The end of the long depression dates from about 1895. The year 1 July 1894 – 30 June 1895 marks a cyclical trough for exports; from then on, until the First World War, exports increased sharply and almost continuously, trebling in value in 20 years. This favourable movement has often been linked with the upward trend of world prices which characterised the world economy from the mid-1890s to the early 1920s, and it is true that butter prices reached their lowest level in 1894–95, cheese in 1895–96, and meat in 1897–98. Wool, however, continued to decline fitfully but substantially until 1901–02, and since it was the most important single export, the index of all export prices did not move upwards until wool had passed its nadir. Until about 1902, therefore, the explanation of the recovery of New Zealand's export earnings must be sought in rising volumes of the principal exports; only after about 1902 did rising prices add to their buoyancy.

All major indices of economic activity reflect the growing prosperity of the 20 years before the First World War. The area of occupied land rose only by a quarter, from under 32 million acres in 1891 to 40½ million acres in 1911 but, more significantly, the area of sown grasses, on which the bulk of pastoral production takes place, doubled from less than 7 million acres in 1891 to 14½ million acres in 1911. The number of sheep rose by more than a quarter, that of cattle more than doubled, and the output of coal trebled. Since the overall volume of production rose more rapidly than population, and the level of unemployment declined, there can be little doubt that real incomes also rose substantially. This impression is confirmed by a number of social indicators; for example, marriage and birth rates and the rate of natural increase of the population all turned upwards in the mid or late 1890s, after 20 years of steep decline during the depression.

The relative importance of the many factors which combined to account for this happier turn in the Dominion's fortunes are not completely agreed. Some historians have claimed a substantial part of the credit for the measures of the Liberal Government which assumed office early in 1891. Others are more impressed by the influence of the improving world economic situation, by the shift in the terms of trade in favour of the primary producing countries and, above all, by the unique combination of technical advances (all of them borrowed from abroad) which made it possible for New Zealand to reap full benefit from these more encouraging circumstances. The best known of these advances was the advent of refrigeration on oceangoing ships, which permitted the development of new export industries of frozen meat and dairy produce. Weight must also be attached, however, to the major fall in world shipping freights resulting from the change from sail to steam and from the development of the multiple-expansion marine engine, which alone permitted the antipodean farmer to compete effectively with the produce of his British and Danish counterparts. An index of world ocean freights suggests a decline of fully 75 per cent between 1873 and 1909, and in the case of New Zealand most of the benefit must have accrued after 1883, when the New Zealand Shipping Company initiated its direct and regular steamship connection between the colony and the United Kingdom.

The first cargo of frozen meat reached London (in a sailing ship) in 1882, but for several years failures were common, and costs were only gradually reduced. Moreover, it took time to fit out ships for the new trade, and to build and staff the freezing works. Above all, the flock and system of land utilisation could only gradually be adapted to the new conditions, dual purpose animals coming to replace the Merino which had predominated during the period when the sheep was valued chiefly for its fleece, and smaller farms with lusher exotic grasses were developed for the fattening of lambs.

The full impact of refrigeration on the dairy industry was even longer delayed: here growth was only on a moderate scale until near the end of the nineteenth century. The chief explanation is doubtless that, in the case of frozen meat, refrigeration merely made possible the profitable disposal of a joint product of an existing industry; whereas in the case of dairy produce a largely new industry had to be built from scratch, nearly all butter and cheese having been made on the farm prior to 1882. Moreover, the dairy industry's development has been more dependent than that of the frozen meat trade on technological advances other than refrigeration, and some of these advances occurred only at later dates. The continuous-flow centrifugal separator, which made possible the factory production of butter, had indeed been developed in Denmark as early as 1878, and was first introduced to New Zealand about 1883. But great importance, from the commercial point of view, attached also to the improved test for butterfat content evolved by Babcock in 1890, which made possible the payment for milk on the basis of its butterfat content, thus giving a major stimulus to herd improvement. Of even greater significance for butter production was the development of hand-separators in the later 1890s, which enabled the cream to be separated on the farm, and not, as hitherto, in the factory. Though at first widely opposed because of its adverse effect on quality, this development not only saved the expense of transporting the whole milk to the factory, but, by widening the area from which the raw material could economically be collected, also facilitated the amalgamation of the smaller dairy factories into larger units, thus achieving considerable economies of scale. This effect was the more marked with the improvement in roads after the First World War and the spread of the motor vehicle, permitting daily collection. The feeding of the skim milk to pigs has led to a useful supplementary source of income for dairy farmers. A final major advance has been the widespread availability of electric power in rural areas. In this respect New Zealand, with its abundant and cheap hydro-electric potential, which was rapidly developed in the post-1918 period, has ranked amongst the most advanced countries – hence the early installation of electrically driven milking machines, even on remote farms, again with beneficial effects on cost and output. By the mid-1930s, 83 per cent of cows were machine milked.

