. Led by the former ‘Red Fed’ and Socialist Party militant Michael Joseph Savage, the Labour government moved to restore and direct the economy and introduce a comprehensive social welfare system.

Previous cuts in wages and conditions of employment were reversed, and the normal manufacturing working week was reduced to 40 hours. Pay rates for relief work were substantially increased. Unemployment fell to 38 000 in 1936, and continued economic growth combined with a large public works programme to leave only about 8000 on ‘sustenance and relief’ by December 1937. In 1936 full jurisdiction was restored to the Arbitration Court, and union membership was made compulsory' for all workers subject to awards. The number of unionists rose in consequence from 103 000 in 1935 to 249 000 in 1938. The Agricultural Workers Act 1936 set a minimum pay rate for previously unprotected rural labourers, and required the provision of decent living conditions for them. By buying out private shareholding in the Reserve Bank (created by Coates in 1933 to give the state some control over monetary policy), the government assumed conclusively the power to use the ‘people's credit’. Finance issued by the Reserve Bank underwrote housing construction, public works, and guaranteed prices for dairy products. Cheap mortgages from the revitalised, government-controlled State Advances Corporation helped efficient but indebted farmers remain on the land.

During Labour's 14 years in power some 30 000 ‘state houses’ (government-owned, privately-built rental dwellings) were constructed. State Advances mortgages financed a further 19 000 houses built for private ownership in the same period. The two schemes together gave government assistance to two in every five houses built. Spreading state house suburbs whose inhabitants shared similar lifestyles came to symbolise an egalitarian ‘levelling upwards’ in the quality of New Zealand life. Educational reforms included the lowering of the school-entry age from six to five. The primary-level Proficiency examination was abolished and, after the leaving age was raised to 15, was effectively replaced by the new School Certificate. These changes required much greater spending on school construction and teachers' salaries. The landmark Social Security Act of 1938 was intended not merely to provide a subsistence income but to meet the ‘normal needs’ of beneficiaries. Essentially free general medical care was introduced despite the bitter opposition of doctors, who, ironically, were to be the group who benefited most from the new ‘welfare state’. Social security and public admiration for Savage were major factors in Labour's 1938 electoral triumph, which was blighted only by the recapture of some rural seats by a more united parliamentary opposition.

The government now looked forward to years of development, but was immediately reminded that New Zealand remained a small, dependent trading economy. Withdrawal of private capital combined with the expense of overseas-purchased machinery and supplies to reduce the country's sterling reserves from £29 million to £8 million in the six months before foreign exchange controls were introduced in December 1938. Minister of Finance Walter Nash won few concessions in months of negotiation with the British government and financiers. But bleak prospects were transformed by the outbreak of World War II. Britain rapidly agreed to bulk purchase arrangements at prices favourable to New Zealand for meat and dairy products, and later wool. Imports declined as European production was diverted to war purposes or made unobtainable by shipping difficulties. The exchange crisis was quickly succeeded by a healthy balance of payments surplus, which even allowed the repayment of some earlier loans.

As in World War I, the country's major contribution to the Allied effort was the provision of food, which went mostly to Britain and later to the Pacific theatre. While the war claimed some 12 000 New Zealand lives and saw 17 000 wounded, these were significantly lower casualties than World War I inflicted on a society of half a million fewer people. Nevertheless, some 150 000 were serving in the armed forces when they were at their peak, and civilians were mobilised in support of the war effort. Prices and wages were tightly controlled, and the labour force was subject to direction into essential occupations. Secondary industry, already stimulated by economic expansion, public works, and import licensing, was now boosted by the need for greater self-sufficiency. A ‘hot-house growth of manufacturing’ resulted as many small, previously marginal ventures secured a disciplined labour force and guaranteed markets. The strongest growth occurred in Auckland, which was the largest focus for the urbanisation which had resumed with the end of the Depression. With so many men in the armed forces, women entered the work-force in large numbers. The proportion of public service clerical workers who were female rose from 5 percent in 1939 to 25 percent in 1947. By 1945 nearly 15 percent of married women under 30 were in full-time employment, a percentage which was not to decline after the war ended. From national necessity, many women entered rural and industrial occupations previously assumed to be ‘men's work’.

