4
'We soon discovered our new acquaintances (the Maoris) were good
hands at a bargain and excellent judges of a blanket. A pig could be
procured at first for a large blanket; but the prices rapidly rose to two or
more, according to quality, of which the Natives were generally better
judges than the Europeans. They sold their fish well, also, generally
getting a shilling (lOc) for a schnapper. A man would come to your
window and hold up a fish which, after a little bargaining, he would sell
for a shilling; he would then produce from under his blanket a much finer
one which you obtained for another shilling; when, 10, another is
produced finer than both. But a little experience made me feel them
round carefully before I commenced fish dealing.'
When Dr Henry Weekes, surgeon-general of the William Bryan,
wrote this in his journal of events in New Plymouth between 1840 and
1845, he may have been excused for thinking the Maoris were cunning,
even deceitful, in their approach to trading. But they had learnt the
business the hard way-from the Europeans.
The skill of the Maori flax-dressers was known to early European
traders. This native plant, Phormium lenox! called harekeke by the
Maoris, grew in profusion in swampy areas and near beaches. From its
fibres the Maoris made 'all their common apparel strings, lines,
cordage and baskets, mats and fishing nets",In 1874, at Thames,
Maoris made flax ropes to replace the running-rigging on the brig Fancy,
thus establishing a trade which flourished for more than 160 years. In
1815, the Active, with the Rev. Samuel Marsden aboard, returned to
Sydney with New Zealand phormium fibre in its cargo and in little more
than 10 years regular trading in the fibre began between New Zealand,
Sydney and England.
Prices were high and profits large. In the beginning a box of nails, an
axe and an old musket was enough payment to fill the hold of a small ship
with fibre. In 1830 840 tonnes exported from various ports in New
Zealand at $34 a tonne, was re-exported to England for $90 a tonne. The
trade soared over the years, as did the price. In 191832,000 tonnes were
exported at $104 a tonne, but by the 1950s, when artificial fibres took
over, the annual export trade (64 tonnes at $8 a tonne) had almost
vanished.
In Taranaki, Dicky Barrett joined the growing flax trade in the 1830s,
exporting several cargoes of fibre and whale oil to Sydney before he
sought refuge in the south following the great battle against the Waikato
Maoris. He encouraged Taranaki tribes to cultivate the flax in several
areas near New Plymouth. Following the 1860-65 fighting a number of
flax mills were established in which machines replaced the handdressing
system used by the Maoris. The last flax mill in North Taranaki
went out of business in the 1920s.
Although Barrett established his whaling station at Ngamotu in the
mid-1830s, it was not a particularly profitable venture, probably because
the North Taranaki coast is far from hospitable, and because Barrett was
a little late in the queue-the bonanza was almost over.
Early mariners had noticed the presence of the mammals in New
Zealand waters and as early as 1791 the whaling ship William and Ann
under Captain William Bunker called at Doubtless Bay during a whaling
expedition.3 It was the forerunner of a large number of American,
Australian, French and British vessels which either whaled in New
Zealand waters or called at ports for provisioning.
The first bay-whaling, or shore-based stations, in this country were
established in the Marlborough Sounds and Cook Strait areas in 1829,
which were soon followed by others in the south of the South Island, at
Paremata, Mana and Kapiti Islands, and on the east coasts of both
islands. Barrett's of Ngamotu was the only station on the west coast of
the North Island, apart from those in the Cook Strait area.
Business was seasonal. The bay-whalers' busy time was during the
migration north of the southern right whale in winter and spring, many of
which travelled close to shore, and an occasional humpback. In
contrast, the huge sperm whales were usually found in deep water and
were thus largely out of reach of shore-based small boats.
Oil was obtainable from most species, but the right whale yielded
balleen, or whalebone, which for many years was in great demand for
use in corsets, umbrellas and packing materials. Three 15-metre-long
right whales could yield a tonne of balleen, which was frequently more
valuable than their oil, both of which Barrett sold to Sydney merchants.
Compared with sperm whaling, which sometimes required voyages of
several years, bay-whaling was an unsophisticated affair, though it was
accompanied by great risk, as Barrett's last encounter with a whale
demonstrated in 1847. It required only a small capital outlay for
relatively simple equipment: trypots, windlasses, flensing knives and
barrels, with two or three longboats equipped with lances, harpoons and
lines for the actual catching. The Taranaki Museum possesses several
examples of such equipment used by Barrett and his main business rival
and friend, Richard Brown, who also established a station at Ngamotu in
the early 1840s.