In view of the gradual evolution of these techniques, it is understandable that the full benefits of refrigeration should have become apparent rather more slowly in the case of dairy production than in that of meat. Up to 1914–18, the price differential favoured cheese, the production of which grew rapidly enough in the Taranaki area, then more densely settled and better roaded than other climatically suitable areas. The heyday of butter came in the period between the wars, when improved road and rail communication and the motor car opened up the Waikato – Hauraki Plains area of the North Island, which has since been the source of fully half of the country's butter output.

The enhancement of the country's capital assets which gold bequeathed, real though it was, was not adequate to guard against the possibility of falling incomes for the now much larger population, especially when gold production declined and the price of grain and wool fell in the later 1860s. Colonists who had been intoxicated by the stimulus of gold won from the hills and rivers of the South Island, were very ready to believe in the power of credit to solve the country's problems; and in Julius Vogel, Finance Minister in the Fox administration in 1870, and subsequently Prime Minister, they had the man who could show them the way. Vogel announced grandiloquently that “the great wants of the Colony are Public Works in the Form of Roads and Railways, and Immigration”. He proceeded to provide these with the help of massive overseas borrowing, upwards of £21 million being raised on the London market between 1870 and 1881. In the same period population (excluding Maoris) doubled from about a quarter to a little under half a million inhabitants; the railway milage leaped from a nominal figure to over 1,300; and there were comparable improvements in roads. Alongside the massive public borrowing which financed these developments, went a vigorous expansion of private credit which almost transformed the country's banks into mortgage institutions. As always in New Zealand, the course of land prices reflected and magnified this expansive environment, soaring in the later 1870s to levels quite unwarranted by the course of export prices. In Canterbury the index of agricultural land values rose more than four and a half times between 1870 and 1878. There was, it is true, a more local reason also for an exceptional rise of land values in that part of the country, namely the profits which were being made in the late seventies and early eighties from “bonanza” wheat farming in Canterbury and Otago. As the price of wool fell, many of the larger estates were broken up and devoted to wheat cropping with the help of the American reapers and binders which were introduced in the 1870s. At first, the lightest cultivation of soil freshly put to the plough gave good yields for a minimum effort; but as cultivation extended to the less suitable soils, and as fertility declined with overcropping, yields fell. Faced with this trend, and with falling prices as production in North America and in Russia soared, the wheat boom soon played itself out. The peak year was 1883, when nearly 5 million bushels out of an output of 10½ millions were exported, and grain accounted for some 18 per cent of total exports. After that the decline was rapid; from 1893 exports were normally below the 1 million bushel mark, and by the First World War New Zealand found itself with a small wheat deficit. Yields per acre, however, rose again substantially from about the mid-1890s as acreages were restricted, and as a new and less predatory pattern of mixed farming was evolved on the plains and downlands of the eastern South Island. Grain and root crops alternated with several years of sown grasses, which provided lusher feed for the fattening of lambs than could the coarser native pastures. From the 1890s onwards, then, wheat growing in New Zealand has been closely linked with the frozen lamb industry, to be discussed shortly.

The optimism engendered during the Vogel borrowing period ignored, however, the fall in the prices of staple exports, wool and grain, in the later 1870s and the continued decline in gold production. Between 1870 and 1881 the value of exports rose only from a little over £4.5 million to not much over £6 million – a fall, on a per capita basis, of about one-third. During the 1880s such sobering facts could no longer be ignored, especially since the London market began to have its doubts about the ability of the young colony usefully to absorb, or to service, such large quantities of capital. With the continuing fall of export prices, and of total exports on a per capita basis, the bottom dropped out of the land market; mortgagees were unable to foreclose even if they wished – they could no more have sold the land profitably than could the owners – and the banks found themselves with a structure of illiquid assets which precipitated a notable banking crisis in 1894–95. Unemployment reached serious proportions, and the level of wages dropped so low that, for a time in the eighties, some manufactured goods were able to be exported. Many immigrants were disillusioned by such conditions and there was a small net outflow of migrants in the later 1880s. Yet even in this, by far the most gloomy decade the colony had yet experienced, the means of salvation were at hand; for in 1882 the first cargo of refrigerated meat was successfully shipped from Port Chalmers to London, and the prospect of new and valuable exports of frozen meat and dairy produce was translated from the realm of airy visions to that of sober economic possibility. The consequent demand by unemployed townsmen for land was thereby rendered all the more insistent; and this helps to explain the success at the polls in late 1890 of a Liberal Party with radical opinions on land policy and labour legislation.

