New Zealand

21. Sinclair, History of New Zealand (4 Nov 2024)

by kurto

The main themes of 19th- and 20th-century history are the themes of encouraging an egalitarian society dependent on foreign trade (and primary products at that) and reconciliation among Maori and pakeha.

As much as three-fourths of NZ’s flora is unique, so long had the islands been separated. The first Europeans were traders and settlers from Australia, exporting timber from Kororakea (Bay of Islands). The Colonial Office did not wish to assume responsibility for governance; the Maori were to treated fairly – contra contemporary theories of imperialism.

Edward Gibbon Wakefield led those who saw NZ as a proto ‘dominion’, that is a tabula rasa colony, later joined by South Island pastoralists; Gordon Coates personified the philanthropic / missionary types, intending to help Maori cultural progress. Politics was pluralist, the government mainly confronting lawlessness and semi-open settler-Maori warfare. Wakefield’s New Zealand company didn’t force the Colonial Office’s hand but to the contrary, established beachheads knowing of London’s intent. The first governor-general was instructed to moderate Australian settlers and protect Maori largely by guaranteeing land rights: all European title was to come via crown grants, since the crown assigned itself a monopoly on buying from Maori. This view that the land belonged to the locals was different from commerce with the American Indian, Australian aborigine, or South African bantu, the author notes. The Maori tribes began a loose amalgamation.

1840’s Treaty of Waitangi sought to codify bicultural relations. Thereafter governor George Grey established order among competing interests, shaping the balance of the 19th century. The constitution of 1852 was highly democratic; lands were purchased for settlers; and Maori subdued along the road from Auckland to Hamilton and in the Waitara. Thus the country’s socioeconomic character was formed in its infancy: paternalist government, concern for Maori, and focus on primary production. Of the six provinces given in the constitution, five were NZC (Wakefieldian) settlements; most settlers were from London or the Home counties not Australia, though the 1861 gold rush in Otago brought in 65,000, mostly Aussie. (In the 1960s, it was still possible to hear the Kiwi accent in Essex.) Most were working class concerned to surmount poverty or some social predicament. A New Zealand-born mentality was already forming, the North Island characterized race relations and commerce with the UK, the south, more exclusively pakeha, concerned with sheep grazing as well as outgrowths of the gold rush. There was predictable struggle between the central government (as a proxy for the poorer provinces) and the well-to-do (South) provinces. Wellington was made capital in 1865, after it seemed Maori warfare had peaked.

The decisive moment had been the fall of ‘King country’ strongholds in 1863. Though Maori tribes controlled large sections of the North Island all the way to Napier, they never opted for a broad guerrilla was but only tradition defensive fortification (pa), and of course weaponry was no match; however, the British regulars thought the Maori their toughest colonial foe. After the final battle in Orakau, just south of Hamilton, some 3 million acres was confiscated in Waikato, the East coast, and Taranaki – prime lands rather than punitive confiscation – unfairly and the worst example of colonial mismanagement, the author suggests. But if the conflict was actually a civil war (as now characterized), then would not the losing side expect to suffer losses? Among the Maori, the Hau Hau religion sprang up.

In the 1870s-80s, Julius Vogel promoted growth via borrowing from London investors. The population doubled, railways and telegraphs were built, and pakeha landownership quadrupled. Government spending per capita was 13 times the rate of Canada, surpassing Victoria and New South Wales on a gross basis. In something like the American election of 1828, the Liberals came to power in 1890, marking the decline of southern pastoralists, the colonial gentry. The party taxed land rents, and toyed with the idea of owning all the land. Dick Seddon ruled over 1893 to 1906, which era brought in the women’s vote, mandatory arbitration for labor unions, and easy loans to buy land amid continuing dispute over freehold versus leasehold. The radicality of 1890 settled into paternalism. Labor came to be dissatisfied with arbitration, and the country grew weary of Seddon’s rule, leading conservatives to establish the Reform Party while the leftists became Labour (the ‘Red Feds’). As in Britain, the centrists eventually died off.

