New Zealand, a British colony in the South Pacific Ocean, comprises three main islands—named the North Island, the South or Middle Island, and Stewart Island, the last being much the smallest—besides a number of islets near the coast. The North and South Islands are long and narrow, so that no place is more than 75 miles from the coast. Their position relative to Australia is much the same as that of Turkey to England, as they lie 1200 miles more to the east and stretch 600 miles farther south. The main islands have a length of 1100 miles, and lie between and S. lat. and and E. long. Projected on the map of Europe, these latitudes would begin in central France and end in the north of Africa. The total area of the colony is 106,240 sq. m., or about one-eighth less than that of Great Britain and Ireland. Cook Strait, a deep and somewhat stormy passage of 13 miles at the narrowest part, separates the North and South Islands. Foveaux Strait, about 15 miles in width, divides the South Island from Stewart Island.
Coast Features.—In its northern half the North Island is deeply indented by the sea, and contains many excellent harbours; the southern half has but one harbour, that of Wellington or Port Nicholson in the south-west corner. The coast of the South
Island is little broken except in the north-east and south-west corners, where the country is mountainous; but the volcanic projections of Banks and Otago peninsulas supply commodious harbours, which have been greatly improved by moles and dredging. The ports carrying on the great import and export trade of the colony are Auckland, Napier, and Wellington in the North Island, and Lyttelton, Dunedin (Port Chalmers), and Bluff Harbour in the South Island. Coasting steamers call at numerous minor ports, the chief being, in the North Island, the Bay of Islands, Tauranga, Gisborne, Foxton, Wanganui, New Plymouth, Manukau, and Kaipara; and in the South Island, Nelson, Picton, Akaroa, Timaru, Oamaru, Hokitika, Greymouth, and Westport. The harbours of Timaru and Oamaru consist of spacious basins enclosed by massive concrete moles. Those at Greymouth and Westport have been constructed at great expense at the mouths of the rivers Grey and Buller to facilitate the shipping of the excellent coal found in vast quantities in the neighbouring hills. Large sums have been spent in improving the harbours of the colony.
Surface.—New Zealand is composed of rocks of all geological ages, and the chief mountain-chains are of great antiquity. A third of the North Island is covered by recent volcanic rocks and their debris. Both islands are mountainous, but this is especially true of the South Island. Each is traversed by a great mountain-chain running in a north-east and south-west direction, which practically divides them into an eastern and a western side, between which traffic is mainly carried on by sea. In the North Island the east and west sides are connected by two railways, one of them passing through the beautiful Manawatu Gorge, and also by a coach-road passing over the ranges west of Hawke Bay. Resting on the main chain of the North Island on its west side lies a vast triangular plateau, the eastern border of which constitutes the volcanic belt of New Zealand. On this stand up two extinct volcanoes—the majestic cone of Mount Egmont, near the west coast, and the massive Ruapehu (9195 feet) in the centre, with the active cone of Tongariro hard by. The latter still gives off steam and smoke, but has not ejected lava in historic times. In this plateau the chief rivers of the North Island take their rise. The Waikato, the largest and longest, passes through the beautiful Lake Taupo, and at length flows out on the west coast. A few of the rivers are navigable for small vessels in their lower course. The North Island contains many extensive plains of low elevation and remarkable fertility, besides large areas of fern-clad or grassy hills well fitted for occupation. The favourable climate renders even the upland plateaus capable of close settlement. The better lands of the South Island are now mostly taken up, though far from closely settled, but in the North Island there remain vast tracts of excellent land waiting to be cleared and occupied. Much of it belongs to the natives, who are no longer reluctant to sell their lands at a fair price. Two-thirds of the South Island is covered by the broad and lofty chain of the Southern Alps, and its eastern and southern offshoots. It culminates in Mount Cook, towering to a height of 12,349 feet amid many other snow-clad peaks, and mantled by glaciers of greater magnitude than any in the Alps of Europe. This elevated region is penetrated by the great valleys of the numerous rivers flowing away to the east and south. These have all a rapid fall, are liable to sudden floods, and being snow-fed have a much larger volume in summer than in winter. Their valleys sometimes open out into extensive upland plains having a hot, dry summer, and a sharp but bright winter. The principal rivers are the Buller, Waimakariri, Waitaki, Clutha, and Waiaua. The chief lowlands of the South Island lie to the east and south of the main chain. The vast Canterbury plains, in many parts of great fertility, skirt the east coast, and the Southlands plain, equally extensive, lies between the mountains of Otago and the south coast. Much of the east and south-east