The many interests of the meeting between Māori oral society and literacy are reflected in the range of those who write about it: literary historians, linguists, historians, enthusiasts of print and Māori culture. But theirs have been small studies which amount to a partial knowledge of this encounter, generating a sense of potential. Three issues are pertinent to a review of this literature and contemplation of future study.

First, the fact that Māori acquired literacy at a time of colonisation by the British is a critical determinant, but one balanced by the autonomy of Māori tribal society. Secondly, and a direct result of colonisation, is the fact that Māori use of writing and print is complicated by two languages. English displaced Māori as a first language, and Māori literature is in large part of both languages, in small part in Māori. The third issue arises from this dual language heritage, for at the time of their first encounter Māori and English were respectively of oral and literate traditions. Māori therefore came to experience those two traditions across both languages.

The assumption of literacy by Māori is not a straightforward, predictable history, although it compares with other oral peoples' response to literacy. What remains to be known is the situational detail of Māori literacy, which in turn could assist language survival, would acknowledge the singularity of Māori literature, and contribute to international scholarship on orality and literacy.

Conventions and authorities for writing and print

There are two kinds of first writing of Māori, one unsystematic but with human interest in the grappling with transcription of foreign sounds, and the other systematic, a serious, scientific conversion of Māori to written symbols. The first kind can be found in journals and travel narratives by late 18th-century and early 19th-century explorers, visitors and settlers such as Cook, Dieffenbach, Nicholas. Patrick Smyth refers to sources of such transcriptions in Maori Pronunciation and the Evolution of Written Maori (1946). Those writers, however, were simply collecting information and were neither sufficiently motivated nor informed to organise a spelling system. Purpose in the translation and dissemination of Christian doctrine and access to expertise enabled the missionary community to create an orthography. In an appendix to Judith Binney's life of Thomas Kendall, The Legacy of Guilt (1968), there is a detailed account of his initiation of a writing system. Kendall was a lay-teacher for the Church Missionary Society in the Bay of Islands, and his A Korao no New Zealand (1815) contained the first printed Māori, and an alphabet. In 1820 Kendall went to England and improved his alphabet by working together with a scholar of oriental languages, Professor āpuhi speakers Samuel Lee of Cambridge University, and NgHongi Hika and Hōhaia Parata Waikato, and by reference to a vocabulary compiled by other northern speakers Tuai (referred to in some sources as 'Tui') and Titere on a visit to England in 1818. In the course of the missionaries' translations it was modified to the current, economical form for printers, of five vowels and ten consonants.

There are only brief histories of this remarkable innovation. William Colenso worries over errors in transcription and printing of names in 'On nomenclature' (1883); Johannes Andersen's 'Maori alphabet' (1940) recounts problems with representation of sounds; Peter Lineham in Mission and Moko (1992) and Bible and Society (1996) reports translators', typographers' and readers' difficulties with spelling in the Bible; D.F. McKenzie puts a spare, elegant account of progress to an orthography in Oral Culture, Literacy & Print in Early New Zealand: The Treaty of Waitangi (1985). There are remarks about the adequacy of the orthography in publications about the language, particularly in translations of 19th-century manuscripts. These offer excellent sources for investigation of whether the spelling system accurately replicated the sounds of Māori, whether the missionaries' concerns as translators and printers influenced the choice of letters, and how the alphabet affected language use.

Linguists have drawn attention to the effect of the orthography on dialect, Ray Harlow surveying historical records and contemporary use in 'Regional variation in Maori' (1979). The alphabet assigned fixed values to sounds. Missionary translators would have appreciated this but it precluded representation of phonological differences. Translators and publishers, modelling other literature, possibly corrected local usage before printing—Lineham (1992) mentions Bible translators' disagreements over dialect. The first printed Scriptures (widely circulated) were mainly of the similar dialects of Ngāpuhi and Waikato; this language has often been asserted as classical Māori and has consequently influenced speech and writing. Writing and particularly print therefore accentuated a uniform rather than diverse language. Speech, however, can also cause change in dialect, while writing may have the value of preserving it. For the Chatham Island people's Moriori language (which differs from Māori in pronunciation of some vowels and consonants), writing came too late. Written records from the late 18th and early 19th centuries are examined by Ross Clark in 'Moriori and the Maori: the linguistic evidence' (1994). The greatest part of the extant record was written down some 30 years after the 1835 invasion and subjugation of the Moriori by the Taranaki people whose own dialect modified the Moriori language.

The standardised spelling created some difficulty in comprehension, as is suggested by a rare printed example of South Island Māori, very likely produced by the Wesleyan Rev. James Watkin from his Waikouaiti parish, and published in 1841. Watkin had found that the Scriptures supplied from the northern mission were not understood by people in his locality, and he adjusted the alphabet to express their sounds. Harlow includes a facsimile of Watkin's work in Otago's First Book (1994), and a discussion of his spelling system and South Island vocabulary in A Word-list of South Island Maori (1985).

The orthography represented the language sufficiently, however, for missionary translations and teaching of literacy. Māori evidently found it satisfactory for they used it effectively from the late 1830s, but their writing suggests that a more accurate alphabet might have resulted had the missionaries worked with them in refining it. Nineteenth- and 20th-century writing shows adjustment to the orthography, a claim to accuracy and pride in dialect. In a transcription and translation of Te Kāhui Kararehe's late 19th-century writing (1993), Ailsa Smith notes that he resisted convention and wrote in the characteristic sounds of his Taranaki speech. Evidence that much writing was done last century is suggested by (little used) attempts to abbreviate it to a shorthand, as described in Hicks's Maori Shorthand (1894) and H.W. Williams's A System of Shorthand for Maori (1896).

Summarising the history of Māori in 'The Maori language past and present' (1968), Bruce Biggs points out that the alphabet was deficient until vowel quantity was marked, for length of vowel sound can distinguish meaning. He remarks elsewhere that Māori introduced the double vowel to signify length as it occurs, although not consistently, in their 19th-century manuscripts. This is the one unresolved problem in what is otherwise a conveniently phonetic writing system. Nineteenth- and early 20th-century grammars and dictionaries experimented with different accents for long vowels, but in the 20th century the lack of accepted practice led to controversy as to whether vowel length should be marked at all, or by a double vowel or macron. As the language has come to be printed outside academia (where the double vowel was in vogue) the macron has been preferred. This has caused some typographical problems since not all fonts allow for it, and unsightly alternative diacritics have been used in some publications. It seems likely that in future the macron will be looked for in correct spelling of Māori.

Although accomplished readers of the symbols of art and landscape, Māori had had no form of alphabetic script and the transition of the oral language to a written form (in conjunction with the arrival of foreigners and colonisation) brought far-reaching changes to the content and traditions of language use which have yet to be fully documented. Two examples of change are neologisms and public access to traditional knowledge. Writing out the oral vocabulary did not alter meaning, but contact with Pākehā brought other words into it—either additional meanings were attributed to old words to signify new concepts and objects, or English words were transliterated to Māori sounds. Such additions, which may have originated orally, were reinforced in the literature. Another extraordinary result of writing was that traditional knowledge could be disseminated far beyond the reaches of a tribal audience. Access to oral or written texts may be circumscribed, by selection of an audience, by limited print runs. But it was a feature of Māori oral traditions to be closely controlled by the tribal group; with writing they could be communicated well outside its boundaries. Place names provide a case in point. Personal to and resonant of tribal life, they came to be spelled out on signposts, buildings, maps—the spelling and pronunciation of them becoming an issue of national debate in the 20th century. In recent times some tribes have refrained from published documentation of names which indicate sacred sites or resources.

Conventions associated with writing, and especially print, came with the orthography. For instance, consistency in spelling and punctuation, correctness in grammar, precision in word meaning, the layout of a written text—titles, chapters, paragraphing. In addition there were numbers, symbols and systems relating to money, weight, and time. Some of these had been specified in pamphlets and workbooks printed for missionary teaching and were apparent in published literature. But standards were made explicit, and served tuition in literacy and the progress of a literature, by grammars and dictionaries. These too were new to Māori, for the oral traditions did not record definitions of words or description of language components and structure. Both grammars and dictionaries could usefully be studied for their influence on usage, each providing evidence of its time, and bearing an authority which is often, though not always correctly, associated with print.

Clergy compiled the first published grammars and dictionaries; Māori were sometimes advisers. The first was Kendall and Lee's Grammar and Vocabulary (1820), the next the Rev. Robert Maunsell's insightful Grammar (1842). The Williams family's contribution to publishing the lexicon and grammar is remarkable: William Williams's 1844 Dictionary of the New Zealand Language and a Concise Grammar; several editions of W.L. Williams's important First Lessons in the Maori Language (1862); seven editions from the 1844 dictionary to H.W. Williams's Dictionary of the Maori Language (1971) which remains unequalled.

Dictionaries are also testimony to how the language has been used: most have been Māori-English, none all in Māori. The English-Māori lexicon was properly established with Biggs's 1981 Complete English-Maori Dictionary, and enlarged by H.M. Ngata's English-Maori Dictionary (1993)—the first compiled by a Māori and which records, without explicit intention, his Ngāti Porou dialect. This and other contemporary dictionaries emphasise the spoken language; new words appear in them many of which have long been used in speech, but print has not yet fully captured colloquial usage, transliterations, neologisms, and dialect.

The first Māori to produce a grammar was H.M. Stowell with the Maori-English Tutor and Vade Mecum (1913). In the 20th century, linguist Bruce Biggs produced the influential Let's Learn Maori (1969), which became the first grammar in Māori when translated by Cleve Barlow (1990). It is a sign of language loss rather than of use of literacy that there is no other grammar in Māori. In the 20th century Māori published grammars with the aim of assisting language learning. Māori had declined as a first language as a result of colonisation's impact—government policy from 1867 that teaching be in English; the move since the 1950s by Māori away from their tribal communities where the language and oral traditions were habitual, to towns where English and literacy predominated. Print, which at least by association with colonisation had contributed to the decline of Māori, was paradoxically used as an essential medium of instruction to revive it. Indeed it might be argued that a recurring, sometimes sole, reason for Māori using print has been for survival—linguistic, political and cultural survival. Māori compilers of 20th-century language tutors added a new dimension in recording dialect (previously incidental in grammars) simply by using their own language, as in Hoani Waititi's Te Rangatahi series (1970) and Tīmoti Kāretu's Te Reo Rangatira (1974) for Ngāti Porou and Tūhoe.

The reduction in use of spoken and written Māori over a long period is indicated by the purposeful creation in the late 20th century of a vocabulary for inventions, technological, scientific, and legal terms. The Māori Language Commission (established by statute in 1987 to promote use of the language) created some 5,500 words by attribution of new meanings to old words and transliterated borrowing from English, published in Te Matatiki (1996). Despite common use in 19th-century writing, where possible the Commission avoided transliterations. Other registers of vocabulary are concordances, of the Bible by Barlow (1990), and of two classics of Māori oral literature by Harlow, A Name and Word Index to 'Nga Mahi a nga Tupuna' (1990) and, together with A.H.F. Thornton, A Name and Word Index to 'Nga Moteatea' (1986). These, a very studied use of print, will serve scholars and, like the grammars and dictionaries, may help the language survive, at worst only in print.

Printed works in Māori to the 1850s

In the period up to 1850 the Church Missionary Society principally, but also the Wesleyan and Roman Catholic Missions, carried out the printing in New Zealand (and overseas) of a considerable amount of religious material and some government documents in Māori. Two printers are often recalled in histories of this time. William Yate was the first to print the language in New Zealand, in 1830 at Kerikeri, producing hymns and a catechism. William Colenso, commissioned by the Church Missionary Society as printer at Paihia in 1834, put out translated parts of the Bible in 1835, and took on a considerable role in the printing of Māori, as his own published writings and biography relate.

Stories of the mission presses (Māori were employed in some), the difficulties associated with production (the small number of letters must have been some relief), and details of the output of literature in Māori, are quite well covered in diverse sources, but could be covered in one specialist history. Colenso gives a personal account of his work in Fifty Years Ago in New Zealand (1888), A.W. Reed a spirited response (1936), Andersen a picturesque history in 'Early printing in New Zealand' (1940a), and D.F. McKenzie (1985) a selective guide to the period. The recent restoration by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust of the Pompallier building in Russell, which recreates the French Catholic mission press environment effectively, is described in detail in New Zealand Historic Places (no.44, Nov. 1993, pp.4-36). At the turn of the century there was reflection back to this time in Hill's 'The early days of printing in New Zealand' (1900), Hocken's 'Some account of the beginnings of literature in New Zealand' (1900), and the separate Māori section in his Bibliography of the Literature Relating to New Zealand (1909). The fullest information is to be read from H.W. Williams's Bibliography of Printed Maori to 1900 (1924). The Introduction informs about the presses; the bibliographic entries are detailed, with imprint, dates, production numbers, physical character, and content. The chronological arrangement enables an easy view

This unsigned watercolour [Woman and child] by Joseph Jenner Merrett is the first known record of a Māori woman reading. It was painted between 1841 and 1843 and is one of the works in the album presented to Eliza Hobson (Governor Hobson's widow) when she left New Zealand in 1843. The original album, in the collections of the Alexander Turnbull Library, was reproduced in 1990 as Mrs Hobson's Album (Auckland University Press in association with the Library) with commentary and catalogue by Elsie Locke and (now Dame) Janet Paul. This painting is printed as Plate 12 in the reproduction, with catalogue notes on p.122.(Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, NZ, reference number F-21814-1/2) black and white reprint

of the scope of material of any one time. (There are two supplements, neither complete, by Williams (1928) and A.D. Sommerville (1947); an augmented edition is in progress at the National Library.)

Up to 1850, virtually all the printed material available to Māori was of Christian doctrine—chapters and books of the Bible, hymns, orders of service, catechisms, almanacs, and religious tracts. It was also used as examples in printed workbooks and grammars. Although a literature of translation and esoteric subject matter, it is of worth to linguists, theologians and historians. Distribution of and response to this literature are documented in Michael Jackson's 'Literacy, communications and social change' (1975), Lineham's accounts of biblical translations from the mission presses and the British and Foreign Bible Society (1992, 1996), and McKenzie's review of Māori literacy (1985).

In this era of British aspirations to govern Aotearoa, two documents in Māori, the Declaration of Independence and the Treaty of Waitangi, came to have extraordinary significance for the future, and invite further print-centred review. The Declaration of Independence was printed, in Māori and English, in 1835 at the request of James Busby the British Resident, and some 34 chiefs consented to it—four signed their names, others made a mark. The signatories were designated, by that act of writing, the United Tribes of New Zealand. The Declaration was printed twice and circulated for others to sign. It arose partly out of an earlier document, an 1831 Māori petition for protection sent to King William IV which 13 northern chiefs signed. This public document of government between Māori and Pākehā has a late 20th-century sequel in David Simmons's booklet Ko Huiarau (1991)—which affirms the contemporary role of the United Tribes and the Declaration.

The Treaty of Waitangi has been the more powerful example of print, symbolising relations between Māori and Pākehā. Most Māori literature to the 1850s remains a rarity of religious or academic import. The Treaty has been constantly and radically an active inheritance of print, as Claudia Orange's Treaty of Waitangi (1987) chronicles. The complexity of the Treaty meeting between oral and literate peoples has been convincingly portrayed by McKenzie (1985). The signatories to the document have been presented graphically in Mīria Simpson's Ngā Tohu o te Tiriti: Making a Mark, which was published in 1990 (the 150th anniversary of the Treaty) in conjunction with a National Library exhibition entitled 'Ngā kupu kōrero, the people of the Treaty speak'. The book with its various signatures and the exhibition title encapsulate the continuing dynamic of the oral-literate interaction over the Treaty. It is sometimes said that the Treaty is always speaking; it has certainly been source of long argument between Māori and Pākehā. Perhaps print exacerbated this. If it had been an oral contract its very text and meaning would have been changed according to the time. As a static printed document it raises expectations of a complete understanding of what it meant in the past which, as Bruce Biggs proposes in an aptly entitled 'Humpty-Dumpty and the Treaty of Waitangi' (1989), is unrealistic.

The continuing print legacy from the Treaty makes history. There is a rare published statement about it in Māori by Apirana Ngata (1922). There is a literature from the Waitangi Tribunal (set up in 1975 to hear claims against the Crown for breaches of the Treaty): documentation from hearings published in microform, findings in print. The 1990 commemoration prompted special funding from Government for Māori literature, and the National Library's informal publication of selected manuscripts and commitment to recataloguing and describing printed Māori. The Treaty's imprint, the text or comment about it in Māori, embellishes a range of objects from art works to clothing.

After 1840 and the assumption of British government there were other translated documents of government—proclamations, public letters, Acts, the Māori Gazette, and instructions about European life—portions of Robinson Crusoe and Pilgrim's Progress, information about medicine, the keeping of bees and cultivation of tobacco, histories of Britain, of Peter the Great. All this is recorded in Williams's Bibliography, as are the government newspapers in Māori begun in 1842 and a substantial body of print of considerable historical merit. (A microform edition of extant Māori newspapers has made them accessible and a bilingual bibliography is in progress at the National Library.)

The primary purpose of printing up to 1850 was to distribute the literature of church and state; it was one means by which these institutions advised and legitimated their presence. Such use of print invites examination of whether it was a tool of colonisation, a point touched on by Kuni Jenkins in 'Te ihi te mana te wehi o te tuhi 1814-55' (1991). As religious, bureaucratic, linguistic literature, it is, in retrospect at least, not very attractive. Nothing at the time was printed of Māori knowledge, history, or religion, nothing familiar which Māori could turn to when fascination with the new, foreign literature waned. But from the early 1850s the oral traditions came into print and Māori took up publishing.