As with perceptions of women's role in society, assumptions about New Zealand's place in the world were irrevocably altered by World War II. The Balfour Report of 1926 recognised that Britain's dominions were de facto independent stales. The Statute of Westminster of 1931 effectively relinquished the British parliament's power to make laws for the dominions. New Zealand was not to accept this formally until 1947. The Labour government, like its conservative predecessors, sought consultation with Britain rather than an independent foreign policy. In the late 1930s New Zealand's support for the League of Nations and collective security brought disagreement with the appeasement-minded British. In 1945 Prime Minister Peter Fraser was to be a leading advocate for the rights of the small nations represented in the new United Nations organisation. In the intervening years the limits of British power had been particularly brought home by the rapid capitulation to the Japanese in 1942 of the vaunted Singapore military base. The necessity of reliance on United States protection was underlined by the wartime presence of 100 000 American ‘GIs’ at New Zealand staging bases. Unlike Australia. New Zealand kept its best fighting troops in the Mediterranean theatre throughout the war. After participating in the unsuccessful defence of Greece and Crete in 1941, they endured the hardships of the North African desert and the slow, difficult advance through Italy. Although operating within the British command structure, New Zealand troops remained under New Zealand government control. The war also stimulated a redirection of New Zealand trade. New Zealand's exports to non-British markets doubled to about 40 percent of all its exports in the decade after 1941, and were never to return to the levels of the previous half-century.

While a multi-party War Cabinet made the major decisions, Labour's regular Cabinet continued its largely domestic business. Pragmatic politics counterpointed national sacrifice. The 1943 Servicemen's Settlement and Land Sales Act empowered the government to control prices in all land transactions, and to buy land suitable for subdivision. Farmers hoping to profit as before from a wartime rise in land values, and dissatisfied with the level of guaranteed prices, turned against the government. Despite its abolition of the country quota, Labour won a majority of only four seats in the 1946 election. In contrast with 1919, the reintegration of returning service personnel into the economy was impressively successful, backed as it was by full employment, enforced wartime savings, and guaranteed markets abroad. But the continuation of many wartime restrictions—symbolised by the 1948 Economic Stabilisation Act—was irksome. Maintaining supplies to impoverished Britain required continued rationing, electricity use was limited, and soaring marriage and birth rates outstripped house building.

The post-war National Party promised more efficient management of key Labour gains and greater personal freedom (such as the right of purchase for state house tenants). Led by Sidney Holland, National won the 1949 election. In 1951 it increased its majority in a rare snap election called to take advantage of the government's crushing termination of a major five-month-long industrial dispute which had been precipitated by a breakdown in relations between waterfront workers and their employers. The Labour Party, though clearly not laggards in their enthusiasm for the ‘Cold War’—they introduced peacetime compulsory military training in 1949—were outmanoeuvered by a government which consolidated its support around the popular themes of ‘law and order’, anti-communism, and curbing the unions. Labour's ambivalence towards the strikers reflected divisions within the union movement, inside which a militant Trade Union Congress had emerged in opposition to the cautious Federation of Labour.

National continued to present itself to the electorate as the party which would best defend the ‘national interest’ against divisive sectional concerns. Buoyed by continuing prosperity, it was interrupted in its self-described role as the ‘natural party of government’ only by the one-term Labour administrations of 1957–60 and 1972–75. Both these periods saw adverse alterations in New Zealand's terms of trade. Both Labour cabinets made changes too rapidly for the liking of an electorate more comfortable with the ‘steady-does-it’ approach epitomised by (later Sir) Keith Holyoake's term as Prime Minister in the 1960s. In that decade political life sometimes seemed to dimly reflect the American scene; New Zealand troops fought in Vietnam, New Zealand youth rebelled against their parents’ staidness and complacency, and the voices of New Zealand's indigenous inhabitants began to be heard by the wider society. Seen as more efficient at managing a mixed economy, the National Party retained power even in the troubled economic times between 1975 and 1984.

