THE DREAMS OF GIBBON WAKEFIELD
Twin are the gates of sleep: through that of Horn,
Swift shadows winged, the shapes of truth are borne.
Fair wrought the Ivory gate gleams white anigh,
But false the dreams dark gods despatch thereby.
The founder of the Colony now comes on the scene. It was time he came.
The Islands were neither to fall into the hands of the French nor
remain the happy hunting-ground of promiscuous adventurers. But the
fate which ordained that Edward Gibbon Wakefield should save them from
these alternatives interposed in the way of the great colonizer
a series of difficulties from which any mind less untiring and
resourceful than his must have recoiled. The hour had come and the
man. Yet few bystanders could have thought either the hour propitious
or the man promising. The word colony was not in favour when William
the Fourth came to the throne. It was associated with memories of
defeat and humiliation in America, and with discontent and mutterings
of rebellion in Canada. Australia was scarcely more than an expensive
convict station. Against the West Indian planters the crusade of
Wilberforce was in full progress, and the very name of "plantation"
had an evil savour. South Africa promised little but the plentiful
race troubles, which indeed came. The timid apathy of the Colonial
Office was no more than the reflex of the dead indifference of the
nation. None but a man of genius could have breathed life into it.
Fortunately the genius appeared.
Though the name of Gibbon Wakefield will probably be remembered as
long as the history of Australia and New Zealand is read, the man
himself was, during most of his active career, under a cloud. The
abduction of an heiress--a mad freak for which he paid by imprisonment
and disgrace--deprived him of the hope of ordinary public distinction.
For many years he had to work masked--had to pour forth his views
in anonymous tracts and letters, had to make pawns of dull men
with respectable names. This and more he learned to do. He found
information and ideas for personages who had neither, and became an
adept at pulling strings and manipulating mediocrities. All things to
all men, plausible to the old, magnetic to the young, persuasive among
the intellectual, impressive to the weak-minded, Gibbon Wakefield was
always more than the mere clever, selfish schemer which many thought
him. Just as his fresh face and bluff British manner concealed the
subtle mind ever spinning webs and weaving plans, so, behind and above
all his plots and dodging, was the high dream and ideal to which
he was faithful, and which redeemed his life. He saw, and made the
commonplace people about him see, that colonization was a national
work worthy of system, attention, and the best energies of England.
The empty territories of the Empire were no longer to be treated only
as gaols for convicts, fields for negro slavery, or even as asylums
for the persecuted or refuges for the bankrupt and the social failures
of the Mother Country. To Wakefield the word "colony" conveyed
something more than a back yard into which slovenly Britain could
throw human rubbish, careless of its fate so long as it might be out
of sight.
His advocacy revived "Ships, Colonies, Commerce!" as England's
motto. But for colonies to be worthy, they must be, not fortuitous
congregations of outcasts, but orderly bands of representative British
citizens, going forth into the wilderness with some consciousness of
a high mission. From the outset his colonies were to be civilized
communities where men of culture and intellect need not find
themselves companionless exiles. Capital and labour, education and
religion, were all to work together as in the Mother Country, but
amid easier, happier surroundings. For Wakefield conceived of his
settlements not as soulless commercial outposts, but as free,
self-governing communities.
How was all this to be brought about? Whence was the money to come?
Whence the organizing power? At that point came in Wakefield's
conception of the sale of waste lands at a "sufficient price." He saw
the immense latent value of the fertile deserts of the Empire. He
grasped the full meaning of the truth that the arrival of a population
with money and industry instantly gives good land a value. His
discernment showed him the absurdity of giving colonial lands away
in indefinite areas to the first chance grabbers, and the mistake of
supposing that wage labour would not be required in young countries.
His theory, therefore, was that colonizing associations should be
formed in England--not primarily to make money; that these bodies
should hold tracts of land in the colonies as capital; that the
sale of these lands at a "sufficient price" to intending colonists,
selected for character and fitness, should provide the funds for
transporting the colony across the earth, for establishing it in
working order on its land, and for recruiting it with free labour.
The numerous _ex post facto_ assailants of Wakefield's theory usually
assume that he wished to keep labour divorced from the soil and in a
state of permanent political and industrial inferiority. That is sheer
nonsense. There are few more odd examples of the irony of fate in
colonial history than that the man who warred against the convict
system, fought the battle of colonial self-government, was ever the
enemy of the land-shark and monopolist, who denounced low wages, and
whose dream it was that the thrifty, well-paid colonial labourer could
and should develop into the prospering farmer, should be railed at in
the Colonies as the enemy of the labourer. The faults of Wakefield's
"sufficient price" theory were indeed grave enough. But compare them
with the lasting mischief wrought in New Zealand by Grey's unguarded
scheme of cheap land for everybody, and they weigh light in the
balance. Later on I shall return to Wakefield's system and its
defects. Here I have but to say that, as a temporary expedient for
overcoming at that time the initial difficulties of a colony, it ought
not to be hastily condemned. It has long ago been abandoned after
working both good and evil, and in the same way the schemes of Church
Settlement Wakefield made use of are now but interesting chapters of
colonial history. But we must not forget that these things were but
some of the dreams of Gibbon Wakefield. At the most he regarded them
as means to an end. His great dream of lifting colonization out of
disrepute, and of founding colonies which should be daughter-states
worthy of their great mother, has been no false or fleeting vision.