Māori oral traditions in print

The history of publication of Māori oral traditions, of the narratives, songs, sayings, and genealogies handed down over generations is, as some historians of literacy might expect, marked by length and quality of experience of literacy. The transition of the oral traditions to print would make a fascinating history. There is ample material for such research, as Williams's Bibliography, C.R.H. Taylor's excellent Bibliography of Publications on the New Zealand Maori (1972) and Jane McRae's 'Māori literature: a survey' (1991) attest. It would be important to an examination of Māori response to writing and print, and might support McKenzie's contention that the nature of Māori literacy needs reassessment (1985). At least with regard to traditional knowledge, Māori have retained many customs of an oral tradition.

When the oral traditions have come to print there have been mediators between the very different repositories of the Māori memory and literature. Pākehā published the first books of oral traditions in the 19th century from manuscripts written by Māori. They encouraged Māori into print as contributors to serials in the 19th century, and as authors of books and journals in the 20th century. By that time Māori were encouraging Māori into print. In the 19th century one motive for publication by Pākehā was to preserve the traditional knowledge which must have seemed dangerously ephemeral, not only oral but of a dying race. But there was also intelligent pleasure in the artistic compositions and some, like the typographer Coupland Harding who made it the subject of an article in Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute (1892), appreciated the comparison between Māori, Greek and Roman oral literature.

Sir George Grey was the first mediator. In the 1850s he produced four books of songs, narratives and sayings, all in Māori. The sayings also had English translations and the narratives a separate English edition. He was therefore the first to decide how the oral texts, the form of songs, sayings and genealogies, should be laid out in print. (Some scholars of oral traditions suggest that the way in which narratives are printed may alter how they are understood.) Grey was also a source of printed oral texts, the reason for speeches and songs in Maori Mementos (Davis, 1855) which were composed when he left the country in 1853. The relationship between newly literate Māori and Pākehā publishers and Māori opinion on this exercise are exemplified in Jenifer Curnow's 'Wiremu Maihi Te Rangikaheke: his life and work' (1985) about one of Grey's principal writers, and Michael Reilly's articles (1989) concerning John White's collecting for his six-volume bilingual Ancient History of the Maori (1887-90).

The complexities of the shift to print can be envisaged from the history of S. Percy Smith's bilingual The Lore of the Whare-wananga (1913, 1915) of edited versions of manuscripts believed to be transcripts of teachings by Wairarapa elders in the 1860s made to preserve their knowledge. The provenance of these manuscripts and the scribal role in copying them are explored in Biggs and Simmons's 'The sources of "The Lore of the Whare-wananga"' (1970), and will be further elaborated by Agathe Thornton in a forthcoming book with interesting comparison with a similar transition in Greek oral traditions. These studies, along with evidence from unpublished manuscripts, also raise questions about the work of Māori scribes apprenticed to elders or Pākehā publishers.

If bibliographers are correct in saying that form affects meaning, then there is reason to examine the impact of print on the oral traditions. A little of this has been done. Close comparison of Grey's published narratives with the Māori manuscripts reveals him as an intrusive editor by late 20th-century standards. Perhaps to please readers unfamiliar with oral style, he changed words, names, grammar, the order of events. Editing for a reader shifts the emphasis from the ear to the eye, and the isolated reader requires an explicitness unusual to the oral texts which were typically, although comprehensibly to tribal kin, oblique and elliptical. The public purpose of print pressed changes on that style. Print also brought translation to the oral traditions; it is rare for the oral literature to be only in Māori. Grey started that way, although he wrote prefaces in English. Almost all subsequent work has been bilingual, or a new literature retold in English. This rewriting began at the turn of the century and attracted Pākehā enthusiasts of Māori culture (A.W. Reed was a prolific writer), but little has been done since the 1970s. For most publishing an English rather than Māori readership has been expected.

Publication also saw a shift from a tribal to a consolidated Māori content, and therefore fragmentation of the unified local tradition. As Simmons has shown (1966), Grey began what was to become a common practice of knitting together tribal versions of stories into a printed Māori whole. As the alphabet obscured dialect, so print masked tribal identity in the oral traditions and this prevailed until later this century when Māori began their own publishing. The literary practice of subject studies also saw intricately interconnected tribal knowledge excerpted, in Māori or English, to illustrate ethnographic and other literature about Māori society. Tribal control over traditional knowledge was relinquished with its transition to the very accessible medium of print.

Publishing of the oral traditions ensued from another practice of literacy, analysis and commentary. By this kind of work linguists and literary historians such as Bruce Biggs, Margaret Orbell and Agathe Thornton have accorded these texts the interest given to classics of European literature, but few Māori have taken up such analysis. Some have objected to it, claiming that it exploits and misrepresents the oral traditions. Government agencies such as the Māori Land Court have been said to have forced written and printed recording of the oral evidence of tribal history. But that record in turn has been used by Māori for their own publications—Karanga Hokianga (1986) is the Motuti community's edited version of court-related committee minute books.

How Māori regarded, if they purchased, whether they read, early printed works of oral traditions remains to be known. Many provided material for books but were selective about what they offered. For some there were symbolic and practical aspects to publication—pride, preservation. Māori first published their traditional texts in 19th-century Māori newspapers and journals. At the turn of the century both Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute and the Journal of the Polynesian Society had Māori contributors, often in partnership with Pākehā translators such as S. Percy Smith and Elsdon Best who were instrumental in this publishing. In the 1920s the Board of Māori Ethnological Research started a journal, Te Wananga, with the express intention of printing traditions, although it ran only two issues.

The production of books by Māori has been limited and invariably the work of Māori scholars, knowledgeable elders or those whose professions—in the church, university, government—required literate scholarship. This raises interesting questions about the nature of Māori literacy, of the kind explored in Norman Simms's Points of Contact (1991). Early in the century Apirana Ngata of Ngāti Porou made an exceptional contribution to the oral literature. Maybe it was, as Johannes Andersen put it, his 'scientific mind and literary spirit', as well as his desire to revive the oral arts, that led him to collect hundreds of songs and chants for publication. Ngata tested out his enterprise by publishing first in instalments in Te Toa Takitini and the Journal of the Polynesian Society between 1924 and 1951. The three volumes of translated and annotated songs, Nga Moteatea (1959-70), resulted after another scholar, Pei Te Hurinui Jones of Ngāti Maniapoto, carried on the work after Ngata's death. Of all the oral traditions the songs are most visible in writing and print. There are hundreds in manuscripts, typescripts assist groups learning them; books record and analyse them; oral archives keep them. Yet as Mervyn McLean notes in his study Maori Music (1996), songs are commonly learned from individuals, and for some there are rituals to follow in the copying and use of song books. However, some composers have refused to have their compositions published.

Since Grey's 1857 collection, there has been regular publication of lists of sayings by Māori and Pākehā, a major bilingual collection being published in parts by Neil Grove and Hirini Moko Mead (1994). Narratives published by Māori have usually been from their own tribes: Anaru Reedy's annotated transcription and translation of ancestral writing Ngā Kōrero a Mohi Ruatapu (1993), Jones and Biggs's Nga Iwi o Tainui (1995). These printed reproductions of the ancient texts recall the repetition of an oral tradition, but do not have the creative reworking that characterised oral performance. There is a little such innovation, as in the rewriting of the Tāwhaki legend (in Māori and English) by Hirini Moko Mead (1996). For this kind of publishing a primary consideration has been to support language learning, a secondary one to preserve the knowledge, a third to attract general interest.

There is no way of knowing whether, the circumstances being different, Māori would have printed more or less of their traditional knowledge. There is still adherence to the thinking and ways of an oral tradition. Few Māori have sought to publish their manuscript histories, perhaps because print serves a public who has long been indifferent to Māori culture, perhaps because they are family histories. There is sentimental attachment to the voice and face-to-face communication, a point made by Ngata in 'The Maori and printed matter' (1940). As the marae exemplifies, there is a preference for company, exchange of talk and performance, over the silent, solitary occupation of reading about traditions. Print cannot equal the warmth and intimacy of the human voice or the association of words on the breath which come from and link to the gods and ancestral world. But literacy combines with that tradition: elders use books to supplement their knowledge, quotations from the Bible and other literature are heard in songs and speeches. A danger in this interaction is that, as much of the oral literature are out of print, and the language and oral tradition are not sufficiently habitual to maintain the texts, they may disappear in the gap between orality and literacy.

Māori react variously to publication. The most conservative refuse. Others value it as a means of preservation, a voice to future generations, a way of communicating world wide. More research could identify the scope and aspirations of Māori publishing, and discover whether the relatively limited publishing is a consequence of a recent history of literacy, colonisation, language loss, or religious views about the traditional knowledge, and whether use of print is essentially response to a crisis, to save this knowledge for the next generations of Māori. If this is the motive, it is quite different from an active choice of print to publish for common knowledge.

Māori use of writing and print to 1900

Māori use of writing and print in the 19th century occurred in a time of profound, often aggressive change. If writing had been introduced without colonisation and Māori had chosen at their own pace and in their own way how, even if, to use these arts, there would have been a different story. But very soon after the introduction of writing, Christianity and British government were exerting considerable force on their way of life. Undoubtedly Māori were influenced, maybe indoctrinated by print but they were not passive in reply to it, they argued the reasoning in Scriptures with missionaries and challenged government by their own use of it.

Māori began reading and writing in the early 1800s. There is ample account of and some disagreement about their literacy. Parr's articles (1961, 1963) contain a wealth of primary sources; Jackson investigated literacy's impact on social life (1975), and McKenzie's Treaty-based thesis (1985) was acute and, as it turned out, contentious. His argument that the historical record had exaggerated the extent and sophistication of Māori literacy drew replies from historians that he underestimated it. Lyndsay Head and Buddy Mikaere's 'Was 19th-century Maori society literate?' (1988) brought specific examples of use by way of rebuttal. This clash of scholarly opinion invites further investigation of the particulars of Māori literacy. There is material enough for it and an extensive literature of comparison—from Polynesia no more thorough a model than Niko Besnier's study on literacy in Nukulaelae, Tuvalu (1995).

There are ample records, however, to leave no doubt as to Māori people's discriminating and efficient use of literacy and literature in their own language in the 19th century. Excitement over, enchantment with, demand for, and intelligent reply from reading and books are reported in the studies referred to above. But more might be discovered about the habits of readers, for instance, what was read most, at all, of the government papers and Christian tracts listed in Williams's excellent guide as to what was available to read. When and where did people read? What response was there to an inanimate object rather than a person, informing the solitary reader? Did the predominance of Christian, of foreign literature estrange the reader from their own society? Most reported interaction over literacy has been about missionaries and Māori, Pākehā writers and Māori colleagues, chiefs and government, with less about that between Māori and Māori, individual and tribe, elder and young.

The Bible, the sole literature for many for a long time (well into the 20th century it was the only literature in Māori some read), provides one measure of response. Māori may have found it attractive because of similarities to the oral traditions—the genealogies, psalms, moral, mythological stories, the rhetorical, oblique, poetical mode. Lineham has relevant information on acquisition, use and reaction to the Bible (1992, 1996). For instance, Māori disliked the new format of the 1884 edition and asked for a return to the old version. Was this a conservatism from the predictably patterned oral compositions or because it changed sounds, rhythms, words of memorised passages, or a reaction to layout and font? It was characteristic of 19th-century sensibility that translations of the Bible were carried out by Pākehā without Māori engaged or (if so) acknowledged. This exclusion of Māori from publishing intended for them continued for a long time.

That the Bible was well read and understood is evident from reports of memorising of long passages, and from quotations and allusions to characters, stories and Christian morality in songs, stories, articles and speeches. As histories of these individuals and movements recount, the Bible's deepest impression is to be found in the writings of 19th-century prophets and printed records of syncretic religious movements—Te Ua Haumēne and the Pai Mārire, Te Kooti and the Ringatū Church, Tāwhiao and the King Movement. The Bible is said to have been the only literature which the prophet Te Whiti kept, but he and Tohu banned the Pākehā's tool of writing at their Parihaka community in the late 19th century. (Mervyn McLean, collecting songs in the 1960s for his work on Māori music (1996), found some Taranaki informants illiterate as a result of this proscription.) The Bible may have also been read without religious reference, as a good story; it was not always read with the result that missionaries wished. Some Māori revered it as the repository of sacred knowledge, others' use was entirely secular. A story often recalled, perhaps for its irreverence or sense of justice, is of the Bible's paper used for cartridges. As a book it retains a special status because of its language which is often regarded as exemplary Māori, despite some curious ways of expressing the cryptic content.

The missionaries refrained from producing reading which might distract their pupils from the faith. But from the late 1840s other literature became available—grammars and dictionaries, books of the oral traditions, the government's assortment. How much of this Māori read might be gauged from references to it in their writing. Māori read government, church and their own newspapers, as is apparent from correspondence in them. Letters also attest to a Māori readership of late 19th-century journals, although it is noticeable that these are from tribal leaders, colleagues of Pākehā publishers of traditions, those in the church or prominent in government. The general Māori population's reading habits may have been different. A survey of reading would also refer to government literature, the Gazette, Acts, Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives (AJHR), printed reports of meetings, Parliamentary debates, and, from the 1860s, the literature associated with the Native Land Court. Since this was all vital to political contest, it was possibly as well as if not more widely read than the Bible.

Exceptional evidence of how and what Māori wrote after first acquiring this skill lies in the large extant stock of 19th-century Māori letters and manuscripts. Large collections are held in the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington, the Hocken Library in Dunedin, the Auckland Public and Auckland Museum Libraries, smaller collections in university and provincial libraries, and also in family and tribal possession. There has been some publication from them; much remains unpublished.

Letters dated from the 1830s offer outstanding material for enquiry into Māori use of writing and print. The popularity of letter-writing is noted in all the studies of literacy cited above. Pleasure in conversation with those at a distance led to letters being delivered on paper, slate, leaves. As personal, individual examples of writing they provide evidence of use of the orthography, representation of dialect, development of a writing style—letters often follow the formalities of oratory (as heard in speeches on the marae), beginning with traditional greetings, closing with a song. The topics of letters are also instructive. They were a means of expressing personal feelings, of making requests (often for pens, paper, ink, books), and especially of discussing political matters. Formal and informal letters in Māori can be found in great number in the papers of officials of church and government—Bishop

An unsourced illustration reproduced in A.W. Reed's pamphlet The Maori and His First Printed Books published in 1935 by A.H. & A.W. Reed, Dunedin, in the Reed's Raupo series of New Zealand gift books. The stories and illustrations relate to the period up to 1840, and describe the challenges faced by the early printers as well as the enthusiastic response of Māori. (Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, NZ, reference number B-K 92-6-) black and white reprint

Selwyn, Sir George Grey, Sir Donald McLean, for instance. Opinion was also put in written and printed petitions (recorded in AJHR), and in letters to newspapers and journals. The sense of an audience in this public readership brought rhetorical strategies to pen; argument, challenge and provocation typical to oral performance were transferred to a written forum. Letters have been reproduced in published histories and in Porter and Macdonald's anthology of women's letters (1996).

Another way in which Māori used writing was to record domestic matters. There are diaries and personal records of monies, family celebrations, meetings, problems. There are biographical details about family members—for example, an account of his life dictated in 1845 by Te Rauparaha to his son Tāmihana Te Rauparaha in the papers of Sir George Grey. There are travel accounts: a diary by Rēnata Kawepō of Ngāti Kahungunu, of a journey across the country with Bishop Selwyn between 1843-44, is reproduced in Helen Hogan's Renata's Journey (1994a) and accounts of other journeys are examined in her PhD thesis (1994b). Such annotated translations of 19th-century writing—as Curnow's of Te Rangikāheke's writing (1985) and Smith's of Te Kāhui Kararehe's (1993)—make comment on how Māori used the orthography and adjusted the oral style, and are essential sources for a history of response.

Especially important is the writing which records the oral traditions, the copies that were made of songs, genealogies, sayings, histories, and the explanations of customs and rituals. From the late 1840s Māori recorded their traditions either because they saw the oral practice changing or because they enjoyed writing out the memorised texts. Some did this entirely for their own use and many such records have stayed at home, some have been delivered over to public archives. Others were encouraged by friendship, money, pens and paper, to supply interested Pākehā, and their writing remains in the papers of, for example, Sir George Grey, John White, Elsdon Best, who published from them.

Māori created many written records in response to government, possibly so time-consuming an occupation that it obviated other uses of literacy. Their own political organisations generated letters, circulars, minutes of meetings, submissions to government. Private minuting of Māori Land Court sittings and committees became precious books of family history, copies often made or new information added with each generation (and this writing continues). The Court (like the contemporary Waitangi Tribunal), in defining title to land required oral witness which it minuted, confirming in writing what had been known in the oral record. 'Māori, literacy and the Land Court' is one among many possible titles for study.

Nineteenth-century Māori wrote for numerous reasons, each an object of interest, together an informative history. They wrote as memory, to record daily activities, to instruct the next generations; they wrote as a social pleasure —to friends, to work out problems of arithmetic (and later to record commercial activities); they wrote to satisfy others' desire for knowledge—sometimes in this they wrote for money; they wrote as a matter of political acumen.

Active, autonomous use of print began for Māori with the publication of newspapers as a direct answer to the government papers. A history of these newspapers would be timely, for they are an unusual source of Māori opinion and activities. Williams gives details about many in his Bibliography. Articles about Māori printers (there was an interesting conceit amongst some 19th-century Pākehā printers to transliterate their names to Māori) and presses record something of the newspaper history: W.J. Cameron's 'A printing press for the Maori people' (1958), Andersen's 'Maori printers and translators' (1940), Jackson (1975) also refer to them. None can resist the famous story of the King of Austria's gift of a press to the King Movement, the publication of the paper Te Hokioi o Niu Tireni (1862-63), the government's counter to it Te Pihoihoi Mokemoke (1863) and Rewi Maniapoto's removal of the press on which it was produced. It reveals each side's view of the power of the press.

