White-Settler Colonial Development: Early New Zealand Pastoralism and the Formation of Estates1

Abstract

A comparison of early Australian and New Zealand pastoralism suggests that class conflict was not decisive in the evolution of colonial capitalism but that dynamics within the organisation of pastoral production were. In New Zealand, early runholding spread rapidly until the 1870s when geographical limitations and the speculative character of runholding investment forced runholders to buy land and establish estates. The transition to estates required active political participation and the use of aggressive land purchasing tactics. Estate production involved sophisticated and diverse credit relationships within a relatively autonomous economy which featured generalised entrepreneurial activity rather than urban dominance of a rural class. Bureaucratic and patriarchal domination characterised the organisation of work on estates, and successful estate production sustained a colonial gentry life-style. A focus on the dynamic nature of capital investment in land is suggested as a more fruitful approach to colonial capitalism rather than those perspectives which emphasise class and class conflict.