seaboard and interior is occupied by fertile downs and low hills. The west coast consists of a narrow belt of low land clothed with impenetrable forest, save where miners and farming settlers have made clearings, and where the broad river-beds come down to the sea. A coach-road passes over the main chain at a height of 3000 feet, connecting Canterbury and Westland, and a railway was in 1890 in course of construction along the same picturesque but difficult route. In the North Island much of the finest land is covered by forests of tropical luxuriance, which ascend the mountains to a height of 4000 feet, but the greater part of the South Island is very scantily supplied with timber, and mountains and lowlands alike are open and well grassed, yielding good pasture even in their natural condition. The great peninsula north of Mannkau Harbour differs from the rest of New Zealand in enjoying a humid semi-tropical climate. Much of this region is admirably fitted for cottage husbandry, and the fruits of the warmer latitudes grow in great abundance and perfection. Settlers can here live like the peasantry of Spain and Italy, growing flowers for perfumes, maize, figs, olives, grapes, oranges, lemons, mulberries, and other tender fruits. This district is the home of the noble kauri pine, and supplies most of the kauri gum brought to the market. The numerous inlets and the large Wairoa River give ready access to the best of the land.
Climate.—The climate of New Zealand is one of the best and healthiest in the world. The rate of mortality has been decreasing for a number of years, and is now as low as 9.04 per thousand. Diseases from malaria are unknown. Owing to the great length of the islands the climate presents considerable variety, and the direction of the mountain-chains increases the difference due to latitude alone. The average temperature is remarkably equable at all seasons, and the air is singularly fresh, being constantly agitated by winds that blow over a boundless expanse of ocean. The climate is such as Italy would have if it were 1000 miles from the nearest continent. The average daily range of temperature is 20°. The average annual temperature of the North Island is 7°, and of the South Island 4°, higher than that of London. Near the western seaboard the climate is more equable and much moister than on the long eastern and northern slopes. More rain falls than in England, and the weather is generally more changeable, but there are fewer wet days. The country is everywhere well watered, and prolonged droughts are unknown. Snow seldom falls even in the southern lowlands, and it usually melts in a day. The mildness of the winter allows cattle and horses to remain in the fields without shelter, and even in the south dairy cows are housed at night only for a few months. The prevailing winds blow from the south-west and are often chilly and boisterous. Other winds are light, with fine weather; but fierce gales are often experienced near Cook Strait and along the eastern edge of the plateau-like offshoots of the Southern Alps.
Scenery.—For variety, picturesqueness, and wild grandeur, the scenery of New Zealand is unrivalled in the southern hemisphere, and the colony is rapidly becoming to Australia and the far East what Switzerland is to Europe. In the North Island is the wonderland of the volcanic belt, remarkable for its hot lakes and pools, which possess great curative virtue for all rheumatic and skin diseases, its boiling geyser, steaming fumaroles, sulphur-basins, and pumice plains. These and other interesting phenomena are scattered broadcast over a wide belt, stretching from the extinct Ruapehu to the active volcano of White Island in the Bay of Plenty. The exquisite siliceous terraces of Rotomahana, once the cynosure of the island, are now buried beneath the debris of Mount Tarawera, shattered to dust by the gigantic steam explosion of June 1886. This region shows better perhaps than any other quarter of the globe the senile and expiring efforts of a prolonged cycle of volcanic activity, and every part of it can be explored without hardship and in perfect security. A well-appointed sanatorium is carried on at Rotorua by the government for the healing of the people of the Australian colonies, and is much frequented. Earth tremors and slight earthquakes are not uncommon in the neighbourhood of Cook Strait, but they have done less harm since the colony was settled than earthquakes have done in England during the same period. In the South Island the Central Alps of the Mount Cook district display to the visitor the grandest glaciers in the temperate zones, splendid clusters of snowy mountain-peaks, and stupendous valleys set off by a series of placid yellow-tinted lakes. Farther south the Otago lakes—Wanaka, Wakatipu, Te Anau, and Mani-pori, embosomed in mountains 5000 to 8000 feet high—present some of the finest lake and mountain scenery in the world, and prove an unfailing source of delight to sightseers from every land. The south-west coast of Otago is pierced by a series of deep and tranquil sounds of exquisite beauty, charming the beholder now with their picturesque variety, and anon with their precipitous grandeur and impressive quietness and gloom. Milford Sound, near which are the famous Sutherland Falls, 1904 feet in height, is justly reckoned one of the finest sights the world has to show.