A Pākehā, C.O.B. Davis, was instrumental in encouraging Māori to collect money for a press and production of papers. Several independent papers were printed between 1857 and the turn of the century, some short-lived because of insufficient funds. (Of religious newspapers produced last century, some had Māori ministers as editors.) Apart from the occasional Pākehā editor these papers were the work of Māori and were a highly pragmatic means of putting opinion to government and reporting on politics. They were also generally informative, with correspondence, local and international news, accounts from the oral traditions, advertisements. Political movements, too, engaged in newspaper production. The Māori Parliament put out a newspaper and recorded its proceedings in print. The King movement printed a newsletter Te Paki o Matariki (1891- ) to report on its activities and interchanges with government. Andersen described its decorative masthead as an example of 'Maori typographical ingenuity'—perhaps the starting point for further investigation into Māori printers and typesetting.

Māori use of writing and print in the 19th century was apposite and gradual, a response to both internal cultural change and external government. In some situations Māori were fast and focused in using literacy to contend with settlers and government; in others, as with the oral traditions, they were slower and considered. By the end of the century, with the growing ascendancy of English, Māori were becoming dependent on literacy at least in that language. But practices of the oral traditions remained—the oral arts on the marae, the oral communication of traditional knowledge (despite recording it on paper) in tribal meetings or from elders to the young, all continued into the 20th century.

Publishing in the 20th century

There could be interesting histories of Māori publishing in the 20th century which address matters such as the range and style of publications, the individuals and tribes who produced them, the intended and actual readership, the extent of Māori literacy, what education initiatives—the Kōhanga Reo, Kura Kaupapa Māori and tribal universities—have brought to print, what publication tells of the future of the language. This research would inform current thinking about language survival and identify future publications.

There are a number of ways in which a Māori literature with its own emphases and characteristics has come to national notice in the 20th century. Researchers have learnt of its range through Taylor's comprehensive bibliography (1972). The outcome of a librarian's knowledge, like many books in this area it arose from a scholarly interest in the language and culture. The inclusion of McRae's survey in the 1991 Oxford History of New Zealand Literature in English also singled out the literature as a special yet integral part of national publishing. This kind of juxtaposition of English and Māori literature has rarely occurred—the 1980s Penguin anthologies of New Zealand poetry with songs in Māori and English are other examples. The rarity derives in part from the fact that there is little public appreciation of this literature. Until very recently it was not taught as part of school and university curricula. It is not uncommon to hear or read in letters to the newspaper, opinion of the kind which, it is said, led to the rejection of Apirana Ngata's recommendation in 1925 that the language be a subject for the BA at the University of New Zealand—that there is no Māori literature.

The shift to greater awareness of this literature might be attributed to Māori themselves who, since the 1970s, have strongly asserted their cultural identity and set out to reclaim a cultural heritage diminished by colonisation. This has involved extensive research into family and tribal history for personal satisfaction and for submission of claims on land and possessions to the Waitangi Tribunal. Schools and universities have responded to this cultural renaissance by tuition in Māori language and subjects, thus generating a demand for literature for teaching. The guardians of print, librarians, have likewise turned attention to accumulation, preservation and access to Māori literature.

Increased demand for Māori materials especially by Māori researchers has led to better cataloguing of them and to appointment of specialist librarians. There has been published documentation of collections, National Archives' Guide to Māori Sources (1995) and Curnow's catalogue of manuscripts in the Auckland Museum Library, Ngā Pou ārahi (1995). Computerised databases for popular materials such as the Māori Land Court minute books are also underway. Moreover, in the last decade many Māori have been employed as librarians or as elder experts to advise on collections. They have encouraged Māori into libraries and reminded libraries of their obligations to this unique literature. More has been communicated in the press and on television about this part of the nation's heritage, especially about the manuscripts. Such developments have given rise to new publishing.

In terms of preferred publications, the 20th century is like the 19th in that serials retain an important place. The churches' continued acknowledgement of the language is expressed in periodicals. Meeting religious and secular interests, and all in Māori, some ran on from last century, others started anew, but circulation of them ceased around the 1960s: Te Toa Takitini from the Church of England and the Presbyterian Te Waka Karaitiana are well known examples. The Journal of the Polynesian Society saw most participation by Māori and of Māori material around the turn of the century and up to the 1950s. Cultural and linguistic custom, historical traditions, contemporary issues were the subject of articles and debate between Māori and Pākehā subscribers. Since then Māori content has been slight and from academics. Other journals have published articles and oral texts in the language but, like the Journal of the Polynesian Society, have been primarily in English: Te Ao Hou (1952-75) from the Māori Affairs Department; Te Karanga (1985-90) produced by subscriptions to the Canterbury Māori Studies Association; He Pukenga Kōrero (1995- ) from Massey University's Māori Studies Department; the glossy magazine Mana (1993- ) an independent Māori publication.

In the late 20th century there has been a resurgence of newspapers. They are regionally or tribally based and report local and national news. There is also an occasional serialised literature in Māori—pamphlets, booklets, newsletters. In these later serials there is a clear sense of Māori purpose and readership which, however, is not exclusive, not only because (unlike those of last century) they have only sections in Māori, but because they report on Māori life which is now intrinsically bicultural.

Māori began the more substantial (in time, cost and expertise) publishing of books this century. The teaching texts have been referred to but by the end of the century there were diverse books in Māori and English and, like the serials, these were serving Māori needs. Books of the oral traditions are discussed above and demonstrate the significant role of scholars such as Apirana Ngata. He and others of his generation were accomplished writers in both languages and corresponded and contributed articles to contemporary journals on many matters. Pei Te Hurinui Jones also had a publishing record, of books in English about Tainui traditions, and of translations from The Merchant of Venice (1946) and the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (1975). Over the course of this century Māori scholars such as Te Rangihīroa (Sir Peter Buck), Hirini Moko Mead, and I.H. Kāwharu, have published books in English about Māori culture. A new genre of tribal histories has arisen, some—J.H. Mitchell's Takitimu (1944) for instance—compiled by tribal members; these have put a tribal stamp on the literature, as have descriptive catalogues of treasured features of tribal territories such as F.L. Phillips's Landmarks of Tainui (1989). There have also been many ethnographies by Pākehā who have drawn information from literature in Māori and of the oral traditions, notably the work of Elsdon Best.

As the century has progressed more Māori have published in Māori. There has been writing in new genres, including non-fiction (to use a literary term): Barlow's bilingual descriptions of cultural concepts Tikanga Whakaaro (1991) and, all in Māori, Hēmi Pōtatau's autobiography (1991) and āti Ruanui leader and prophet, Tītokowaru (Ruka Broughton's biography of the Ng1993), in which oral traditions, contemporary talk and written sources were brought together. Many Māori writers and translators participate in the largest document of printed Māori, Ngā Tāngata Taumata Rau (1990-96), the Māori editions of the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. All these are new kinds of writing, intended for a public readership, which test the resources of the little-used language.

Reprints are another way in which the literature has grown. A substantial trio in Māori—and without translation, suggesting a new readership—reproduced writings by Ngāti Porou elders, Apirana Ngata, Mohi Tūrei, Rēweti Kōhere and others, prepared by Wiremu and Te Ohorere Kaa (1994-96). These have traditional histories, letters, articles on political issues, local anecdotes, most published in turn-of-the-century journals and books. (The number of Ngāti Porou publishers is interesting, perhaps the influence of Ngata.) There have been other, informal, products in Māori from Māori Studies departments in universities: transcriptions of 19th-century letters and manuscripts, texts of newly composed songs.

A statement of the scope of Māori writing, particularly of that in English, is made in the five volumes of Te Ao Mārama (1992-96) edited by Witi Ihimaera. This anthology of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and children's literature contains some new writing but is mainly reprints which, taken together, illustrate how the size of this literature is disguised by its appearance in serials, newspapers, small books. The writing exemplifies how Māori use both oral and literary genres. In English there are short stories, novels, poetry, plays. These styles are known and emulated by Māori writers from their unavoidable experience of English literature at school. In Māori there are songs, mythological accounts, stories of tribal tradition, a little creative writing. But there is also movement between genres; writing in English often pays homage to the oral traditions by quotations and allusions. The development from an oral tradition in Māori to a literature in Māori and English begs its own study which might be informed by comparison with this transition in other South Pacific cultures as summarised in Subranami's South Pacific Literature (1985) and Norman Simms's work.

Literature helped Māori cross the divide between the oral traditions and English. If capitulation to English was disappointing, it at least enabled the vital human habits of composing stories and poetry and led to the renowned work of writers such as Keri Hulme and Hōne Tūwhare. As the fiction of Patricia Grace and Witi Ihimaera tells, the move from the tribal and Māori language domain to the city and English created, by its strangeness, a new life to be written about. In the 19th century Māori were secure in their culture and selectively incorporated the strange, new literature and experiences into it. Māori who write in English often reflect on the differences between the old secure world and the new strange one, especially in terms of loss of language, voice and culture, which print cannot on its own return. In Patricia Grace's novel Potiki (1986) the characters regret learning strangers' stories at school while their own have to be rediscovered in themselves and told. Literature brought new stories; the old stories are now in part (oral storytelling is a strong tradition in Māori families) retold in this new way, in English and through print. From this writing in English there have been two translations into Māori, of Ihimaera's books Pounamu, Pounamu (1986) and The Whale Rider (1987). (This resembles the 19th-century translating of Pilgrim's Progress, insofar as it is publishing with an intention other than the author's, in this case to promote the language.) But there has been little original fiction in Māori. Some short stories appeared in Te Ao Hou in the 1950s and 1960s, a small collection Ngā Pakiwaitara a Huia, was published in 1995. Fictional writing in Māori has been mainly stories for children.

Since the 1980s the amount of publishing of literature for children has been striking, some is included in the fourth volume of Te Ao Mārama (1994). Print again has been enlisted to aid language acquisition. Some books are bilingual, many solely in Māori; ancient and modern life are content for the stories. Many Māori have been drawn to this task, and books have come off the press in great numbers. The Ministry of Education has sponsored them, mainstream publishers have produced handsome examples, and others have been published with pride and dedicated purpose by small groups in local communities.

Major incentives for Māori publishing in the 20th century might be posited as to turn the tide of language loss by provision for teaching, and to preserve traditional knowledge. But there are signs—the newspapers, children's literature, and writing in English—that publishing has broader objects, perhaps the typically literary use of making ideas, knowledge, and stories public. Most publishing has been funded by government, through educational institutions or funds designated for literature and the arts. Self-sufficiency in publishing has been rare, economically difficult, but as Māori have gained economic and cultural autonomy, there has been a move to independent publishing. There are certain long-standing centres of production such as churches of different denominations and of the Māori faiths of Ringatū and Ratana, which publish Māori prayer and hymn books, new editions of the Māori Bible, journals. Limited funds, the small potential readership, sometimes the speed with which things are produced, have led to the corpus of Māori literature having numerous small, plain, functional items—typescripts, pamphlets, booklets, newspapers—put out in small print runs, often by desktop publishing. These have a limited circulation, easily disappear and do not make an impression on the market, yet much can be learnt from this casual, fragile literature. It is also witness to how print is used—to commemorate the opening of a meeting-house or a family reunion. Print is also engaged to proclaim the importance of the language, to urge speaking of it—Māori words, songs, quotations, appear on calendars, posters, clothing, advertising.

A comprehensive survey of 20th-century printing might also confirm a change in publishers' attitudes to Māori literature. Previously wary of the small readership, there has been specific promotion from university presses and the publishing houses of Penguin, Reed in particular (who have long

The building in the centre foreground is Wellington's first library, established in 1841 as the 'Port Nicholson Exchange and General Library', and run on a subscription basis with Dr F.J. Knox as librarian. Settler publican Dicky Barrett sold the building which had been his first house (and possibly grog-shop) on the corner of what is now Molesworth Street and Lambton Quay to the library Committee for £30. The library did not prosper and was wound up in April 1842, with the collection handed over to its successor, the 'Port Nicholson Mechanics' Institute, Public School and Library'. This illustration is a detail from Charles Heaphy's watercolour Part of Lambton Harbour, in Port Nicholson, New Zealand, 11 April 1841.(Making New Zealand Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, NZ, reference number F-115-1/4-MNZ)black and white print

supported it), and Huia Publishers who have it as a special brief. Whether from goodwill or sufficient market, this fact along with Māori concern for their own style of product has brought many better-looking, prominent books. There is still, however, a hidden literature in libraries and archives—books that are out of print, articles in defunct journals, manuscripts. Much could be done with a programme of reprints.

New initiatives in publishing brought attention back to concerns which translators of the Bible faced last century about the orthography and standards for print. The Māori Language Commission has played a key role in specifying conventions for marking of long vowels, word breaks, spelling, hyphenation in names. This work, which predicts a future for publishing in the language, has been done to encourage use of Māori in print, for teaching purposes, and in concert with editors of pioneering projects such as the Māori volumes of the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. The need for this is indicated too by the standard of public notices in Māori; these often show a lack of familiarity with written conventions, a tendency to write the language as it is spoken. The Commission has communicated its recommendations for printed modern Māori in booklets, pamphlets, and its Māori newsletter. It has contributed significantly to the quality and quantity of printed Māori by translation of all kinds of public documents, newspaper advertisements, job descriptions, notices. This proliferation of public documents in Māori is perhaps a consequence of the 1987 Act which made Māori an official language of New Zealand.

If Māori sometimes seem uninterested in, even averse to, literature, it may be because some books about them have been antithetical to their reality or produced without acknowledgement of their contributions or without their authority. Michael King registers opinion on this in 'Some Maori attitudes to documents' (1978). There is of course no way in which literature can be entirely trusted, but for Māori it has raised the issue, in respect of traditional knowledge at least, of intellectual property rights. The literature of the later 20th century is much more theirs, produced essentially for themselves or in cooperation with Pākehā. Nevertheless a history of 20th-century Māori publishing would need to canvass Māori opinion as to their preferences for its use.

Although this brief survey suggests a limited, highly selective, even predominantly scholars' use of print by Māori for literature in Māori and English, it is not sufficient an investigation to attribute reasons for this. Further research might assess how the enduring oral traditions, colonisation, and cultural custom have determined Māori use of the utilities of literacy. If there had not been the experience of colonisation, it may have been that Māori would not have chosen to use print as a primary technology, as some oral societies new to print have done. But language loss is evidently one reason for the paucity of literature in Māori. Print demands sophistication with written language, if not from the writer then at least from editors and publishers. That sophistication is acquired when language is used as a first language and there is schooling in it. One overriding aspect of almost two centuries of Māori use of writing, print and publishing has been the continuing decline in the number of people who speak Māori as a first language. Moreover, Māori has only relatively recently been taught in schools and universities, the very places which prepare people to publish. In view of this the fact that there is so much printing in Māori is remarkable. Print cannot do what speech can, keep the language alive, and that is an imperative for many Māori. Print meantime plays a role towards that and, in addition, maintains the language as a revered object of study for future scholars of Māori and of the history of humanity.

The technology of printing had to be imported into New Zealand, accompanied by the skilled operators. The central processes were, and are, composition (once involving literally the setting of type, but now, in the new technology, better described as keyboarding) and presswork (the multiplying of copies by means of machines, ever more sophisticated). Equipment and skills came directly from Europe, the birthplace of printing four centuries earlier, in particular from Great Britain, the colonial master, and also indirectly by way of Australia, the nearest colonial neighbour, and later on from North America. The nature and extent of these importations into New Zealand have yet to be studied in any extensive and systematic way.

Of the relatively few scholarly studies of New Zealand print production, the majority have been directed to the 1840s and 1850s. For later periods, such historical studies, and overviews of contemporary situations, as have appeared, have mostly originated from within the trade itself.

A.G. Bagnall's A Reference List of Books and other Publications associated with the New Zealand Centennial 1840-1940 (1942) identifies a significant number of historical surveys published about 1940 which have some relevance to this topic. They include special centennial numbers or supplements of many newspapers, local histories that would include information about newspaper and other printing, and, outstandingly, A History of Printing in New Zealand 1830 -1940, ed. R.A. McKay (1940).

This History contains 13 cogent essays, including two by the editor himself, and concludes with two lighter hearted pieces, and valuable biographies of some of the more prominent individuals of the trade, with details of the firms they were associated with. Andersen's essays on 'Early printing in New Zealand' and 'Maori printers and translators' remain useful, with later studies filling in further details. They are based upon Colenso's Fifty Years Ago in New Zealand, with additional material from the papers by T.M. Hocken ('The beginnings of literature in New Zealand: Part II') and Henry Hill ('Early printing in New Zealand') in the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute. These sources retain some independent interest: Hill's paper, for example, includes a useful commentary upon Colenso's 'Day and Waste book' (now held in the Turnbull Library).

McKay himself contributed 'Cavalcade of printing' and 'Process-engraving', and compiled the later, more anecdotal pieces. Tom L. Mills wrote about newspapers in 'The press: an historical survey', Kenneth McLean Baxter about 'The printing trade union' and E.W. Clarkson and L.J. Berry about 'Organisations of employers'. H.J. Tubbs contributed an essay of 'Stationery manufacture', W.B. Sutch an 'Economic survey', with accompanying graphs and tables of statistics, and Andersen a piece on 'The Maori alphabet', as well as collaborating with A.B. Clark on 'Our craftsmen go overseas, Great War 1914-18'. Sir Apirana Ngata wrote about 'The Maori and printed matter', and there is an essay compiled 'from official sources' on the 'Government Printing Office'.

While most of these essays are relatively limited in the detail they provide, they remain sound introductions to their respective areas, and are often at their most valuable where the writers, a distinguished group, were working from firsthand knowledge. McKay himself merits respect as a man who had experience in all aspects of printing, in trade union leadership, and briefly in operating as a master printer himself, and who had devoted himself in the late 1930s to the study of the history of New Zealand printing—a true scholar-craftsman. The volume itself is elegantly produced by the standards of the time, and through its plates, most of which are unrelated to the text, served as a showcase for the skills of contemporary colour printers.