New Zealand experienced the stimulus of gold first hand in the early 1860s, when alluvial deposits were discovered first in Central Otago and later on the West Coast of what was then the Province of Canterbury. The fields were not large ones, by world standards, but in relation to the resources of the country at that time they were of major importance. It was in this period that New Zealand experienced her most rapid population growth; men swarmed in, many of them from the now languishing Victorian fields, bringing with them capital, energy, and new social and economic outlooks – and incidentally raising the ratios of males to females, and of working population to total population, to very high levels. The total population (exclusive of Maoris) rose from some 98,000 in 1861 to 172,000 in 1864, and exports from £589,000 in 1860 to 3,500,000 in 1863, when gold constituted 70 per cent of the total. In all respects the gold rushes rank as one of the most powerful stimuli the New Zealand economy has ever received; but it was the South Island which reaped nearly all the benefit. The North Island lagged behind, not only because of its lack of rich gold deposits but also because of disputes with the Maoris, which retarded the progress of farming there. The South Island thus achieved during the gold boom a lead in population, in revenue, and in production, which it maintained for about 40 years. Though the more easily won gold was soon exhausted, gold continued to be a staple export until the first decade of the twentieth century, when it constituted 12 per cent of the total. The sharp increase in the revenues of Otago and Canterbury permitted these provinces to undertake the first substantial public works of the country's history, including the founding of the first university and the laying of the first railway lines.

It is a matter of opinion, and of definition, at what date a “New Zealand economy” can fairly be said to have emerged. Production for the market had reached a considerable level, in comparison with the total European population, before the country became a British colony in 1840; on the other hand the European population was scattered along the extended coastline in a number of tiny settlements more closely linked with the outside world than they were with each other. The provincialism which gives the political historian one of his chief themes during the first half century or so of the colony's history reflects not only the differing origins of the various provinces, but also the inadequacy of internal communications between many of them and the fact that for many years their economic destiny and interests were not obviously identical.

Prior to 1840, Europeans and Americans (other than the missionaries) had come to New Zealand primarily to exploit resources which promised quick profits without the necessity for permanent settlement. “Exploit” is the significant word; for this early period saw a repetition of the short-sighted plunder of limited resources which has occurred again and again in the history of European expansion. The seals were the first to be indiscriminately slaughtered; most of the mainland herds were virtually exterminated by the end of the first decade of the century. In the north, particularly from bases at the Bay of Islands – the most populous European settlement in the early years – whalers were active; and those who settled in the locality, including the missionaries, as well as the local Maoris, produced food for victualling these whaling ships. A not inconsiderable quantity was exported, too, to Australia. The Maoris soon learnt European methods of agriculture, and before long were prominent in this early production of agricultural exports. Flax was another commodity which proved attractive to early traders, the Maoris providing the dressed fibre in exchange for guns and other goods. This trade declined in the 1830s as the market weakened, but timber, especially that of the kauri, remained one of New Zealand's staple exports as long as accessible trees remained to be felled. These activities, however, were for the most part essentially of a predatory character, and they could not provide an assured living for the settlers whom the New Zealand Company brought out in the early years of British annexation. For some years, indeed, the prospects for these men and women appeared far less favourable than they had been led to expect; Wakefield's plan for a community of self-sufficient farmers, cultivating mixed farms with the help of hired labour, was uncongenial not only to the temper of a majority of the settlers, but also to the climate and the terrain. Difficulties and uncertainties over the title to land were an added source of embarrassment in the early years, though these were somewhat alleviated after Sir George Grey assumed his first period of office as Governor in 1845. Grey was able to win the confidence of many Maoris, and to buy from them considerable areas of the North Island, and almost all the South (where, owing to the colder climate, there had never been a substantial number of Maoris). With access to land assured at least for the time being, and currency stabilised and law and order restored, the colony in the later 1840s gradually became more prosperous. A more positive impulse to prosperity – the first perhaps, other than migration, to reach the country from the outside world – came when gold was discovered in Victoria shortly after the mid-century. The rise of prices and inadequacy of Australian production of foodstuffs as men rushed to the diggings gave an opportunity to the New Zealand farmers which they did not miss. By the middle of the 1850s thriving exports of foodstuffs had grown up, and vegetables and grain ranked with wool as the three chief exports of the day. Even when these agricultural exports tapered off in the later 1850s with the decline of the Australian gold rushes, wool from the rapidly growing flocks of Merinos, which had been imported in quantity from Australia as early as the late 1840s and put to pasture on the native grasses of the eastern South Island, was rising quickly enough to take its place and ensure the economy against any major downturn.

