New Zealand Book Reviews

New Zealand by William Pember Reeves Book Summary

The poet who wrote the hexameter quoted on the title-page meant it to be the first line of a Latin epic. The epic was not written—in Latin at any rate,—and the poet’s change of purpose had consequences of moment to literature. But I have always been glad that the line quoted was rescued from the fire, for it fits our islands very well. They are, indeed, on the bounds of the watery world. Beyond their southern outposts the seaman meets nothing till he sees the iceblink of the Antarctic.
From the day of its annexation, so disliked by Downing Street, to the passing of those experimental laws so frowned upon by orthodox economists, our colony has contrived to attract interest and cause controversy. A great deal has been written about New Zealand; indeed, the books and pamphlets upon it form a respectable little library. Yet is the picture which the average European reader forms in his mind anything like the islands? I doubt it. The patriotic but misleading name, “The Britain of the South,” is responsible for impressions that are scarcely correct, while the map of the world on Mercator’s Projection is another offender. New Zealand is not very like Great Britain, though spots can be found there—mainly in the province of Canterbury and in North Otago—where Englishmen or Scotsmen might almost think themselves at home. But even this likeness, pleasant as it is at moments, does not often extend beyond the foreground, at any rate as far as likeness to England is concerned. It is usually an effect produced by the transplanting of English trees and flowers, cultivation of English crops and grasses, acclimatisation of English birds and beasts, and the copying more or less closely of the English houses and dress of to-day. It is a likeness that is the work of the colonists themselves. They have made it, and are very proud of it. The resemblance to Scotland is not quite the same thing. It sometimes does extend to the natural features of the country. In the eastern half of the South Island particularly, there are landscapes where the Scot’s memory, one fancies, must often be carried back to the Selkirks, the peaks of Arran, or the Highland lochs of his native land. Always, however, it is Scotland under a different sky. The New Zealanders live, on the average, twelve degrees nearer the equator than do dwellers in the old country, and though the chill of the Southern Ocean makes the change of climate less than the difference of latitude would lead one to expect, it is still considerable. The skies are bluer and higher, the air clearer, and the sun much hotter than in the British Isles. The heavens are a spacious dome alive with light and wind. Ample as the rainfall is, and it is ample almost everywhere, the islands, except in the south-west, strike the traveller as a sunny as well as a bracing country. This is due to the ocean breezes and the strength of the sunshine. The average number of wet days in the year is 151; but even a wet day is seldom without sunshine, it may be for some hours, it will be at least a few gleams. Such a thing as a dry day without a ray of brilliance is virtually unknown over four-fifths of the colony. I once had the felicity of living in London during twenty-two successive days in which there was neither a drop of rain nor an hour of sunshine. If such a period were to afflict New Zealand, the inhabitants would assuredly imagine that Doomsday was at hand. “Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun,” is a text which might be adopted as a motto for the islands.

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