Fiona Macmillan, in her 1969 booklet New Zealand for the 'Spread of Printing' series, made a noble effort at a survey, accurate as far as it goes but severely limited by the insufficiency of material to draw on. In 1950 the Federation of Master Printers of New Zealand included Early Printing in New Zealand in their series of booklets on the printing industry; this concentrated on the technology rather than the people. Most recently, Tolla Williment's 150 years of Printing in New Zealand (1985) is the first attempt by a single author to survey the field in its entirety, and it is a tolerable popular introduction with a slight bias towards the mission printing of the early years which was to be expected in view of its sponsorship by the Bible Society.

Regional studies are scarce. Albert A. Smith's Printing in Canterbury (1953) is the only published work to attempt a complete chronological coverage, and for Otago, there is an unpublished typescript, 'Printing in Dunedin and Otago, 1847-1937' by Joseph Longhurst Gregory (died 1959), revised by R.V.S. Perry (1969), lodged in the Hocken Library. For Wellington, there are potted histories of firms in the Wellington province in the Centenary 1862-1962 publication of the Wellington branch of the Printing and Related Trades Union (1962). Hocken's notes in Contributions to the Early History of New Zealand (Otago Settlement) (1898) are the only substantial contribution to any general regional history, with the chronological restriction inevitable in the character of the work which contains it. Other early regional histories often include notes on the newspaper history of the region—an almost inevitable result of their compilation by journalists—but these are often not reliable.

Recent more systematic scholarship is best represented by the theses of Patricia Burns ('The foundation of the New Zealand press', PhD, 1957) and Lishi Kwasitsu (published as Printing and the Book Trade in Early Nelson, 1996) and the work of K.A. Coleridge who has published several papers on the early Wellington trade. 'Printing and publishing in Wellington' (1986) and 'Thriving on impressions' in the 1990 essay collection The Making of Wellington 1800-1914 (eds. Hamer and Nicholls) cover different angles of what is the same general ground. The first of these was reprinted in Early Printing in New Zealand (1989), together with a more general survey paper by Roderick Cave and K.A. Coleridge, 'For Gospel and wool trade' (1985).

Sources for historical studies are widely scattered. The primary documents are the products of the presses themselves, catalogued principally in the New Zealand National Bibliography to 1960 ed. A.G. Bagnall, the New Zealand National Bibliography (from 1966) and its online companion the New Zealand Bibliographic Network. The publications between 1961 and 1966 were catalogued in the 'Current national bibliography' (issued with Index to New Zealand Periodicals). The more significant serial publications and journal articles for the earlier years were included by Hocken in his Bibliography of the Literature relating to New Zealand (1909), the most substantial of earlier attempts at a national bibliography. There is a nearly complete listing of New Zealand newspapers in D. Ross Harvey's Union List of Newspapers Preserved in Libraries (1987), and this is the only up-to-date and comprehensive guide, incorporating the locations of surviving copies.

As a newspaper press was usually the first, and often the only, printing firm in any settlement, the newspaper history will be a significant source of local information on printing. Guy Scholefield's Newspapers in New Zealand (1958) is the only general survey of newspaper history, extending to the late 1940s. It outlines the history of the people and firms that produced these newspapers, as well as jobbing and general printing, and occasionally includes details about their equipment. It can be corrected on many points of detail, especially for some early titles with convoluted publishing histories, but provides a good general survey concentrating on the ownership and editorial history.

Individual newspapers, usually in the main cities, and their owners have been the subject of several theses, most of which concentrate on the editorial history and the political relationships; and historical accounts of some newspapers have appeared in the journals published by local historical societies, and even more frequently in the newspaper itself if it has survived. Most local history journals have been indexed in Index to New Zealand Periodicals (1941-86), and more recently in Index New Zealand (1987- ). The terms used are quite broad, and in the earlier title local history was often merely given a general reference such as 'Wanganui-History' for the entire periodical, so that the complete run must be searched. One separately published survey of local newspapers worthy of emulation is R.F. Johncock's Brief History of the Press: Napier and Hastings Newspapers (1991), which includes a section on the technology with illustrations which make it very useful. Frank Fyfe of Greytown was working (until his death in June 1997) on a book-length study of the history of the newspapers of the Wairarapa for the period 1874 to 1938, which was to include information about their presses and other equipment.

Many newspaper firms, and other printing companies, have produced historical publications at the times of their own centennials, which provide useful information not only about themselves, but also about predecessor firms, and often about their relations with other firms in the same city. A notable example is Coulls Somerville Wilkie's history of its own development (probably by T.C. Coull), which includes much information about Dunedin printing in the 19th century; this was published in successive issues of its house journal Invicta News, in 1945-47, but the typescript version, in the company archives in the Hocken Library, is more inclusive.

A valuable overview of printing technologies at a certain period was provided by George R. Hutcheson's H.B. & J.'s Handbook (1938). Oliver (1976) offered an overview for the early 1970s directed to production statistics, and economic issues. Oliver stressed the 'splintered' nature of the New Zealand printing industry, with an already relatively small market divided up between geographically dispersed printing firms.

An annual overview of the general state of the printing industry was traditionally provided in presidential addresses to the conference of the national Master Printers' Federation. Between 1935 and 1951 these were published in its journal Printing Prestige. Brief reports on printing and publishing can be found in the annual editions of the New Zealand Official Yearbook, usually within the articles headed 'Publishing', and valuable statistics for printing and associated industries in the 'Manufacturing' section.

The work of print material production in this country extends well beyond what can be found in the bibliographies mentioned above. Even for books and pamphlets, there are some categories of items of a modest nature for which Hocken, Bagnall and others would have included, at most, only the earliest printings. A good deal of the 'bread and butter' book work that has kept New Zealand printing houses busy was excluded by Bagnall, such as reprints of school books and cookery books. The latter deficiency is covered by Hugh Price's excellent bibliography School Books Published in New Zealand to 1960 (1992), covering the entire educational field. It is complemented by Ian McLaren's Whitcombe's Story Books: A Trans-Tasman Survey (1984), a scholarly study of a quite important area of printing and publishing. It is estimated that between 1908 and 1962 over 12 million copies were published of these supplementary readers, the majority of them produced in New Zealand by Whitcombe & Tombs's own printing works (its Melbourne and Sydney branches contracted out to local printers).

There is, unfortunately, no complete listing of serial titles published in New Zealand, let alone a proper bibliography. Hocken (1909) lists the more important early titles, and others have been catalogued on the New Zealand Bibliographic Network, as new titles were added to the current National Bibliography. Current titles are recorded in the Index to New Zealand Periodicals and Index New Zealand. However, these recent sources can only be used to identify titles already known of through other sources.

For non-book work, there are such sampling works as Ellen Ellis's The New Zealand Poster Book 1830-1940 (1977) and R.P. Hargreaves and T.J. Hearn's New Zealand in the Mid-Victorian Era: An Album of Contemporary Engravings (1977). However, many of these were not printed in New Zealand, as is true of most items listed in the comprehensive catalogue, E.M. and D.C. Ellis's Early Prints of New Zealand 1642-1875 (1978). On the other hand, The Postage Stamps of New Zealand (1938- ), published by the Royal Philatelic Society, deals with issues that have been printed by the Government Printer, as well as with those contracted out to overseas specialists. There are the files of newspapers, and most notably their Christmas supplements, which for some decades were lavishly illustrated (often, also, containing loose colour plates), as showcases for the capabilities of their process departments. Typical of these are the 1936 issues of the Auckland Star's Brett's Christmas Annual, the Christchurch Press's New Zealand Illustrated, the Otago Daily Times & Otago Witness Christmas Annual, and, for the weeklies, the Weekly News Christmas Number and the New Zealand Free Lance Annual. There are also the files of magazines. From the 1950s onward, such journals as Printers'

The interior of the George Davis Printing Works, Christchurch (1901), photographed by Steffano Francis Webb (1880?-1967). The presence of women is a topic for further interesting research; for example, as late as the 1960s it was not possible for young women to be taken on as hand-typesetting apprentices in the Government Printing Office. Women were, however, often employed in binderies, though not as tradespeople. (Steffano Webb Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, NZ, reference number G-3941-1/1-)Black and white photograph

News, The New Zealand Printer and Graphix have exemplified in their illustrations the processes they documented. There are collections of ephemera, such as the collections of printed music, and of theatre programmes, in the Turnbull, Hocken and Auckland Public Libraries.

The records of individual printing or publishing houses (they were often the same institution in the period before about 1960) have survived only by chance in individual cases, when the enterprise no longer exists. A 'Printing Record Book' for 1941 to 1956 from Whitcombe & Tombs (of Christchurch) is held in photocopy by the Turnbull Library, which also holds records of the Wellington printing firm, Harry H. Tombs Ltd (1910-57), and important documents from the printing houses of William Colenso and his successor John Telford. In National Archives of New Zealand are the major group of records for the Government Printing Office in its various historical incarnations as the Government Printing and Stationery Department, the Government Printing Department, the Printing Office, and, finally, Government Print. These are important not only for the history of government printing and publishing, but also for the historical series of details relating to technical developments in printing presses, typefaces and other aspects of equipment.

Some production records of Whitcombe & Tombs from the early 1920s, held by Whitcoulls Publishers Ltd, Christchurch, about 1984, are listed in Appendix 3 of McLaren (1984); although chiefly publishing records they include material relevant for printing. Selected records of Coulls Somerville Wilkie are in the Hocken Library. Some records of H.L. Young are in the Manawatu Museum. Certain records of Watson & Eyre, and the Manawatu Times, Palmerston North, and of the Raetihi Printing Co., are presently held by Massey University's English Department, but will go to the Manawatu Museum. Some records of the Wanganui Herald are in the Whanganui Regional Museum Archives. Surviving records of the Wanganui Chronicle are in Wanganui Newspapers Ltd's strong room. Records of Hawkes Bay Newspapers Ltd are preserved by the company in microfilm. Selected records of John McIndoe Ltd (Dunedin) in the Hocken Library, and of the Pegasus Press (Christchurch) in the Canterbury Museum, are concerned with publishing only. The Turnbull has some records of the Black Light and Standard Presses. These are examples only; a proper census remains to be done.

Harvey, in his paper 'Towards a bibliography of New Zealand newspapers' (1989a), notes some of the most useful sources for newspaper history. The 19th-century journals New Zealand Press News and Typographical Circular (1876-79) and the Colonial Printers' Register (1879-81) published by George Griffin were primarily trade union journals but provide some information on technical developments and ownership concerns. The Australasian Typographical Journal (1870-1916) was principally Australian in coverage but did include some New Zealand items. Much more significant for its coverage was R. Coupland Harding's Typo (1887-97) which was intended for the industry as a whole, employers as well as workmen, and produced a valuable commentary on all aspects of developments in the trade. The Wai-te-ata Press edition of Selections from Typo (1982) prints all the passages specific to the New Zealand trade, including some of the advertisements which contain useful information on equipment sources and agencies. More recently, a trade journal of importance has been the Printers' News (1943- ) of the Master Printers' Federation, succeeding their Printing Prestige.

Historical collections, exhibitions, museums, and awards

An outstanding collection of typesetting machines, presses and other equipment, most of it in working order, is at the Printers' Workshop, Ferrymead Historic Park, in Christchurch. The Bedplate Press Printing Museum Society at Silverstream, Hutt Valley, Wellington, is well-organised, and hopes that its museum will in time become the National Printing Museum. There is a significant collection at the Museum of Transport and Technology, at Western Springs in Auckland, in their 'Printshop' display. Local provincial museums, as for example the Manawatu Museum, Palmerston North, have smaller but good collections of old printing equipment, even if not all manage to provide significant documentation. The 'bibliographical presses' at Otago University in Dunedin (the Bibliography Room), Victoria University of Wellington (the Wai-te-ata Press, established by D.F. McKenzie in 1962 and revived in 1995 under the aegis of the Faculty of Arts, through a Research Fellowship), and the Holloway Press, at the Tamaki Campus of the University of Auckland, all own and use historical materials to demonstrate the traditional techniques.

Exhibitions have included 'The Printer's Art: An Exhibition of Printing', which opened in Wellington on 25 March 1937, and travelled to three other centres. It included over 650 items, mainly posters, loaned by the British Federation of Master Printers (Printing Prestige, 7 (September 1937): pp.5-10). In November 1940, 'quintennial celebration of printing' exhibitions, public lectures, etc., in honour of Gutenberg, and his successors, took place in the four main centres (Printing Prestige, 16 (December 1940): pp.13-15). An exhibition mounted in 1956 by the Auckland public libraries is remembered by its printed catalogue, Printed in Auckland: Book Production and Design Past and Present. In January 1990, an 'Art of the Book' exhibition, in the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts Gallery, Wellington, had a valuable catalogue, Art of the Book, compiled by Rowan Gibbs, which was published by the Book Arts Society, typeset by John Denny (Pūriri Press) and printed and bound by Alan Loney. In 1996-97, 'Making an Impression: A History of Government Printing' has been on display at the National Archives, Wellington, accompanied by a video showing workers and machines in action, and a brochure with a potted history of the Government Printing Office.

The technology of printing has been entirely imported and all significant changes have been introduced from the European or North American places of invention. Detailed information about the techniques can be found in the printers' manuals of England or America; a number of these have been made available since the 1960s, and much of the relevant material is summarised in Philip Gaskell's compendium A New Introduction to Bibliography (1972) which has a useful section of 'Reference Bibliography', covering the various technical aspects divided by period. The earliest printing in New Zealand used many of the techniques of the wooden press era (pre-1800), and there was then a transition to the technology current in England. Conditions in North America were often closer to the New Zealand situation than those in Britain, and works such as R.G. Silver's The American Printer 1787-1825 (1967) are worth consulting for general background.

Technical innovations can be traced through the contemporary trade journals. The most common sources were British journals such as the British Printer (London, 1888- ) and the Chicago publication Inland Printer, although other sources were also available. Individual manufacturers of machinery and other equipment would advertise in the local trade journals, and the Australian firms of printers' brokers could supply trade literature. Later in the 19th century, several New Zealand firms added the function of printers' broker to their other areas of activity; their identity must be discovered through their advertisements in the New Zealand or Australian trade journals such as Typo or, at a later date, Printers' News, the journal of the Master Printers' Federation.

In the 20th century, on the whole, New Zealand print production processes have exhibited an accelerated pace of technological change, keeping not far behind developments in the larger, more heavily industrialised countries. Even so, older technologies persisted for a long time in niche areas, as in the continuing use of hand-set type for advertisements or posters, and of manual presses for proofing (see, for an example, William Cameron, Centenary of a Press, 1963).

Hardware (typesetting machines, presses, guillotines, bindery presses, etc.) and new skills have still had to be imported. Type and ink have also been imported extensively, although local manufacturers, such as the ink-making firm Morrison & Morrison (ceased 1994), have taken increasing shares of the market. For a long time, all printing papers had to be imported, but since the 1950s New Zealand has become more than self-sufficient in the manufacture of newsprint and of most kinds of uncoated printing papers.

Agencies for overseas suppliers, new migrants, travelling New Zealanders, overseas trade journals such as those already mentioned, and Penrose's Pictorial Annual, and advertisements in their own journals, have kept New Zealand printers in touch with overseas developments and induced them to invest in new plant. A representative collection of text resources which had been acquired and consulted by printers is documented in the Ferrymead Printing Society's Catalogue of Printing Technical Books (1993), which includes operating manuals for machines, catalogues for type and equipment, guides to typography and costing, and trade magazines, mainly from Britain or the USA. A noteworthy example of a migrant who introduced important innovations was Arthur McKee, who brought a linotype machine with him when he immigrated in 1890, introduced new photo-engraving techniques, and was the first printer in the southern hemisphere to run a press with an electric motor (see R.F. McKee's article in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, vol.3).

The New Zealand Patent Office Journal (1912- ) contains a record of all patents, trade marks and designs registered in New Zealand. These include many overseas developments as well as New Zealand registrations; in both categories there are a number of innovations relevant to printing technology. Before the Journal was established the annual report of the Patent Office (AJHR H.1, 1885, and subsequent years) included lists with the same information. The Patent Office records, both in the current material held in the Office (in Lower Hutt) and the non-current records deposited in National Archives, contain the fuller specifications of the patents registered.

Probably the most notable of local inventors was Frederick W. Sears, who pioneered a process for photo-lithography, in the first years of this century; his article on 'alzinography' in Penrose's Pictorial Annual (1908-09) describes his process, and the contribution of a Chicago lawyer and engineer, Ira Washington Rubel, who invented the offset printing press that made it work (see also McKay, 1940, p.109). W.H. Thomas in The Inky Way (1960; see pp.89-90) writes of E. Richards' invention of a remarkably durable plate for offset printing, utilised by Thomas in New Zealand Pictorial News.

There has been only one general survey of developments in the technology of printing in New Zealand, the work of McKay, 'Cavalcade of printing' (1940b). The 19th-century industrial exhibitions included sections on the printing industry and accounts in the exhibition reports and catalogues can be very useful, even when the descriptions are very brief. The first of these exhibitions, the New Zealand Exhibition held in Dunedin in 1865, is the most useful of these reports with the commentary in Reports and Awards of the Jurors (under class VIII: Printing and allied machinery, and class XXVIII: Paper, stationery, printing and bookbinding) being very rewarding. The New Zealand Industrial Exhibition in Wellington in 1885 also provides some useful commentary in its Official Record, as does the Official Catalogue of the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition in Dunedin, 1889-90. Other exhibition catalogues and handbooks provide much less detail.