In the quarter-century after 1950, New Zealand for many at last lived up to Seddon's characterisation of it as ‘God's Own Country’. National wealth per head rose continuously, if at varying rates, until the ‘oil crisis’ of 1973 began a period of stagnation. Standards of living mirrored this ‘pervasive prosperity’. The proportion of houses owned rather than rented rose from 61 percent to 69 percent during the 1950s. Low-cost suburban bungalows of uniform style were furnished with a widening range of consumer durables. Electric stoves, refrigerators, and washing-machines, found in only about half of all houses in the 1940s, were nearly universal by the mid-1960s (as were radiograms and, eventually, television sets). New Zealanders had more choice in spending their increasing discretionary incomes. Although many men remained preoccupied with sport, home-centred leisure (gardening, reading, television watching) increased with suburbanisation. Car ownership and substantial expenditure on roading (secondary routes as well as showpiece motorways) brought unparalleled mobility to many. Passenger use of railways declined as air transport came to dominate long-distance personal travel.

The dream of creating a materialist Utopia in New Zealand was kept alive by the unprecedented continuation of full employment for 30 years after World War II, when for the first time there had been the possibility of a job for almost everyone who wanted one. More white-collar work balanced a continuing relative decline in rural employment. The proportion of the labour force employed in agriculture fell from about one-quarter in the mid-1930s to about one-eighth in the early 1970s, while farming productivity rose at about 1 percent annually, as all aspects of farm management became more sophisticated. Capital improvements compensated for a diminishing labour force; tractor numbers increased tenfold from 1938 to the 1970s, and aircraft were widely used to spread fertiliser. By 1972 the number of farms had fallen by nearly a third from the post-war peak of 92 000 reached in 1955. The number of dairy farmers declined particularly dramatically, from nearly 40 000 in 1950 to about 17 000 in 1976. This reflected changes in the relative profitability of different types of farming, as well as a general exodus from the ranks of the small farmer. Meanwhile, male blue-collar employment rose steadily, roughly in proportion to the overall growth of the labour force. By 1976 there were more than 400 000 blue-collar workers, 47 percent of the male work-force. Most rapid expansion came in white-collar employment, which occupied a quarter of working men in 1951, a third in 1971. The same proportions of all women aged over 15 were in paid employment in each of these years. In 1971, 62 percent of women in the labour force had white-collar jobs. Most of these jobs were in clerical occupations. In contrast, the major occupations for women at the beginning of the century had been domestic service, and tailoring and dressmaking. But despite the fact that the female occupational structure had changed, women still continued to work in jobs performed mostly by women.

The goal of ‘being one's own boss’ became less attainable; between 1951 and 1971 small proprietors fell from one-fifth to an eighth of the work-force. Small business operators, like small farmers, felt themselves vulnerable to growing pressure from larger rivals and increasing regulation. The resentments of these two groups were reflected in the support they gave the Social Credit party in the 1960s and 1970s (although this was too geographically diffuse for the party to gain more than token parliamentary representation). By the early 1970s about 40 percent of the work-force belonged to bureaucracies—organisations with specialised jobs structured in a hierarchy, and governed by formal rules and regulations. The public sector, with about 250 000 employees, had grown by 100 000 in 20 years although, contrary to widespread popular belief, it had not increased its share of the work-force or of national resources. Private bureaucracies now employed some 200 000 people. The growth of both sectors was closely linked to the expansion of post-primary education. Between 1945 and 1970 spending on education rose from 6 percent to 14 percent of government expenditure, and the number of secondary school students more than trebled. By 1971 one person in every three participated directly in the education system, as full-time student, teacher or administrator. Seven-eighths of all pupils attended state-run schools. Public education, like the state's housing policy, was based on an ethos which emphasised equality of access, social integration, and cultural uniformity. University students doubled in numbers in the 1960s, becoming 10 percent of the school-leaving age-group by the end of the decade.

