The Progress Industries

Belich has labelled the waves of migration that occurred in 1840's and 1870's as explosive.

In class, we mentioned the status of the different types of migrant. Planned settlers were those brought over in planned schemes... The NZ Company in the 1840's and the Vogel migrants in the 1870's immediately spring to mind. They were a deliberate attempt to create communities with working social systems, hence the desire for families and later single women to balance out the ratios.

Amongst these groups there were also those who paid for their passage (voyage) and were allocated cabins and better accommodation on board ship. They were also allowed to bring more luggage and were given better meals during the trip. The ships carried a lot of livestock usually sheep, pigs, poultry and sometimes cows which provided a steady stream of fresh meat, eggs and milk. Others, were Assisted passengers whose passage was paid for. They had limited allocation of luggage and existed in the Hold of the ship crammed in with little or no privacy. Their food was also limited being mainly preserved meats and biscuit (Ships bread).

The migrants who arrived sought land and the possibility of improving their station in life (their class). Initially economic growth was limited by a lack of available land especially around the NZ . Co. sites of Wellington, Nelson, Wanganui and New Plymouth. Auckland had fewer limitations while Christchurch and Dunedin established in 1848/50 had easier access to land.

Wellington and Nelson began to develop after the Hutt Valley war when the Ngati Toa stranglehold was broken. Wanganui had to wait for the end of the 1860's and the suppression of Titokowaru before they could buy land from Maori willing to sell or use the Land Court to acquire it from Maori who did not.

Economic expansion took place as the population grew. Farming initially was at a subsistence level until enough land could be broken in to create a surplus capable of being sold in local towns and cities. Tecnological advances would increase production and the development of the interior beyond the hinterland saw export industries develop beyond the timber, flax etc model.

Extensive sheep farming did not support large numbers of Yoemen farmers, but Dairying did. Sheep helped opened up the South Island and Milk Cows and farming Co-ops opened up the North Island.

Elsewhere Unplanned Immigration took place principally around Auckland where the presence of the Government meant a building boom in the 1840's. The discovery of Gold in 1860 saw a huge explosion (Belich) in immigration with tens of thousands of miners heading for the various gold fields, of Otago, the West Coast and later Thames.

Surprisingly it is Auckland an unplanned site which achieves the best growth in the first few decades of the settlement. This is primarily on the back of a boom in building due to the presence of the government and later its role as port (with two harbours) for the import and export of goods made it attractive to settlers looking for work. Readily available land also made it more attractive than the southern townships which were facing Maori opposition to settler expansion. In the 1860's the steady build up of the military to fight the King also turned Auckland into a 'little Sydney'.

Some of the first unplanned migrants had in fact been Australian Squatters who fled the drought stricken Australian grasslands for the south island. Their numbers were rapidly overtaken by the Planned settlers in Christchurch and Dunedin who also saw the potential for Sheep farming on a grand scale. Through various rorts most of the South Islands best land had been taken over by 1890.

Economic development relied on a growing population to create the local markets, provide the initiative and funding for further development and the labour to work on the newly acquired land.

NEW 2011 (taken from a Belich speech)

Progressive colonisation, my first era, was characterised by immensely fast growth. New Zealand grew, in terms of pakeha, from 2000 settlers in 1840 to half a million people by the early 1880s, in 42 years. The economic centrepiece of the progressive colonising system was something I call the progress industries. Basically, they were massive, assisted immigration schemes, frenetic public and private development of transport infrastructure, and so on. An example of the kind of leading archetype is the Vogelian rail building boom that ran at five times the rate of any other rail building in New Zealand history.

The whole thing was funded by British credit. This was extracted from London to the extent of 71 million pounds between 1840 and 1886 by New Zealand entrepreneurs who didn't ask politely, but rather whistled south Britain's spare millions, like a pack of Pied Pipers. For 71 million, of course, you should read billion in terms of contemporary social impact.

The progress industry had a number of allied extractive industries: flax, timber and most notably gold. But despite substantial gold and wool exports the New Zealand economy under progressive colonisation was a net importer of both goods and capital. Progressive colonial New Zealand was town and camp led. Settlement was led by towns and camps, not by farms. The notion that it was farm led is a retrospective myth supplied by the succeeding era, each generation writing its own history.

Progressive colonial pakeha had all the ethics of a calicivirus in their attitudes to both nature and natives. They mowed through thousand-year forests like grass; they burned hills into sheep walks where sheep could barely stagger; and they impacted massively on the indigenous Maori people who, despite a remarkable resilience and a remarkably effective resistance, were eventually marginalised.