Given the broad division between composition and presswork, within the composition or 'pre-press' area, right through to about 1970, there was a sharp distinction between typesetting and graphic processes, such as lithography or photo-engraving. From the 1970s onward, with the development of computerised composition, this polarity has become less clear cut. In terms of personnel, there was a correspondingly clear separation of 'printing' workers from lithographers and process engravers. Larger printing works usually had their own process departments; but smaller firms specialised in one trade or in another. Now, in the 1990s, most of the larger firms have the capacity to carry out four-colour graphic work; but even so, there is a discernible category of firms that specialise in high-quality graphics. Among the local journals, Printers' News serves the mainstream, whereas the New Zealand Printer and Graphix have been directed towards the specialists (Graphix has included a particular interest in the printing of packaging). Computype Briefs (10 issues, 1989-91) also appealed to graphics specialists.

A crucial dimension of technology is the skills of work people. An unsigned article, 'The printing and publishing industry of the dominion: an analysis', in Printing Prestige, 1 (October 1935) noted that printing and publishing was then 'easily the largest secondary industry in the country', and provided the highest percentage of added value, 278%, through the skilled use of its technology. Adequate levels of training of apprentices in the various crafts was thus always a major concern. In more prosperous times, the retention of skilled tradesmen could present serious difficulties for provincial printing companies, as for example, for the Hawera Star Co., which sometimes had to import tradesmen from England to replace those who left for the main centres (see One Hundred Today: The Hawera Star 1880-1980, 10 April 1980, p.86).

The most drastic technological innovations in the 'modern' era in printing have been in typesetting processes. The first major transformation was the progressive, but never complete, displacement, from about 1890 onwards, of hand-setting by the introduction of Linotype, Monotype and other hot-metal machines, notably Intertype and Ludlow. Whereas previously big companies had had large numbers of hand-compositors working long hours, the operators of these machines could get through work more quickly. But substantial, and extended, craft skills were still required; and increased volumes of work brought about net gains in employment levels. The second 'revolution' has been the introduction of computer typesetting from the 1970s onward. Roberta Hill and Bob Gidlow in From Hot Type to Cold Metal (1988) indicate that it has been more devastating, leaving less and less room for the exercise of the skills of the printing craftsman or woman. Graphic process work has also been transformed, now that images can be directly scanned, and integrated into layouts; again, the new technology has displaced the highly skilled craftspeople.

Advances in printing press technology have been more frequent, and step-by-step. The skills required have changed, and the work of operators become less laborious. The introduction of steam, gas and eventually electric power obviated the need for muscle power, but manual feeding of paper for general printing persisted much longer. The introduction of automatic feeding enabled presses to work much faster.

Technological processes available at a particular period have been outlined in Hutcheson (1938), in McKay (1940), in the Federation of Master Printers' brochure, The Printing Industry in New Zealand (1969), in the brochure entitled simply Unity Press Ltd, Auckland, in Oliver (1976), and in Hill and Gidlow (1988).

Individual newspaper histories, usually published as special supplements to the newspaper in question, have customarily included descriptions of the currently used technology and sometimes a survey of the past technology. An excellent example of the genre is the Otago Daily Times 1861-1961: First Hundred Years, in which commentary on the paper's history is combined with notes on the advertisers, most of whom are suppliers of paper, ink and printing machinery. The Christchurch paper, The Press, is unusual for publishing a separate hardback book, R.B. O'Neill's The Press 1861-1961, for its centenary.

The isolated examples of jobbing printers issuing publicity booklets, such as H.I. Jones & Son Ltd's Jubilee Souvenir 1860-1910, may include photographs and commentary to provide some technical information. Newspaper advertising supplements when a printing firm has opened new premises may also provide significant technical information on current equipment; the identification of these supplements will be difficult without systematic scanning of newspaper pages, since they are seldom covered by indexing sources.

Type and materials

Stationery manufacture and supply

The earliest representatives of the 'booktrade' were stationers, and the conjunction of the sale of writing materials and commercial office appliances with the sale of books has always been common in New Zealand. In the 19th century it was only in the largest towns of England that the sale of books had been separated from that of stationery, and, in New Zealand, many of the larger printing firms in the larger towns sold books and were engaged in the manufacture of some forms of commercial stationery such as account books. Nevertheless, even in the largest manufacturing stationers a high proportion of the stationery for sale had been imported.

The 19th-century industrial exhibitions, most notably the 1885 New Zealand Industrial Exhibition in Wellington, included displays of commercial stationery (which included copying presses, pens, ink and rubber stamps), and the Official Record of that exhibition comments on significant contributions. The evidence to the 1895 Tariff Commission (AJHR H.2, 1895) makes it plain how significant the impact of imported materials and finished goods were on the manufacturing trade.

H.J. Tubbs contributed a brief survey of the firms, 'Stationery manufacturing', to McKay (1940). Apart from this, the history of the trade must, as so often, be followed through the trade journals and occasional advertising supplements in newspapers, even though, in many respects, the stationery and printing industries have now converged in the computer industry.

Men and women of the trade

The initial task of identifying who was engaged in the trade in any given locality must be pursued through general sources. Jury lists, electoral rolls and directories are standard tools in family history and these can, sometimes painfully, be scanned for those with the relevant occupations. Directories are among the most useful sources for those in business (as distinct from employees) and there is an excellent bibliography by Hansen, The Directory Directory (1994), which indicates the categories of information supplied in each title, as well as library holdings. The six-volume Cyclopedia of New Zealand (1897-1908) contains articles, locality by locality, on the businesses and prominent residents, and newspapers and printing firms are well covered in the set. All identifiable entries were extracted and reproduced separately, in alphabetical order, as Printing, Bookselling and their Allied Trades in New Zealand c.1900, in 1980, and this will be a convenient starting point for many searches.

Once individuals have been identified the pursuit of this specific biography will take the researcher into the area of family history, particularly for those who did not have prominent public careers. Family history is an area which receives much attention from libraries and archives, and there are a number of research guides: the most comprehensive is Anne Bromell's Tracing Family History in New Zealand (rev. ed. 1996). Many families have had a formal family history prepared, which may provide the desired information on the printer member. However, family historians seldom have an active understanding of the character of the occupations of family members and either ignore them, or get significant details wrong. This is unfortunate, because such histories are often the only extensive account of an individual's life. An otherwise useful example is Melva G. Vincent's The Vincent Printers (1980) which compresses two substantial typescript accounts of William E. Vincent, an early Wellington printer, and his descendants in New England, New South Wales. Although accurate on most technical details (such as makes of printing presses), there are substantive errors in, for example, the account of William Vincent's London apprenticeship. In contrast, however, the modest account by Struan Robertson, The Life and Times of Samuel Revans (1989), is reliable at all points where it has been tested, and the collective account prepared by Edgar Gregory and Nevill Wilson, Gregorys-Camerons, Printers to Dunedin, of two connected families is enlightening in its coverage of printing history as well as the family links.

Some other early printers have been the subject of formal biographies. The most substantial of these is the biography William Colenso, by A.G. Bagnall and G.C. Petersen (1948). Colenso's career was so varied, and the time of his active involvement in printing is so well-documented in his own account (1888) that it is not remarkable that almost no new significant detail is added, except as already reported by Hill (1901). For the historian of printing this is disappointing, but the whole work is rightly regarded as an excellent biography.

Peter Kennett's Unsung Hero (1991) on Barzillai Quaife, first newspaper editor in the Bay of Islands, is a work of considerable interest, dealing primarily with Quaife's political struggles. It draws usefully upon Quaife's own, quite rare, publication The Vindicator (1865) which records his problems, both technical and political, in some detail.

Other biographies of political figures who came from a background in the printing industry have usually treated their early careers very superficially, if at all. Some attention may be paid to the journalism, and possibly to the economic aspects of their newspaper involvement, but even this will normally

A carving, possibly in plaster, made especially for the 1906 Christmas issue of the New Zealand Graphic and Ladies Journal and signed J. E. Ward (photographer unknown). It was reproduced as a full-page (tabloid size) half-tone photograph with the caption 'With Maoriland's best wishes for Christmas and the coming year', as the first page of the 38-page pictorial section. While Christmas issues were largely pictorial, the regular issues of up to 64 pages were mainly text and advertisements, catering for the whole family, including children's pages. (Auckland Star Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, NZ, reference number F-3160-1/1-)Black and white photograph

be subordinated to the political career. The recent political biography of John Ballance by T. McIvor, The Rainmaker (1989), is a welcome exception which even incorporates some paragraphs on the technical side of newspaper management.

Those printers, newspaper proprietors, and similar figures, who were elected to the House of Representatives or appointed to the Legislative Council at any stage in their careers, will have received a parliamentary tribute after their deaths. Some of these tributes are very brief, such as that for Joseph Ivess, in the Parliamentary Debates on 11 September 1919 (vol.184, pp.428-29), but others could be quite lengthy, with contributions by members other than party leaders, such as that for John Rigg on 23 February 1944 (vol.264, pp.9-11 in the Legislative Council, and pp.19-22 in the House of Representatives). Tributes can be located by means of the Sessional Indexes to the Debates, under the name of the deceased member.

Summary biographical information for some members of the trade can be found in standard biographical sources such as Who's Who in New Zealand (1st ed. 1908, 12th (most recent) ed. 1991) and the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (1990- ). The biographical database on individuals nominated for the Dictionary is preserved in the office of the Dictionary secretariat, in the Department of Internal Affairs, whether or not the individuals are included in the published volumes. The database is available for consultation by researchers on application to the office. A larger representation of the Otago trade will be covered in Southern People, to be published by Dunedin City Council in 1998. The earlier Dictionary of New Zealand Biography compiled by Guy Scholefield in 1940 includes a number of individuals not covered in the more recent work but the standard of the essays is very variable and many entries are very brief.

Short articles on individuals may appear in many locations. McKay (1940) includes 'Men of the industry', with brief biographical notes on a range of men, and the various trade journals have always printed obituary notices. Coleridge has published an essay, 'Edward Catchpool', in An Index of Civilisation (1993), on the printer and publisher of Wellington's short-lived newspaper The New Zealand Colonist, and Harvey has published on Joseph Ivess in the Turnbull Library Record (1988). Two printing-related essays in family history deal with J.H. Claridge, appearing in Historical Journal Auckland-Waikato (April 1975) by J.C. Claridge, and by Stella Jones in Auckland-Waikato Historical Journal (April 1980). These are most useful. Frank Fyfe of Greytown included material on Sam Revans (Revans: Father of the Press, with Adam Fyfe, and Gullible Sam, together with two collections of Revans's letters, Letters from Woodside, and Letters from Huangarua) and on Richard Wakelin (Wakelin: Father of Journalism) in the series of booklets on Wairarapa history that he published from Wakelin House and Broadoak Press. These all need to be checked for factual accuracy.

Other biographical material must be sought through such sources as newspaper obituaries, and the occasional local history. The newspaper trade has always followed the custom of writing up their own people, and every newspaper centennial issue will include an article on the founders, on some of the editorial staff, and sometimes also on the printers. The Greymouth Evening Star: Centennial Supplement (1966) is a good example of this. Journalists' memoirs may occasionally discuss printers as well as journalists; most of Lawlor's accounts of journalists have no references to printers, but his Pat Lawlor's Wellington (1976) does include a chapter 'The Blundell Brothers'.

In-house journals such as Coulls Somerville Wilkie's Invicta News, or the Government Printing Office's Print (1949-50), provide some information about printing employees. So also do trade union publications, such as Imprint, and those for special anniversaries. Trade journals such as Printing Prestige and Printers' News sometimes include short articles about notable people who have retired or died. For the Government Printing Office, the volume presented to Marcus Marks on his retirement in 1922 includes the signatures of all its employees at that time, in their respective departments.

Where names are known, there are volumes of newspaper clippings, 'New Zealand Biographies,' and 'New Zealand Obituaries', in the Alexander Turnbull Library, recently made more widely available in a microfiche edition. In the Canterbury Museum, Christchurch, there is the George Randall McDonald Biographical Dictionary.

Printing trades workers went overseas in the armed forces in both world wars, and those who died often received obituaries. Some of them wrote and printed newsletters, miscellanies, and official items, both on troopships and in the countries they were based in. A.B. Clark and J.C. Andersen's article in McKay (1940) on the troopship publications in World War I is noticed above. For World War II, information about the producers of publications in the 2NZEF in North Africa and Italy, such as Kiwi News, and in the 3rd Division in the Pacific, can be sought in official war histories, and in autobiographies and biographies.

Finally, printers who did not become journalists have occasionally prepared their memoirs. J.H. Claridge prepared and printed two collections of anecdotes, Odd Notes (1928) and 75 Years in New Zealand (1938?) which include some personal experiences. Marcus Marks, the New Zealand Government Printer from 1916 to 1922, published Memories (Mainly Merry) in 1934. This contains almost no technical information on his working career but has interesting anecdotes of his life as an apprentice and as a journeyman. The family of the Wellington printer Lemuel Watkins published privately in 1992 his Mellowed Memories which describes his career as a printer in considerable, sometimes technical, detail. As a source for printing history rather than biographical detail it is the best work discussed here.

Owners and firms

One can usefully divide printing enterprises into categories. First there was the Government Printing Office, now GP Print, absorbed within the Whitcoulls Group, and owned by US Office Products, but for over a century a producer of every kind of official publication.

There are the institutional presses, such as at the universities, several of which have their own printing plants; for example, the Otago University printery, and Massey University's printery, which provides study materials for over 600 extramural courses.

The commercial printing firms, large and small, can be subdivided into those mainly concerned with producing newspapers, and those devoted to general and jobbing printing. None of them have been exclusively committed to book printing. Some have been specialist enterprises devoted to lithography, photo-engraving, etc., and nowadays to colour graphics.

There has been, since the 1930s, a distinct group of small to medium sized 'literary' presses, such as Caxton, Pegasus and Griffin, operating commercially but for much of their lives committed to literary publications and periodicals. Printeries 'with a cause' have included religion-based enterprises such as the printing establishment of the Gospel Publishing House, Palmerston North. Finally there is an array of private presses and hobby printers, although some of these seek at least to break even, as with the Holloway Press, at Auckland University's Tamaki campus.

The printing industry has always been so structured that it is fairly easy for an individual to move from employee to owner and back again. At certain times the capital outlay necessary to establish even a small printing firm has been substantial relative to the worker's opportunities to accumulate capital, but technical innovations have also meant that second hand equipment would be readily available at a reasonable price. Because many firms are very small, with only two or three employees, there is also likely to be a great deal of uniformity of outlook between the owners and the workers on many issues.

There have been few histories of firms apart from newspapers, which have always marked their own jubilees or centennials with special supplements. The Jubilee Souvenir 1860-1910 of H.I. Jones & Son of Wanganui is a rare example of an historical booklet produced by a firm which did not publish a newspaper. Glue (1966) is the only substantial institutional history apart, again, from the newspapers.

Directories supply the readiest means of identifying printing firms, particularly those with a separate classified trade section. These may not list all printers in any particular town, as small firms are particularly vulnerable to being overlooked by canvassers or to collapsing before they can be recorded. The newspaper and printer registrations at the High Court (formerly the Supreme Court) should in theory provide a more complete coverage, with the registrations under the Printers and Newspapers Registration Act 1868 requiring information on the number of presses owned, as well as the names and addresses of the printers. The 1868 Act has now been replaced by the Newspapers and Printers Act 1955 which does not require the registration of printing presses, only the ownership of newspapers. Since 1979, changes in ownership of the larger firms, and other developments, can be traced through the business index Newzindex, which is available online as well as in paper.

The Master Printers' Federation has published its own journal, Printing Prestige, from 1935 to 1951, followed by Printers' News, since 1953, when it was taken over from the Auckland Master Printers' Association which founded it in 1943. These will be the basic source of information for the history of the Federation; a special issue in 1957 provided a history of the Federation. Clarkson and Berry contributed a brief survey to McKay (1940), and in 1989 A.E.J. Arts published History of the Canterbury Master Printers, the only substantial regional history. The federal body has now become the Printing Industries Association of New Zealand; as is usual with trade organisations, the records of the individual branches normally remain with the surviving bodies.

Patrick Day's The Making of the New Zealand Press (1990) contains potted biographies of men associated with running newspapers in the early period, some of them printers.

For the earlier period, for provincial firms, often their own printed letterheads for invoices provide details of changing proprietors, and of services offered. More recently, for firms, there are simply the relevant sections in commercial portions of telephone books, which may include display entries showing the various services provided.

Rowan Gibbs, Smith's Bookshop Ltd, has compiled two looseleaf manuscript indexes of pre-1890 printers from imprints of books in Volume 1 of Bagnall's National Bibliography by name and by place.

Some firms such as Coulls Somerville Wilkie are relatively well-documented, with records in the Hocken Library, its history in Invicta News (and in a more extended form in typescript in the Hocken Library), and a profile in Tait (1961). Whitcombe & Tombs produced a prospectus on the merger of the two firms, first as Printing and Packaging Corporation, then as Whitcoulls.

Denis Glover's Hot Water Sailor (1962) has an entertaining account of his launching of the Caxton Press, with John Drew and others. Peter Low's Printing by the Avon (1995) recounts the history of this small, high quality printing and publishing firm. Robert Gormack's The Nag's Head Press (1992) deals with his own small semi-commercial press, including a list of publications.

Such business information resources as Datex investment service, the NZ Company Register, and the Nielsen Media Directory disclose the massive extent to which most of the more substantial New Zealand printing, newspaper, publishing, bookselling and paper making companies have recently been taken over by overseas corporations: the Whitcoulls Group (including what had been the Government Printing Office, GP Print Ltd), by US Office Products (Blue Star), Independent Newspapers Ltd by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation Ltd, Wilson & Horton by Dr Tony O'Reilly's Dublin-based Independent News; and so it goes on. Datex especially provides much information about the makeup and recent history of the larger New Zealand companies.