Thus we find that Durham's imperial functions are now firmly in the hands of Her Majesty's New Zealand ministers. There is only one important respect in which there can be said to be any legal or constitutional subordination to the United Kingdom. The tenacity of older attitudes and professional conservatism have led New Zealand to be one of the few Commonwealth countries to retain appeals to a Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The same factors have produced recent judgments in New Zealand Courts, which may mean that decisions of the highest English appeal tribunal, the House of Lords, are binding on New Zealand Courts.

New Zealand became a Dominion in 1907, but it became clear that the concept of Dominion status was a developing one. Indeed, the development has gone so far that it is now generally conceded that the description “Dominion” is no longer an appropriate one to use in respect of the independent members of the Commonwealth, because it suggests some form of subordination to the United Kingdom, Canada ceased using the term some years ago, and it is now unusual to find it in official documents in New Zealand. The correct usage is suggested by the Royal Style and Title adopted by New Zealand in 1953: Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom, New Zealand and of Her other Realms and Territories, Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith. Elizabeth II is Queen of the United Kingdom; she has opened the Canadian Parliament as Queen of Canada and the New Zealand Parliament as Queen of New Zealand. Thus the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and other Commonwealth countries are the Realms of the Queen. These days we should think of the Realm of New Zealand rather than of the Dominion of New Zealand.

As former British territories in Asia and Africa have gained their independence, the British Commonwealth of Nations has become the multi-racial Commonwealth. Most of these new countries have chosen to stay within the Commonwealth, either by continuing their allegiance to the Crown or by becoming republics which acknowledge the Queen as Head of the Commonwealth. The large increase in membership of the Commonwealth has made the Commonwealth relationship more tenuous and has raised questions as to its future role. The fact remains that all its members regard the Commonwealth as having a role, even though it may be a changing one. Basically, the Commonwealth is an association of states which is not regional in character and in which the members continue to give a reasonable priority to the views and interests of other members. There would be general agreement with the statement made in 1947 by Fraser when India and Pakistan became Dominions in the Commonwealth.

[Dominion status] is independence with something added and not independence with something taken away. It carries with it membership of a free and powerful association from which every element of constraint has vanished, but one in which a way has been found for the practice of mutual confidence and cooperation in the full respect for the independence, sovereignty, and individuality of each member.

by Colin Campbell Aikman, LL.M.(N.Z.), PH.D.(LOND.), Professor of Jurisprudence and Constitutional Law, Victoria University of Wellington.

• New Zealand and the Statute of Westminster, Beaglehole, J. C. (ed.) (1944)
• New Zealand and the Statute of Westminster 1931, Currie, A. E. (1944)
• The Constitutional Development of New Zealand in the First Decade, 1839–1849, Foden, N. A. (1938)
• The Constitutional History and Law of New Zealand, Hight, J., and Bamford, H. D. (1914)
• Crown Colony Government in New Zealand, McLintock, A. H. (1958)
• The Provincial System in New Zealand, 1852–76, Morrell, W. P. (1964)
• New Zealand – the Development of its Laws and Constitution, Robson, J. L. (ed.) (1954)
• The Treaty of Waitangi and the Acquisition of British Sovereignty in New Zealand, 1840, Rutherford, J. (1949)
• The New Zealand Constitution, Scott, K. J. (1962).

In the early days of the New Zealand colony it was accepted readily enough that the British Government should continue to be responsible for external trade and foreign relations. In 1869 and 1870 colonial irritation with British policy over Maori affairs and the conduct of the Maori Wars led to mutters of independence, separation, and even of neutrality in a war caused by British policy. Imperial concessions in 1870, however, were a sign of increasing British sympathy for its colonial connections, and marked the beginning of a period during which New Zealand loyalty to the “motherland” was unquestioned. And yet in the immediate era of expansion there were New Zealand leaders who saw their country's interests in a broader context. The Imperial tie restricted New Zealand's freedom in trade policy and she unsuccessfully pressed in 1871 and 1887 to be allowed to negotiate her own commercial agreements. In 1873 it was conceded that the colonies had the right to grant each other tariff preferences. In 1902 Richard Seddon took a lead in trying to persuade the United Kingdom itself to abandon its traditional free-trade system – and in this way foreshadowed the imperial preference arrangements reached at Ottawa in 1932 as a Commonwealth response to world depression. The Imperial Conferences of 1923 and 1926 recognised that New Zealand, along with the other Dominions, was entitled to conclude its own trade – and political treaties – with foreign countries. New Zealand's first commercial treaty – one with Japan – came in 1928, and another with Belgium in 1933 was followed by others.

