Government administration in New Zealand, 1848-1852

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to describe the machinery of the government which administered New Zealand from 1848 to 1852. It is not en attempt to outline policies, or to describe the results of those policies, but simply to show by what means and by whom they were carried out. It will, I hope, show the difficulties confronting administrators - difficulties due to such diverse causes as (amongst other things) geographical dispersion, discordant temperaments, and inexperience in management – and show how they were overcome, if not exactly triumphed over. One may view the subject, if one likes, as a drama with Grey and Eyre as the protagonists; as secondary characters, say, the representatives of the New Zealand Company, the critics and the reformers; with the settlers and lesser civil servants as a rather inarticulate chorus, or, more simply, as a scene upon which converged various economic and cultural forces, shaping, and being shaped by, the machinery of administration. The first part of this account will describe the set-up from the beginning of 1848 to the end of 1850, starting at the top with the Governor-in-Chief and ending at the bottom with the Justices of the Peace (although neither of these points are really terminals). The second part, dealing with the period from the beginning of 1852, will deal with the changes in this arrangement due to various causes, the cessation of the New Zealand Company's activities being the principal one.