Trade unions and trade conditions

The primary sources for information about conditions within the trade can be found in the records of the trade unions, on the one hand, and of the Labour Department on the other.

Although a number of specialised unions for occupations such as the letterpress machinists, bookbinders, lithographers, and paper-cutters were in existence at different times, with varying combinations in different regions, these nearly all came into existence after the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1894, and all were preceded by the various Typographical Associations which began with the Wellington Typographical Association in 1862 and were gradually combined into the New Zealand Printing and Related Trades Union. In 1995, this combined with the New Zealand Journalists and Graphic Process Union to form the New Zealand Printing, Packaging and Media Union which has now become a division of the New Zealand Engineers' Union (since 1996). The combined records of the successive unions have been deposited in the Victoria University of Wellington Library Labour Archives collection. The records of the Otago Typographical Association, and the Otago Branch of the Printing Union, are divided between the Dunedin Public Library and the Hocken Library of Otago University. Peter Franks is writing a history of the printing unions. Vivienne Porzsolt's typescript study, 'New Zealand printing unions in the 1920s and 1930s' (1982) is in the Turnbull Library's manuscript section.

Baxter contributed a brief historical survey to McKay (1940), and there are two centennial histories of individual branches. P.J. Stewart published Type of a Century in 1974, recounting the history of printing in Dunedin and Otago from the workman's point of view, with a more systematic account of the Otago Typographical Association and its successors from 1873. The Wellington Branch of the New Zealand Printing and Related Trades Union published Centenary 1862-1962 in 1962, drawing upon the Wellington Typographical Union's Jubilee Souvenir 1862-1912 for the earliest years. The Jubilee Souvenir seems to have drawn heavily on oral histories, but it also made use of such union records as existed.

Separate publications of the various unions, such as rulebooks and annual reports, made be found as individual items in library collections. The union records contain most of these publications, although many of the small local unions left no significant records.

Complementing the union records are those of the Department of Labour. Such records as survive are held in the National Archives, although a substantial amount of the material of interest is in the files damaged in the Hope Gibbons Building fire of 1952. The files which may be relevant are those dealing with the Factories Act (L/NA/1), the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act (L/NA/3), and Apprenticeship and Awards (L/NA/4). The annual reports of the Department, from its first in 1893 (AJHR H.10, 1893) publish statistical material on wage rates and employment levels, and occasionally include some brief information on conditions and accidents.

A much more substantial source of information on conditions in the trade would be in the arguments presented to the Arbitration Court during award applications. The awards themselves, printed in the 'Book of Awards', correctly Awards, Recommendations, Agreements etc. (1894/1900-1936), and succeeding titles, do not always give information on specific points relating to conditions. When the award defines what is and what is not covered it often specifies particular aspects of the work; however much of the necessary detail will have been presented in evidence, spelled out by the union in its application and refuted by the employers as they can. It will sometimes be recorded in newspaper reports, but must usually be sought in the records of the Court (not always preserved), or more fruitfully, in the records of the union or of the employers. In the case of the first major claim before the Court in 1912, the unions (a recently federated association) printed their full argument, the New Zealand Federated Typographical Association's Dominion Award Dispute, giving considerable detail on the impact of the new typesetting technology. In 1922 they published the Case for Typographers, in another significant dispute, with an analysis of the employers' figures and arguments. These are the exception. The union journal Imprint (beginning in October 1923) regularly published summaries of the union case before the Court, and the Wellington Branch's short-lived Printers' Mallet (1966-68), likewise reported current developments in industrial relations. The new union journal, The Printed Word (1995- ), follows this tradition.

Modern occupational illnesses differ from those of the past: in place of lead poisoning, burns from lead squirts or acid splashes, and respiratory troubles from acid vapours for photo-engravers, Imprint was concerned with occupational overuse syndrome (OOS) for photo-typesetters, including effects on eyes and brains of overexposure to visual display terminals (vol.33 no.2 (March 1981) p.7), and The Printed Word (vol.1 no.7, June 1996, p.10) has an article 'Solvent-induced neurotoxicity—the new asbestos?' about neurological poisoning from toxic chemicals in processing machinery, especially when used within inadequately ventilated premises. For OOS, a more general example of many is an article by Christine Robertson in the Evening Standard, Palmerston North, 20 January 1997 (p.5), which deals with the suffering it causes, and the employers' obligations under the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992.

For the period before the formal sources existed we must rely on informal accounts. The evidence given to the Sweating Commission of 1889-90 (AJHR H.5, 1890) contains some extremely useful reports of the actual conditions experienced by men and women in some establishments, with some information also from management (notably George Whitcombe of Whitcombe & Tombs). The Pope, the Prelate and the Printer (1892) reports in detail the trial when Joseph Evison, manager of the Catholic Times, sued officials of the Wellington Typographical Society for libel for describing his management practices as 'sweating'; the resulting pamphlet gives much useful detail about the trade conditions of the time.

For the earlier years a few sources, chiefly with anecdotes, are available. In 1886 the publishers of the Otago Daily Times issued a collection of 'newspaper reports and correspondence' on the 'strike of compositors' very recently concluded. There are few disputes in the newspaper trade which have been as clearly and impartially documented. Harvey's 'Editors and compositors: contemporary accounts of the nineteenth century New Zealand press' (1990) surveys some of the documentary sources which provide information. Through the Elibank Press, Harvey has also published Trials of the Colonial Printer (1985) which brings together anecdotes to illustrate the conditions under which the printers worked. McKay's 'Tales of the trade' (1940d) also brings together a collection of anecdotes gathered by interviews (McKay's extensive collection of unpublished materials was destroyed by fire in the late 1950s).

The 1885 Government Printing Committee Report (AJHR I.5, 1885) includes a detailed commentary on the conditions in the Government Printing Office, as well as comments on the work-flow and the possible benefits of contracting work out. This is the only analysis of conditions in any printing establishment to give such detail.

There is one recent survey of the economics of the New Zealand printing industry, prepared by Oliver for the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research in 1976. W.B. Sutch contributed an 'Economic survey' to McKay (1940).

The article 'The printing and publishing industry of the Dominion: an analysis', in Printing Prestige (vol.1, Oct. 1935, pp.7-13) was a serious attempt to explore master printers' costs at the end of the Depression, to persuade them to charge high enough to cover their true costs, and not to undercut each other, either by intention or simply by poor cost-finding. Several articles in Printing Prestige, and subsequent Federation of Master Printers publications (1954-62) were devoted to improving printers' cost finding, as was J.B. Hindin's Simplified Cost Accounting Procedures for the Printing Trade (1958).

Dennis McEldowney's chapter 'Publishing, patronage, literary magazines' in the Oxford History of New Zealand Literature in English (1991) covers the economics of production, and the sources for its study, as part of its discussion of publishing. Before these there are occasional documents with valuable though often scrappy information and there are some modern studies which seek to bring together and analyse the available information.

The theses, now published, of Rachel Salmond (Government Printing in New Zealand, 1840 to 1843, published 1995) and Kwasitsu (1996) provide some costings and similar information. Kwasitsu published 'An estimate of Charles Elliott's revenue from the Nelson Examiner' in 1985, using the data from his thesis. Cave in 'Advertising, circulation and profitability' (1990), tries to bring together information from studies of newspaper advertising and the available material on newspaper circulation. Harvey in 'Formula for success' in An Index of Civilisation (1993b) surveys the sources of data on the financial success of 19th-century newspapers, and in a separate but companion article, 'Economic aspects of 19th-century New Zealand newspapers' (1993a), presents most of the available data in tabulated form.

The data used in these articles is largely drawn from the newspapers themselves, and various manuscript sources specific to individual newspapers. Examples are the letters of Sam Revans to H.S. Chapman, and of Chapman to his father in London, as background to the New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator, and the New Zealand Colonist Trustees' Minutes, all in the Turnbull Library Manuscripts section. The Colonist Trustees' Minutes were also used by Coleridge in a discussion of the Colonist in her paper 'Edward Catchpool' (1993), together with Catchpool's own ledger, also in the Turnbull Library.

Coleridge has also published a substantial statistical study of the advertising in Wellington newspapers to 1859, Building a Paper Economy (1991), with a more discursive and theoretical discussion of the same data in 'Newspaper advertising in a pioneer colony' (1995), and a shorter study, 'Booktrade advertisements in Wellington newspapers 1840-1859' (1994) on a special aspect of this material.

Some newspaper histories devote some space to the economics of the industry, although it is usually in the form of generalisations. An interesting exception is the Palmerston North Centennial Issue Evening Standard (1980) which includes a detailed analysis of the costings made at the time of one transfer of ownership. Similar documents may exist in the records of individual companies, more particularly of the conglomerates such as Independent Newspapers Ltd, but have not been made public. Correspondingly the survival of the July 1924 Dominion Tariff no.5, issued by the New Zealand Master Printers' Association (to update an original of 1920) is an invaluable document, providing job-by-job prices itemised in precise detail.

The best source for figures of actual costs involved in purchases of equipment and materials, and outlay on labour costs are in the reports on government printing. The initial costs, in the 1840s, are itemised in official documents printed in Salmond's thesis (cited above). A portion of these, with inventories and costings, were printed as part of the Copies or extracts of any correspondence relative to the New Zealand estimates in the (Great Britain) House of Commons Sessional Papers (1843, no.134, pp.55-59).

The next important group of documents appear in the New Zealand Parliamentary papers, beginning in 1858 with the 'Report of the Printing Committee' (AJHR F.3, 1858), with detailed costings and estimates of the printing costs. At the time, the recommendation was that an office need not be established. In 1862 the 'Report of the Board of Enquiry' (AJHR D.7, 1862) recommended that a Printing Office should be established, and analysed the factors to be considered although it gives few detailed figures. The first Report of the Government Printing Department appeared in 1868 (AJHR D.11, 1868) and gave useful information on the technical developments and problems, but also figures on printing volumes, expenditure on materials, wages, and so forth, which provide a regular series of figures throughout the history of the Printing Office (the 'shoulder number' has varied over the years). The 1885 Government Printing Committee Report (AJHR I.5, 1885) includes, in the minutes of evidence, an analysis of the reasons why printing

Staff at the Northlander newspaper office ca.1925, with Colonel Allen Bell identified on the right. Photograph taken by Arthur Northwood. The Northlander was a weekly paper established by Bell, possibly to support his (successful) election campaign, and published in Kaitaia from 13 March 1922 to 21 July 1933. An essay on the interesting Colonel Bell, termed 'farmer, soldier, land agent, newspaper editor, politician' appears in Volume 3 of the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography.(Northwood Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, NZ, reference number G-6332-1/1-)Black and white photograph

by outside contracts would be more expensive.

The economic position of the industry as a whole was among the topics addressed by the Tariff Commission of 1895. The Tariff Commission Report and minutes of evidence (AJHR H.2, 1895) includes some very useful detail on what was imported (such as matrices of advertising matter, printing blocks and printed sheets of letterheads and invoices) and its relationship with the manufacturing capabilities of the New Zealand industry. The evidence is almost entirely general in form, not including figures of costs and volumes, but does provide some very useful documentation of the industry's problems. The later Commissions, in 1927 and 1934, also received evidence on the impact of preferential tariffs on the industry, but no evidence was printed in the reports.

In the 19th century the AJHR periodically printed various government returns with statistical or financial data. One such relevant for printing history is the Return Showing Amounts Paid to Newspapers for Advertising and Printing, the earliest of which appears in 1872 (AJHR G.22, 1872). Equivalent reports in later years might appear with different titles and different shoulder numbers. The individual Provincial Councils (1853-75) might from time to time ask for similar returns, which would be printed in the relevant Provincial Council proceedings.

The Industries Development Commission Inquiry in 1976 involved substantial efforts by different sectors of the book production industry to make clear the difficulties they were being subjected to by current conditions, and to appeal for shifts in government policy settings, or for subsidies comparable to those currently being paid by the Australian Government to its own book-printers. The submissions, reprinted in the report (1978), contain much of value. The actual result of the inquiry was, however, as Hugh Price (1982) noted, that nothing happened at all.

Significant developments in technology and in the financial environments can be followed in the business press. Within New Zealand this is indexed by Newzindex, available on paper since 1979, and online since 1987.

Government regulation

There has been no general survey of government regulation and control of the printing industry in New Zealand. Censorship, since the earliest years, has been a matter of controlling content rather than access to the means of reproduction, and the historical surveys have naturally taken the same direction. There have been some studies of the conflicts of the first years, including Kennett's Unsung Hero (1991), G.M. Meiklejohn's Early Conflicts of Press and Government (1953), and Salmond's 'Continuing conflict of press and government' (1990), and her thesis (1995).

The only significant legislation to control the printing industry in New Zealand has been the Printers and Newspapers Registration Act 1868; this laid down the requirement that all newspapers be registered, together with the names of the owners and the printers, that printing presses should be registered, and the printer's name and address should be on all printed documents. With minor amendments these provisions remained until the Newspapers and Printers Act 1955, which dropped the requirement that presses be registered. These registrations are held at the High Court (originally Supreme Court) registries throughout the country, where they should provide a source of information on the ownership of presses.

Day's The Making of the New Zealand Press (1990) is the only significant study of the relation between the newspaper industry and the government operated telegraph service, since access to the press agency telegrams was a significant economic asset. The political involvement of the newspaper owners is the principal theme of Day's book, but he also considers the effect of government engagement and political influence in the production cycle. Harvey's article 'The power of the press in colonial New Zealand' (1996) argues for greater scepticism about the newspaper industry's claims to political influence.

Government regulation of working conditions, under the Factories Act, and under the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, are most usefully considered under 'Trade conditions' (above), and the effects of economic controls (such as customs tariffs) under 'Economics' (also above).

One should consider here the May 1931 reduction of wage rates in the public service, with its impact upon the Government Printing Office, and the 1936 Wages Act, which brought about the restoration of previous wage levels, at the end of the Great Depression. The regulation of paper use at the beginning of World War II acted as an indirect form of censorship, as for example in the forcing of the closure of the left-of-centre periodical Tomorrow, through denying it supplies of paper.

Publishing, most simply put, is the issuing, usually for sale, of printed matter. As Dennis McEldowney describes it, the publisher 'selects and edits the text before it is printed and sells or otherwise distributes it after'. The publisher does not write the book, nor print it nor bind it, nor sell it to the reader, who is the publisher's ultimate customer. Without the publisher's presence these other activities would, however, be pointless. Even after excluding all of these activities, publishing encompasses a number of complex tasks. The publisher carries out the roles of financier, organiser, and go-between as part of the process by which the written work gets from its author to its reader. These tasks can be divided up according to the relationships the publisher forms with others who perform various actions on or around the author's manuscript, and with those who bring the published work to its eventual market. Some of the activities excluded from the following discussion are covered elsewhere in this guide.

In order to 'prepare and issue (a book . . . etc.) for public sale' (as the Concise Oxford Dictionary defines 'publish'), there must first be a text. Whatever the impetus behind its genesis, a commissioned work or independently created, it has an author (or authors). Once the publisher has decided to publish a text, it becomes the object of attention of a number of the publisher's agents. These include all those people who work on the text or on the book which is to contain it: editor, designer, typesetter and printer. Formerly many of these people were employed within the office of the publisher, but increasingly they work independently of the publishing house, and are contracted to perform specific tasks. The publisher organises all of these: the preparation of the manuscript for printing, the production of the item by printers and binders, the provision of illustrations and covers, advertising and promotion, and the sale of the product to distributors and booksellers.

Central to any consideration of the process of publishing is the fact that publishing is a business. All of the operations described above are financed by the publisher's capital. The publisher must spend most of this money before any return is received. The capital is advanced against a perceived market and therefore a return on its outlay: without a market for the published work, the publisher could not contemplate this financial risk. However, this discussion will concentrate on the editorial processes of publishing rather than the financial side, which remains to be written about in the New Zealand context. Some inkling of the issues may be gained from overseas publishers' accounts (e.g. Stanley Unwin's The Truth about Publishing, 1926) or surveys such as John Feather's History of British Publishing (1988), which devotes considerable discussion to the topics of copyright ('the cornerstone of publishing in a free market economy') and the commercial imperatives of marketing.

What defines the direction of a particular publisher's activity could be described as the result of the tensions between an individual publisher's personal inclinations and the forces of business reality. What makes New Zealand publishing distinctive in this context is probably the level of influence of individuals, and small and medium-sized firms which have often prevailed and had an effect disproportionate to their size as the multinational behemoths fragmented, disestablished, regrouped and refocused around and amongst them. This would not have happened to the same degree in a larger pond.

Outlines from a New Zealand perspective of the process of publishing are to be found in some of the handbooks which have been produced for writers and editors, including:      Arnold Wall, A Reed Deskbook for Writers (1973)      Anna Rogers, Write and Be Published (1994)       First Edition (1993, rev. ed. 1995)       Write, Edit, Print (1997)

Publishers' accounts of the process are to be found mainly in the autobiographical writings of those involved, including:

Charles Brasch, Indirections (1980)      Denis Glover, Hot Water Sailor & Landlubber Ho! (1981)      Phoebe Meikle, Accidental Life (1994)      Dennis McEldowney, Then and There (1995)      A.W. Reed, Books are My Business (1966)      Ray Richards, 'The man in the middle' (1974)

Author and publisher

The first publishing in New Zealand represents a primitive sort of commissioning process. The Church Missionary Society trained the printer William Colenso and sent him to New Zealand; the missionary William Williams was charged with preparing the copy for the first publications, Māori translations of Scripture. The few earlier publications created outside New Zealand but intended for circulation in New Zealand had similarly been generated or commissioned by their publishers. The New Zealand Company's propaganda exhorting settlement in the antipodean Brighter Britain was also a publishing programme entirely instigated by the publishing organisation.