The pakeha birth rate had fallen steadily from the 1880s to the mid-1930s, prompting fears of a near-stationary population, This at last came to pass in the late 1970s, but only after a period of unprecedented growth, from 1.7 million in 1945 to more than 3 million. One-third of the increase was due to immigration, at first from war-ravaged Europe, later from the Pacific Islands. Both Western Samoa and the Cook Islands gained effective independence in the 1960s, but their citizens retained rights of entry to New Zealand. By 1976, 61 000 Pacific Island Polynesians lived in New Zealand. The bulk of the population growth, however, came from natural increase—the postwar ‘baby boom’, which lasted until use of effective contraception became more widespread during the 1960s. By 1961 a third of New Zealanders were aged under 15. This generation put stress on the education system and then on the job market, and seemed likely to overload superannuation schemes and health resources as it aged. Other demographic trends were continued movements from country to town and from south to north. By 1976 only one-sixth of New Zealanders lived outside urban areas. In that year 73 percent of the population lived in the North Island. The Auckland conurbation alone had a quarter of the country's people and a third of those employed in manufacturing. Whereas the greatest number of Vogel-period immigrants had settled in Canterbury and Otago, the latest wave of European migrants went disproportionately to the cities of Auckland and Wellington, as did newly-arriving Pacific Islanders and Maori leaving rural areas.

New Zealand's modernising society became more complex, more distinctive, and less self-confident as a Maori cultural renaissance began to affect the cities, more than a century of migration from Europe diminished to a trickle, and the country finally lost its secure place as Britain's offshore farm. In the 1970s greatly-increased oil prices, and the global economy's inability to distribute the world's food production effectively, led to an apparently irreversible decline in the terms of New Zealand's trade with the outside world. Primary products—wood-pulp and paper as well as wool, meat, and dairy produce—continued to be export staples, but their share of total exports fell to 60 percent by 1975. In that year Britain (which had cut the symbolic umbilical cord by joining the protectionist European Economic Community) took only one-fifth of New Zealand's exports, and the country's four major markets (the others were Australia, the United States, and Japan) only three-fifths between them. An increasing variety of agricultural and manufactured products were sold in a growing range of markets. Primary produce sales were increasingly handled by centralised producer boards. The main focus of secondary industry was still the further processing of imported goods for local markets. Although import licensing was said to shelter inefficient industries, the average level of protection was not high by world standards. Nor is it clear that New Zealand output or standards of living have lagged nearly as far behind other developed countries as figures based on exchange-rate comparisons suggest. At worst, the country's economic performance has been an average one.

Much the same could be said in social terms. In New Zealand many features of western social change have been experienced on a smaller scale. These have included the rise of youth culture (as both a new form of consumerism and a serious attempt to transform styles of living), the revitalisation of ethnic minorities, and the assertion by women of their right to participate fully in all aspects of economic and social life. Equal pay for equal work became a legal requirement in 1972, showing the extent of change since 1936, when the first minimum-wage legislation had set the female minimum rate at 47 percent of the male. But women remained over-represented in low-status occupations, and the twentieth-century idealisation of motherhood continued to be a potent source of guilt for mothers who, from necessity, took paid employment. As age, ethnic, and gender distinctions came to matter more, class divisions grew more subtle and apparently less important. Although extremes of wealth and poverty were rare, equality of income and status had been brought no closer by decades of formal equality of access to society's resources. And social consensus as to the desirability of relative equality and social security was being eroded by harsh economic realities and the diversification of individual aspirations.

The state of Maori health still caused concern in the 1930s. In 1938 the Maori death rate was 24 per 1000, compared with 10 for pakeha, and the infant mortality rate was 153 for each 1000 live births, as against 37 for non-Maori. In 1940, 36 percent of Maori people were said to live in houses unfit for habitation by minimum pakeha standards. Funding by the first Labour government of the Native Housing Act 1935 resulted in the construction of some 3000 houses by 1951. More systematic efforts to improve Maori health saw experts such as H. B. Turbott combine with community leaders like Te Puea to introduce ‘health programmes. Effective control of diseases such as tuberculosis and typhoid, and falling infant mortality, led to a rise in Maori life expectancy from 46 years in 1925 to 58 in 1956. These factors, and a continuing high birth rate, saw the Maori population double in 30 years to reach 116 000 in 1951. In that year 57 percent of Maori people were aged under 21, compared with 35 percent of non-Maori. In 1955 the Maori birth rate was 44 per 1000, as against 25 for non-Maori. By 1966 half of all Maori were aged under 15. Continuing high fertility and improved health saw the Maori population reach 270 000 in 1976. Maori now comprised 9 percent of all New Zealanders.

