Book Review. 

Not in Narrow seas

For anybody with some time for reading this is a brilliant book to pick up from the library.  It is a big book both in size (almost 700 Pages) and information contained covering the commercial history of New Zealand from the arrival of the first Māori through until the current government showing how trading has evolved. 

It records how the traditional Māori way of sharing products among their iwi had to change when the Pākeha mariners arrived and wanted to resupply their ships. Exchanging good was fine when you knew and trusted those involved, however as strangers became involved rules and mediums of exchange became necessary. 

As systems of governance were set up these too involved the financial arrangements and gradually became the rule setters. 

For me the fascination of this book has been the revelations of the details of events I have read about or lived through and though I had a reasonable understanding of . The author shows otherwise. He shows that when it came to finances successive governments have been sparing when disseminating information. In several case even the caucus did not know what the Prime Minister had done or signed up to.

As far back as the 1800s our neighbouring towns namesake, Dr Isaac Featherston was meddling in affairs to his own advantage .   As Provincial Governor the Doctor, himself a large land owner was; ‘hostile to land division and settlement of small farmers, with severe financial repercussions’. Eventually he was evicted by a coup of the disgruntled Provincial Councillors. 

The book plots the rise and fall of various enterprises with the reasons for these  . It likewise plots the movements of populations, sometimes linked to business circumstances, sometimes for other reasons. And always, it seems, there is a government oar being poked in somewhere.

Periods of war and how these were delt with the associated social and financial problems are fully covered as are reasons for periods of financial depression. Also fully explored is the problem of the country being tied to overseas customers for an income along with reasons for these markets over time evolving and disappearing  

The Author clearly has put a vast amount of investigative study into this project. A helpful idea is his listening of the relevant references at the end of each chapter rather than all together in a single section at the end.

This book could have ended up like a senior class history textbook. Happily it has not , it is a very enjoyable read which left, the reader at least, a whole lot better informed about our country’s past. 

Mike Beckett

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