Not surprisingly, a high standard of integrity is required of individuals seeking membership in an exchange. An applicant for membership must hold a sharebroker's licence which, under the Sharebrokers Act 1908, is renewable annually; he must be proposed and seconded by members who have satisfied themselves as to his suitability; he must show the committee of the exchange that his financial position will enable him to meet his contracts; and he must then be elected by usually a four-fifths majority of members. In addition, the applicant has to arrange the purchase of a “seat” on the exchange either from a retiring member or from the exchange itself. In New Zealand the exchanges have two classes of members, metropolitan and country. In the case of the latter group, who are members living in an area controlled by the exchange but outside specified city limits, it is not necessary to purchase a “seat”, but such members do not have a vote on exchange business.

Obviously, sharebroking is not one of the easier occupations to enter. Thus, it is of interest that the Act provides that any seven licensed sharebrokers may form a stock exchange, the rules of which must be approved by Order in Council. Possibly as the national economy grows, one or more new exchanges will be established in future years.

A stock exchange may be simply defined as a market where buyers and sellers of securities, that is, stocks, shares, and debentures, meet to make transactions. In New Zealand there are, at present, five exchanges -Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, and Invercargill – all of which are affiliated in the Stock Exchange Association of New Zealand. This association makes the regulations controlling the dealings of members of the exchanges, that is the sharebrokers, both with the public and amongst themselves.

In addition to providing a market for the purchase and sale of securities, the stock exchange, as a major institution in the capital market, plays a role in the economy's development and growth. A necessary though not, of course, sufficient condition for the sustained development and expansion of productive facilities is a method of mobilising small, individual holdings of funds into amounts that can be used to assist in financing capital expenditures. By providing facilities for their clients to invest quite modest amounts in the loans of local bodies or the Government, and in the issues of share capital by new or established companies, members of the exchange perform a service the value of which cannot be precisely calculated but which is nonetheless, substantial. Stock exchange members also perform a number of other functions. Besides acting as agents for the buyers and sellers of securities, they advise both companies who wish to raise funds and individuals who are looking for an investment. They are often able “to place” share issues and act as underwriters for large public issues of shares.

The stitchbird is one of the three representatives of the family Meliphagidae (honey eaters) native to New Zealand. The other two are the tui and bellbird. Unlike these, which have a New Zealand wide distribution and are, in general, fairly common in most suitable habitats, the stitch-bird (Notiomystis cincta) was always confined to the North Island and its off-shore islands, but is now probably extinct, except on Little Barrier Island where a small but apparently stable population persists. The common name does not refer to any weaverlike habit but is an attempt to put into a word the sound of the common call – a staccato, high-pitched “tzit”. A common Maori name was hihi – probably also imitative.

The male is very brightly coloured – head and neck are black; a tuft of snow-white erectile feathers is on each side of the head, and a bright yellow band lies across the breast and extends on to the upper parts of the wings. The rest of the upper surface of the body tends to be dark greenish-brown and the under surface a light yellowish-brown. The female is much duller, lacks the dramatic colour contrasts, and has just a touch of white on each side of the head.

Stitchbirds are forest dwellers and their diet consists of nectar, berries, and insects. Breeding takes place in November and December and up to five white eggs are laid in nests made in tree holes 10 to 50 ft above the ground. In the days when the species was common in the North Island, the Maori took it for food and used the yellow feathers for making ceremonial cloaks.

by Gordon Roy Williams, B.SC.(HONS.)(SYDNEY), Lecturer in Agricultural Zoology, Lincoln Agricultural College.

(Dasyatis brevicaudatus).

This is our largest ray, growing to a diameter of 7 ft and a total length of 14 ft. It is found in Southern Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand, more commonly in the North Island. This ray is sandy to greyish in colour and, apart from its large size, is easily recognised by the row of spines on the tail, which resemble rose thorns, and the hard bony sting, up to 8 in. in length which projects at an angle from a mid position on the back of the tail.

by Arthur William Baden Powell, Assistant Director, Auckland Institute and Museum.

