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CHAPTER 1
Literary culture in New Zealand
Jane Mander's first novel, The Story of a New Zealand River, tells the story of a young mother brought out from England to live in the wilds of the Northland kauri-harvesting region. Initially bewildered by the rough and ready ways of the settlement, she encounters a fellow Englishwoman who immediately senses her despair: '"I know just how you feel," cried Mrs. Brayton impulsively. "You've been here one week, and you think it's the end of everything, and that you'll die, and that there's no God. I know." 'It is not hard to imagine that this was a common reaction to being stranded in such a far-flung place with a relatively short history of European inhabitation. Others have reacted similarly, leading James Belich to write in 2002 that '[v]isions of New Zealand as a cultural wasteland stretch back from the 1900s to the whole nineteenth century, and forward into the twentieth century'.
Early European inhabitants of New Zealand had a reputation for having no culture of their own and few cultural interests. The usual explanation is that the settlers were initially overwhelmed by the immediate task of forging an existence from an unforgiving land, so had little interest in the trivialities of art and literature. Contemporaries and later commentators alike, up until the very present, have assumed that the realities of a rural-based economy left little time for such pursuits. In 1936 Alan Mulgan said that New Zealand was a young country, preoccupied with 'taming a land of mountain, forest and flood', and its inhabitants could not be expected to have the extra energy required to produce literature as well. The most recent version of the Oxford History of New Zealand Literature in English includes Terry Sturm's endorsement of this idea: while practical, non-fiction topics might have had some appeal, the vital forms of literature at this time were '[c]ertainly not poetry and fiction'. Later on in that volume MacDonald P. Jackson makes the same assumption, arguing that '[m]igration and the setting up of a home at the other end of the world exhausted the creative impulse'. Lydia Wevers, in accounting for the lack of stand-out nineteenth-century novels, finds the answer in the 'energy expended on the heart of the bush ... You can only write the novel after you have built the hut to write it in.'
New Zealand's early colonists were, in fact, surprisingly quick to create cultural institutions, although there were natural limitations due to the remoteness and small population. Of course, there were those who complained that New Zealand was a dreadful place for anyone interested in anything beyond the material basis of life — but such complaints continue in the present. In 1860, writing from high-country Canterbury only 12 years after the settlement was founded, Samuel Butler noted wryly that a mountain was thought beautiful only if it were good for sheep. 'But it does not do,' he said, 'to speak about John Sebastian Bach's "Fugues", or pre-Raphaelite pictures.' Katherine Mansfield left for London in 1908 purportedly to escape the country's 'suffocating materialism'. Other writers resented the lack of importance attached to their art compared to more materialist activities. R.A.K. Mason described New Zealand after World War I as a society run by '[m]en who consider the world was made and the stars ranged in order to facilitate the transport of pigs between Taupiri and Wairoa'. Winnie Gonley wrote in 1932: 'Our remoteness and our preoccupation with the task of subduing a new country have given us little interest in or time for acquiring literary technique.' Comments like these have been used to suggest that New Zealand was not a place that provided intellectual nutriment or support for literary-minded inhabitants, forcing them to leave or languish. However, this is not the end of the story, as indicated by a more thorough investigation of the underlying evidence.
Ideas about New Zealand's unsuitability to support writers often hinge on anachronistic and impossible requirements of local 'authenticity'. New Zealand was believed to lack culture, meaning an interest in cultural pursuits, but also its own unique New Zealand culture as expressed in art and literature. Even today, questions about whether New Zealand can claim to have a unique national character at all are not uncommon. These issues were all the more pertinent when British and New Zealand culture were harder to separate. Such unanswerable questions were the focus of much of New Zealand's literary history and criticism in the twentieth century, including an endless search for the 'great New Zealand novel' — an accolade which the hundreds of candidates already on offer never seemed to deserve.
In fact, many cultural amenities were well established by the turn of the twentieth century. Many New Zealanders were deeply interested in art and literature, and it was not necessary to leave the country to encounter European high culture. Cultural artefacts were imported from Britain to the colonies along with the immigrants, in both tangible and intangible forms. Eric McCormick himself attests that the suitcases of British immigrants were stuffed with books, including the works of Tennyson, the Brownings and Dickens, to name a few. The settlers had, apparently, followed the literary advice of immigration publicists like E.J. Wakefield, who in 1848 told every colonist 'to supply himself with a good collection of these cheerful companions'.