That dream, at any rate, came to him through the Gate of Horn and not
through the Ivory Gate.
By Wakefield it was that the Colonial Office was forced to annex New
Zealand. In the face of the causes making for annexation sketched in
the last chapter, the officials hung back to the last. In 1837 a body
of persons appeared on the scene, and opened siege before Downing
Street, whom even permanent officials could not ignore. They were
composed of men of good standing, in some cases of rank and even
personal distinction. They were not traders, but colonizers, and as
such could not be ignored, for their objects were legitimate and their
hands as clean as those of the missionaries. They first formed, in
1837, a body called "The New Zealand Association." At their head was
Mr. Francis Baring. Their more prominent members included John Lambton
Earl of Durham, Lord Petre, Mr. Charles Enderby, Mr. William Hutt, Mr.
Campbell of Islay, Mr. Ferguson of Raith, Sir George Sinclair, and Sir
William Molesworth. The Earl of Durham was an aristocratic Radical
of irregular temper, who played a great part in another colonial
theatre--Canada. Sir William Molesworth did much to aid the agitation
which put an end to the transportation of convicts to Australia. For
the rest, the Association thought the thoughts, spoke the words,
and made the moves of Gibbon Wakefield. Yet though he pervaded it
sleeplessly, its life was but an episode in his career. He fought
against the convict system with Molesworth and Rentoul of the
_Spectator_. He went to Canada as Lord Durham's secretary and adviser.
He was actively concerned in the foundation of South Australia, where
his system of high prices for land helped to bring about one of the
maddest little land "booms" in colonial history. And as these things
were not enough to occupy that daring, original, and indefatigable
spirit, he threw himself into the colonization of New Zealand. He and
his brother, Colonel Wakefield, became the brain and hand of the New
Zealand colonizers.
For years they battled against their persistent opponents the Church
Missionary Society and the officials of the Colonial Office. The
former, who hit very hard at them in controversy, managed Lord
Glenelg, then Colonial Secretary; the latter turned Minister after
Minister from friends of the colonizers into enemies. Thus Lord
Melbourne and Lord Howick had to change face in a fashion well-nigh
ludicrous. The Government offered the Association a charter provided
it would become a joint-stock company. Baring and his friends refused
this on the ground that they did not want any money-making element to
come into their body. Moreover, in those days joint-stock companies
were concerns with unlimited liability. The Association tried to get
a bill of constitution through Parliament and failed. Mr. Gladstone
spoke against it, and expressed the gloomiest apprehensions of the
fate which the Maoris must expect if their country were settled. New
Zealand, be it observed, was already a well-known name in Parliament.
The age of committees of inquiry into its affairs began in 1836. Very
interesting to us to-day is the evidence of the witnesses before the
committee of that year; nor are the proceedings of those of 1838,
1840, and 1844, less interesting. In the third of the four Gibbon
Wakefield, under examination, tells the story of the New Zealand
Association. In 1839 it became the New Zealand Land Company. Baffled
in Parliament, as already described, the colonizers changed their
ground, decided to propitiate the powers, and become a joint-stock
company. Having done so, and subscribed a capital of £100,000,
they tried to enlist the sympathies of Lord Normanby, who had just
succeeded Lord Glenelg at the Colonial Office. They found the new-made
Secretary of State very affable indeed, and departed rejoicing.
But, like many new-made ministers, Lord Normanby had spoken without
reckoning with his permanent officials. A freezing official letter,
following swiftly on the pleasant interview, dashed the hopes of
the Company. They were getting desperate. Lord Palmerston had, in
November, 1838, promised them to send a consul to New Zealand to
supersede poor Mr. Busby, but the permanent officials thwarted him,
and nothing was done for eight months. At last, in May, 1839, Gibbon
Wakefield crossed the Rubicon. As the Government persisted in treating
New Zealand as a foreign country, let the Company do the same, and
establish settlements there as in a foreign land! Since repeated
efforts to obtain the help and sanction of the English Government had
failed, let them go on unauthorized. Secretly, therefore, the ship
_Tory_, bearing Colonel Wakefield, as Agent for the Company, was
despatched in May to Cook's Straits to buy tracts of land for the
Company. He was given a free hand as to locality, though Port
Nicholson was hinted at as the likeliest port. With him went Gibbon
Wakefield's son, Jerningham Wakefield, whose book, _Adventures in New
Zealand_, is the best account we New Zealanders have of the every-day
incidents of the founding of our colony.
Arriving in August among the whalers then settled in Queen Charlotte's
Sound, Colonel Wakefield enlisted Dicky Barrett's services, and,
passing on to Port Nicholson, entered into a series of negotiations
with the Maori chiefs, which led to extensive land purchases.