At the turn of the century, NZ decided not to join federal Australia as being too far awas and for lack of a common sensibility, though the Kiwis sought to retain an option to later join. Reform came to power in 1912, simultaneous with the political ascendancy of Northern small farming and diary interests (the ‘cow cockies’). As in Australia, Gallipoli and World War I marked the turning point of British colonists into Pacific islanders. Postwar soldiers were encouraged to buy farms: veterans and speculators roamed the countryside, resulting in nearly half the land changing hands. The three-party balance was unstable, Reform first among relative equals. Exports led by meat, wool, butter, and cheese (which in 1980 still comprised 50 percent of trade) were the highest per capita in the world. Foreign debt grew: in 1933, nearly 40 percent of government expenditure was on interest. New Zealanders understood themselves to have a high standard of living.

In the downturn, labor radicalism was easier to effect than in the US or Australia – which is seen as influencing Labour’s 1935 electoral win. The left wished to ‘insulate’ the country from the world economy, questionable for a trading nation. World War II again propelled centralization. By 1949 social services reached one-third of spending, up from 20 percent in 1928, growth mainly coming from eliminating means testing of family benefits, which increasing the welfare roster to 230,000 from 45,000. Government policies sought for equality of outcomes.

The postwar economic grew apace with the west; communist-inspired labor strife dominated the cities; the countryside and South Island remains pastoral and agricultural. The government sought to implement autarchic industrial growth in steel and liquid natural gas, with limited success. In the late 1960s and 1970s, tens of thousands emigrated: the population actually fell in 1978. From 1984, the country like Australia veered from excessive statism, Rogernomics lowered income rates and introduced a value-added tax.

Though the government took radical steps in the slumps of 1891-98 and 1936-38 and otherwise centralized, the people are temperamentally conservative. Wealth carries no prerogative of leadership, and politics mostly centers on economic development to pay for education, health, and pensions, such beneficence stemming from missionary humanitarianism as well as 19th-century utilitarianism. Sinclair writes redistribution is the more possible because of the country’s small size. The matters of biracial society are important but subsumed under equality of outcomes, achieved through government mandate.

New Zealand belongs to a ‘pacific triangle’ formed by Auckland, Sydney, and San Francisco: Kiwis are not a ‘better British’ but a bicultural, Pacific Ocean people – albeit more British than the Aussies (against whom they define themselves) or Americans (never quite forgotten as colonial brethren). Questions of identify are more pronounced in the South Island, the northerners having the stronger Maori influence and balance of population.

22. Laidlaw, Somebody Stole My Game (5 Nov 2024)

by kurto

A jeremiad lamenting professionalism’s impacts on rugby circa 1995-2010, focusing on New Zealand’s game but also emphasizing on tensions borne of globalization (i.e., homogenization) and commercial management. Oscar Wilde’s mot that America went from barbarism to decadence with no intervening period of civilization is well cited. Professionalism polarizes public opinion because of its inherent conflict with amateur competition: the more top-end success, the greater the contrast. The observation might well extend to administrators. Universities brought the game to the English-speaking colonies, so their diminished role is emblematic of homogenized full-timers and likely to result in the game’s declining appeal to middle classes.

Laidlaw struggles, however, in identifying the one thing needful of reform, sometimes pointing to the European club-driven escalation of player salaries, which distances the game from amateurism (p. 27), and other times the judicial system, which indicates rugby’s doubts of its ability to govern itself (p. 44). In the end, revenue has become overly dependent on TV and other commercial interests, administrators have forgotten their loyalties to amateurs and the fan base, and the sport’s credibility tarnished by unrealistic aspirations.

Eventually the work resolves into short essays on such questions as the decrease of schoolboy playing numbers, whether arts deserve the same subsidization as sport, the role of 7s, why union hasn’t reconciled with league, and so on. The author is sometimes astute, as in foreseeing Ireland’s advance, and sometimes naïve, such as the impact of IRB ‘investment’, centralized planning sitting uneasily alongside distrust of professionalism.

Pro players should work in the off-season as development officers – but what rugby is on? This clever suggestion might easily resolve itself as officers in foreign countries. His understanding of America is shallow, such as in the assertion the pro game has hurt amateur basketball, baseball, or football.

