Pan American World Airways teacher, Vol. V, No. 2, November - December 1948

              NEW ZEALAND
by Lou A. Phillips
Relative smallness is not the handicap to New Zealand that it is to some small political units. As a Dominion in the British Commonwealth of Nations New Zealand is approximately as free as it could be as an independent unit, and although a small power, it has a share of great power status.
Naturally, a nation where 98% of the population is of British ancestry would have a strong community of interest with other British nations, but national sentiment in the long run is most powerful when allied with sound business principles. Economic ties when tempered with defense needs determine New Zealand’s relationship within the British Empire and with the world outside.
New Zealand is the smallest Dominion of the Commonwealth. Its two large mountainous islands and several smaller ones stretch for about 1,000 miles in the waters of the blue South Pacific. North Island has 44,281 square miles and South Island has 58,092 square miles; neither is wider than 280 miles at any point. The country is about equal in area to New York and Illinois together and its population would just fit into Detroit or New York.
The Dominion’s nearest neighbor is Australia 1,200 miles across Cook Strait. About 6,000 miles to the east is South America while 6,000 miles to the northeast lies the west coast of the United States. Half a world away is London, the heart of the British Empire, with about 13,000 miles separating it from New Zealand.
In the Air Age however distance is only a relative thing and to accurately evaluate the Dominion’s position in today’s world one should say that it is 9 hours from Sydney; 74 hours from Rio; 46 hours from New York; 37 hours from San Francisco; and 60 hours from London. This contrasts vividly with the weeks of travel necessary to reach New Zealand before the days of the eager air Clippers.
In The Beginning
About two hundred years before Columbus discovered America, the Maoris discovered the land now called New Zealand. These people, kinsmen of the Hawaiians with whom they share a common Tahitian ancestry, sailed the Pacific without aid of either compass or navigation instruments. (See Classroom Clipper—December 1940.)
The Maoris dwelt in comparative isolation until 1642 when a Dutch sea captain, Abel Tasman, sighted the islands. Although the Dutch named them Nieuw Zeeland after their own province of seamen and traders they never explored the territory. It was not until the Yorkshireman Captain Cook visited the land in 1769 and established friendly relations with the natives, that the
MAORI—The native inhabitants are the Maoris. The picture shows also an example of the wood carving for which these people are justly famous.
country’s existence became widely known.
Until the Nineteenth Century it was whaling, sealing and native timber that drew men to New Zealand; then the opportunity to acquire land became one of the main attractions. Besides the British, many American whalers from New Bedford and Nantucket were among those who visited New Zealand’s bays and harbors during the latter part of the Eighteenth Century.
With the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, Europe’s interest in establishing Pacific colonies as sources of primary products for their industrializing populations increased. Missionaries from France as well as England began to arrive to work with the Maori,
but in 1840 through a treaty with native chiefs, the islands became a British colony. Systematic settlement began with the formation of the New Zealand Trading Company and twelve years later the colony was granted the right of self-government. In 1907 New Zealand was given Dominion status.
Just What Is A Dominion
Actually Dominion status is a subtle combination of independence and organic union with other British countries. As in all British Dominions, the head of the Government is the Governor-General who is the ( Continued on page 8)