The role of government in developing the colonial city: The case of Wellington, 1840-1903

Abstract

The role of the state in contemporary New Zealand is being challenged both locally and nationally and this has resulted in deregulation, privatisation and other reductions in state intervention and funding. As part of the debate surrounding this process, there is increasing reference to the laissez faire role deemed characteristic of the nineteenth century state, although the details of that role are relatively poorly understood. This thesis endeavours to throw some light on this matter in respect to the role of the state in city development. It examines the early development of Wellington and other New Zealand cities and focuses on the involvement of the state in developing the largest pieces of city infrastructure (drains, railways, roads, sewers and wharves). The investigation shows that New Zealand's central, local and provincial state did indeed have a limited role in city development. This was not due directly to ideology however, but was as much a response to the demanding financial requirements of breaking in an agricultural frontier. It was only in the hands of privileged urban land owners who used laissez faire dogma to publicly defend their reluctance to pay taxes and rates, that ideology posed a complete barrier to state involvement in city development. Nonetheless the essence of laissez faire philosophy in the form of reverence for self-help, did have a general influence on the activities of the state by providing a strong impetus against public subsidies on anything other than production. Because New Zealand's production was agriculturally-based, it was therefore to rural areas rather than the cities, that state investments were channelled. Only where the cities facilitated agricultural exports did they receive large-scale state investment. In Wellington when the state invested, it was in the harbour, its reclamations and the development of a deep-water wharf which were accorded priority (in the 1860s). By comparison a city-wide water-supply, and comprehensive drainage and sewerage facilities which did not directly benefit production, were not funded until the 1890s. Commercial land and port facilities were seen as important for the agricultural development of the Province and their state funding was tolerated because they actively aided private enterprise's creation of wealth. Municipal services by contrast implied welfare and involved ratepayers subsidising the living standards of their fellow citizens. In this respect the role of the state in city development was indicative of its contribution to the economic and social development of the country as a whole. New Zealand's nineteenth century state was not opposed to government intervention per se, merely regulation and undertakings that appeared to subsidise individual living standards. The generally slow population growth of the New Zealand cities presented a further obstacle to adequate state funding of city infrastructure. Sluggish growth led to a gradual rather than a rapid deterioration in municipal services and living conditions, allowing the population to adapt and dampening demands for immediate improvements.