Adding to this, in the last few decades a number of scholarly works have appeared making it clear that the deprived picture of New Zealand's intellectual offerings is the result of narrow definitions of culture. Jane Stafford and Mark Williams, for example, have described in detail the 'Maoriland' school of writing, which was the name given to a prolific output of verse and prose between the 1880s and late 1910s. Dismissed as derivatively British with embarrassing attempts to include 'local colour', 'Maoriland' writing was rejected by the cultural nationalists of the 1930s as 'largely provincial, imitative and undistinguished', as opposed to the desired 'native or distinctive'. This insistence on a somewhat meaningless distinction between 'imported' and 'native' culture led to the perception of a cultural vacuum in the early twentieth century. The hugely damaging effects of the spread of British culture at the expense of indigenous culture (whether inadvertently or in the form of deliberate eradication or appropriation) increased the aversion to the study of colonial culture in the later twentieth century. While colonial culture is widely studied today, and books like Maoriland approach it on its own terms, some of this postcolonial embarrassment remains (and it is important not to ignore the role of colonial culture in the oppression of indigenous cultures). This lingering discomfort, along with a stronger focus on cultural expressions that relate to New Zealand specifically, has slowed the uncovering of the rich cultural milieu that people enjoyed due to connections with the colonial world. What follows continues to build up the picture of cultural life in New Zealand from 1890 to 1945, focusing on the fruitful and neglected interwar period. Because of the blind spot towards so-called 'imported' culture created by cultural nationalism, the depth and pervasiveness of artistic pursuits in New Zealand has rarely been acknowledged.
It is evident that New Zealanders, from the very beginning of British settlement, built up a contemporary reputation for being unusually keen on cultural pursuits when compared to their compatriots from Britain and the British Empire — something that has not been widely recognised in recent times. Whether or not it was truly exceptional compared to other colonies, by the turn of the twentieth century New Zealand was quite well-provided with books. According to the literary collector T.M. Hocken, books imported from Britain stocked the 'good supply of bookshops ... and were eagerly borrowed from the many public libraries'. William Pember Reeves wrote in 1898 that 'music, reading, and flower gardening' were the three chief colonial pastimes.
Howard McNaughton opens his survey of New Zealand by claiming that New Zealand's European settlers were 'antagonistic to the arts', but this is quickly tempered by his own evidence regarding the enthusiastic instigation of drama groups and theatres in the colony in ways that have been obscured from historical view. He claims that early New Zealand drama was 'initially a labouring-class phenomenon' and the bulk of its audience was 'totally illiterate', meaning such pursuits were seldom mentioned in the newspapers. By 1843, he continues, 'regular theatrical performances were established' in Auckland, Wellington and Nelson, which is rather astounding considering official settlement had only begun three years earlier. There were well-established amateur dramatic societies by the turn of the twentieth century, and theatrical performances were provided in abundance by touring English, American and European companies. Maurice Hurst wrote in 1944:
Young people of to-day can hardly conceive of the 'good old days' when outstanding stage artists and theatrical companies, singers and musicians, came to New Zealand from abroad in an almost continuous procession, bringing with them something of the glamour and excitement of the great theatres of London and other cities of Europe and sometimes of New York.
In Dunedin, even in the late nineteenth century, there were 'few nights of the year' when something theatrical was not on offer. Alan Mulgan also related that 'it was astonishing how much drama and music came to this very remote colony with its tiny population'. There was certainly a great deal of enthusiasm for these performances, with demand outstripping supply. Ngaio Marsh remembered how 'colonial audiences were elated at the sight of advance notices of theatre companies, how they formed long patient queues for tickets, and rushed for seats at performances'. These troupes were not discouraged from visiting even during World War I, though they were fewer in number. Attendance then improved again during the 1920s. Although performances were not of the quality or quantity that could be found in a place like London, there was still plenty on offer. When moving pictures threatened to divert audiences, private theatre companies diminished but local amateur organisations rose to take their place, bolstered by the Workers' Educational Association, universities and repertory theatres, and the establishment of a New Zealand branch of the British Drama League in 1932.
