Population and industrial development grew markedly after the Second World War, an increasing proportion of the labour force being employed in the manufacturing industries, in building and construction, in transport, and in finance and distribution. It was apparent that if the existing standards of living were to be maintained industry would have to be further developed. Official announcements by successive Governments made it clear that the tariff was to be used to protect domestic industry. In framing the recommendations on which the 1962 tariff was based, the Board of Trade studied the need to safeguard avenues of employment for the increasing population. Thus the new tariff is designed to give reasonable protection to sound industries and to encourage the growth and diversification of the manufacturing industry in New Zealand.

When New Zealand's first tariff was introduced there was almost no manufacturing industry in the country. The tariff existed only to yield revenue and tariff policy was directed towards this end. Tariffs produced for revenue alone have, however, rarely been limited to this aim in their results. Some industries will inevitably take advantage of the incidental protective effects of a revenue tariff. Thus it was not long before some industries became established under the shelter of the Customs duties imposed for purely revenue purposes. Nevertheless, until 1895, tariff policy was directed almost exclusively to gaining revenue. But a change took place as a result of the 1895 review, which gave closer attention to the protective function of the tariff due to the industrial development that was taking place within the country. The 1895 tariff, therefore, was the first to be framed with the two-fold purpose of yielding revenue and protecting industry. Industry continued to develop and tariff policy reflected the changes. In the revisions made between 1895 and 1933 the protective functions of the tariff received more detailed attention. The revenue function, however, still remained the most important.

The tariff has been used to extend the markets for New Zealand's exports through the negotiation of reciprocal tariff agreements. New Zealand has used a preferential tariff system since 1903. Goods from Britain and the colonies and the British Dominions are, in general, admitted at rates of duty lower than those levied on goods from other countries. The difference between these two rates of duty is known as the “margin of preference”.

During the Imperial Economic Conference of 1932, an agreement (known as the “Ottawa Agreement”) was concluded with Britain. Under the terms of this agreement New Zealand guaranteed specified margins of preference (generally 20 per cent on imports from Britain and British non-selfgoverning colonies and protectorates) in return for preferences on New Zealand products. The Ottawa Agreement continued in force until modified by the Britain – New Zealand Trade Agreement of 1958, under which the margins of preference on goods from Britain and colonies may be reduced to 5 per cent, 7 ½ per cent, or 10 per cent according to the item. Advantage was taken of this agreement to reduce the margins of preference on many items in the 1962 tariff, but in only a few cases was the margin reduced to the limit provided for in the agreement.

In 1922 an agreement with Australia enabled an exchange of tariff preferences. Under a new agreement in 1933, special rates of duty were introduced on specified goods from Australia, while all other goods were admitted under the British Preferential Tariff. A similar type of agreement had been concluded with Canada in 1932. Both these agreements provided for reciprocal preferences on New Zealand goods entering those countries. These agreements are still in force, although modifications have been made to them from time to time. In 1933 a trade agreement was concluded with Belgium, following which most-favoured-nation rates of duty (intermediate between the British preferential and general rates) were applied to a limited range of goods imported from that country. Similar agreements, which extended the range of goods covered by the Most-Favoured-Nation Tariff, were negotiated with Germany and the Netherlands in 1938.

In 1947 the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) came into existence and New Zealand became a contracting party. This agreement has as its principal aims the reduction of barriers to trade and the development of agreed rules for the conduct of international trade. As regards tariffs, the general agreement laid down the principle of most-favoured-nation treatment for all contracting parties, but provision was made for the retention (but not extension) of existing preferences. A multilateral tariff conference was held in 1947. The participating countries negotiated reciprocal tariff concessions, which consisted of the reduction of rates of duty on some items and an undertaking not to increase the rates of duty on others. Four other series of multilateral tariff conferences were held in 1949, 1950, 1956, and 1960. Following these negotiations, the Most-Favoured-Nation Tariff was considerably extended in the range of items covered and in the number of countries to which it was applied. As a result of all these agreements, the New Zealand tariff is now made up of five duty columns – the British Preferential Tariff, Australian and Canadian agreement rates, the Most-Favoured-Nation Tariff, and the General Tariff.

In 1950 a Board of Trade was established under the Board of Trade Act and one of its main functions was to review the tariff, which had been only slightly changed since 1933. The Board began by holding hearings from industry and some changes to the tariff were consequently made. In 1956, however, the Board began a review of the whole of the tariff. All interested parties could give evidence and the Board's recommendations to the Government in 1957 were based on this evidence and its own investigations. Some amendments were made to the existing tariff in 1960, but it was not until 1961 that a completely new tariff, based on the rates of duty recommended by the Board, was introduced, to apply from July 1962.

The introduction of the 1962 tariff represented a notable departure from the usual policy of introducing tariff changes. For the first time, a new tariff was introduced and made public before the date on which it was to come into force. This modification of a long-standing policy was dictated by the form of the new tariff and the need to give businessmen time to study it before it came into effect.

Though the tariff had been revised many times, there had been no basic modification in the form of the tariff for 40 years or more. The tariff was out of date and, having grown piecemeal, it lacked a sound technical basis on which the changes necessary to meet the needs of modern trade could be made. The nomenclature adopted in 1962 was that of the United Nations Standard International Trade Classification (revised), which lists the goods of world commerce systematically on economic significance. The text of the main headings and items is derived from the Brussels Tariff Nomenclature of the Customs Cooperation Council, and the contents of these headings is, therefore, determined by the rules of classification of the Brussels Tariff Nomenclature. The new nomenclature is designed to give, in a single document, a scientifically ordered classification of goods both for tariff and for statistical purposes.