In the expansive 1870s New Zealand leaders began to look with interest on the Pacific Islands to the north, and Vogel, Grey, Stout, and Seddon thought – and argued – in terms of annexation or of a Pacific federation. But it was accepted that this was a matter on which New Zealand must act through the British Government – and the only immediate fruits of New Zealand importunities was the annexation of the Cook Islands and Niue in 1901. New Zealand was denied Samoa in 1884, but another chance came when, on the outbreak of war in August 1914, New Zealand troops took possession of the German territory of Western Samoa. New Zealand acquired the League of Nations Mandate in 1919 by a series of steps which left some doubts as to the legal responsibility of the United Kingdom Government for the transaction; however, by the time the status of the territory had changed from mandate to United Nations trust territory (in 1946), New Zealand's international and municipal responsibility had been acknowledged. When in 1962 Western Samoa became an independent state in treaty relationship with New Zealand, New Zealand could claim that she had taken an initiative in the granting of autonomy to a small territory which was to have implications elsewhere in the Pacific and beyond.

Russian warships in the Pacific in 1885 and French and German activities in the Pacific Islands were reminders that independence could be perilous for a small country. Vogel's thoughts turned towards imperial federation. He and successors like Seddon and Ward saw an imperial forum, for instance an imperial council, as a method of providing the colonies with a voice in the making of British policy and at the same time of assuring them of the protection of the British Navy. Seddon and Ward pressed their views without avail at the Colonial Conferences of 1897 and 1907 and at the Imperial Conference of 1911. There was, nevertheless, a realism in their approach which was not always shared by their fellow Empire Prime Ministers. The New Zealanders saw that the colonies would inevitably become involved in the wars of the mother country and would be called upon to make their own financial contribution to the defence of the Empire. Having accepted this situation, New Zealand ministers were anxious to have some say in the making of policies which might lead the Empire into war. The other colonies saw the choice clearly enough, but were more ready to forego the “say” in the vain hope of being able to escape the responsibility.

In 1911 the Dominions, other than New Zealand, were willing to have the British Prime Minister declare, in answer to Sir Joseph Ward's proposals:

[They] would impair, if not altogether destroy, the authority of the United Kingdom in such grave matters as the conduct of foreign policy, the conclusion of treaties, the declaration and maintenance of peace, or the declaration of war, and, indeed, all those relations with Foreign Powers, necessarily of the most delicate character, which are now in the bands of the Imperial Government, subject to its responsibility to the Imperial Parliament. That authority cannot be shared….

The British Prime Minister did, however, go some way towards meeting the difficulties the New Zealand Prime Minister had raised. During the Conference Dominion representatives were given an opportunity at confidential meetings to discuss foreign policy and defence; and an undertaking was given that, where possible, the United Kingdom Government would consult with the Dominions before negotiating international agreements affecting those Dominions.

Developments during the First World War showed just how realistic the approach of the New Zealand statesmen had been. Although the Dominions were brought into the war by a decision in which they had no part, they gave prodigally of their manhood and resources. The problems of wartime consultation was eventually met by the establishment of the Imperial War Cabinet, the constitution of which would not have seemed unduly strange to Seddon and to Ward. The longer term problem was discussed at the Imperial War Conference in 1917. The Conference recognised the need for readjustment of the constitutional relations of the component parts of the Empire. The nature of that readjustment would be discussed after the war, but it would recognise the right of the Dominions to an adequate voice in foreign policy, and would provide effective arrangements for continuous consultation on all important matters of common imperial concern. It was taken for granted that in these matters there would continue to be a single imperial foreign policy, but that, in future, unity would not be imposed from above by one government at Westminster. It would result from the continuous consultation of autonomous nations.

