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Instead of this, however, she was, by far, too deep in the water, having a lot of deadweight amid-ships, in the shape of agricultural implements and other hardware, which she was taking out to Otago, that seriously interfered with her buoyancy, making her dip to the waves instead of rising over them, and depriving her of that spring and elasticity which a good ship should always have.
The procedure of the Provincial Councils, where Mr. Speaker took the chair daily and a mace was gravely laid on the table by the clerk, seemed a Lilliputian burlesque of the great Mother of Parliaments at Westminster. Nevertheless, the Provinces did not fall without a struggle. In both Otago and Auckland the older colonists mostly clung to their local autonomy.
The naval officer in New Zealand waters offered assistance, and eventually it was arranged that the Otago Harbour Board's tug Plucky should meet the 'Aurora' outside Port Chalmers. There were still bad days to be endured. The jury- rudder partially carried away and had to be unshipped in a heavy sea.
Every now and then public opinion declares itself on one side, though the better known newspapers are on the other. But on the average their influence is not slight. There is no one leading journal. Of the four or five larger morning newspapers, the Otago Daily Times shows perhaps the most practical knowledge of politics and grasp of public business.
On Boxing Day they landed and burnt the principal native village, which Kelly calls the "beautiful city of Otago of about six hundred fine houses" not the only bit of patent exaggeration in his story. Then they sailed away. What prompted the attack at Murdering Beach is uncertain like so much that used to happen in No Man's Land.
Indeed, the pioneers, called the Old Identities, seemed almost swamped by the flood of gold-seekers which poured in in the years after 1861. Nevertheless, Otago is still the headquarters of that large and very active element in the population of the Colony which makes the features and accent of North Britain more familiar to New Zealanders than to most Englishmen.
In 1861 profitable goldfields were discovered in Otago. The little Free Church colony, which in thirteen years had scarcely increased to that number of thousands, was thunderstruck at the news. For years there had been rumours of gold in the river beds and amongst the mountains of the South Island. From 1857 to 1860 about £150,000 had been won in Nelson.
It is said that Tucker had been to Otago some years previously and had stolen a baked head from the Maoris. It is hinted that an encounter had taken place on the coast not long before in which natives had been shot and a boat's crew cut off.
The goldfields of Otago had scarcely reached the zenith of their prosperity before equally rich finds were reported from the west coast of the Canterbury province.
New Zealand annually spends on education £500,000, or £1 per head of the population, a higher proportion than is spent by any other country. Formerly there was the University of Otago and the University of New Zealand, but the former has now ceased to have the power of conferring degrees, and has been virtually amalgamated with the University of New Zealand.
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