Phasmids or stick insects are a feature of the New Zealand insect fauna because of their size, fearsome appearance, and perfect camouflage. There are probably more than 20 species present in New Zealand and many have not yet been discovered or described. They are common throughout both Islands, range from sea level to high altitudes, and occur most frequently on manuka, bush lawyer, astelias, and other endemic bush trees and shrubs. Some species are green and merge well with foliage; others are brown and drab-coloured and resemble twigs or small branches. Spines and irregularities of the integument add to the general twig-like appearance. They are vegetarian, eating leaves of the trees they inhabit and are harmless to man. All New Zealand species are wingless and they range in size from about 1 ½ in. to about 6 in. in body length, with legs correspondingly long. Eggs are remarkably camouflaged to appear like small pieces of bark or broken twig and they are almost impossible to see in the plant litter on the forest floor.

by Roy Alexander Harrison, D.SC., Senior Lecturer in Agricultural Zoology, Lincoln Agricultural College.

Stewart Island might aptly be described as a detached piece of the South Island south-west, separated from the mainland by the shallow Foveaux Strait. The width of the strait varies from 17 to 30 miles and its depth is less than 20 fathoms. Within it is a string of rocky islets; the largest of these is Ruapuke.

The main island is roughly triangular in shape with its longest side facing west and the two shorter facing north-east and south-east respectively. The total land area, lying between 46° 40' and 47° 18' S and between 167° and 168° 20' E, is approximately 670 sq. miles. Coastlines are very ragged, deeply penetrated by the branching Paterson Inlet in the north and Port Pegasus in the south, and are fringed by rocky offshore islets.

From the head of Paterson Inlet, the Freshwater valley occupies a fault-bounded trough that divides the island into two quite distinct parts. In the north is the complex rugged highland containing Mt. Anglem (3,214 ft) and made of coarse basic igneous rocks. Almost all the rest of the island is made of granites with some schists in the neighbourhood of Pegasus. In 1888 special interest in this granite and schist country about Pegasus was aroused by the discovery of tin which has been mined sporadically with very little success. The only extensive flat alluvial lowland is in the swampy valley of the Freshwater River. This lowland reaches almost right across the island to within 2 miles of the west coast from which it is separated by a belt of low hills.

The south-west arm of Paterson Inlet reaches 6 miles inland and passes into the valley of the Rakeahua River. Aligned more or less parallel to this valley is a rugged axis with a steep face to north-west and a more gentle slope to the south-east coast. This axis reaches from Paterson Inlet to Pegasus Bay and in this south-eastern sector of the island are bare granite ridges and rounded tops (exfoliated domes). The highest point is Mt. Allen (2,459 ft). This rugged area resembles a tilted granite plateau, its surface deeply dissected and scoured by ice and its margin drowned to produce the intricate coastline about Port Pegasus.

Climatic data for Stewart Island is scanty but records from Halfmoon Bay show the average rainfall there to be 57 in. per annum, evenly distributed through the year. Summer temperatures seldom rise to 70°F but winter temperatures rarely fall below freezing point. Mean January temperatures are around 54°F, and mean July temperatures 39°F. Strong winds are frequent, especially from the west, and calm days are as rare as heavy frosts and prolonged snowfalls.

The frequent strong cold winds with driving rain seem to have conditioned the kind of indigenous vegetation. These main types of cover may be recognised according to local conditions of climate, exposure, and soil: lowland swamp and heath; lowland scrub; rain forest; tall subalpine scrub; and short scrub and boggy meadowland of the “tops”. The scrub is mainly manuka, but the rain forest of limited sheltered areas, notably in the vicinity of Paterson Inlet, once contained useful timber trees, notably rimu with some totara. Most of the tall timber has been cut out and deer are hampering regeneration as well as damaging such patches of uncut forest as remain.

Captain Cook sighted Stewart Island though he did not sail around it to find Foveaux Strait. It is after William Stewart that the island is named; he set up a short-lived colony of Europeans at Port Pegasus in 1826. European settlements and contacts have been concerned mainly with sealing (1801–50); whaling (1830–80); timber felling and milling (1865–1930); gold (1866–80); and tin (1888–1912). Settlement that has lasted to the present day is associated with fishing, farming, oysters, and mutton birds. The residential and holiday township is Oban, on Half-moon Bay.

Mining for gold and tin was soon found unprofitable, and farming has had only meagre success. Climate and topography have made it difficult to clear the land and keep it grassed for livestock, and the resources of accessible millable timber were always limited. So Stewart Island and the seas and islets about it have become best known for their fish, oysters, and mutton birds, and for the residential and holiday resort at Halfmoon Bay. The Fiordland -Foveaux Strait – Stewart Island area is New Zealand's chief source of crayfish and blue cod, and the fishing industry, directly or indirectly, supports most of the population of Stewart Island. The main Foveaux Strait oyster beds lie between Bluff and the north coast of the island, but this industry is mainly based on Bluff. Mutton birds have long been an important food for the southern Maoris who have control of the mutton birding rights. The birds taken are the young of the sooty petrel (Puffinus griseus) that nests in burrows on headlands and offshore islands of the south-west coast. Through April and May the young birds are killed and preserved for sale.

Most of the permanent residents of Stewart Island live in the township area about Halfmoon Bay. Of the 350 people there in 1962, about 15 per cent are retired men and women and some 36 per cent school children. As some 40 per cent of the residential buildings are holiday houses or cottages, this resident population is much increased during the summer. Halfmoon Bay is the chief holiday base.

Stewart Island was known to the Maoris as Rakiura, “The Island of the Glowing Sky”. It received its present name from William Stewart who was first officer of the brig Pegasus which called there in 1809.

by George Jobberns, C.B.E., M.A., D.SC., Emeritus Professor of Geography, University of Canterbury.

• Report on botanical survey of Stewart Island, parliamentary paper, Department of Lands, Cockayne, L. (1909), (gives much information on topography)
• Rakiura (a detailed history of all aspects of the Island), Howard, B. (1940)
• Geographical Journal, 87

(c. 1776–1851). Whaler and sealer.

Captain William W. Stewart was born in Scotland about 1776. He served with the Royal Navy from 1793 till 1797 and saw active service in the West Indies under Admiral Jervis and General Sir C. Grey. In June 1801 he arrived at Port Jackson, from Calcutta, in the Harrington, which belonged to Messrs Chace and Co. As this ship carried letters of marque, it lends a certain amount of credibility to de Thierry's later assertion that Stewart had been prizemaster of a privateer. When he arrived at Port Jackson, Stewart had £1,500 which he used to purchase a partnership with John Palmer, the Commissary-General, in the Bass Strait sealing trade. Between 1801 and 1805 his name appears frequently in the sealing records, usually as commander of one or other of Chace and Co's. sloops, George or Edwin. In 1803 he was in command when the former went ashore in Bass Strait. Later in the year Stewart in the Edwin helped the authorities to apprehend a gang of runaway convicts led by the notorious Duce. Stewart joined Campbell and Co. in 1805 and, for several seasons, led their sealing crews at Antipodes Island. In 1809 he was first officer on the Pegasus (Captain S. Chace) when it visited New Zealand waters. On this voyage, the reason for which has never been satisfactorily explained, Stewart charted the harbour at Port Pegasus; determined the northerly points—which proved Stewart Island to be an island; corrected Cook's mistaken assumption that Banks Peninsula was an island; and completed the Admiralty chart of the Chathams, which Broughton had not finished during his visit in 1791. After this the Pegasus sailed for England, reaching Gravesend in August 1810. Stewart's chart of Port Pegasus, which was published in the Oriental Navigator in 1816, shows that he was an extremely capable hydrographer, while the place names he bestowed in the area suggest that he had been well educated. Little is known of his movements during the next 10 years; however, in 1824 he returned to England, where he succeeded in interesting Messrs T. and D. Asquith in a proposal to establish a timber, flax, and trading settlement at Stewart Island. In 1826, as a result of Stewart's negotiations, the Prince of Denmark and Lord Rodney were dispatched. Stewart himself made three trips to the island to further the scheme, his first coinciding with the arrival, on 25 March 1826, of Captain Herd's first New Zealand Company expedition, which was en route for Hokianga. On one of his trips Stewart brought from the Bay of Islands a party of sawyers who built the schooner Joseph Weller—the first ship known to have been built at Stewart Island. In 1827, as John Guard's descendants assert, Stewart sought refuge at Cloudy Bay following the failure of his settlement scheme. He appeared briefly at Mana Island in 1833; and, in the following year, as commander of the Bee, was the hero of a kidnapping incident in Hawaiian waters. By 1840 he was again living at Stewart Island and piloted HMS Herald when Bunbury arrived there to proclaim British sovereignty. Towards the end of 1849, or early in 1850, Stewart visited Captain J. W. Harris at his trading post at Poverty Bay. He died there on 10 September 1851.

In his own day Stewart was the subject of many sealers' tales, some fantastic. Thus he was credited, among other deeds, with taking the Jacobite Princess, Charlotte Stuart, a daughter of Bonnie Prince Charlie, to Campbell Island, a myth still revived from time to time. Although little authentic detail survives about Captain William Stewart, who gave his name to Stewart Island, it would appear that the experiences of at least three Captain Stewarts have become inextricably inter-twined.

by Bernard John Foster, M.A., Research Officer, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington.

• Rakiura—a History of Stewart Island, New Zealand, Howard, B. (1940)
• Historic Poverty Bay and the East Coast, N.I., N.Z., Mackay, J. A. (1949).

(1878–1949).

Barrister, legislator, and author.

A new biography of Stewart, William Downie appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

William Downie Stewart was born on 29 July 1878 at 29 Heriot Row, Dunedin, the son of William Downie Stewart, a barrister from Blair Drummond, Perthshire, Scotland, who had arrived in Dunedin in 1862; and of Rachael, née Hepburn, who came from Kirkcaldy, Fifeshire. William Downie Stewart, senior, spent several terms in the House of Representatives where his son was later to achieve even greater distinction. Downie Stewart was educated at the Otago Boys' High School and Otago University where he graduated in law. His early interests, like his father's, were in public affairs and he became Mayor of Dunedin at the age of 35. In the following year, 1914, he was elected to Parliament as member for Dunedin West, and held that seat until his defeat by a Labour opponent in the socialist upsurge of 1935. He was a member of the Massey Reform Government. His term in the House was interrupted by the First World War, in which he served with credit, being invalided home in 1916 with disabilities which were to handicap him for the rest of his life. But he was soon back in the political arena. His inherent political equipment marked him for early advancement, and in 1921 he assumed the portfolios of Customs and Internal Affairs in the Massey Ministry. On his leader's death, in 1925, he became Minister of Finance under J. G. Coates but three years later he retired into opposition with his Reform colleagues. His informed and trenchant criticisms of the policies of the Forbes United Party directed special attention to his qualities and, when the Depression Coalition was formed with the Reform Party in 1931, he found himself once again Minister of Finance and Customs. In that capacity he represented New Zealand at several overseas conferences and proved himself an international jurist of note and a strong imperialist. He held office in difficult and trying times, but faced his problems with vigour. The end came, however, in 1933 when his colleagues decided that the national economy depended for survival on the raising of the exchange rate with Britain. Downie Stewart reacted violently, and forthwith resigned from Cabinet rather than countenance a plan which he, as Minister, would have been expected to implement. Two years later he lost his seat and retired to his library and a lifelong interest in literature and history. He died at his home in Dunedin on 29 September 1949.

Downie Stewart was a clear and profound thinker, with firmly entrenched philosophies both in economics and in politics. His views on these topics, though often challenged, were respected at home and abroad, and he had a generous international and imperial outlook, both legally and socially. A native literary talent, which he never fully exploited, provided him with such relaxation as his increasing physical infirmities would permit in the last years of his life. He dealt knowledgeably and authoritatively with biography and history, in both of which fields he might possibly have made more of a mark than he did. Unhappily he favoured a form of dilettantism that was expressed in monographs and brief studies which went not much further than under-lining points of view and opinions that cried out for a more thorough expounding. His researches and studies were wide, and he surrounded himself with a library that had few equals in private ownership in the Dominion. For 14 years after his retirement from politics he was regarded as an authority on constitutional and international problems, on which he was frequently consulted by his successors. In these years of retirement he kept up his lifelong connection with Otago University – as pro-chancellor and member of the Council.

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

• Otago Daily Times, 30 Sep 1949 (Obit).

(1832–1920).

Coloniser.

A new biography of Stewart, George Vesey appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

George Vesey Stewart was born in Martray, County Tyrone, on 4 October 1832, the son of Captain Mervyn Stewart and grandson of Sir John Stewart, BT. After graduating with distinction at Trinity College, Dublin, Stewart settled down as a farmer, but rash speculation and improvidence brought him to the verge of ruin, and he resolved to emigrate to New Zealand.

Stewart's ardent visionary nature and his ambition led him to plan a settlement of Ulster gentry and tenant farmers, of which he would be patriarchal head, but he wished the farmers to become landowners, and therefore insisted that all should possess some money. In his ideas and rashness he resembled Edward Gibbon Wakefield. Without waiting for New Zealand approval of his plan, he invited members of Orange Lodges in Ulster to join him. Negotiations were long and difficult. After an extensive tour of New Zealand he chose as a site for settlement the Katikati Block, on the shores of Tauranga Harbour. He arranged with the Government for settlers in his first party to receive grants of land on conditions of occupation and improvement. This party, of 28 families, arrived by sailing ship in 1875. The second party, 378 in number, followed in 1878. For them Stewart bought land from the Government and sold it in farm lots. Stewart purposely included a large element of the governing and professional classes in Ireland. This “Ulster plantation,” says A. J. Gray, contributed “an atmosphere of culture and refinement that is seldom found in pioneering settlements”. Fortunately, their private means helped to carry Katikati through the depression of the eighties.

Stewart had painted prospects in glowing terms, but the settlers had to start from scratch in a wilderness, and the inevitable hardships produced deep resentment against the leader. But the settlement's origin gave it a strong community spirit, and an important lift came with the development of the famous Martha gold mine at Waihi, less than 20 miles away. Then dairying developed, and the success of Stewart's venture was assured.

In 1880–81 Stewart founded Te Puke, near Tauranga, which proved a more successful settlement. After a sojourn in England in the 1880s, as an emigration agent, Stewart returned to Katikati and lived there till his death on 3 March 1920, at Rotorua, in his eighty-eighth year. Gray considers that, on a low estimate, Stewart settled some 4,000 persons in New Zealand.

Stewart was an exceptionally able man, but he was weak in ability to consolidate gains; he made unnecesary enemies, and “he lacked the supreme quality of leadership, the capacity to inspire devotion”. He was very active in public affairs in Katikati and Tauranga, and seemed destined for Parliament, but the old grievances told against him. In the long run, much of this was eventually forgotten, and in his last years Stewart was the most revered figure in the Katikati community.

by Alan Mulgan, O.B.E. (1881–1962), Author.

• Reminiscences of Charles Duane (MS), Katikati Public Library
• An Ulster Plantation, the Story of Kati Kati, Gray, A. J. (1938)
• My Simple Life in New Zealand, Stewart, A. B. (1908).

(1837–1915).

Politician and businessman.

A new biography of Stevens, Edward Cephas John appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

E. C. J. Stevens was born the youngest son of the Rev. W. E. Stevens, rector of Salford, Oxfordshire, and received his education at Marlborough College and the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester.

Stevens came to Canterbury in 1858 at the age of 21 and almost immediately made his mark in Christchurch business, sporting, cultural, and political life. During the early sixties he went into partnership with R. J. S. Harman as a land agent and financier and this firm financed J. E. FitzGerald's Press newspaper from 1863, taking control in 1868, Stevens remaining a director for the rest of his life. At the same time as he was secretary of the Gas Co. and a founder and manager of the Permanent Loan and Investment Society, he was trying to establish cricket in Canterbury. With J. A. Bennett he arranged and financed the 1863 and 1867 visits of the All England XI, and he played for Canterbury in all its representative games for nearly 20 years. In 1863, too, he was on the committee which formed an art society.

Stevens served in Tancred's Provincial Executive between 1863 and 1866, but went out of office, and left provincial politics when Moorhouse came back to power in the latter year. In 1866, however, he secured the uncontested Selwyn seat for the House of Representatives and by 1868 was counted amongst the foremost politicians because of his great financial knowledge. In 1868 he was president of the Canterbury Financial Reform Association which saw a remedy for depression in retrenchment, direct taxation, consolidation of loans, and firm central control over provincial departments, and in the Assembly he opposed Stafford whose Government partially adopted his financial measures, known at the time as “Stevens' policy”. In 1869 Stevens formed the “Stand Aloof” or “Cave” party with Tancred and Rolleston, intending to hold the balance between Stafford and Fox. The “Cave” initiated important policy debates and Stevens himself moved a resolution for the abolition of provincial government, their replacement by local electorate councils, and a general scheme for colonising all New Zealand. The resolutions were lost, but Stevens' reputation as a man of ideas rose. It rose still further in 1870 when Vogel introduced the Public Trust Bill and acknowledged Stevens as the author of that idea.

At the 1871 election Stevens lost his seat, by one vote, to William Reeves. The boldness with which he held to his free trade principles when his farmer constituents were among those most desirous of having a protective wheat tariff was typical of the man. He was returned for Christchurch city in 1875 as an abolitionist and was also at this time one of the first in New Zealand to advocate triennial Parliaments. After Grey became Premier in 1877 and the Opposition collapsed, Stevens was one of the leading organisers of the effort to find someone to lead the attack on Grey's mismanagement. Although Fox was made temporary leader in early 1879, Stevens wanted Hall to leave the Council and gather all the discontented elements. This Hall did when the election began, becoming Premier when >Grey was defeated. But Stevens was never a strong party man and between 1880 and 1881 he was again trying to form a “middle party”. In 1881 he retired from the House of Representatives, where for several years he had been Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, and went into the Council in 1882. He was politically quiet for a few years, but in 1884 tried to get another “middle party” from the welter of rival groups. In 1887 Atkinson offered Stevens the Colonial Secretaryship, which he declined because of business commitments, but he did hold office without portfolio. He remained in the Government until its defeat and henceforth devoted little time to politics, although he remained in the Council for the rest of his life.

Stevens served on the Board of Governors of Canterbury College from 1875 to 1899; he was a founder and first chairman of Lincoln College from 1897 until his death; he was on the New Zealand Cricket Council from its inception; was president of the Canterbury Cricket Association and the New Zealand Amateur Athletic Association, and a founder of Lancaster Park. He was also an expert horticulturalist. He died on 6 June 1915 at his home “Englefield”, in Fitzgerald Avenue. The success of his business career may be gauged by the £282,000 he left. He married, in 1869, the widow of J. H. Whitcombe, surveyor and explorer.

Edward Stevens was a man of very strong personality, holding definite and inflexible opinions on any subject, from literature to cricket and from art to politics. His energy was unbounded, as even the barest list of his activities indicates, and his ideas were advanced. Besides suggesting the Public Trust, he campaigned during the seventies for sale of land on deferred payments, votes for all residents, free, secular, and compulsory education, and State aid for charitable institutions and hospitals. Later he suggested and supported Legislative Council reforms. In politics Stevens was a worker behind the scenes and an independent but respected critic of any Government's financial policies. His letters to Stafford reveal him as an incisive political observer. His manner was solemn and imperturbable, “decidedly oracular” as Gisborne says. As a businessman he was shrewd and at times ruthless: FitzGerald, heavily in debt to him, once described him as “a thorough Jew.”

He was interested and active in so much that he was never able to give his full time to politics and hence never attained the heights his undoubted talents deserved. Yet Steven's influence on early Christchurch and on colonial politics was extensive, widely acknowledged by his contemporaries and unobtrusively lasting.

by Edmund Bohan, M.A., School Teacher and Professional Singer (overseas).

• Stafford Correspondence (MSS), Turnbull Library
• Rulers and Statesmen of New Zealand, Gisborne W. (1897)
• Press (Christchurch), 25 May 1961 (Centennial Supplement).