Ultimately Colonel Wakefield claimed that he had bought twenty
millions of acres--nearly the whole of what are now the provincial
districts of Wellington and Taranaki, and a large slice of Nelson.
It is quite probable that he believed he had. It is certain that the
Maoris, for their part, never had the least notion of selling the
greater portion of this immense area. It is equally probable that such
chiefs as Rauparaha and Rangihaeata, who were parties to the bargain,
knew that Wakefield thought he was buying the country. Fifty-eight
chiefs in all signed the deeds of sale. Even if they understood what
they were doing, they had no right, under the Maori law and custom,
thus to alienate the heritage of their tribes. Had Colonel Wakefield's
alleged purchases been upheld the Company would have acquired
nine-tenths of the lands of no less than ten well-known tribes. The
price paid for this was goods valued at something less than £9,000.
The list of articles handed over at the Wakefield purchases is
remarkable enough to be worth quoting:--
300 red blankets.
200 muskets.
16 single-barrelled guns.
8 double-barrelled guns.
2 tierces tobacco.
15 cwt. tobacco.
148 iron pots.
6 cases soap.
15 fowling pieces.
81 kegs gunpowder.
2 casks ball cartridges.
4 kegs lead slates.
200 cartouche boxes.
60 tomahawks.
2 cases pipes.
10 gross pipes.
72 spades.
100 steel axes.
20 axes.
46 adzes.
3,200 fish-hooks.
24 bullet moulds.
1,500 flints.
276 shirts.
92 jackets.
92 trousers.
60 red nightcaps.
300 yards cotton duck.
200 yards calico.
300 yards check.
200 yards print.
480 pocket-handkerchiefs.
72 writing slates.
600 pencils.
204 looking glasses.
276 pocket knives.
204 pairs scissors.
12 pairs shoes.
12 hats.
6 lbs. beads.
12 hair umbrellas.
100 yards ribbons.
144 Jews' harps.
36 razors.
180 dressing combs.
72 hoes.
2 suits superfine clothes.
36 shaving boxes.
12 shaving brushes.
12 sticks sealing wax.
11 quires cartridge paper.
12 flushing coats.
24 combs.
The purchasing took three months. While it was going on Henry Williams
and other missionaries urged the chiefs not to sell. But with the
goods spread out before them--especially the muskets--the chiefs were
not to be stopped. The Wakefields justified the transactions on the
ground that population would rapidly make the ten per cent. of the
country reserved for the natives more valuable than the whole. Gibbon
Wakefield talked airily to the parliamentary committee next year of a
value of 30s. an acre, which, on a reserve of two million acres, would
mean three million sterling for the Maoris! Nothing can justify the
magnitude of Colonel Wakefield's claims, or the payment of fire-arms
for the land. But at the bottom of the mischief was the attempt of
the missionaries and officials at home to act as though a handful of
savages--not then more, I believe, than 65,000 in all, and rapidly
dwindling in numbers--could be allowed to keep a fertile and healthy
Archipelago larger than Great Britain. The haste, the secrecy,
the sharp practice, of the New Zealand Company were forced on the
Wakefields by the mulish obstinacy of careless or irrational people.
Their land-purchasing might have taken place legally, leisurely,
and under proper Government supervision, had missionaries been
business-like, had Downing-Street officials known what colonizing
meant, and had Lord Glenelg been fitted to be anything much more
important than an irreproachable churchwarden.
Meanwhile the Company had been advertising, writing, canvassing, and
button-holing in England, had kept a newspaper on foot, and was able
to point to powerful friends in Parliament and in London mercantile
circles. By giving scrip supposed to represent plots and farms in its
New Zealand territory, it secured numbers of settlers, many of whom
were men of worth, education, and ability. The character of the
settlers which it then and afterwards gave New Zealand may well be
held to cover a multitude of the Company's sins. Towards the end of
1839 its preparations were complete, and, without even waiting to hear
how Colonel Wakefield had fared, the first batch of its settlers were
shipped to Port Nicholson. They landed there on January 22nd, 1840,
and that is the date of the true foundation of the colony. But for
some weeks after that New Zealand remained a foreign country. Not for
longer, however. In June, 1839, the Colonial Office had at length
given way. What between the active horde of land-sharks in New Zealand
itself--what between the menace of French interference, and the
pressure at home of the New Zealand Company, the official mind could
hold out no longer. Captain Hobson, of the Royal Navy, was directed
to go to the Bay of Islands, and was armed with a dormant commission
authorizing him, after annexing all or part of New Zealand, to govern
it in the name of Her Majesty. In Sydney a royal proclamation was
issued under which New Zealand was included within the political
boundary of the colony of New South Wales. Captain Hobson was to act
as Lieutenant-Governor, with the Governor of New South Wales as his
superior officer. On January 29th, 1840, therefore, he stepped on
shore at Kororáreka, and was loyally received by the Alsatians. The
history of New Zealand as a portion of the British Empire now begins.
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