Fauna and Flora.—New Zealand is a group of true oceanic islands, having been severed from all adjoining lands for countless ages. Originally it contained no mammals except two species of bat. The next highest animals were a few small and harmless lizards, the largest being the remarkable 'tuatara,' famous for its median pineal eye hidden under the skin of the head. Among the birds are several parrots, one of which—the mountain Kea (q.v.)—has recently acquired the habit of killing sheep by pecking the flesh of the loins, and several wingless kiwis (see APTERYX), the puny surviving relatives of the gigantic Moas (q.v.), now extinct, but in former times the lords of creation in these islands. The Maoris brought dogs with them, and doubtless the native rat also. Cook gave them pigs, whose wild descendants are still common enough in spots remote from settlement. The colonists introduced the common domesticated animals of Europe, which all thrive to perfection. Many kinds of English birds, and also black swans from Australia have been established in the country, and they are now numerous, and in some cases very troublesome. Most unfortunately rabbits also have been acclimatised, and they swarm in such numbers as to be a serious pest, which it costs more than £100,000 a year to keep in check. Fresh-water fishes of many kinds have been introduced with great success, but salmon have proved hard to establish. The honey and humble bees multiply to an extraordinary degree. In fact, acclimatisation experiments have proved only too successful, and the colony would gladly pay a million or more to be rid of rabbits, sparrows, and linnets alone. Nearly all the native trees and shrubs are ever- green. The most important plants are the timber-trees. The best pine is the kauri, but rimu, matai, and totara are also of great economic value. Many other forest trees—beeches, ratas, puriri, kowhai, &c.—yield excellent timber. The Phormium or native flax thrives best in wet ground, and grows wild in great profusion. The smaller native grasses yield excellent pasture, and the tall 'toi-toi' and Danthonia surpass the well-known pampas grass in elegance of form. Ferns of many kinds greatly abound, including numerous tree-ferns. The fruit and other trees of temperate zones thrive admirably, and a great variety has been already introduced. European grasses and trefoils spread with great rapidity, and so do weeds of every kind, especially sweetbriar, gorse, thistles, cat's-ear, sorrel, and docks. Most of these plants grow with a luxuriance unknown in England. Many garden flowers have also run wild.
