The New Zealand Company has been showered with a great deal of blame for leaving a tangle of shoddy land deals with Maori in the 1840s, but how invasive was the company in 1839? Extremely, if the frenetic pace of its activities in England were anything to go by. The threat to Maori land had never been so far-reaching and premeditated. Instead of allowing themselves to be distracted by government interference, the company's directors - enticed by the vast profits that seemed to be tantalisingly close - expended their vigour on constructing an organisation that would harvest this wealth with the greatest efficiency and effectiveness. It was this determination to succeed, by a group of directors who saw their work as part business, part civic responsibility, which propelled the enterprise forward at breakneck speed.
A head office in London was fully staffed, subcommittees dealing with finance, shipping and emigration, land, and correspondence were set up and diligently attended, and agents were hired to both sell land shares and to entice eligible settlers to move to New Zealand. Within just a few months there were New Zealand Company agents operating in almost every major city in Britain, and even in Ireland. Public meetings, dinners, fetes and balls were organised by the company to drum up interest and subscriptions to its share issues, and to place a romantic glimmer on New Zealand and the possibilities that existed there.
For the most part, the company's staff were passionately dedicated to their work because they believed in the Utopian ideal that their organisation promised, but there is no denying that in some sectors higher up the company's echelons money was becoming the sole motive. Ironically, such was the ensuing success of this fierce dedication to profitability shown by some company leaders that the business could not prosper without destroying the philosophical goals on which Wakefield had built the organisation. As the potential for great riches captivated all involved, it was easy, or at least easier, to let the thought of systematic colonisation, reserves set aside for Maori, a reconstituted class system, and all the rest of Wakefield's theoretical baggage slip away.
- Paul Moon, Fatal Frontiers: A New History of New Zealand in the Decade Before the Treaty, Auckland, 2006, p.189
See also:
Blog: The last sight of old Plymouth, 6 April 2009
Blog: Wellington's first settler ship, 22 January 2014
History: An enemy whose hostility was to be unabated, 1 March 2017
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