During the 'season' there was always someone on watch from the
summit of Paritutu, and when a whale was sighted there would be a
frenzied rush for the boats. When the whale had been caught, its
carcase, stripped of its balleen and oil, was left to rot on the beach at
Ngamotu, much to the disgust and discomfort of the early European
settlers. But by that time business was slack. Right whales-bulls, cows
and their calves-had been slaughtered indiscriminately by the many
whalers to the south, and by 1845 were rarely seen off New Plymouth.
Their numbers have never built up, and in spite of strict protection
during most of the present century, the right whale is still a very rare
animal. Local fishermen occasionally report sighting a humpback, but
the last reported processing of a whale was when one was washed up off
Bayly Road in 1930.
Several attempts have been made to exploit the iron sands which abound
on Taranaki beaches. The first smelting operation was by John Perry,
who produced limited quantities of iron which was forged into small
items in 1848. Other experiments were made by C. Sutton, but the
fineness of the sand choked the furnaces.
In 1869 Henochberg and Co. erected a furnace on the banks of the
Mangaotuku Stream near the site of the present Devon Intermediate
School. This later became the Pioneer Steel Company and the New
Zealand Titanic Steel and Iron Co. Ltd. E. M. Smith, later to be a
Member of the House of Representatives, was the driving force behind
this and other ventures. He invented a method by which the ironsand
was moulded with clay into bricks which prevented the choking
problem. This brought wide acclaim from British steel-makers, but the
enterprise collapsed for want of funds.
Smith persevered, and 10 years later succeeded in floating a company
in Wellington which founded the Taranaki Foundry and Engineering Co.
Ltd at Te Henui. On September 23, 1879, nearly four tonnes of pig iron
was obtained, tested in England and found to be 'of best quality"." But it was not good enough for investment. Smith made further abortive
attempts to raise finance and in 1889 the Bank of New Zealand acquired
the plant and transferred it to Onehunga, where it produced 45 tonnes of
pig iron.
In 1896 and again in 1901 Smith visited Britain, but was unable to
interest the money market in the New Zealand steel-making industry.
The only reward for his years of effort and faith seems to have been in his
sobriquet, 'Ironsand' Smith. The Taranaki Museum possesses several
items made from Taranaki ironsand, and a testimonial to the man who
moulded the first pair of railway wheels in the country, John O'Hara.
Food, and a house, were among the first requirements of the European
settlers at New Plymouth. The fertile soil provided both. Most families
were soon self-sufficient in fresh vegetables, potatoes and wheat, and as
the land was cleared the newly-felled timber provided the basic material
for houses to replace the tents and a few prefabricated houses they had
brought with them, or had bought from the New Plymouth Company
store. Primitive shelters they were; one-roomed shacks for the most
part; beams, joists, rafters and planks laboriously pit-sawn where the
fallen trees lay; hauled to the home-site by lumbering ox-carts, where
the man of the house, together with his wife and perhaps a neighbour,
gave the family their first roof (usually made from flax; wooden shingles
and iron came later) over their heads. Additional rooms were added as
families grew.
For 20 years New Plymouth grew thus: little do-it-yourself houses
lining the barely-formed streets in the town; 'home-steads' on the farms
as they were developed. Then came the fighting and the precious homes
were abandoned to the marauding Maoris while their owners sought
refuge behind the palisades of the town.
Young Henry Brown, a son of the Rev. Henry Handley Brown, had
served his apprenticeship in the hard school of the bush, and in the late
1850s he opened a one-man building business in the town. Barely had he
started than he was required, as were all able-bodied men, to join the
military forces. He served in the Volunteer Rifles under Captain (later
Sir) Harry Atkinson, and took part in many skirmishes and forays
against the Maoris, including the Battle of Waireka at Ornata (his
father's parish). When the peace came he founded the first-and
subsequently the largest-timber-milling firm in the province, on his
father's property in Carrington Road in 1863. For 12 years he and his
small team cut into the massive bush. When most of the millable timber
had been cleared he opened another mill to Inglewood in 1873, where he
set up his home. He became a founder member of the Moa Dairy
Company, chairman of the Inglewood Town Board, a county councillor
for 14 years, and a Member of the House of Representatives from 1896 to
1899.
