New Zealand's trade with the Pacific islands, 1870-1900

Abstract

The hopes and dreams of those who wished to see New Zealand as the political and commercial headquarters of an island empire in the South Pacific saw the first practical attempt made in this direction in the year 1847. Although constitutionally unable to further such aims, Governor Sir George Grey already envisaged, in 1847, a Pacific peopled by the British and governed from New Zealand. Convinced of the genuineness of Tongan and Fijian appeals to be taken inside British protection, Grey recommended the annexation of the islands by Great Britain. But the British Government remained unmoved by Grey's arguments that the islands would afford a valuable defence for New Zealand and Australia in time of war, that the natives could augment the military resources of the Empire and that their wealth would soon make them self-supporting.

The year 1847 also saw the founding by Bishop Selwyn of the Melanesian Mission. New Zealand thus became the base for the missionary outreach to the islands. of Melanesia. The welfare of the native inhabitants, both spiritual and material, became the responsibility of the Anglican Church of New Zealand. This inevitably meant a growing concern over the labour traffic in the islands culminating in the public outcry after the murder of Bishop Patteson in 1871. The genuineness of much of the agitation at the time for the securing of a central point among the Pacific Islands, for the suppression of this traffic cannot be doubted. But it is true that this tragic event was used as fresh evidence in favour of the annexation of islands by the embryo colonial imperialists in the New Zealand of the 1870's. […]

The purpose of this examination of New Zealand's trade with the Pacific islands in 1870 and 1900 is to demonstrate that Vogel's hopes for the establishment of a trading company had no justification in fact. This is not a case of the investigator attempting to demonstrate his wisdom after gaining access to now available relevant facts and figures. Sufficient information was available to Vogel at the time to prove the impracticability of his scheme. One must accept the verdict that Vogel's trading company scheme was to be a means to an end- the end being the realisation of Vogel's dream of New Zealand as the new Britain of the South, the headquarters of a Polynesian Empire. [Extract from Introduction]