Although the inter-war Imperial Conferences elaborated techniques of consultation and cooperation, events soon showed that it was not going to be possible to ensure unified action on the part of members of what now had come to be called the British Commonwealth of Nations. By the time of the Second World War it had become recognised that the members of the Commonwealth could pursue their own foreign policies, conclude their own political treaties, exchange diplomatic representatives with whom they chose, vote as they wished at meetings of the League of Nations, and, most significant of all, make their own decisions to declare war and make peace. Viscount Halifax was thinking in the past when, during a visit to Canada in 1944, he proposed that machinery should be established enabling common Empire policies on such matters as foreign and economic affairs and defence. The Canadian Prime Minister immediately rejected the suggestion that there could be a single Commonwealth policy as distinct from each nation having its own policy.

The Canadian approach, consistent as it was with Canadian views between the wars, would not have been congenial to a New Zealand Government before 1935. In the post-1918 period New Zealand loyalty to Britain had expressed itself in uncritical adherence to British policies. The Labour Government which came to power in 1935 began, however, to think in terms of a New Zealand policy. This was seen, in particular, in the League of Nations, where her spokesman, W. J. Jordan, later Sir William Jordan, took firm stands when the Spanish Civil War and the Italian invasion of Ethiopia were before the League. New Zealand's uncompromising support of the League Covenant led to public differences with British spokesmen, and Peter Fraser, then Deputy Prime Minister, said in 1938 in reply to criticism:

It was time somebody spoke – the country has to make up its own mind on international problems as a sovereign country … though we work in closest co-operation with the British Government, that does not mean to say that we must be prepared to swallow everything the British Government cares to put forward.

Nevertheless, New Zealand, in the following year, readily accepted the United Kingdom declaration of war against Germany as involving New Zealand in war and proclaimed her solidarity with Britain. This was, perhaps, the last time that New Zealand was to regard herself as legally bound by a decision of United Kingdom ministers. During the war itself Fraser had numerous opportunities to take a definitive New Zealand position and this attitude was reflected in New Zealand policies during the establishment of the United Nations and the negotiation of the peace treaties. By then it was recognised on all sides that the Dominions were entitled to pursue independent policies, and were in no sense – legal or political – subordinate to the United Kingdom. Thus the Conference of Commonwealth Prime Ministers, which has replaced the Imperial Conference, adopts no formal resolutions or binding decisions.

More recently New Zealand has on numerous occasions taken an independent position – the luxury of a small country with no great commitments. In the United Nations, in particular, her spokesmen have opposed the views of the United Kingdom and of other Commonwealth countries. In 1951 consciousness of this dependence on the United States for security in the Pacific led Australia and New Zealand to conclude the ANZUS Agreement with the United States, but not with the United Kingdom. In 1954 New Zealand and Australia became separate parties along with the United Kingdom to the SEATO Treaty establishing the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation. Again New Zealand, along with Australia, has allowed herself to be influenced by United States policies in continuing to recognise the Nationalist Government of China, although the United Kingdom had recognised the Communist regime. On the other hand, the strength of loyalties flowing from the Commonwealth tie led New Zealand to join Australia in rather uncritical support of United Kingdom action in Suez.

In 1962 Parliament took the unusual step for a Commonwealth country of establishing a Parliamentary Commissioner for Investigations – or Ombudsman, after Scandinavian precedents. The Ombudsman is responsible to Parliament itself and his function is to investigate and – if he thinks fit – report on complaints made against Government administration.

The first House of Representatives established under the Constitution Act 1852 consisted of 37 members. There were increases until 1881 when the number became 95. After a reduction to 74 in 1891, the present number of 80 (including four Maori seats) was established in 1900. There was periodic reform of the franchise until manhood franchise was established in 1879. In 1893 New Zealand became the first British country to give the vote to women and, with the abolition of plural voting, New Zealand has in this century adopted the principle of one man one vote. The vote is accorded to all British subjects who have resided in New Zealand for 12 months and who have resided for three months in the electorate in which they are to vote. During the nineteenth century there were periods when there were multi-member constituencies, while from 1908 to 1912 there was provision for a second ballot. Now there are single-member constituencies in which the candidate securing the largest number of votes is elected.

The Maoris' communal system of land owning did not enable them to take advantage of the property qualification established in 1852 and, in order to give them effective representation, four separate Maori seats were established in 1867 on the basis of manhood franchise.

The life of Parliament as fixed in 1852 was five years. It was reduced in 1879 to three years, and although there have been four instances – the Parliaments of 1914, 1931, 1938, and 1951 – when this has been extended, the term remains at three years.