The pattern of publishing in the early years of European settlement was for an author to pay for the issue of a work, and most of these works were political and religious pamphlets. Despite the presence on the title page or elsewhere of a printer's or perhaps a bookseller's imprint, this was essentially self-publishing. McEldowney identifies the first memorable locally-published book as F.E. Maning's Old New Zealand (1863) issued in Auckland by Creighton and Scales, proprietors of the Southern Cross newspaper, who evidently already saw a New Zealand market for tales of the 'Good Old Times', as Maning's subtitle put it. A parallel edition was issued for another market by Smith, Elder in London.

By the mid 19th century in Britain an author's contract with a publisher might involve the outright sale of the copyright, or a profit-sharing arrangement. The Copyright Act 1843 had strengthened authors' interests, and in 1887 the Berne Convention on Copyright gave both publishers and authors further protection. The author's contract determines the details of the commercial relationship between author and publisher, defines the responsibilities of both parties in particular areas, and is intended to protect both parties.

If a work is commissioned, the publisher sets the parameters: the subject and its treatment, length, general style (in terms of the audience), inclusion of illustrations and other matter such as appendices, bibliography, and indexes. In any case author and publisher sign an agreement setting deadlines, the author's responsibilities (for instance, involvement in proofreading), the degree of editorial control to be exercised by the publisher, and the author's remuneration—royalty payments, advances against royalties, or a lump sum or other agreement. The contract also normally addresses the extent to which the author takes responsibility for defamation or breach of copyright, whether the author will offer an option on future work, and the conditions under which the contract may be terminated by either party.

By the turn of the century Whitcombe & Tombs had a standard printed agreement along these lines which they asked their authors to sign, offering a royalty of 10% or more on the retail price, and giving themselves a free hand to make most of the editorial decisions. This contract was still being used six decades later, although some authors struck out the latter clause. Authors' contracts now include clauses to cover new technological and cultural developments, such as motion picture rights and electronic publication options. These days a publisher may claim a greater degree of control than previously, but is also likely to be making a significantly larger investment in the marketing of a book. Most publishers offer a standard contract but are usually willing to negotiate terms. Standard author contracts are described by Anna Rogers (1994) and in First Edition (1995). The New Zealand Society of Authors provides its members with a minimum terms agreement and an annotated model contract. See also A.W. Reed's address to PEN, The Author Publisher Relationship (1946) and his section on contracts in Stuart Perry's The New Zealand Writer's Handbook (1952a).

An author may employ a literary agent to carry out contractual negotiations. The agent receives a percentage of the author's royalty. New Zealand's first formally constituted literary agency was Ray Richards, formerly of A.H. & A.W. Reed, who set up his agency in 1976. Although literary agents have not yet risen in New Zealand to the power and prominence they hold in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, a relatively small number of commercially successful and therefore sought-after authors have found it worth their while to employ the bargaining skills of a professional in their dealings with the larger New Zealand publishing houses, and an agent is a necessity for entrée to overseas publishing contracts. First Edition lists 11 of the New Zealand agencies of various kinds in 1995, including publishing consultants and book packaging services, mostly established during the mid 1980s.

Book packagers solicit manuscripts to fit concepts that are marketable to a publisher, usually as all-inclusive packages—commissioned, edited, designed, illustrated and sometimes even printed. The packager takes care of all dealings with the publisher, and the author's agreement (including royalties) is with the packager. Publishing consultants provide another kind of agency for both authors and publishers, offering assessment of manuscripts to publishers, assessing authors' drafts and assisting in bringing manuscripts to a publishable standard before they are offered to a publisher. To a degree these agencies have made redundant the role of the publisher's reader, potentially a position of considerable influence with the power to shape a list and determine the progress of an author's career (though in New Zealand probably not a significant force). In non-fiction publishing, the reader is usually a specialist outside the world of publishing. The rise of literary agents in New Zealand and their effect on the industry are discussed in articles by Jandene Dyson and Lesley Hanes in Endnotes (1995).

In order to deal more effectively with such issues as contracts and remuneration, authors have formed themselves into societies to promote their common interests. Writers' organisations are described briefly in E.C. Simpson's A Survey of the Arts in New Zealand (1961) and in Art Facts (N. Scotts et al., 1987).

The short-lived Fellowship of New Zealand Writers, founded in 1929 by Pat Lawlor, Johannes Andersen, A.E. Currie and others is described by Rachel Barrowman in The Turnbull (1995). Some of the Fellowship's records are to be found in the papers of its founders at the Alexander Turnbull Library. Soon after, the New Zealand Centre of the international writers' organisation PEN was founded in 1934 by Lawlor, and was the organising force behind the first New Zealand Authors' Week in 1936. The Authors' Week Committee produced occasional bulletins and a publication, Annals of New Zealand Literature, commemorating the Week itself, which was held during March 1936. Subsequent PEN publications for New Zealand have been Alan Mulgan's Literature and Authorship in New Zealand (a lyrical overview which now smacks strongly of colonial cringe, published in London by Allen & Unwin for PEN in 1946) and Perry (1952a). Now the New Zealand Society of Authors, the organisation produces a regular bulletin (originally the PEN Gazette and now The New Zealand Author). Through energetic lobbying it was instrumental in the setting up of the State Literary Fund in 1946 and the Authors' Fund in 1973, and continues to attempt to keep state agencies and other non-authors toeing the line.

Other writers' societies include the New Zealand Women Writers' Society, formed in 1932 and initially chaired by the ubiquitous Pat (for Patrick) Lawlor, which produced a Bulletin from 1951 until its demise in 1991. It is described by Anne Else in Women Together (1993) and its records are in the Alexander Turnbull Library. Two publications were produced to celebrate the Society's 50th jubilee in 1982: Women Writers of NZ 1932-1982 (a history and anthology by Margaret Hayward and Joy Cowley), and History of the New Zealand Women Writers' Society (by Thelma France et al., 1984). Other organisations have been the Penwomen's Club, New Zealand (formed 1925) and Ngā Puna Waihenga, the New Zealand Māori artists' and writers' society, founded in 1973. The New Zealand Writer's Guild, most of whose members are radio and television scriptwriters, is lively and active.

New Zealand's high per capita output of books suggests it has a correspondingly high population of authors. An indication of the numbers might be gained from an analysis of New Zealand Authors' Fund returns. The Fund, which compensates authors for sales lost through library lending, is described in an article by J.P. Sage in New Zealand Libraries (1987). In 1984-85, according to a survey by % identified themselves as full-time writers). In Andrea Williamson, 850 authors were registered with the Fund (although only about 201995 the Fund made payments to 1,332 authors for 4,844 titles. Those afflicted with the need to be published may attend the evening classes and short courses in creative writing which are a feature of university extension programmes and other adult educational institutions, for example the WEA. Polytechnics offer journalism studies, and Victoria University of Wellington's creative writing course, founded in 1975, was the first of a number of tertiary courses and has produced some notably high profile writers. The effects of individual courses on writing styles, and the success or otherwise of their graduates in getting their work published, has yet to be studied. Bill Manhire's course at Victoria is documented in Mutes and Earthquakes (1997).

Aside from the work of the authors' societies such as PEN, practical guides for writers who want their work published have appeared from time to time, covering topics from manuscript preparation to publishers' contracts and proofreading. Changing times and conditions might be examined by a comparison of these over the decades. Daphne Double's New Zealand Writers' and Publishers' Yearbook did not reappear after its 1969 debut. Others include the works by Arnold Wall (1973), Anna Rogers (1994) and John Parsons's New Zealand Writer's Handbook (first issued in 1990, most recent edition 1994). A more specialised guide is Gavin McLean's Local History (1992).

Authors' papers and their accounts of their dealings with publishers are also a rich source of information. Noel Hilliard contributed his views on 'Authorship in New Zealand' to the 1973 Book Council seminar, The Changing Shape of Books (1974). Peter Gibbons notes in his chapter on non-fiction in The Oxford History of New Zealand Literature in English that M.H. Holcroft's autobiographies offer much detail on the vicissitudes of authorship and its remuneration. Gibbons's thesis on J.C. Andersen (1992) offers a wealth of information relevant to scholarly publication in Andersen's era. Other biographical and autobiographical sources worth investigating for this topic are:

Robin Dudding (ed.), Beginnings (1980) Frank Sargeson, Sargeson (1981) Denys Trussell, Fairburn (1984) Lynley Hood, Sylvia! (1988) Janet Frame, An Autobiography (1989) Ross Galbreath, Walter Buller (1989) Lauris Edmond, An Autobiography (1994) Michael King, Frank Sargeson (1995) Keith Ovenden, A Fighting Withdrawal [Dan Davin] (1996) Anthony Dreaver, An Eye for Country [Leslie Adkin] (1997) Ian Richards, To Bed at Noon [Maurice Duggan] (1997)

Encouragement to publish

Financial incentives to publishers to instigate the risky and expensive process involved in producing a book are sometimes difficult to separate from incentives to authors to produce a text in the first place. (Incentives and awards for writers are discussed in Chapter 5 in the section on 'Recognition and rewards of success'.) McEldowney asserts that—with some notable exceptions—until 1960 most publishing in New Zealand had not become fully independent, relying to some degree on assistance from other commercial activities or the sponsorship of booksellers, printers and institutions. For some types of publication, notably poetry and serious non-fiction, that remains the case, and the largest and most important source of financial assistance to publishing in New Zealand has always been government subsidy.

A.G. Bagnall notes in his introduction to the New Zealand National Bibliography, vol.1 (1980), the existence of much government sponsored and supported publication in the records of the Colonial Secretary, a source he describes as 'frequently tapped but by no means exhausted'. He narrates in some detail one early instance of government assistance to publishing, involving the government as publisher as well as sponsor: John White's Ancient History of the Maori (1887-90) was a mixed experience for all parties. T.F. Cheeseman's Manual of the New Zealand Flora (1906), Robert McNab's Historical Records of New Zealand (1908-14), T.M. Hocken's Bibliography (1909), James Cowan's New Zealand Wars (1922-23) and, from the 1920s, a whole raft of Dominion Museum Bulletins by Elsdon Best are further large scale, government-assisted publications. Major initiatives came with the programme of the first Labour government which took office in 1935. These included a series of centennial surveys (published by the Department of Internal Affairs) and a small number of grants to other commemorative publishing projects. J.W. Heenan, Undersecretary for Internal Affairs, used a discretionary fund to assist some other publication projects. Discretion probably exacerbated the inevitable backbiting unleashed among the subsidised and unsubsidised, including those who disapproved in principle. These early efforts are described by Rachel Barrowman in 'Culture-organising' (1996). The centennial surveys are described in a research essay by A.J. Booker (1983) and in the autobiographical writings of their editor, E.H. McCormick (An Absurd Ambition, 1996). Internal Affairs also set up a War History branch which embarked on a mammoth publication programme.

Heenan eventually gave way to pressure from PEN and others to set up the State Literary Fund in 1946. His reservations about the difficulty of creating an authority capable of keeping all parties happy in a world renowned for the number and vociferousness of what he described as its 'mutually intolerant cliques' were well founded and the Fund has a lively history. A rather desiccated summary of its early activities, including a useful list of grants, is The New Zealand Literary Fund, 1946-70 (1970), and statistical information on grants from 1973 to 1986 appears in Art Facts (Scotts et al., 1987). From the outset the Fund's primary purpose was to give 'grants towards publishing costs' and it restricted itself to publications judged to be of literary merit—largely fiction, poetry and literary periodicals—and excluding local histories, for which assistance was deemed to be available under the provisions of the Municipal Corporations and Counties Acts. Manuscripts were to be submitted to the Fund's Advisory Committee by publishers, not authors. O.St J. Vennell's Patronage and New Zealand Literature (1977) surveys attitudes to the Fund and makes some recommendations for its future resourcing and direction.

By 1985, the proportion of its grants which the Fund gave to publishers had fallen from 60% to 20%, a matter on which Bridget Williams animadverts in 'Publishing and the Literary Fund' (1986). In 1988 the Fund and its Advisory Committee joined the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council, becoming the Council's Literature Programme and Literature Committee. It further metamorphosed in 1995 with the rebranding of the Council's funding body as Creative New Zealand. The Literature Committee simply disappeared, without warning to its members. In 1993 the Council published a Research Report on the Literature Programme's Publishers' Survey, noting that 25% of its funding was in grants to publishers, and analysing 25 publishers' responses. In 1996 grants to book publishing fell to $18,000 from the previous year's $50,000 and Creative New Zealand set up a Task Force for Language and Literature to review its policies. Some recent events are described by Andrew Mason in Quote Unquote (1996).

The government also assists publishers through annual grants made by the Historical Branch of the Department of Internal Affairs towards the publication of historical works, countering one of the biases of the Literary Fund. The Historical Branch also co-publishes many of the departmental and other organisational histories commissioned through its agency. Another example of this kind of indirect government subsidy is the publication of the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography by the Department of Internal Affairs jointly with a commercial publisher (described in 1995 by Bridget Williams). The Māori Purposes Fund Board (and its predecessors) has made substantial contributions to the Polynesian Society and other publishers; centennial grants in 1940 and the sesquicentennial contributions of the 1990 Commission are other government sources of funding to assist publication. Details are to be found in agencies' reports in the Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives.

Learned societies or institutions may also consider subsidising publication of books otherwise commercially unfeasible. Companies wanting to raise a monument to their history or to produce a gift for presentation may commission and fund publications to which they may offer a greater or lesser degree of editorial control. Substantial publications might appear in parts, in consecutive issues of journals such as the Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute (later the Royal Society of New Zealand) or the Journal of the Polynesian Society, occasionally being reprinted as monographs. For many years this was the only way to get scholarly non-fiction published in New Zealand. Accounts are to be found in C.A. Fleming's Science, Settlers and Scholars (1987) and M.P.K. Sorrenson's Manifest Duty (1992). Māori-language publications have relied heavily on subsidy, from H.W. Williams's Dictionary (1917) and Bibliography (1924) to the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography's Māori-language series, Ngā Tāngata Taumata Rau (1990- ). Funding options for small and independent publishers are discussed by Janet Pascoe in Endnotes (1996).

Restrictions to publishing

Aside from the topic of censorship, little focus has been devoted to forces—apart from the market—which restrict the publisher's freedom of action. Factors discouraging publication may include emergency legislation, such as restrictions on paper or other supplies in wartime. Nancy M. Taylor discusses censorship for reasons of national security and other World War II issues in The Home Front (1986). Some grades of paper were not unduly restricted: some British publishers, for example Penguin Books, found it convenient to print some of their titles for the local market in New Zealand during wartime.

Legal restrictions, including libel and defamation laws, and, recently, privacy legislation, may restrict the publisher's actions. A controversial or sensitive text will be subjected to legal opinion and the author's contract will set out the parties' responsibilities. General guidance for authors and publishers to the libel, defamation and privacy legislation is found in some detail in Write, Edit, Print (1997).

In Censored (1989), Paul Christoffel gives a brief historical treatment of the issue, noting that censorship in application to publishing in New Zealand has largely related to imported material. Most publishers have practised self-censorship. Perry's The Indecent Publications Tribunal (1965) notes the lack of any New Zealand legal text on the topic of 'literary censorship on moral grounds' and describes New Zealand's experimental 'expert tribunal', listing its decisions from 1963. There is no general study of the suppression of publications for political reasons. Taylor discusses wartime censorship in some detail, and Rachel Barrowman describes the case of the left-wing periodical Tomorrow in A Popular Vision (1991).

The Copyright Act 1994 protects the holder's rights to the intellectual property contained in the creation of a literary work (in the broadest sense); the publisher's rights in the creation of an edition of a work are also protected. Plagiarism, if detected, may lead to legal proceedings and the destruction of the publication. The requirement that publishers must deposit three copies of each publication with the Legal Deposit Office of the National Library of New Zealand, although sometimes considered onerous, is unlikely in practice to affect the decision to publish. New Zealand is a signatory to the Berne Convention and is thus affected by any amendment to its provisions. Most recently the New Zealand book trade has been concerned about the effect of changes to the Convention allowing individual nations to determine their own policies on parallel importing. Australian legislation undermining publishers' traditional distribution monopolies was of particular concern. Submissions by book trade organisations on the Copyright Bill succeeded in having the status quo preserved for New Zealand in the 1994 Act. (A tacit agreement between publishers and booksellers enables a small number of books to evade restriction.)

In 1988 the Book Publishers Association of New Zealand set up Copyright Licensing Ltd to negotiate licences for reprographic rights with educational institutions on behalf of publishers and authors, to collect fees locally and distribute income from overseas rights organisations to New Zealand rights holders. In 1996 the company collected over $700,000 and received over $100,000 from overseas reproduction rights organisations for distribution to local rights holders.

Until the better-selling New Zealand authors could be persuaded that they might be equally well served by a local publisher as by their traditional London imprints, territorial rights were an issue affecting New Zealand writers rather than publishers. Publishers certainly did not expect their books to attain significant sales in other territories. For works for which an overseas market was conceivable, they might enter into a joint publishing arrangement with a British firm. Australasian or colonial rights might or might not be included, but from 1947 until the demise of the British Commonwealth Market Agreement in 1976, the carving up of the global trade in English language books between Britain and North America meant that a book by a New Zealand author published by an American publisher might never appear in bookshops in this country, and the opening up of the market has in effect made little difference to book distribution. The key effect of the closed market on New Zealand publishing is probably overall a positive one: multinational publishers operating in New Zealand who were taking advantage of their territorial monopolies may have felt philanthropic inclinations—or more likely discerned a marketing opportunity—and set up local publishing operations which have been critical to the development of the industry, and to New Zealand literature.