13. McLauchlan, Short History of New Zealand (23 May 2024)

by kurto

Sketches pre-European anthropology and sociopolitics over 1840-2015, touting the country’s egalitarian mores without connecting them to economic dirigisme. Following imperial Britain’s 1835 recognition of Maori sovereignty, the Treaty of Waitangi was hurriedly oversold and then broadly ignored, precipitating struggle for farmland as well as cultural clashes. Frontier fighting in the 1850s and 60s, by which time whites were in the majority, culminated in British confiscation of land – rather in the Maori tradition of warfare. Following a gold rush, Dunedin was the economic capital; however, by 1900 the balance of residents were on the north island (with most Maori in rural areas). The urban-rural political divide emerged in the 1880s; the economic template, spanning 1890-1960, turned on pastoral exports (wool, meat, dairy), mostly to England. Like Australia, the universal franchise and the welfare state arrived early, cemented by Michael Savage’s 1938 Social Security Act. Postwar unionism, highlighted by dockworker and neo-communist strikes in 1951, brought the National Party back into contention. Parliament became unicameral in 1949, making legislation easy to pass. Social strife resurfaced in the 1960s, often around rugby competition with apartheid South Africa. Labor-led reform came in the 1980s, though discussion of ‘Rogernomics’ is slender. By late 20th century, three-quarters of Maori had moved to the towns, mostly in the north island. To a degree, contemporary economic stability owed not only to diversification of exports but also Australian-owned banking. Why did New Zealand decline federation with Australia? Aside from wartime alliance, what were New Zealand’s views of sovereignty prior to the shock of England’s joining the EEC? The author rushes to demonstrate anti-racist sensibilities but then spends more time of conservative Pakeha culture (e.g., prohibition and liquor laws), not even treating the phenomenon of the Maori Party.

5. Hudson and Sharp, Australian Independence (29 January 2024)

by kurto

Australia’s independence ought to be dated to 11 December 1931, when the Statute of Westminster took effect, finally devolving legislative power to the country as well as the sister dominions of Canada, the Irish Free State, New Zealand, and South Africa. Diplomatic sovereignty had been granted in 1923, followed by the 1926 and 1930 release of executive powers (i.e., disallowance, reservation, annulment of the Colonial Laws Validity Act) and the assignment of governors-general as responsible to national ministries. Notwithstanding continuing anomalies, the substance of facts make 1930 sufficient.

1901’s federation established the potential for independence but not its lawful basis. Though newly united, Australia hadn’t fully separated from the United Kingdom; the states remained bound to the crown; and the governor general remained responsible to the king, in the tradition of English government as the sovereign’s government.

The transition was driven by Canada, Ireland, and South Africa, running contrary to the Australian political will and transpiring with little public appreciation. Four elements fueled interest in imperial continuity: defense, race (culture), economy (loans from London), and status (British hegemony). Neither the Canadians nor the South Africans depended on British security; both the Canadians and the Irish (given the same status in the 1921 agreement) objected to their inability to amend their own constitutions; the Irish rejected personal union under the king. Whereas through the 1920s, Aussie leaders tended to be born in the UK. Only the New Zealanders sided with Australia on defense; but the British had been withdrawing from the ‘far East’ since before World War I, save for the 1923 construction of Singapore’s naval base. There was no practical means of international cooperation within the Commonwealth because there was no prior imperial body, only Whitehall.

At the 1923 imperial conference the UK determined to allow the dominions to make international treaties: paradoxically, external affairs preceded domestic matters. Executive independence emerged from the 1926 conference, as a political bargain between the ‘radical’ dominions which aimed to appease domestic nationalists and the UK’s wish for equivocation on the crown’s role and the continuing projection of imperial unity. The Balfour formulation established that: ‘[The Dominions] are autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations’. (p. 93) The radicals then focused on autonomy, the Australians on common allegiance. (Newfoundland was also a dominion but too small to wield influence.)

By 1929/30, disallowance and reservation of dominion legislation as well as Colonial Laws Validity Act were to be jettisoned; but the Canadians and the Irish technically had to ask the UK to revise their constitutions, so the Westminster statute was promulgated. The Australians insisted on proactively adopting the statute, and delayed doing so: opposition party leader John Latham provoked the states to protest to UK on the spurious grounds of Canberra’s intrusion into their matters. Then James Scullin’s Labor government fell, and though Robert Menzies proposed adopting Westminster in 1935 and 1936, it wasn’t established until 1942 under John Curtin, largely to facilitate the trans-shipment of war material, there being no public pressure nor motivation for politicians. The states didn’t sever from the UK until the 1986 Australia Act.

8. Gordon, Dominion Partnership in Imperial Defense, 1870-1914 (25 May 2023)

by kurto

Traces efforts to establish an imperial defense strategy encompassing Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the Cape Colony in the years leading to World War I. The burden fell on Britain’s naval leaders, as the sea is not divisible, and while Churchill and Haldane made late efforts to establish political consensus, the matter was never solved: the British ultimately withdrew so as to defend the North Sea against Germany.
From 1850, Lord Grey championed relieving the British taxpayer, who shouldered 90 percent of defense costs. The Mills committee of 1862 commenced a decade-long withdrawal of military (army) postings to the dominions, paradoxically making imperialism a safe political cause. Britain thought the maturing colonies should progress from self-sufficiency to enlightened interest in the empire but the colonials wrangled over autonomy and the size of naval-subsidy payments to London. 1878’s Russian war scare carried the debate to more comprehensive review of imperial defense; in the following decade, the colonies were asked to participate in London’s councils.
Whether the empire ought to be a zollverein or kriegsverein remained unanswered: imperial federation were dead by the turn of the century, and as political imperialism waned, the Colonial Office’s Colonial Defense Committee (which morphed into the Committee for Imperial Defense) made the running. Yet the dominions were ‘patriotically’ responsive to the Boer War demands. Though the 1902 Colonial Conference produced no real advances in defense doctrine. Fisher’s appointment to the Admiralty and the initiation of two parliamentary committees in fact brought technical matters to a new phase. In this decade, the Canadians were pleased to acquire and staff two bases; the Aussies basked in the visit of America’s White Fleet, proof of a second partner against Japan.
The dreadnought crisis of 1909 opened the way to Canadian- and Australian-controlled navies, since Britain needed to husband cash to stave off the German buildup. Aussies welcomed Deakin’s efforts, while the Canadians contested Laurier’s for it cut across Anglo-French rivalries. (The New Zealanders, neither worried about the United States nor evidencing latent distrust of Irish immigrants, were typically content to sit close by the UK.) Thought the navy’s ‘blue water’ doctrine masked the degree to which the UK was retreating, the metropole knew the fight would be in Europe.

13. Reason, Victorious Lions (13 Jun 2020)

by kurto

            A tart, triumphant account of the 1971 British Isles tour of New Zealand: the Lions posted an unbeaten provincial record and 2-1-1 test series win. Carwyn James’ insightful coaching, which converted author John Reason to the innovation, encouraged running via counterattack and made better use of personnel than New Zealand’s old-style committee system. Though mainly narrative, Reason focuses on violence and refereeing standards. As in 1966, the Canterbury match was marred by fighting; forward Sandy Carmichael’s fractured cheekbone forced him to leave the tour. Hawke’s Bay also was violent. Selections condone thuggery, Reason thunders, although he seems contradictory on whether crowd contribute (p107) or want it stopped (p171). Televising matches in the UK reduces foul play, he suggests. Regarding playing style, the New Zealanders overemphasize rucking while training unopposed slights defense. The Lions warmed up with ball in hand, and tight fives were chosen on the basis of contributing to open-field play (i.e., handling). In an era when the ball was in play and continuity were much lower, the NZ referees are berated for allowing foot up, crooked feeds, and forwards offside at scrummage as well as being inalert to quick throw-ins; also Kiwi players were allowed to berate refs. Ultimately he concludes refs watch tourists more closely and calls for international referee exchanges. The Lions’ best game was Wellington; after Auckland the tourists chose their strongest side to nail down the series win. JPR Williams’ drop goal famously put the game four out of reach. Williams, Barry John, Gareth Edwards, and Mervyn Davies (important to denying lineout ball to Colin Meads and controversially recalled Brian Lohore) are the heroes.