Hill. — Early Printing in Neiv Zealand. 407 



Art. LI. — The Early Days of Printing in New Zealand : 

 A Chapter of Interesting History. 



By H. Hill, B.A., F.G.S. 



[Read before the Hawke's Bay Philosophical Institute, 13th August, 



1900.] 



The details of the early settlement of New Zealand are get- 

 ting to be better known year by year. We have still fourteen 

 years to run before a century will have passed by since the 

 time when English people first landed in this country for the 

 purpose of establishing a home. They were not settlers as is 

 usually understood by the term, but their mission was the 

 training of the natives in " peace and good-will," as well to- 

 wards one another as towards those who might come and wish 

 to dwell among them. 



Although a paper bearing upon the history of New Zea- 

 land may be written without reference to the earliest comers 

 and workers, it is impossible to write a true history of the 

 country— of its earliest known condition and the effect of the 

 first operating influences upon the natives — without dealing 

 in some measure with the missionary work that took place 

 between 1814 and 1843, when an English bishop came to re- 

 side in the country. Our philosophical society debars — and 

 rightly so — the consideration of religious topics ; but there 

 is a wide gulf separating historical fact in which missionaries 

 are concerned and the discussion of topics bearing on religion 

 and dogma. Had it not been for the work of the missionary 

 there would have been no New Zealand history as now under- 

 stood, and it is doubtful whether efforts would have been made 

 to add the country to the list of England's colonial pos- 

 sessions. 



That great man Samuel Marsden, whose history has yet 

 to be written, and whose power and worth are as yet so 

 little understood by the English nation, was the first to 

 realise the importance of New Zealand as a field of mis- 

 sionary effort. It is true that Governor King, of New South 

 Wales, during the period of his Governorship of Norfolk 

 Island, was equally attentive with Mr. Marsden to two young 

 natives of New Zealand — Tooi and Hutu — who were kid- 

 napped, and subsequently taken to Norfolk Island for the 

 purpose of instructing the convicts how to prepare the Phor- 

 mium tenax, or native flax, the island being used by the 

 British Government as a convict settlement. The two young 

 men were taken to the island in H.M.S. " Daedalus " in April, 

 1793. They were treated with much consideration during 