The publisher's tasks

Education and training

Most skills in book production came directly to New Zealand from Europe, especially from the United Kingdom. Later immigration of skilled tradespeople from Australia also had an influence, and the nature and extent of these importations and their effect on the development of a local publishing practice requires more extensive study. Training for publishers has traditionally been 'on the job', as tyro editorial staff worked their way up to positions of greater influence and responsibility. New Zealand publishers have come from a variety of backgrounds, including bookselling, printing, journalism, librarianship and accountancy, and have imported relevant skills and training. The arrival of the multinational publishing firms brought with it some trained and experienced staff, and occasional opportunities for reciprocal exchanges with other offices, often ground for the fertilisation of new ideas. More recently, formal training has been available from the Australian Book Publishers' Association, and since 1993 a one-year full-time course has been offered at Whitireia Community Polytechnic in Porirua. The scope of this course is indicated in its publication First Edition (1993, rev. ed. 1995) and its success may be gauged by the fact that a high proportion of its graduates have quickly found employment in the publishing industry. The Book Publishers Association of New Zealand also runs occasional seminars through its Local Publishing Forums.

Training for editors is also available in a variety of night school, continuing education and WEA contexts; and the journalism courses offered by the University of Canterbury, Wellington Polytechnic and elsewhere include training in many of the skills of book publishing. A number of courses are listed in First Edition.

Publishers' organisations

Publishers have always worked together to a certain degree, to protect their common interests and those of other branches of the book trade, and to ensure their survival to compete against each other. The earliest formal publishers' organisation to be established in New Zealand was the British Book Publishers Representatives Association (BPRA), formed in the 1950s. In 1962 the New Zealand Book Publishers Association was created at a meeting in Wellington attended by 15 representatives of the commercial and university publishing houses, and a delegate from the Māori Purposes Fund Board. Albion Wright of the Pegasus Press, Christchurch, was elected first president. A small council employed a Wellington accountant part-time as secretary.

The BPRA and the NZBPA combined in 1977 to become the Book Publishers Association of New Zealand (BPANZ). The organisation moved to Auckland and Ray Richards, who had recently left Reeds, became its secretary. Gerard Reid was appointed the full-time director of the expanding association from 1979. However, in the later 1980s the economic downturn caused publishers to re-examine their expenditure on Association membership, for some members a hefty sum, as subscription levels rose with turn-over.

For a number of years booksellers' and publishers' organisations had worked closely together, and by the mid-1980s were holding conferences at the same time, although separately. The preference of a number of publishers for the booksellers' organisation as a marketing body, rather than the BPANZ, was one of the factors, along with a reduction in membership charges, which led to the latter's retrenchment and the closure of its office in 1990. The BPANZ now operates from the office of Copyright Licensing Ltd (jointly owned by the BPANZ and the New Zealand Society of Authors). Combined book trade conferences have been held since the 1980s and Booksellers New Zealand, the flourishing booksellers' trade organisation, began to include publisher members in 1991.

Other organisations include the New Zealand Book Trade Organisation, set up in 1968 by representatives of the NZBPA and the Booksellers' Association to promote their general interests, and now defunct. It issued The Booksell Report, a marketing, sales and promotions newsletter, from 1983 to 1986. The New Zealand Book Council was established in 1972 with a more general membership of those who have an interest in books. Brief notes on the trade organisations are to be found in Gordon Tait's summary of the New Zealand industry in The Book Trade of the World (1976) and in Scotts (1987).

A brief history of the BPANZ appears in its newsletter The Publisher (no.12, 1995). The draft objects of the original NZBPA and the minutes of its first meeting are held at the Alexander Turnbull Library, and notes on its formation appear in Double (1969). The Association publishes a newsletter, entitled The Publisher since March 1994, formerly New Zealand Publishing News (1977-93). A useful discussion of the issues relating to booksellers' and publishers' organisations is in Part 4 of Anna and Max Rogers's Turning the Pages (1993).

Three groups of the BPANZ's records, covering the years from 1970 to 1991, are held in the Turnbull Library's manuscripts collections. Current records are held by the Association. Data on the history of publishing, its economics and the issues it faces are to be found there. The records include minutes of council meetings, market research (especially of the educational market), statistical surveys of the industry, turnover information, annual conference records, material on major issues such as discounting, copyright, GST, censorship, and labour relations, as well as membership lists, and information on the size of the industry, personnel, and sales. They are a vital—and almost untapped—source for any serious study of the recent history of the New Zealand publishing industry. Lists of members (currently numbering about 70) appear from time to time in The Publisher.

Trade publications

Many trade publications are essentially ephemeral in nature. This makes them hard to find, but they are a central documentary source for any study of the publishing business. Substantial exceptions are the annual volumes of New Zealand Books in Print, issued under varying imprints from 1957. Catalogues issued by publishers, usually annually and usually midway through the publishing year, include announcements of recent titles, advance notices of new publications, and often a comprehensive backlist. Intended to be circulated to the trade, and in limited quantities for public consumption, their obsolescent character means that they are often discarded, even by their publishers. Some of those that have survived may have been conserved for extraneous reasons: the Turnbull Library catalogue lists a few, including A Caxton Catalogue (1938), and some Reed and Whitcombe & Tombs catalogues, but the best collections are probably to be found in library acquisition departments. Government organisations are more likely than commercial publishers to issue consolidated lists or bibliographies of their publications (for example Elaine Marland and Keith Pickens's NZCER, 1934-84, 1985), although Reeds proudly included a comprehensive listing of their output in their two house histories. Whitcombes and Reeds also issued regular newsletters, Whitcombes from the 1930s until about 1970 under the title Books of Today. A trade journal, the Book Trade Monthly, appeared between 1979 and 1983 under various titles, latterly as the New Zealand Bookseller and Publisher. Some larger publishers have regularly or occasionally produced in-house newsletters: Longman Paul's Scuttle Butt is an example. Even more evanescent are publishers' advertisements, fliers, book promotions, and press releases, but any of these which can be found will provide evidence of value to the study of publishing.

Economics of publishing

'Publishing is a paradoxical business', remarked the author of the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research's report on the printing and publishing industry, H.M. Oliver, in 1976. Publishers saw themselves as a profession rather than merely a business enterprise, she noted, and the principal criterion of success might not necessarily be profitability. However there is no doubt that at a time of skyrocketing paper prices and other costs Stanley Unwin's apophthegm—that a publisher's first duty is to remain solvent—was foremost in their minds. The average salary of someone working in publishing was something like $3,000, Oliver remarked; the desirable print run for general books was probably close to 5,000 copies. The average output of established publishing houses was between 10 and 50 titles per annum, but four publishers of the 18 surveyed produced 600 titles between them, Reeds accounting for about half of these. Publishers expected to make a profit on the sale of the final 25% of an edition—an optimistic estimate compared with Ray Richards's in 1973, when he said that only the last 15% of the run would provide any return on the publisher's investment.

Ten years later, according to the New Zealand Official Yearbook, the average print run of a general book was much the same, having peaked somewhere in the early 1980s, and was declining. Three hundred publishers were now thought to be active, but only about 100 were specialist book importers or publishers. By 1995 the average print run was down to 3,000 copies and by 1996 it was thought to be approaching 2,000. The Yearbook repeated the same statistics for the number of active publishers, although First Edition in 1995 noted a Statistics Department return of 165 (but was able to identify only 64 by name).

A strange coincidence. Two books with the same title published on the same day in 1975; the one on the left went on to two subsequent editions (in 1979 and 1980). The Millwood Press publication on the right was also published in a limited edition of 266 signed copies for $200; the standard issue was priced at $14.95. A further 6 works with the title The New Zealanders have been identified, ranging from Craik's 1830 work (about Māori and discovery) to Maurice Shadbolt's collection of short stories, first published in 1959 and reissued several times, most recently in 1993. The photographer is unknown but the woman holding the books is identified as Allyson Burgoyne. (Evening Post Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, reference number F-22718-35MM-EP) Black and white photograph

These snapshots of some of the data relating to economic factors in publishing are notable for how much remains outside the frame. The Yearbook noted in 1990 that 'no thorough studies have been conducted of the book industry' and collected most of its information from the BPANZ. Official statistics on book production are buried in the Census of Manufacturing in conflated returns for Printing and Publishing. Apart from figures collected by the BPANZ and its predecessors and other professional bodies and published in trade newsletters, there is a lack of available data. BPANZ representations to the Statistics Department over a period of years for more meaningful categorisation of returns appear to have been unavailing. The book trade itself has generally been too busy to spend much time computing or compiling the figures of interest to the student of the economics of New Zealand publishing. Nevertheless publishers in unguarded moments have occasionally let slip useful and revealing details.

Ray Richards's frank analysis of the New Zealand publishing situation in 1973 ('The man in the middle', 1974) identifies many of the issues central to a study of the New Zealand publishing industry in the era before the advent of the multinational enterprises had really made itself felt. He identifies a number of causes of publishing failure, not neglecting the crucial luck factor, sometimes called Publisher's Flair (or Nose). In the 'small-market, restricted-interest situation' that is the New Zealand book world, he stresses the importance of a strong backlist, and notes the inflation of the economic edition of a book from 1,000 copies in the 1930s to 4,000 in the 1970s. Summaries of statistics from 13 BPANZ members are appended. Any similar picture for later years must be pieced together from fragmentary sources.

Publishing in New Zealand has sprung from a variety of structures. In earlier years family firms predominated, although they might go elsewhere for additional capital to facilitate expansion. Reeds, for instance, expanded by offering shares to a limited number of directors, staff, booksellers and authors in 1961. Sources of capital for firms may be private investors, a parent institution, a parent company or business group. In recent years the ownership of companies may have changed several times, through takeovers and mergers. The desire of a business conglomerate to divest itself of units not considered to be part of its 'core business' is a current trend which has already had some repercussions in New Zealand. Company structure will depend largely on its funding base and type.

Information on book sales analysis, the relative turnover of titles from a publisher's backlist and frontlist, comparative sales of overseas and New Zealand titles, overseas sales of books and rights, trade and specialist sales, and analyses of market segments are to be found in publishers' files. Overall statistics for the trade appear intermittently in a variety of sources. Some of these are identified in the section on book buying in Chapter 4 of this guide. W.B. Sutch contributed 'An economic survey' to R.A. McKay's History of Printing in New Zealand (1940), and Alan Mulgan expressed his opinions in his 1946 survey. The only comprehensive census of book publishers, distributors and sellers was conducted in 1987. Some of its results are summarised in the Official Yearbook for 1990.

A Unesco survey from 1982, An International Survey of Book Production During the Last Decades, records New Zealand book production statistics from 1949 to 1978, during which period New Zealand's annual book production rose from 277 to 2,079 titles. It appears to be unique as a comparative study. Oliver (1976) includes BPANZ statistics for 1970-74. Average edition size in 1973-74 was 7,430 copies, but no analysis enables this to be broken down into educational and other titles, backlist or new publications. Publishers' cost structures are, however, discussed, a rarer event. Trends in the demand for skilled labour were examined by the Labour Department in a brief survey, Printing and Publishing Industry, in 1984. Examination of Journalists' Union and Editors' Union awards and activities would make an interesting study. First Edition (1995) contains a section on book trade statistics which includes a publisher's cost breakdown (sourced to the Book Trade Conference), and a book costing—the formula by which a publisher checks the economic feasibility of issuing a title at a planned retail price (the example given would not see publication).

The economic history of individual firms may be found in their records. Studies of individual companies (see the section following) provide some financial data but are unlikely to include balance sheets. In the case of active businesses, information on costing, discount structures, profit margins and financial management remains commercially sensitive and is likely to be kept confidential.

The businesses

For over 80 years the New Zealand publishing scene was dominated by two firms. In 1882 the Christchurch bookseller George Whitcombe combined forces with the printer George Tombs, thereby controlling the means of production as a printer and having access to the market as a bookseller, an enviable position from which to strike out as a publisher. By the time Whitcombe & Tombs's publishing petered out following Bertie Whitcombe's retirement in 1963, their major competitor since the 1930s, A.H. Reed Ltd (better known by its imprint, A.H. & A.W. Reed), was a multinational publisher with an output of 300 titles per annum. Reeds, too, had its beginnings in bookselling—initially in mail-order marketing of religious material—entering publishing in earnest only with a co-production (with the printer Coulls Somerville Wilkie, and hedging their bets with the local university's support) of J.R. Elder's edition of The Letters and Journals of Samuel Marsden in 1932.

Even the estimated 12 million copies of Whitcombe's story books published between 1908 and 1962 pales beside the unimaginable quantities of material published by the third major player of the era, the Government Printing Office. The Office had its origins in the earliest years of colonial government, in 1842, and after a hiatus from 1847 was re-established in Wellington in 1864. Its official function clearly marks it out as a special case but it is also significant as the country's only publisher of major reference works—and contract printer to New Zealand's largest publishing enterprise, the telephone directory.

Publishing reputations are not made entirely by bulk of output, however. The social ferment of the 1930s was the fertile ground from which a number of significant publishing enterprises sprang, some longer-lasting than others. Aesthetic considerations underlay the enterprises of Harry H. Tombs—son of George—whose serials Art in New Zealand and Music in New Zealand, the annual New Zealand Best Poems, and some ambitiously designed monographs are landmarks whose present reputations might be cold comfort to their hard pressed proprietor who eventually had to give up the publishing business as hopelessly uneconomic.

Like Harry Tombs, maintaining its viability with a commercially more robust jobbing printing sideline was the Caxton Press of Christchurch. Now of almost legendary status in New Zealand literary history, it first made an impact in 1940 with publications by Frank Sargeson and M.H. Holcroft. The name of Denis Glover is inextricably linked with this enterprise, as Bob Lowry's is with the short-lived Auckland student publication, the Phoenix, perhaps more notable as a literary historical landmark than as a publishing history event. Out of the spirit of the times and the cooperative bookshops set up by the optimistic socialist fellow travellers of the era arose the Progressive Publishing Society (PPS) in 1942, with ambitious plans and some notable authors (including Curnow, Fairburn, Holcroft and Sargeson) and a series, New Zealand New Writing, modelled on John Lehmann's Penguin New Writing in the United Kingdom. The PPS was not notable, however, for successful marketing decisions; and the commercial and political world was about to change again.

After World War II, Whitcombe & Tombs's publishing successes in readers and schoolbooks were undermined by the ascendancy of the Department of Education's School Publications Branch, as well as by competing firms, notably Reeds. Caxton led in literary publications while Reeds dominated in popular reading. Hamilton bookseller Blackwood Paul, who had been on the board of the PPS, moved into publishing and on a shoestring budget managed a number of popular successes.

The University of New Zealand Press was set up in 1947 after decades of dogged lobbying by Sir James Hight. The highlight of the 17 titles it issued before the University's dissolution into its constituent parts in 1962 may have been F.H. McDowall's Buttermaker's Manual (2 vols, 1953), although the title best remembered now is probably Keith Sinclair's Origins of the Maori Wars. Although other university presses were already established, Auckland's was the first to become a significant publishing force, from 1966 for a time in association with Oxford University Press, followed by Victoria in 1979 and Canterbury and Otago in the late 1980s. New Zealand's university presses have branched out from their academic roots and are notable for the general market titles included in their lists.

Of the 20 New Zealand book publishers listed in Perry's 1952 New Zealand Writer's Handbook, only two names (Reed—misleadingly—and Caxton—barely) are recognisably identified with publishers active in New Zealand today, although some others may live on through their lists, now under other imprints. It was in the 1960s that overseas publishing firms began to make an impact on the local scene. William Collins (originally of Glasgow) had had a presence here since 1888 and had printed its popular British-originated titles in New Zealand as early as 1943. It did not, however, become a local publisher until the late 1960s.

Blackwood & Janet Paul's absorption into Longman Paul in 1967 marked the first 'merger' of local publishing with major overseas interests. Other foreign-owned (i.e. British) firms who entered New Zealand publishing from the late 1960s or early 1970s were Heinemann Educational, Hodder & Stoughton, and Oxford University Press (a comparatively late starter). Through its parent company's ownership of Longman, Penguin absorbed part of a New Zealand list and made a consistent contribution locally from the mid 1980s (its first local venture was a reprint of David Yallop's Beyond Reasonable Doubt?, 1980).

Another phenomenon of the 1970s was the entry of Paul Hamlyn into New Zealand publishing, in association with Whitcombe & Tombs, with two substantial series of part-works, New Zealand's Heritage (in 105 parts, 1971-73) and subsequently New Zealand's Nature Heritage (both edited by Ray Knox). Locally these might be seen as drawing on the model of the pictorial survey series Making New Zealand, produced as part of the government's centennial publications programme. However they were also following a worldwide trend of the time. With a high-powered advisory board chaired by J.C. Beaglehole, New Zealand's Heritage claimed to be the first fully-illustrated social history of New Zealand, and at a total of almost 3,000 pages, and with articles by many of the country's leading scholars, it was a significant event. (It included a survey of publishing by M.H. Holcroft in part 97.) There seems to have been no successor to these series (except perhaps for Weetbix cards), perhaps a publishing idea that has fallen out of fashion.

Local publishers had continued to be active. Reeds had opened an Australian subsidiary but were bought out and dismembered in the 1970s, with the local publishing arm initially becoming Reed Methuen. In 1979 it became part of the aptly-named Octopus group. The imprint has now re-emerged as part of the Anglo-Dutch Reed Elsevier group in the 1990s. Whitcombes merged with the printer Coulls Somerville Wilkie in 1971 to become Whitcoulls, but vivisection has seen the backlist sold to Penguin and the portmanteau now adorns only bookshops, presently owned by the same United States based office products conglomerate which bought GP Print and GP Publishing (the former Government Printing Office before its scandalous privatisation). In 1989 the Government Printing Office had been able to claim that it was the largest New Zealand-owned book publisher and distributor.

Other New Zealand firms—John McIndoe, Alister Taylor, —had briefer lives, some ceasing through choice, some through economic necessity. The tenacious Price Milburn and othersBridget Williams (of Port Nicholson Press, then Allen and Unwin New Zealand, then Bridget Williams Books and now with Auckland University Press); David Bateman; Dunmore Press of Palmerston North; