Books about New Zealand are numerous enough. A critic need not be fastidious to regret that most of them are not better written, useful and interesting as they are in the mass. Every sort of information about the country is to be got from them, but not always with pleasure or ease. To get it you must do a good deal of the curst hard reading which comes from easy writing. And even then, for the most part, it is left to your own imaginative power to see -
"The beauty, and the wonder, and the power,
The shapes of things, their colours, lights, and shades,
Changes, surprises."
The undoubted and agreeable exceptions, too, require in you some knowledge of the Islands, if they are to be enjoyed. How is that knowledge to be obtained? A hard-headed student with a hearty appetite for facts might, of course, start with F.J. Moss's careful and accurate school history and the latest Government Year Book in his hand, and would soon be well on his way. Those who like easier paths to knowledge may try Edward Wakefield's "New Zealand After Fifty Years," or Gisborne's "Colony of New Zealand." When one comes to periods, districts, or special subjects, the choice is much wider.
To begin at the beginning; "Tasman's Log" is little but dry bones; of Cook and Crozet I have written elsewhere. Of the writers who tell of Alsatian days, none is worth naming in the same breath with Maning. Personally I like Polack and Savage the best of them, despite the lumbering pretentiousness and doubtful veracity of the former. Earle and Major Cruise are more truthful than readable - conditions which are exactly reversed in the case of Rutherford. If, as is said, Lord Brougham helped to write Rutherford's narrative, he did his work very well; but after the exposure of its "facts" by Archdeacon W.L. Williams, it can only be read as the yarn of a runaway sailor, who had reasons for not telling the whole truth, and a capacity and knowledge of local colour which would have made him a capital romance-writer, had he been an educated man. As a picture of the times, Rutherford's story in the "Library of Entertaining Knowledge" will always, however, be worth reading.
The missionaries have not been as fortunate in their chroniclers as they deserve. The tumid cant of Nicholas is grotesque enough to be more amusing than the tract-and-water style of Yate and Barret Marshall, or the childishness of Richard Taylor. Much better in every way are Buller's (Wesleyan) "Forty Years In New Zealand," and Tucker's "Life and Episcopate of George Augustus Selwyn."
Among the descriptions of the country as it was when the colonists found it, Edward Shortland's account of the whalers and Maoris of the South Island, Jerningham Wakefield's of the founding of the New Zealand Company's settlements, Dieffenbach's travels, and Bidwill's unpretending little pamphlet telling of his tramp to the volcanoes and hot lakes in 1842, seem to me at once to tell most and be easiest to read.
On the Maoris, their myths, legends, origin, manners, and customs, William Colenso is admittedly the chief living authority. For his views it is necessary to go to pamphlets, and to search the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, where much other good material will also reward the seeker. To John White's ill-jointed but invaluable compilation "The Ancient History of the Maori," every student henceforth will have to turn. The selections therein from the papers of Stack on the South Island Maoris, from Travers' "Life of Te Rauparaha," and Wilson's "Story of Te Waharoa," are less stony than the more genealogical portions. Sir George Grey's collection of the historical and legendary traditions of the race has not been superseded. Messrs. Percy Smith and Edward Tregear edit the valuable journal of the Polynesian Association; the former has made a special study of the origin and wanderings of the Maori race, the latter has produced the Comparative Maori-Polynesian Dictionary. General Robley has written the book on Maori tattooing; Mr. Hamilton is bringing out in parts what promises to be a very complete and worthily illustrated account of Maori art.
As narratives of the first twenty years of the Colony two books stand out from among many: Thomson's "Story of New Zealand," and Attorney - General Swainson's "New Zealand and its Colonization." It would not be easy to find a completer contrast than the gossipy style of the chatty army medico and the dry, official manner of the precise lawyer, formerly and for upwards of fifteen years Her Majesty's Attorney-General for New Zealand, as he is at pains to tell you on his title-page. But Swainson's is the fairest and most careful account of the time from the official, philo-Maori and anti-Company side, and may be taken as a safe antidote to Jerningham Wakefield, Sir W.T. Power, Hursthouse, and others. A comparison with Rusden, when the two are on the same ground, shows Swainson to be the better writer all round. Of Rusden's "History of New Zealand" no one doubts the honest intent. The author, believing the Maori to be a noble, valiant, and persecuted race, befriended by the missionaries and those who took missionary advice, and robbed and cheated by almost all others, says so in three long, vehement, sincere, but not fascinating volumes, largely composed of extracts from public papers and speeches. Sweeping condemnation of the Public Works policy, of Radical reforms, and recent Socialistic experiments, complete his tale. The volumes have their use, but are not a history of New Zealand.
Of early days in the pastoral provinces we get contemporary sketches by Samuel Butler, L.J. Kennaway, Lady Barker, and Archdeacon Paul. Butler's is the best done picture of the country, Kennaway's the exactest of the settlers' every-day rough-and-tumble haps and mishaps, and Lady Barker's the brightest. One of the volumes of General Mundy's "Our Antipodes" gives a nice, light sketch of things as they were in the North Island in the first years of Governor Grey. Dr. Hocken's recent book has at once become the recognised authority on the first years of Otago, and also has interesting chapters on the South Island before settlement. Fitzgerald's selections from Godley's writings and speeches is made more valuable by the excellent biographical sketch with which it opens. Dr. Richard Garnett's admirable "Life of Gibbon Wakefield" is the event of this year's literature from the point of view of New Zealanders.
Of the books on the Eleven Years' War from 1860 to 1871, Sir William Fox's easily carries away the palm for vigour of purpose and performance. Sir William was in hot indignation when he wrote it, and some of his warmth glows in its pages. It is a pity that he only dealt with the years 1863-65. Generals Carey and Alexander supply the narrative of the doings of the regulars; Lieutenant Gudgeon that of the militia's achievements. General Carey handles the pen well enough; not so his gallant brother-soldier. Of Gudgeon's two books I much prefer the Reminiscences, which on the whole tell more about the war than any other volume one can name. Sir John Gorst describes the King Movement and his own experiences in the King's country. Swainson takes up his parable against the Waitara purchase.
Gisborne's "Rulers and Statesmen of New Zealand," though not a connected history, is written with such undoubted fairness and personal knowledge, and in so workmanlike, albeit good - natured, a way, as to have a permanent interest. Most of the many portraits which are reproduced in its pages are correct likenesses, but it is the pen pictures which give the book its value.
Of volumes by travellers who devote more or less space to New Zealand, the most noteworthy are Dilke's brilliant "Greater Britain," the volumes of Anthony Trollope, and Michael Davitt, and Froude's thoughtful, interesting, but curiously inaccurate "Oceana." Mennell's serviceable "Dictionary of Australasian Biography" gives useful details concerning the pioneer colonists.
Scientific students may be referred to the Works of Hooker and Dieffenbach, to Von Haast's "Geology of Canterbury and Westland," Kirk's "New Zealand Forest Flora," Sir Walter Buller's "Birds of New Zealand," Hudson's "New Zealand Entomology," and to the papers of Hector, Hutton and Thompson.
Dr. Murray Moore has written, and written well, for those who may wish to use the country as a health resort.
Mountaineers and lovers of scenery should read Green's "High Alps of New Zealand," and T. Mackenzie's papers on West Coast Exploration. Mannering Fitzgerald and Harper are writers on the same topic. Murray's guide book will, of course, be the tourist's main stay. Delisle Hay's Brighter Britain deals in lively fashion with a settler's life in the bush north of Auckland and in the Thames goldfields. Reid and Preshaw have written of the Westland gold-seekers; Pyke of the Otago diggings. Domett's "Ranolf and Amohia" is not only the solitary New Zealand poem which has achieved any sort of distinction, but is also an interesting picture of Maori life and character.
The Official Year-Book is a mass of well-arranged information, and the economic enquirer may be further referred to Cumin's "Index of the Laws of New Zealand," and to the numerous separate annual reports of the Government offices and departments. Historical students must, of course, dive pretty deeply into the parliamentary debates and appendices to the journals of the House of Representatives, into the bulky reports and correspondence relating to New Zealand published in London by the Imperial authorities, and into the files of the larger newspapers The weekly newspapers of the Colony are especially well worth consulting. For the rest, Collier's New Zealand Bibliography (Wellington), and the library catalogues of the N.Z. Parliament and of the Royal Colonial Institute, London, are the best lists of the books and pamphlets on New Zealand.