Music was another cultural fixture the colonists were loath to leave behind. According to the official statistics quoted by Elizabeth Plumridge, 'musical activity was widespread in the colonial community', and '[m]usical instruments of all kinds were available and in demand as soon as British settlers arrived'. Census records confirm the wide availability of music in the colonies: by 1911 there were 1939 New Zealanders whose recorded occupation was musician, vocalist, or student or teacher/professor of music. In 1905 some laudatory comments from a visiting English piano manufacturer were published in the Christchurch Star about New Zealanders' enthusiasm for musical pursuits:
The colonials generally, he stated, are very large purchasers of pianos, but New Zealand is in this respect far ahead of the other colonies. 'It is an undoubted fact,' he added 'that in proportion to population the people of New Zealand are the greatest purchasers of pianos in the world. There is no other country where the sales reach such a relatively large figure.' The standard of musical culture in the colony, in our visitor's opinion, is ahead of that in any of the other colonies.
Charles Baeyertz presided over elocutionary and musical competitions in Christchurch, and these proved popular. Hurst records that there were also many performances by visiting musicians. Musical entertainments included opera performances, and brass and pipe bands existed in most towns. The Woolston Brass Band, for example, was formed in 1891 and is still well-known in Christchurch. Orchestras and choirs were formed in every sizeable town. Hurst lists major and well-established musical societies in the 1940s, many of which had existed for decades. Christchurch alone could offer the Royal Christchurch Musical Society, the Christchurch Harmonic Society, the Christchurch Liedertafel (male voice choir), the Laurian Club (chamber music), the Eroica Club (piano music), the Christchurch Orchestral Society, the Christchurch Liederkranchen (ladies' choir), and the Christchurch Operatic Society.
New Zealanders were also highly literate. Guy Scholefield conducted a study of the readership of local newspapers and concluded that they were widely read because of the high levels of literacy of the New Zealand people, 'all of whom by virtue of the national education act of 1877 will have been taught to read and write'. The literacy rate was close to 100 per cent by the time Scholefield wrote this in 1958; Anna and Max Rogers claim that in 1886, only nine years after the act was passed, 'over 73 per cent of the population could both read and write'. James Belich has used census reports to estimate that the overall illiteracy rate was 25 per cent in 1858, which was 'probably not dissimilar to that of Britain', and this is echoed by Lydia Wevers as well as other sources. As noted earlier, reading was one of the three favoured colonial activities in 1898. Reeves mentioned the abundance of 'booksellers' shops and free libraries'. A.G. Stephens (editor of the Sydney Bulletin) went so far as to hint (somewhat unflatteringly) that New Zealanders were over educated, commenting that 'Maoriland is a curiously "educated" country. There are "high schools" and "colleges" and "universities" galore.'
Colonists in New Zealand showed an interest in enhancing the educational opportunities on offer from the very beginning. Many libraries began their lives as Mechanics' Institutes, which were educational establishments formed to provide adult education to working men: the Auckland public library is an example (as a Mechanics' Institute Library it dates back to 1842). A 'proliferation of libraries' and varied educational institutions were created by colonists concerned with self-improvement. This was not confined to the cities: some sheep stations boasted libraries that were available for staff to use for the benefit of their literacy skills. Lydia Wevers' study of Brancepeth Station in the Wairarapa focuses on one such library, which was established in order to 'improve literacy among the workers', as well as to facilitate classes in adult literacy. As a result of these initiatives there is some cause to infer that New Zealanders were unusually well acquainted with literature: in 1872 after visiting the 'Tuapika' Athenaeum (in Tuapeka, Otago) Anthony Trollope reported that 'Carlyle, Macaulay and Dickens are certainly better known to small communities in New Zealand than they are to similar congregations of men and women at home'.
While it might seem logical that a new colony first occupies itself with establishment, and puts aside the task of encouraging cultural pursuits until life is more settled, evidence would suggest that this was not the case, at least in New Zealand. Almost as soon as they arrived, immigrants from Britain set to work recreating the cultural institutions that they remembered and missed from home, including the public library. The British library movement was in its heyday in the 1850s, when British institutions were being transplanted whole to the colonies. The first legislation empowering local authorities to set up public libraries by providing tax support was passed in 1869, along the lines of the Public Libraries Act of 1850 in Britain. Records show that by 1926 there were as many as 435 libraries in New Zealand, ranging from small collections of a few hundred volumes to those in the bigger cities, 'which [could] stand comparison with libraries of towns in England of similar proportions'. Libraries were not professionalised or institutionalised until the 1940s, when the Labour government became involved. As the universities did not have a large role in public life until later in the twentieth century, libraries were centres for research and discussion of ideas. Though the infrastructure was not yet in place to make libraries highly successful, even the smallest towns had some sort of collection, reflecting a high interest in reading throughout the colony.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Expatriate Myth"
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Copyright © 2018 Helen Bones.
Excerpted by permission of Otago University Press.
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