Abstract
Economic growth in nineteenth century New Zealand involved the exploitation of the natural resources of land, forests, and minerals and their transformation into sources of productive output. To encourage such use and growth, the Legislature formulated instrumentalist policies intended to allow ease of access to those resources and permit their conversion into wealth and private property.
Competition for the resources of land, forests and minerals was inevitable, while the differing requirements and use made of them by the various groups of resource users generated conflicts and led to controversies over ownership; control, and the most productive use to which those resources might be put. Since those resources were vested in and remained the property, of the Crown during their exploitation (apart that is from some lands) the Legislature found itself compelled not only to promote their use but also to balance and reconcile opposing needs and demands and, eventually, to endeavour to promote their efficient and careful use.
The conflicts in Otago centred on four major issues: ease of access to land for prospecting and mining purposes on the one hand and, on the other, the protection of property rights and interests; the use of natural watercourses for the discharge of tailings, foul water, and other mining debris against their use by settlers for farm and domestic purposes and the insistence of the latter upon the protection of riparian and low-lying agricultural lands; the exploitation of the mineral wealth or the preservation of the agricultural value of selected lands; and the priority to be accorded and the conditions attached to the use of water by the mining and farming industries.
The policies devised and adopted varied considerably, those in respect of land effecting a reasonable balance between the needs and demands of the two competing industries while those in respect of water allowed a controlled transfer of the resource from one to the other and led progressively to the establishment of the legal basis for centralised control and administration of water and thus for its efficient use. With respect to the conflicts over riparian rights, however, the policies adopted were intended rather to resolve the legal difficulties involved in the use of watercourses for mining purposes irrespective of the environmental, resource and social costs.
Similarly, with respect to the preservation of agricultural land, the Legislature remained committed to the promotion of the mining industry.
Increasingly, the necessity to reconcile and balance competing demands and requirements of the various groups of resource users implied a growing and important change in the role of the Legislature and the State in economic growth and in the character of resource policy and management.