For many years duty had been charged on goods subject to ad valorem duties on the current domestic value in the country of export plus 10 per cent. The additional 10 percent was probably originally imposed for the purpose of bringing the value for duty to an assessed “cost, insurance, freight” value. This practice had been in force in some other countries, but for many years New Zealand had been the only one to continue it. During the 1956–57 review of the tariff, the Board of Trade also examined various bases for the valuation of goods for duty, including the now commonly used c.i.f. basis, but concluded that charging duty on the current domestic value without the addition of 10 per cent had distinct advantages for New Zealand. With the introduction of the new tariff in 1962, the addition of the 10 per cent to the current domestic value was discontinued. To compensate for the lower value for duty, some, but not all, rates of duty were increased by approximately 10 per cent to yield the same amount of duty on the goods concerned.

It had been the practice in the case of goods imported from a Commonwealth country having a unit of currency in pounds to charge duty on the current domestic value of the goods expressed in the currency of the country concerned. The amount of duty paid in £(N.Z.) on goods imported from a Commonwealth country whose pound unit of currency had been depreciated in relation to sterling, was consequently higher than that paid on goods of equal value in £(N.Z.) which had been imported from Britain or another Commonwealth country having a pound unit of currency at par with sterling, the ad valorem rate of duty being the same for imports from both countries. Australia, Fiji, and Tonga had been affected by this procedure, which was now changed with the introduction of the new tariff. Today the value of all goods is converted to New Zealand currency before duty is assessed.

The Customs Tariff has been developed over the years to meet changes in New Zealand's economy, in the pattern of its industry, and in its trading relations with other countries. From a simple document, which was adequate for the colony's early conditions and aims, the tariff has grown into a complex instrument designed to meet the conditions of modern trade.

Provision for the collection of Customs duties was made as early as January 1840 on the eve of the establishment of British sovereignty over New Zealand. At the outset, duty was collected under the New South Wales tariff, but in May 1841 New Zealand was made a separate colony and one of the first laws to be placed on the Statute Book was the Customs Ordinance. This document was a simple tariff providing for duties at different rates on spirits, wine, tobacco, cigars and snuff, tea, sugar, flour, wheat, and all other grain or pulse. All other goods, except those which were the produce or manufacture of Britain, New South Wales, and Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) – which were admitted free – were liable to a duty of 10 per cent. Thus the British preferential system was introduced with the first tariff, but it was discontinued in 1844. It was, however, reintroduced in 1903 and since then has remained an important feature of the New Zealand tariff.

In October 1844 Governor FitzRoy began a policy of free trade, and all Customs duties were abolished, the Property Rent Act being passed to replace the revenue lost through the abolition of Customs duties. It was soon found, however, that the new Act was not gaining the expected result and in April 1845 it was repealed and a Customs tariff reintroduced. In 1851 a new and more detailed tariff over a wider range of items was introduced. Frequent further changes were made up to 1879.

Until 1879 duties were applied mainly according to quantity (weight, number, etc.) but the tariff introduced in that year made provision for duty on a much greater number of items to be charged on an ad valorem basis; that is, charging duty as a percentage of the value of the goods. Other changes were made in 1895, in order to protect infant industries, and again in 1903, when the British preferential system was reintroduced in the Preferential and Reciprocal Trade Act and in 1907. A new procedure was adopted in 1921 and, for the first time, a commission was appointed to make the tariff review. Evidence was obtained from interested parties throughout New Zealand and the tariff was thoroughly revised on the basis of the evidence. A similar procedure was followed with the 1927 and 1933 tariff revisions. In 1921 provision was also made for the imposition of special duties to protect local industry. These special duties (known as “dumping duties”) may be imposed on imported goods of a kind made in New Zealand which have been “dumped” (that is, sold at prices lower than the current domestic value in the country of export, or sold at a price lower than the cost of production plus a reasonable profit, or have been the subject of any special concession – for example, subsidy, special bounty). Dumping duties are limited to the amount of the dumping or special concession, or to the amount by which the goods are sold below the cost of production plus a reasonable profit. Dumping duties may be levied in addition to the duties provided for in the tariff.

On 31 May 1886, so the story runs, a phantom war canoe sped silently across the waters of Lake Tarawera in the shadow of Mt. Tarawera, the “Burnt Peak” of the Maoris, its outline ghostly in the morning mists that a wintry sun could not quite dispel. Eerie and uncanny though it all was, watchers had no difficulty in discerning the craft's double row of occupants, one row paddling and the other standing wrapped in flax robes, their heads bowed and, according to Maori eyewitnesses, their hair plumed as for death with the feathers of the huia and the white heron. To the terrified Maoris these were the souls of the departed being ferried to the mountain of the dead. But everyone knew there was no war canoe on the lake, which had borne no such craft in living memory.

James Cowan, in his Fairy Folk Tales of the Maori, says the spectre was clearly seen by the matakite, “those of the wise and understanding eye”; but confirmation is lent to the story that circulated through the whares and low-roofed thatched huts of Te Wairoa throughout the rest of the day by the testimony supplied by a mixed company of European tourists early abroad on the lake on a sightseeing trip. It may well be that, but for such evidence, the story of the phantom canoe would have remained just another of the innumerable legends that comprise Maori lore.