The Legislative Council established under the Constitution Act 1852 was an appointive body and in the early stages its upper limit was 15 members. Its size varied over the years – it was as high as 54 in 1885 and 53 in 1950. Until the last decade of the nineteenth century the Council was an influential body which, being conservative in composition, protected the interests of the large landowners. With the advent of a Liberal Government, however, conflict between the Council and the House of Representatives became so intense that the Government successfully reduced the effectiveness of the Council – in particular, by establishing that the Governor was required to accept the Government's advice on appointments and by introducing legislation making the term of appointment seven years. From that time the Council's status decreased until it ceased to perform any very useful function. In 1914 a Legislative Council Act reconstituting the Council was passed, but the Act was not brought into force, and in 1950 the National Government abolished the Council. There was some suggestion that it would be replaced by another body, but although there has been some agitation for a second chamber, including proposals by a select committee of the House of Representatives, there has been little evidence that such a chamber is likely to be established.

The Constitution Act 1852 – an Act of the Imperial Parliament – is still New Zealand's basic constitutional document; but of the original 82 sections only a rump of 19 remains; and of these 19 a number can be regarded as no longer effective. New Zealand has an unwritten constitution in the sense that, as in the United Kingdom, the operation of Cabinet, the basic institution of responsible government, is governed by convention rather than by statutory provision. On the other hand, there are in New Zealand many Acts of Parliament which include provisions often found in written constitutions: for instance, the Royal Powers Act 1953, the Demise of the Crown Act 1908, the Deputy Governor's Powers Act 1912, the Civil List Act 1950, the Legislature Act 1908, the Electoral Act 1956, the Public Revenues Act 1953, the Judicature Act 1908, the British Nationality and New Zealand Citizenship Act 1948, the Public Safety Conservation Act 1932, the External Affairs Act 1943, and the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1947. There are, besides, the Letters Patent and Instructions of the Governor-General.

Under the 1852 Act the New Zealand General Assembly was authorised to repeal only a few comparatively unimportant provisions of the Act. The Assembly was given more extensive powers of amendment by an Amendment Act of 1857, passed by the Imperial Parliament. This Act permitted the repeal of all the provisions of the 1852 Act except certain specific provisions regulating, for instance, the establishment of the General Assembly itself and the extent of its legislative powers. It is not altogether clear when New Zealand acquired authority to amend these “entrenched” provisions of its constitution. There is some support for the view that the Colonial Laws Validity Act 1865 gave this authority when it provided that representative colonial legislatures had full powers to make laws respecting their own constitution, powers, and procedure. Nevertheless, the New Zealand Government after 1865 on a number of occasions sought Imperial authority for specific amendments to the 1852 Act. The issue was further confused when the United Kingdom Parliament, in enacting the Statute of Westminster, provided that nothing in the Statute was to affect the law relating to the amendment and repeal of the New Zealand Constitution Act. Special measures were taken to resolve the doubt when, after the adoption by New Zealand in 1947 of the Statute of Westminster, the United Kingdom Parliament, at the request of the New Zealand Parliament, passed a Constitution Amendment Act authorising the New Zealand Parliament to amend any of the provisions of the 1852 Act. In other words, the New Zealand Parliament gained full control over the Constitution of New Zealand.

There were other respects in which the nineteenth-century New Zealand General Assembly did not appear to be completely its own master. There were the Governor's powers to reserve New Zealand legislation for the signification of the Crown's assent; and there was the authority of the Crown to disallow New Zealand legislation even after the Governor had given his assent. The powers of reservation and disallowance were prerogative powers of the Crown which were also specifically set out in the 1852 Constitution Act. There are isolated instances of the use of both in the nineteenth century and, in respect of reservation, in this century. But it was clearly established at the 1926 Imperial Conference that they were to be exercised only on the advice of New Zealand ministers and the provisions still to be found in the 1852 Act are obsolescent.

Other restrictions on New Zealand legislative autonomy could not be disposed of by this conventional procedure. There were doubts as to whether the New Zealand Parliament had authority to legislate in respect of matters outside New Zealand (extraterritorial legislation); the Constitution Act itself and the Colonial Laws Validity Act 1865 prevented the New Zealand Parliament from passing legislation which was inconsistent (or repugnant) to legislation of the United Kingdom applying to New Zealand; and there was always the authority of the United Kingdom Parliament to pass legislation applying to New Zealand and even overriding New Zealand legislation. These issues were discussed at the 1926 Imperial Conference and, after discussions at a conference of experts in 1929, the Imperial Conference of 1931 approved a draft of the Statute of Westminster which was in the same year passed by the United Kingdom Parliament.