Movement of Maori to the cities began during World War II, when manpower regulations and the work of the Maori War Effort Organisation opened up a variety of urban employment opportunities. In any case, fanning could not have sustained the rapid increase in numbers. Eleven percent of Maori people had lived in urban areas in 1936. Forty years later, three-quarters of the Maori people were urbanised, and a fifth lived in Auckland, the Maori population of which doubled during the 1960s. Migration to the cities meant improved housing conditions, but most Maori could not afford to live outside areas offering low-cost accommodation. Urbanisation was reflected in employment data. While 40 percent of male Maori had worked in agriculture, forestry and fisheries in 1951, only 16 percent did so by 1971. The respective figures for blue-collar employment were 52 percent and 70 percent. Over the same period, the proportion of Maori women in service occupations fell from 42 percent to 23 percent, while the percentage in blue-collar work rose from 24 percent to 36 percent. By the late 1960s, Maori and Pacific Islanders in Auckland and Wellington formed a ‘new under-class’, most holding poorly-paid jobs which offered little security or prospects for advancement.

Maori education benefited from the first Labour government's introduction of free secondary education and a school-leaving age of 15. By 1953, while special Maori schools (directly administered by the Department of Education) were still numerous, 60 percent of Maori children attended ordinary state primary schools. By 1960 most Maori children went on to secondary school; but they did so on average at a later age, and left earlier with fewer qualifications than pakeha children. In 1960, 5 percent of Maori pupils gained School Certificate, compared with 30 percent of non-Maori of the same age. The state school system was still almost entirely monocultural. Educational under-achievement was both a cause and an effect of low occupational status.

From 1943, with the defeat of Apirana Ngata, the Ratana-Labour alliance held all four Maori parliamentary seats. Much of the discrimination against Maori workers was removed by the first Labour government, and Maori shared in the general expansion of economic activity and in social security provisions. The Maori Social and Economic Advancement Act 1945 set up tribal committees and executives concerned especially with welfare and marae administration. In 1947 the word ‘Maori’ replaced ‘Native’ in all official usage, an acknowledgment that Polynesian New Zealanders now more than before saw themselves as one people. National organisations such as the Maori Women's Welfare League (formed in 1951) and the Maori Council (established in 1962) helped strengthen the authority of a postwar generation of leaders. Many had served with distinction in the Maori Battalion in North Africa and Italy, or in essential industries. Returning servicemen were able to demand equality with more success than had their counterparts in the World War I Pioneer Battalion, who had received no rehabilitation assistance. Maori sporting ability (demonstrated particularly in rugby union and league) also earned respect from the wider community.

In the 1940s Ngata spoke of the need for a ‘continuous attempt to interpret the Maori point of view to the pakeha in power’. Te Puea argued that ‘unity of Maori and Pakeha can only grow from each sharing the worthwhile elements in the other's culture’. As urbanisation brought the two races together, discrimination and the lack of equal opportunity grew more visible. Maori were told they must adapt to the pakeha way of life; there was no equivalent pressure on pakeha. From the late 1960s groups such as Nga Tamatoa (‘the young warriors’) challenged the continuing loss of land, declining use of the Maori language, and what came to be called ‘institutional racism’ in pakeha-dominated society. A cultural resurgence which emphasised tribal identity, traditions, and protocol developed in parallel with a drive to establish urban marae. Under the third Labour government, multiculturalism replaced integration as official policy. Maoritanga (the experience and expression of Maoriness) had an officially recognised place in the future of Aotearoa.