To the Maoris in the village and on the lake the occurrence had only one meaning. It was an omen of disaster, dire and inevitable, the certainty of which was rendered the more sure by the fact that earlier on the same morning the waters of the lake rose suddenly over its whole expanse, and as unexpectedly subsided again in a matter of minutes. Not that this incident produced any immediate panic. The whole countryside was all too familiar with the perennial menace of Tamaohoi, the fierce cannibal chief of the tangata-whenua, whom Ngatoro-i-rangi, the high priest of the Arawa war canoe, 500 hundred years before, had caused to be imprisoned forever in a waro, or chasm, deep down in the bowels of the slumbering fire mountain. Always in the back of the minds of the Maoris had lurked fears of Tamaohoi's vengeance, and when Tuhoto the Ariki, a violent quarrelsome old warlock placed a curse on Te Wairoa after his tribe disowned him, there were those who were quite certain that eventually he would invoke the spirit of the mountain to vindicate him.

Myth it may all have been, but for the scoffers there is the incontrovertible fact that 11 days after the lake's upheaval and the swift passage of the phantom war canoe, on 10 June 1886, Mt. Tarawera exploded to an accompaniment of earthquake, fire, and flood, and Te Wairoa was one of three villages completely obliterated. The meaning of the spectral canoe was plain. The mountain had taken its vengeance.

So much for the story which might readily be dismissed as just another myth. But in the case of the phantom canoe, there were independent eyewitnesses, disinterested persons uninfluenced by superstition and probably wholly unaware of the particular legend relating to these occurrences. Among such were Mrs R. Sise, of Dunedin, and her husband and daughter, who were visiting Te Wairoa at the time. Their recollections of that eventful morning must be given every consideration, since Mrs Sise the same evening included them in a letter to her son in Dunedin, R. G. Sise.

The tourists had been waiting to embark on a cruise of the lake with the famous Maori guide Sophia. In the party were three other Maori women, six Maori rowers, and a Dr Ralph, Father Kelleher, a priest from Auckland, and a Mr Quick, also from Auckland. Mrs Sise described their experiences in detail. Before anyone could enter the waiting boat, the lake level rose swiftly, surrounding the group with water, and then the water subsided even more speedily. The Maoris reacted violently to this phenomenon and at first refused point blank to put out on to the lake. After some persuasion they agreed to do so, though one of the boatmen was heard to say darkly, “Very well, we can die but once, so we will all go down together”. Mrs Sise stated also that Sophia, later, seeing a white steam cloud hovering over Tarawera, quietly murmured, “I don't think I shall see the Terraces again”. (These were the world-famous Pink and White Terraces destroyed in the subsequent eruption.)

The sighting of the phantom canoe is best described in Mrs Sise's own words: “After sailing for some time we saw in the distance a large boat, looking glorious in the mist and the sunlight. It was full of Maoris, some standing up, and it was near enough for me to see the sun glittering on the paddles. The boat was hailed but returned no answer. We thought so little of it at the time that Dr Ralph did not even turn to look at the canoe, and until our return to Te Wairoa in the evening we never gave it another thought”.

“Then to our surprise we found the Maoris in great excitement, and heard from McCrae [a permanent resident] and other Europeans that no such boat had ever been on the lake.”

A second tourist boat on the lake that morning also reported having sighted the ghost canoe, and one of the passengers on board, Josiah Martin, actually sketched his impression of the spectacle. Unfortunately, it is not known what became of this drawing, or whether it is still in existence.

by Ronald Jones, Journalist and Script Writer, New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation, Wellington.

• (For further details of “The Phantom Canoe” see the files of Otago Daily Times, June 1886. These give the best account of the incident. Ed.)

Landscape Pattern

Taranaki consists in the main of the slopes of Mount Egmont and the undulating land that rings the extinct volcano and projects out to sea between the North and South Taranaki Bights on the western side of the North Island. The region at its greatest extent measures approximately 50 miles north-south and 50 miles east-west. Steeply dissected hill country, difficult of access, lies along the eastern boundary and, owing to the layout of the counties, which form the basic units for the collection of statistics, the statistical table includes some figures more relevant to the hill country. It is appropriate, however, because of the close affinities, to discuss the hill country as part of the King Country or Western Uplands. The counties of Taranaki, Inglewood, Egmont, and Waimate West are limited in extent to the plain; but Hawera and Eltham counties include the hill country in their eastern parts as does Stratford County, due to its incorporation of Whangamomona County which is wholly of the hill country. Figures for Whangamomona County are not shown separately having been included with Stratford County figures. In their coastal regions Clifton County, especially the part adjacent to Waitara, and Patea County continue the dairying country so typical of Taranaki. Both contain huge tracts of hill country in their backblocks. To aid exposition it has been decided to exclude Clifton County from the account and to include Patea County. Since neither county is sufficiently important to affect either the validity of the general account or the usefulness of the picture presented by the stauistics, the decision, while being disputable, remains unimportant. New Plymouth (urban area population, 1961, 32,387) is the principal town of the region, which, in 1961, registered a total population of 99,774 (4 per cent of the national total), some 7 per cent of whom were classified as Maoris.

Dominance of Mount Egmont

It is not surprising that Mount Egmont impresses itself upon the geography of the region or, for that matter, upon the popular imagination. It is, after all, a remarkable phenomenon, rising 7,000 ft above the surrounding landscape to a total height of 8,260 ft and revealing itself as a perfectly shaped cone when viewed from the southern quarter. The symmetry is disturbed by Fantham Peak (6,438 ft) when Egmont is viewed from the east and by the Kaitake (2,241 ft) and Pouakai (4,590 ft) Ranges when viewed from New Plymouth. The grip exerted upon the local imagination would never be so strong if the mountain failed to exert some marked influence on the economic life of the region. Realising this relationship, the subtle interplay of soil, climate, aspect, and economic life, the people of Taranaki have rightly chosen Mount Egmont as their emblem.

