From Promotion to Reference: the New Zealand Official Year-Book, 1893-1923: its Content and Approach

Abstract

Examination of the New Zealand Official Year-Book's content and approach between 1893 and 1923 demonstrates that official 'reference' publications provide more than simply 'facts'; they are historical artefacts in and of themselves. The Year-Book underwent a process of specialisation, from a two-fold function of promoting immigration and investment in New Zealand as well as a statistical reference work for domestic consumption, to solely the latter. This transformed the publication's content and appearance. The transition was part of the wider centralisation and professionalisation of the administration of official statistics in New Zealand. This was itself a manifestation of a growing and increasingly active state, under both the Liberal and the Reform governments. The changing role of official statistics in New Zealand reflected international trends. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries official statistics assumed a foundational position in informing economic and social policy in many countries. The result of such specialisation in the Year-Book was an intensified statistical analysis of aspects of New Zealand's economy and society at the expense of promotional British Empire and Australasian frames of reference. The Year-Book's description of New Zealand's potential 'progress' became increasingly nuanced as economic statistics grew more sophisticated, descriptive articles were removed, and the language used in statistical commentary became comparatively concise. The limited then decreasing quantity of information published on Maori in the Year-Book demonstrated the marginal position of Maori within both its vision of progress and in its increasingly intricate statistical description of New Zealand. Therefore, at least within the Year-Book, Maori formed an ambiguous element in the expanding project of official statistics in New Zealand.