The Statute of Westminster came into immediate effect in Canada and South Africa, but New Zealand and Australia – suspicious that all this was going too far in the direction of Dominion “independence” – were given the right to adopt the Statute at a later date. In 1942 Australia adopted the Statute, as did New Zealand in 1947, conscious by this time that the New Zealand Parliament was under significant legislative disabilities. Now, extra-territoriality and repugnancy are no longer problems and the United Kingdom Parliament will legislate for New Zealand only with the request and consent of the New Zealand Parliament.

In recent years there has been limited public support for proposals that New Zealand should adopt “a written constitution”, which would be “entrenched” in such a way as to prevent its amendment by ordinary Act of Parliament passed by a simple majority. The only step in this direction that has actually been taken is to be found in the Electoral Act 1956. Section 189 requires that sections of the Act – those relating to the composition and number of electoral districts, the adult franchise, the secret ballot, and the life of Parliament – are not to be amended unless by an Act passed by a majority of 75 per cent of all members of the House of Representatives or unless the proposal for amendment has been carried by a majority of the electorate in a referendum. There is nothing to prevent Parliament from repealing section 189 itself, so the entrenchment involved is not very effective from the legal point of view. Nevertheless, since the provision was passed unanimously, it is likely to be respected both by National and by Labour Governments.

Just as the disposal of public land was a central issue of the relations between central and provincial governments, so the purchase of Maori land was the main factor determining relations between the colonial government and the British Government. Governor Gore Browne had reserved dealings with the Maoris as an “imperial subject” and in practice these dealings concerned the purchase of Maori land for later disposal to the settlers. The details of the story are confusing, but the basic issues were straightforward enough. The British Government was not confident that Maori interests would be respected if they were passed over to the responsibility of the self-governing settlers. On the other hand, the settler government could not for long agree that the acquisition of land for further settlement was a matter beyond their competence. When conflict of interest led to the Maori wars, the settlers were ready enough to seek the protection of the British Government and its imperial forces. There could be only one outcome: that Maori policy should become a matter falling clearly within the area of local responsibility and that the local Government should maintain its own internal security. It was predictable, too, if not so inevitable, that settler responsibility for Maori policy should usher in a period during which the Maori was effectively separated from much of his land. Some steps in the story are particularly significant: in 1862 the Crown monopoly of the purchase of Maori land was abolished; in the same year the establishment of a Land Court and the individualisation of Maori land titles provided a formal cover for blandishments of the land trader; in 1863 the General Assembly accepted responsibility for administering Maori affairs; in 1863, too, Grey initiated the policy of punishing the rebels by confiscating their land; and in 1865 a mass exodus of British troops began, the last regiment being withdrawn in 1870.

It had been clear during the crisis that a colonial Governor had two, often conflicting, responsibilities. He was the formal representative of the Crown, who might be expected to act on the advice of his New Zealand ministers; he was also an agent of the Imperial Government who was concerned to implement the views of that Government. The Colonial Office relinquished its control over Maori policy by requiring the Governor to act on advice within this sphere and in so doing recognised that it would no longer interfere in domestic questions. But there were still “domestic” areas in which the Governor could with some validity claim that he was not bound by the advice of New Zealand ministers. Thus the Crown was the “fountain of mercy” and its representative had, in his own discretion, exercised the power of pardon. In the 1870s the Canadians had successfully insisted that this was a power to be exercised on the advice of Canadian ministers, and in 1891 Prime Minister John Ballance was able to persuade his Governor that he should accept his Executive Council's advice to commute. It was Ballance, too, who successfully obtained a Colonial Office direction that the Governor, Lord Glasgow, was to accept Ballance's advice that 12 new appointments were to be made to the Legislative Council in order to ensure a Liberal majority in the Council.

The Governor still acted as agent for the United Kingdom Government in matters of external affairs, and it was not until the Imperial Conference of 1926 that it was recognised that the interests of the United Kingdom Government might more appropriately be represented in the Dominions by a High Commissioner, and the Governor-General left to represent the Crown. In this respect, as in others connected with the implementation of the resolutions of the 1926 Conference, New Zealand was slow to act, and it was not until 1939 that the first United Kingdom High Commissioner arrived in Wellington.

Today, the Governor-General occupies much the same constitutional position as does the Queen in the United Kingdom. He is required to act on the advice of ministers, although there is an uncertain area of discretion – seldom likely to be exercised – affecting the dissolution of Parliament and the choice of a Prime Minister.