The lowland area, the most productive part of Taranaki, is floored by the ash deposits from Mount Egmont. They lie thickly above sedimentary rocks forming the basement of the whole region and appearing sharply in the eastern region as heavily dissected hill country. As one travels from Wanganui along the coast road, two changes in the physical landscape herald the approach to Taranaki. Broad “U”-shaped and flat-bottomed river valleys so characteristic of the Wanganui district are replaced by smaller and faster rivers and streams, their valleys more youthful in profile; whilst in the road cuttings layers of reddish ash overlie the yellow sedimentary rocks which are most conspicuous in the coastal cliffs.

A favourite halt for travellers is to the south of Stratford where, because the road rises in a hump above the railway line, one obtains a vantage point that brings most of the elements of the landscape into view. Above 4,800 ft the volcano lies bare of vegetation, except for some small alpine species, and it is clothed in snow during the winter months. Below 4,800 ft moor vegetation and tussock grass prevail with low bush and scrub at the lower limit. The upper limit of the bush line lies approximately at 3,300 ft above sea level, and from that altitude down to about 1,500 ft the mountain is covered with podocarp forest, the original vegetation of the whole lowland region. The lower limit of the bush line has been decided by the human occupation of the area, and it presents a ragged and broken landscape as suggestive of the original pioneer conditions as any other remote part of New Zealand. From this lowest limit the dairy pastures spread in an apron of greenery and fertility across what has been aptly termed the Ring Plain. This ends quite abruptly against low hills of outlying sedimentary rocks and the swamps, such as the Ngaere Swamp. A few miles further inland and eastwards, the road is confined within deep winding valleys of the dissected hill country.

Anyone acquainted with Taranaki would be dissatisfied with a description left at this point, for there are physiographic variations that distinguish one part of the region from another. In the southern and south-eastern sector, the Waimate Plains are an extensive area of level rolling country and constitute the most frequently photographed part of Taranaki. The northern and north-eastern parts of Taranaki are, however, less rolling and more dissected, the factor at work being the streams, which are forced to cut deeper owing to their shorter profiles. On the west between Okato and Opunake the remnants of an extensive lava and mud flow appear as a jumble of conical hills rising in some cases to a height of 40 ft and restricting the views. Nearer the foot of Egmont the landscape becomes chaotic, with the conical hills, half-burnt trunks and stumps of the original trees, patches of swamp, huge boulders of volcanic rock, strewn in an almighty disorder.

Climate

Mount Egmont itself exerts an orographic effect on the distribution of the rainfall, raising the total rainfall to 80 in. and above in the north-western parts and producing in the Hawera district a rain-shadow effect. At New Plymouth, therefore, the average annual rainfall reaches 60·16 in., but at Inglewood, only 10 miles away, it reaches 94·41 in. Near Hawera the average annual total rainfall is 42·39 in. Although the number of days with rain is high at New Plymouth (166), the hours of sunshine are considerable (2,110) and the temperatures range between a mean daily minimum of 43·3F in July and a mean daily maximum of 69·4F in January.

The farmers of Taranaki have taken advantage of these favourable environmental conditions and, with the adoption of certified seed mixtures and the utilisation of modern fertiliser practices, they have reduced to negligible proportions the period of the year when grass growth comes to a halt. In an attempt to mitigate the effects of the strong winds, the planting of barberry and boxthorn hedges has been widely undertaken since the 1920s, so that the region now appears as a series of small rectangular paddocks quilted by these hedges. Taranaki, in fact, has become celebrated for the use of these hedges, but, as ever, new technologies are rendering old achievements suspect. For with rotational grazing, the paddocks are recognised to be too small and the labour costs of trimming these hedges are becoming excessive.

A Cultural Landscape

The present landscape of Taranaki is largely a cultural one and the immense change wrought by the dairy farmers can be fully appreciated only by comparing photographs of different eras. Originally the region was bush covered, except for some notable areas of swamp and some areas of open and scrubby vegetation along the coastal strip and in the immediate vicinity of Hawera. The extension of cultivated land was a slow process which the disturbances associated with the Maori Wars did nothing to speed. By 1881, 40 years after the original date of settlement, the railway had extended from New Plymouth only as far as Midhirst, and New Plymouth, with 3,310 persons, was the only town with a population exceeding 1,000. All the other settlements, with the exception of Hawera (943) and Patea (834), had populations of less than 500. The area under cultivation amounted only to 124,391 acres. However, the expansion of the economy in the following decades is revealed by the 308,072 acres under cultivation by 1891 and the 738,171 acres under cultivation by 1901. More illustrative, because they apply to the lowlands rather than to the whole of Taranaki Province, are the numbers of dairy cows: in 1895 the figure was 49,450; in 1905, 123,066; and in 1921, 159,621. The photographs for these early decades call immediately to mind those of the shell-torn woodlands of the Western Front during the First World War. At the turn of the century the Taranaki landscape revealed four elements: leafless, branchless, half-burnt tree trunks left standing after the bush fires; at the foot of them the bric-a-brac of fallen branches and trunks over which the newly sown pastures were growing; already the landscape was carved up by wire fences; and within all this were the farm houses, the milking sheds, and the small villages which contained the butter or cheese factories.