Soil and Productions.—The deeper alluvial soils and the extensive tracts of limestone formation are both extremely fertile. Considerable tracts of the Canterbury and the inland plains are shallow and arid, and require irrigation, which is now extensively applied. The rest of the lowlands is clayey and heavier to work, but yields a good return for tillage or under pasture. The best lands of the North Island regularly carry 8 to 10 sheep per acre on the sown pastures alone. On good land wheat yields a return of 60 to 70 bushels an acre, and oats do still better. The average yield of cereals per acre is: wheat, 25 bushels; oats, 32 bushels; and barley, 27 bushels; while potatoes give 5½ tons; and this with the simplest farming, for manuring of any kind is little used. In 1889, to which year all the other statistics refer unless otherwise mentioned, the aggregate production of wheat and oats was 8,448,506 bushels and 13,673,584 bushels. The area ploughed and laid down in grass or crops was 4,414,199 acres, while 3½ million acres were sown with grass without ploughing, chiefly in the fern and forest lands of the North Island. The people are a farming people, and their chief employment is the raising of agricultural and pastoral produce. The volume of these productions may be judged from the present value of the exports, the entire home consumption of the articles exported being of course provided for in addition. Wool amounted to £3,976,375, the produce of 15½ million sheep. The home consumption was 3,556,004 lb. Cereals gave £975,983, wheat being £489,728 and oats £360,086. Including flour, meal, bran, &c., the whole export of grain produce was £1,248,866. This produce went chiefly to Australia, wheat alone going in quantity to London. Frozen, preserved, and salted meats were valued at £922,221, the frozen meat alone reaching £783,374. Nearly a million frozen sheep were shipped to England, and it is believed that the pastures will in a few years yield twice as large a supply. Notwithstanding this enormous drain on the flocks of the colony, they become every year finer and more numerous, since settlers find the rearing of sheep and cattle more remunerative and less toilsome than growing cereals, while the value of their produce is less affected by sudden fluctuations in prices. Kauri gum, chiefly shipped to America, was £329,590. Dairy produce exported reached a value of £213,945, the home consumption of these articles being also very large. The exports of butter and cheese have greatly increased in recent years. Phormium fibre was valued at £361,182, a total many times greater than the average yearly export of this article. See FLAX (NEW ZEALAND). Among miscellaneous exports are skins and hides, £276,393; timber, £199,293; tallow, £159,460; potatoes, £93,996; leather, £65,487; seeds, £45,239; bacon and hams, £31,156; hops, £15,965; onions, £12,963; oysters, £8745; fungus (for the Chinese market), £15,903.
Minerals.—The chief mineral product is gold, mainly derived from alluvial workings. The total export up to 1889 was 11,625,028 oz., and for that year 203,211 oz. For years this export has been declining in value, but recent developments of alluvial mining promise a considerable permanent increase. Silver, lead, copper, antimony, and manganese are produced in small quantities, and by crude processes. The coal raised in 1889 was 586,445 tons. The import of this mineral is less than a fifth of the home production, and comes chiefly as return cargo from New South Wales. The coal of the extensive fields near Greymouth and Westport is unsurpassed in quality for gas and steam purposes. Brown coal and lignite are mined in most parts of the colony, and afford supplies of cheap fuel. The other mineral resources are little developed, but the recent success in smelting the iron sand which abounds on the west coast of the North Island seems to prove the dawn of a great and permanent iron-working industry. The number of miners is about 23,000, or 4 per cent. of the population.
Manufactures.—The manufactures are entirely of articles largely consumed in the colony. They are stimulated by high protective duties, are rapidly growing, and afford employment to a large part of the population. The chief are woollen cloths, wools, hosiery, blankets, soap, candles, leather, biscuits and confectionery, boots and shoes, paper, machinery and implements, apparel, ropes and twine, beer, &c.
Trade.—The volume of foreign trade increases every year, and for several years the exports have exceeded the imports. The excess of exports over imports grew from £620,654 in 1887 to £3,042,168 in 1889. This implies that the colony is rapidly paying off old debts. In 1894 the total exports were £9,231,047; the total imports, £6,788,020. In 1899 the total exports were £11,938,335, and the total imports £8,739,633. Of the exports there went to Britain £9,200,000, to Australia £1,900,000, and to the United States £700,000. Of imports, £5,500,000 came from Britain, £1,300,000 from Australia, and £800,000 from America.
