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(I:8), 45 resulting in the inflated expectations of the first group of Company settlers to New
Zealand who, although this is not expressly stated by Dieffenbach, were duped first and foremost
by the New Zealand Company propaganda:
It is, I conceive, no small praise to a country that in it labour and industry can procure
independence, and even affluence; that in it no droughts destroy the fruits of the colonist’s toil, no
epidemic or pestilence endangers his family; that with a little exertion he may render himself
independent of foreign supply for his food; and that when he looks around him he can almost
fancy himself in England instead of at the Antipodes, were it not that in his adopted country an
eternal verdure covers the groves and forests, and gives the land an aspect of unequalled freshness
and fertility. More, however, than all these advantages were expected by the colonists who in the
last two years have flocked by thousands to New Zealand. They found to their surprise and
disappointment almost entirely a mountainous country, the mountains being in many cases steep
and intersected by ravines instead of valleys; whilst the cultivable land, instead of being
continuous, was much dispersed and subdivided: they found also that in many places a large
proportion of the land was entirely useless; that where they looked for extensive pasture-grounds,
the food for cattle and sheep was very scanty; that instead of natural grasses, high fern, shrubs, or
a thick forest covered the ground; and that in the latter case the thick and interwoven roots formed
a very formidable barrier to successful agriculture in the easy and quickly remunerating manner
they expected. (I:4f.)
Even so, Dieffenbach has little sympathy for these gullible immigrants as they came into their
new country with only thoughts of making quick wealth, rather than establishing solid
foundations for a successful colony:
Most of these emigrants did not intend to make the new colony their second home, but expected,
with the help of the labour which was provided for them in return for their purchases of land, or by
cheap, and, as they hoped, almost gratuitous labour of the natives, to produce, in the shortest
possible time, those articles of produce which the country was said to offer available for export, or
to see their flocks increasing without exertion on their own part; and, having thus made a rapid
fortune, to return to their native country. Many came for the purpose of speculating in land,
especially in town allotments, which has become such a favourite system of deception and ruin in
the Australian colonies, and will retard their progress for many years to come, notwithstanding the
halo of wealth produced by it, the distant reflection and splendour of which are continuing to
attract thousands of emigrants from the shores of the United Kingdom. (I:5)
The truth of the matter is New Zealand is no exporter’s paradise, with the much-vaunted
abundance of timber, flax and whale oil 46 “scarcely furnish[ing] any exports, and they cannot be
45 “In respect to the natural qualities of the different districts of New Zealand, a great many misstatements have been
made. Parts of the land, which are unfit for a colonial enterprise on a great scale, and for a flourishing agricultural
settlement, have been described as containing everything that is desirable for commerce and agriculture; other parts
of the country, which unite all those qualities in themselves, have either never been visited, or overlooked”
(Dieffenbach, “To the Editor”, 52).
46 Through the “indiscriminate slaughter” of the whale “without due regard to the preservation of the dams and their
young”, the whalers, he argues, “have felled the tree to obtain the fruit, and have thus taken the most certain means of
destroying an otherwise profitable and important trade” (I:7). Thus, without proper restrictions put in place, “[i]n a
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