Modern Dairy Farming

The last 40 years have seen the final transformation of the landscape, so that the barbary hedges, the conifer trees, the tar-sealed roads, the modernised milking sheds, and the milk tanker have become the important elements of the landscape. There are now some 258,000 dairy cows in milk and Taranaki accounts for 13 per cent of the total cows in milk. The region ranks highest in terms of average butterfat production per cow, 270–280 lb, a figure which has progressively improved in the post-war period from the 1945–46 level of 235 lb. The region accounts for approximately 16 per cent of the butterfat processed by all dairy factories. The importance of dairy farming in the pastoral economy of Taranaki is revealed by the high ratios obtained for dairy cows in milk per hundred sheep shorn, especially the figure of 218·71 for Waimate West County, and, unlike so many other areas, by the increase in dairy cattle numbers during the last decade. In association with dairy farming, the average size of holding tends to be low in comparison with other parts of New Zealand. Nevertheless, as the figures for sheep and lambs shorn reveal, this industry makes some contribution to the growth of Taranaki.

Population Trends

Inevitably the economic life of the region's towns is closely tied to the farming industry. The smaller ones, such as Stratford, Hawera, Opunake, Ingle-wood, and Eltham, together with the larger villages of Manaia, Kaponga, Okato, and Rahotu, act as servicing and retail centres for the surrounding communities; and significantly, with the exception of Hawera, they have displayed a relatively low rate of growth during the last decade. Waitara and Patea both contain large freezing works, but whilst Waitara grew by 42·96 per cent (1951–61) Patea's rate of growth, 18·04 per cent, was amongst the lowest. New Plymouth is the commercial, governmental, and educational centre for the region, the most important locality for manufacturing, and its port is the principal outlet for the area's exports – in 1960, 54,299 tons of cheese, 43,584 tons of frozen meat, and 13,068 tons of butter. The principal imports were also largely agricultural in purpose – 146,289 tons of manure, 91,671 tons of oil and petroleum products, and 22,198 tons of cement. In total the port, during 1960, handled 460,482 tons of cargo.

Statistics of the Taranaki Region

A striking feature of the region's development is that since 1911, after a period in which there had been a considerable increase of population, with the exception of the quinquennium 1921–26, Taranaki has been a region of marked outward migration. In a large part this is attributable to a consistently high rate of natural increase and to the overwhelming pastoral nature of the economy (29.37 per cent of the labour force is engaged in primary industry) and the relatively weak development of manufacturing. As late as 1951 the total population of the region was almost equally divided between the urban and the rural sectors. Equally striking is the failure during the period 1953–61 for the rate of growth of the manufacturing labour force (6.4 per cent) to match the rate of growth of the total labour force (7.4 per cent), both rates being well below the equivalent national level. It is difficult in the face of these low rates of growth, and considering the region's heavy dependence upon dairy farming, not to feel concerned about the future of the region; especially regarding the future of dairy products which could be jeopardised if Britain were to enter the European Economic Community. The discovery of an exploitable natural-gas deposit at Kapuni in 1962 is an event of great significance, but how many of the benefits Taranaki may be able to direct towards a diversification of her own economy remains problematical.

by Samuel Harvey Franklin, B.COM.GEOG., M.A.(BIRMINGHAM), Senior Lecturer, Geography Department, Victoria University of Wellington.

• Annual Reports (1924–61), New Zealand Dairy Board
• New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Vol. 96, Apr–Jun 1958, “Farming in New Zealand – Tara-naki”, Burgess, A. C.
• New Zealand Geographer, Vol. 117, Apr 1961, “Pioneering the Bushland of Lowland Taranaki – a Case Study”, Johnson, W. B.
• Ibid, Vol. 18, Oct 1962, “The Taranaki Gas Discoveries”, Wheeler, R. H.;Erdkunde, Vol. 26, Mar 1962, “Mount Egmont – Taranaki”, Schwein-furth, U.

When the provincial boundaries were first delineated in 1853, some 2 million acres in the western North Island were assigned to the “Province of New Plymouth”, the smallest of the original six provinces. In 1858 the name of the province was changed by Act of the General Assembly to “Taranaki”, the Maori name for Mount Egmont. For most of the period of provincial government Taranaki had a smaller population than that of any other province, and in the 30 years after the landing of the first colonists in 1841, European settlement had not spread more than a few miles beyond the town of New Plymouth.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century a dense Maori population occupied the coastlands from Mokau to Patea and was particularly concentrated on the fertile undulating lands between Urenui and Waitara. The clearing of land for crops had pushed back the coastal forest and the first Europeans found a fringe of fernland, from 2–4 miles deep, extending as a great arc around the forest of the interior. These fringe lands were dotted with numerous pa and kumara plantations and were intersected with wooded streams giving a parklike appearance which greatly attracted the first European visitors.

In the 1820s a large-scale exodus of the Taranaki peoples took place to the Cook Strait district in the face of a threatened assault by Waikato tribesmen. In 1832 the Waikatos, equipped with firearms, did invade North Taranaki and overwhelmed the remnants of the Ngati Awa peoples except at Otaku pa (New Plymouth) where a spirited and successful defence was put up with the assistance of a group of English whalers. Thus, by the mid-1830s, the coast-lands of Taranaki were almost deserted and the survivors of the former inhabitants were living in slavery in the Waikato or as exiles in the Horowhenua and Cook Strait districts. Into this temporarily vacated district the first English immigrants stepped ashore from surfboats in 1841.

Foundations of European Settlement

The settlement was planned by a subsidiary of the New Zealand Company – the Plymouth Company – which was to take over some of the New Zealand Company's land, sell it in the west of England, select colonists, and organise a settlement. The Plymouth Company was absorbed in the parent organisation in 1841 after selling some £12,000 worth of land at 30 shillings per acre. Late in 1839 an advance party of the New Zealand Company, led by Col. William Wakefield, had landed at the Sugar Loaf Islands from the vessel Tory and purchased 60,000 acres of land from the sparse remnant of Ngati Awa peoples still living on the coast between Mokau and Patea. Early in 1841 the surveyor F. A. Carrington selected Taranaki as the site for the Plymouth Company's settlement after inspecting several alternative areas in Queen Charlotte Sound and Tasman Bay which the New Zealand Company claimed to have purchased.

New Plymouth was the only one of the organised settlements in New Zealand without a natural harbour. The shortcoming was a severe handicap for many decades, but Carrington thought good land was more important for the proposed agricultural settlement than a good harbour. He observed that in central New Zealand a good harbour and good land seldom went together and, in justifying the choice of the Sugar Loaves as the site for New Plymouth, wrote that “the next generation will erect a commodious breakwater”. Carrington was to be present at the laying of the first stone for the breakwater, but that was in 1881, 40 years later.

The first seven ships brought nearly 2,000 immigrants from the west of England counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, and Hampshire, the majority being agricultural labourers and miners. The first colonists had barely established themselves before the former Maori owners, knowing nothing of the company's purchase of their lands, returned from slavery and exile. They objected to the extent of the land sales and their claims were substantially upheld when Governor FitzRoy allowed the New Zealand Company only 3,500 acres of its Taranaki land purchase, and that only in the immediate vicinity of New Plymouth. The initial area of the settlement was gradually extended by Government purchase from the Maoris to a total of 63,000 acres by 1858, mainly to the south and south-west of the town. The first farms were on fern country and, although the settlers looked enviously at the wide expanse of open, fertile plains near Waitara, the Maoris firmly refused to sell. Denied the chance of extending their farms into this open country, some settlers turned reluctantly to the heavier labour of hewing out farms in the bush, a task, however, in which they made use of the skill of Maori workmen with the axe and their knowledge of burning off.

Early Progress

By 1850, although scarcely 4,000 acres were in crop, Taranaki had earned the title “The Garden of New Zealand” and agricultural produce was being shipped to other settlements. Wheat, oats, barley, and potatoes were the chief crops and, although Taranaki later developed into a highly specialised dairying area, in 1850 flour accounted for 67 per cent of the value of exports and butter only 12 per cent. Because of its isolation and limited opportunities, few immigrants came to Taranaki in the later 1840s and the 1850s and the population grew more slowly than in any other province. There were 1,091 people in 1843, 1,985 in 1853, and only 2,650 in 1858. By 1860, of 63,000 acres of land purchased by the Government for European settlement, only 13,000 acres were in cultivation. Twenty years after initial settlement the original colonists and their children formed a much higher proportion of the population than in any other province: in 1861 84 per cent of the overseas-born came from England, the highest proportion for any district in New Zealand. Another inheritance of the west-of-England origin of the early settlers was the high proportion of Wesleyan Methodists – 22 per cent in Taranaki, compared with 8 per cent for New Zealand. Since that time Taranaki has consistently recorded a higher proportion of Methodists than that of any other province.

The Maori Land Question

European settlement in Taranaki was more intimately affected by the Maori land question than elsewhere. During the 1850s the Maori became increasingly reluctant to part with his land. The Europeans, on their narrow coastal foothold, fretted against some 1,700 Maoris whom they regarded as shutting up from settlement some 2 million acres of virtually unused land. The settlers' determination to occupy the good open land near Waitara caused them to take risks and urge the Government to abandon its policy of land purchase by patient negotiation. In 1860, amidst a situation of general confusion and misunderstanding, European and Maori drifted into a war which was to last intermittently for 10 years.

During the course of the conflict, European forces generally held the disputed Waitara lands, but elsewhere the Maoris moved where they wished, plundering and burning farms and killing some outsettlers. Military actions were generally inconclusive and desultory guerilla fighting and ambuscades continued until 1866 when General Chute marched a large force through the bush from Patea to New Plymouth, thence around the coast via Cape Egmont to Wanganui, destroying all pas and plantations in his way. One million acres of land were confiscated and military settlers were established on the forest-free Waimate Plains west of Patea in South Taranaki. In 1868 the Maoris took heart once more and attacked the Waimate Plains settlements. A colonial force of Forest Rangers (including Major von Tempsky) was raised and, after a series of European reverses, the war finally petered out in 1869.

Of some 1 ¼ million acres of land confiscated by the Government up to 1870, 95,000 acres (mainly in open country) were laid out in 50-acre grants for military settlers, 91,000 acres were reserved to “friendly natives”, while much of the remainder (mainly bushland) was given back to the “rebel” owners, eventually to be purchased by the Government for settlement in the eighties and nineties. Before the abolition of the provincial governments in 1876 a “Provincial Government Forest Reserve” had been demarcated in a 6-mile radius from the summit of Mt. Egmont – the area which in 1900 was to be constituted the Egmont National Park.

During the 1870s Taranaki stirred from its long stagnation. The European population increased from 4,500 in 1871 to 5,465 in 1874 (see map) and to some 15,000 in 1881. Assisted immigration brought 2,100 people to the province by 1879, a mere 2 per cent of all the assisted immigrants to New Zealand in the seventies but amounting to almost half of Taranaki's population in 1871. The frontiers of settlement spread in three directions: south-west of New Plymouth between Oakura and Okato; south from New Plymouth and Waitara into the forests of the Inglewood district; and on the open country of South Taranaki between Patea, Hawera, and Manaia.