Finance, &c.—The consolidated revenue was £4,209,247, and the expenditure £4,121,842. The chief sources of revenue are customs duties (average 25 per cent. ad valorem), stamps, post-office, telegraph and railway profits, property-tax, and pastoral rents. The net public debt (March 1890) was £37,284,518, bearing an annual charge of £1,851,421. There were 1813 miles of railway, which cost nearly £15,000,000, and yielded a profit of £412,782, nearly 3 per cent. on the capital invested. The railways have proved an excellent investment. They and the telegraph lines belong to the state, though there are two private railways of considerable importance. The telegraph lines measure 11,827 miles, and a telephone service is provided in all the larger towns. Three submarine cables connect the North and South Islands, and two the colony and New South Wales, thus bringing New Zealand into telegraphic communication with the rest of the world. For the property-tax, property is valued at £220,000,000. In 1896, when the imports had a value of £7,137,320 and the exports of £9,321,105, the total revenue was £4,107,108 and the expenditure £4,370,481. In 1897 the revenue was £4,798,708 and the expenditure £4,509,981. In the same year the net debt (allowing for a sinking fund of £814,294) was £43,552,324.
Education.—Only some 9000 or 10,000 persons above ten years of age are unable to read and write. Elementary education is free, compulsory, and secular. A highly efficient education is given at the 1155 public schools, which are attended by 115,456 scholars, and maintained at a cost of £394,088 a year. There are also 72 schools for the natives (Maoris) alone, costing £16,000 a year. Higher schools for boys and for girls are numerous, and many of them have valuable endowments. These are attended by 2147 pupils, and cost £43,900 a year. There are three university colleges at Auckland, Christchurch, and Dunedin respectively, attended by 588 students. They are affiliated to the University of New Zealand, established by royal charter. It is only an examining body, and has granted 236 degrees in arts, science, medicine, law, and mining.
Settlement, &c.—More than 19 million acres have been already alienated by the crown. There were (December 1889) 37,432 freeholders of areas of 5 acres or more, of whom 35,548 held 1000 acres or less. About 400,000 acres have been taken up for settlement annually for some years. Rural lands may be acquired cheaply, and on most liberal terms. Selectors are restricted to 640 acres of first-class, and to 2000 acres of second-class land. Land is sold for cash mostly at auction, or taken up on deferred payment (the price being paid in equal instalments spread over 14 years), or on perpetual lease, the annual rent being 5 per cent. on the capital value, by paying which the freehold can be secured at any time. The last is much the most popular form of tenure. In 1889 the average price of cash lands was 19s. 6d. an acre, the average yearly instalment on deferred payment lands 1s. 9d., and the average rent on perpetual lease lands 10d.
Population.—In 1851 the white population was 26,707; (1861) 99,022; (1871) 256,260; (1881) 489,933; (1891) 626,830, besides 41,523 Maoris. More than half were born in the colony; 125,657 in England, 54,810 in Scotland, 51,408 in Ireland, and 1981 in Wales. Only 17,884 were of non-British descent. Nowhere out of England does so pure an Anglo-Saxon community exist. There are 4300 Chinese residents. Five-sixths of the people are Protestants. Anglicans predominate in Canterbury, and Presbyterians in Otago, and there are many Wesleyans.
Political Divisions, &c.—Up to 1876 the North Island was divided into four provinces: Auckland, Hawke Bay, Taranaki, and Wellington; and the South Island into five: Nelson, Marlborough, Canterbury, Westland, and Otago. These are now known as provincial districts, and, though subdivided into numerous counties, retain great geographical importance, as they mostly form distinct natural divisions of the country. Wellington is the capital and seat of government (pop. 30,000). Auckland is the largest city (pop. 50,000). The other chief towns are Napier, Wanganui, and New Plymouth in the North Island; and Nelson, Blenheim, Christchurch (40,000), Timaru, Oamaru, Dunedin (44,000), and Invercargill in the South Island. Stewart Island has a sparse population on the north-east coast, and several excellent harbours.
Maoris.—The Maoris, as the natives call themselves, belong to the Polynesian race. Tradition says they came to New Zealand twenty-seven generations ago from Hawaiki, an island of the Pacific not identified with any certainty; but the real date of their migration is quite unknown. They probably displaced or absorbed an earlier and darker indigenous race, and this mixture would explain the diversity of type still found among them. From the first they were brave, generous, and warlike. About as tall as Englishmen, they have strong muscular frames, with legs that are short for their stature. The head is well shaped, and, though the lips are generally thick, the features are not unpleasant, and are often handsome. The skin is