The construction of the railway line between Hawera and New Plymouth opened up the fertile and rolling bushland to the east of Mt. Egmont, and settlers came close at the heels of the construction gangs. Inglewood was reached by rail in 1877, Stratford in 1879. By 1880 the available open lands had all been occupied and pioneering in Taranaki was henceforth a matter of bushfelling. The western fringe of the province between Opunake and Okato was settled comparatively late by Europeans, and this area still has a high proportion of Maori land. In 1885 New Plymouth's long isolation was relieved by the completion of the rail link to Wellington, and until the completion of the Main Trunk Railway in 1908 the town was the transhipment point on the combined rail-sea journey between Wellington and Auckland.

Development of Dairying

Despite the impetus given to development after the Maori Wars, at least 20 years passed before the growth of dairying gave the smallholder a secure income from a type of farming adapted to Taranaki conditions. The pioneer farmer of the 1870s and 1880s spent much of his time on roading, bush-felling, and sawmill work. Amongst the stumps of his bush section he practised a part-time, semi-subsistence economy, growing wheat, oats, grass seed, and potatoes and tending livestock. Many were glad of the cash received by the export to China of an edible fungus collected from tawa and mahoe trees. The first cooperative dairy factories were opened at Inglewood and Opunake in 1885 and their success led to a revolution in farming, A Chinese merchant, Chew Chong, who had organised the export of fungus, played a major part in the establishment of creameries and factories and in organising marketing facilities. Although cooperative dairy factories had been established earlier in other parts of New Zealand, the “ring plain” of Taranaki, encircling Mt. Egmont, became the first specialised dairying region in the country. The reasons are probably to be found in the small size of holdings and the heavy rainfall conditions, both of which made fat-lamb farming a less attractive alternative than it was in many other districts.

The 1890s were the “boom” years of Taranaki, when the population grew at a rate faster than in any other province. The lowlands were completely occupied and the farming frontiers advanced finger-like into the valleys of the tangled mass of hill country to the east of Stratford. The number of farms almost doubled from 2,500 to 4,235; the number of cattle doubled from 108,000 to 211,000; and the area in sown grasses increased from 300,000 acres to 700,000 acres. In 1896 there were 46 dairy factories. Five years later there were 95 butter factories and 21 cheese factories, as well as some 40 sawmills cutting into the fast-retreating bush. At the turn of the century, however, when most of the technical and organisational problems of the young dairy industry were being overcome, a new menace appeared in the declining fertility of the soil and in the rapid spread of blackberry and ragwort over the pastures. The solution was found in the removal of stumps and logs, followed by ploughing and resowing in improved strains of grasses, the liberal application of superphosphate, and the use of chemical weedkillers. By 1925 this consolidation phase was almost complete on the lowlands; and hedges of boxthorn and barberry gave a neatly enclosed appearance to a well ordered countryside. The supplementary feed crops of oats and turnips soon disappeared from the Taranaki scene as all-grass farming became securely established. The early specialisation on butter production gave place during the First World War to an emphasis on cheese; by 1920 there were 116 cheese factories and only 26 butter factories.

Problems of Hill-country Farming

In the steep hill country of eastern Taranaki, settlement was less successful and in some cases disastrous. By the mid-1890s the tide of settlement pressed inland from Waitara, Stratford, and Patea. As part of the Liberal Government's policy of granting “the land for the people”, men of limited capital were placed on small bush sections at Whangamomona and Ohura far in advance of roads and railways, and they set to work with a confidence born of experience in the fertile lowland bush country. The trees were felled and burned, grass was sown amongst the debris, and Lincoln sheep and Shorthorn cattle were turned out to graze. But on the steep hill slopes and under the high rainfall, reversion to secondary growth and severe soil erosion often resulted. Surveyors, accustomed to lowland concepts of an economic size of farm, made many properties too small for hill country. Renewed impetus to settlement came with the high wool prices after 1918, but the sharp slump of 1922 caused widespread abandonment. The highest acreage of sown grasses recorded in Taranaki was 1,237,000 acres in 1923. Since then the farming frontiers have retreated, rapidly at first to 950,000 acres in 1937 and more slowly since then. Both road and rail construction lagged far behind settlement – partly because of the difficulty of securing suitable reading metal in this predominantly mudstone country. The railway from Stratford to the Main Trunk line, begun in 1901, was not completed until 1932, and a suitable all-weather road to Taumarunui was not completed until 1945.

The railway made it possible to open up the sub-bituminous coal deposits of the Ohura-Tangarakau area and helped to arrest the decline of settlement by allowing the application of fertiliser to the lower valley lands. Nevertheless, much of the steeper and remoter hill country reverted through fern and manuka to secondary forest within a generation of its first occupation. The advent of aerial topdressing in the 1950s has permitted a modest if selective improvement in the central and northern part of the uplands where rolling terrace country, capped with volcanic soils, offers sites for landing fields as well as cultivable land for winter feed crops. Since 1925 Romney sheep have entirely replaced the Lincolns of the pioneer phase, and Polled Angus cattle the Shorthorns.

Population Trends

In 1911 the European population of Taranaki was 51,569 and in that year the provincial district had just over 5 per cent of the Dominion's population – the greatest relative share it has had at any census. Net migration into Taranaki ceased after 1911 and there has been outwards migration ever since, especially to the Auckland provincial district. Many sons of pioneer Taranaki dairy farmers moved north to become pioneers themselves in the Waikato, Northland, and Bay of Plenty. Similarly, Taranaki's earlier maturity as a dairying region enabled it to supply many of the stud Jersey cattle which built up the dairy herds of the Auckland district.

The provincial population grew to 94,109 in 1956 and 99,774 in 1961, of which 7 per cent were Maoris. In common with most other long-settled farming districts in New Zealand the largest urban centre has absorbed most of the population growth in the past 50 years. Thus New Plymouth has increased more than fivefold since 1911, whereas smaller market towns, such as Stratford, Waitara, and Hawera, have merely doubled, and many townships have remained stable or declined. Taranaki's high birth rate has resulted in a rate of natural increase of population that has been exceeded on occasions only by Marlborough and Westland. Nevertheless, the actual increase of population between 1956 and 1961 was only 6 per cent, the lowest for the North Island and only half the national rate of growth.

The prosperity of Taranaki has depended in the past mainly on its resources of soil and climate, supplemented for a period by its native timbers and, more recently, by coal in the eastern hill country. Two types of mineral deposits – oil and ironsand – have raised high hopes from time to time for at least a century. The first attempt to smelt the iron-bearing beach sands was made in 1848, but a commercially satisfactory process has yet to be devised. The first oil bore, at Moturoa near New Plymouth in 1865, produced a few gallons of oil, some gas, and much enthusiasm, and in recent years a small-scale oil-processing plant has operated at New Plymouth. The dramatic discovery in 1961 of a large source of natural gas beneath the dairy lands of South Taranaki has given a new complexion to New Zealand's power and fuel problems and raises possibilities of local industrial developments which could be as significant to Taranaki as was the rise of the dairy industry in the 1890s.

by Murray McCaskill, M.A., PH.D., Reader in Geography, University of Canterbury.

• See also Dairying, New Plymouth, Mount Egmont, etc.

• An Account of the Settlement of New Plymouth, Hursthouse, C. (1851)
• Taranaki, Seffern, W. H. J. (1896)
• From Plymouth to New Plymouth, Wood, R. G. (1959)
• N.Z. Journal of Agriculture, Vol. 96 (April and May 1958)

The South Taranaki Bight is the large coastal indentation lying to the north and west of the western entrance of Cook Strait. The water shoals gradually inshore from about 70 fathoms in the west into the coastal shallows. There is reason to believe that the bight inshore of the 60 or 70 fathom line was dry land during the last glaciation of the Pleistocene Ice Age, which ended no more than 15,000 years ago. It is probable that at that time all the drainage of the area from Wanganui to the east flowed into a single large river draining into an arm of the sea in the area now occupied by Cook Strait proper. The rise of the sea to its maximum level was completed about 4,500 years ago with a then shore line marked by a line joining Bulls, Shannon, Lake Horowhenua, Otaki, Waikanae, Paraparaumu, and Paekakariki. The broad coastal plain now seawards of this line has been built forward since then, largely from debris brought down by the Wanganui and Rangitikei Rivers draining the volcanic plateau in the centre of the North Island. This area lying in the path of the Roaring Forties is subject to high winds; consequently, dry sand from above high-tide mark on the beaches has been blown inland to form a continuous area of sand dunes. Shortly after the great Taupo volcanic eruptions of 1,800 years ago, the highest of these dunes was formed of debris washed down the rivers and deposited along the south-eastern shore of the South Taranaki Bight. The beach sands of the area to the west of Wanganui are rich in titanomagnetite and have been suggested as the source of iron ore for an iron industry. Detailed estimates, however, show that the amount available is less than that to the north in the North Taranaki Bight and in the south-west of the Auckland Province.

During early Pleistocene times the sea extended much further inland than it does now, crossing the Manawatu Gorge and reaching well inland up the present valley of the Rangitikei River. In western Taranaki the shore line lay at the front of the central Taranaki highlands to the east of Stratford. It was only in the middle of Pleistocene times, when volcanic activity on the Egmont chain of volcanoes began, that the South Taranaki Bight gradually assumed its present form.

Four large rivers, Patea, Wanganui, Rangitikei, and Manawatu, draining almost a quarter of the North Island, flow into the South Taranaki Bight. There are no good natural harbours on this coast, although river ports once existed at Patea, Wanganui, and Foxton. Only the Wanganui port is still used and it faces considerable difficulties from a bar which continuously forms at the mouth of the river. Opunake, which lies to the north of the bight proper, has plans for harbour improvements, but for a number of reasons it is unlikely that this harbour will handle ships of any significance.

The main towns on or near the shores of the bight are Opunake, Hawera, Patea, Wanganui, Foxton, and Otaki.

by Thomas Ludovic Grant-Taylor, M.SC., New Zealand Geological Survey, Lower Hutt.

• See also Geology, Sea Floor.

The North Taranaki Bight is a prominent indentation on the west coast of the North Island. Although neither so large nor so deep as the South Taranaki Bight, it, too, originated in the development of volcanic activity on the Egmont volcanic chain. A series of ancient marine beaches are present on which occur considerable deposits of titaniferous magnetite in black dune and beach sands. Those through which the main road passes at Mokau are readily seen. Of the ports along the Bight, Mokau (now closed) and Waitara are river ports which suffer from the development of sand bars across their mouths. The Port of New Plymouth is an artificial breakwater harbour which uses the Sugar Loaves to provide some shelter.

The only two important towns on the shores of the North Taranaki Bight are New Plymouth, the main centre of Taranaki, and Waitara, important because of its freezing works.

With a few exceptions at the river mouths, the shore is backed by cliffs ranging from 60ft near New Plymouth to several hundred feet at White Cliffs, 10 miles north of Urenui.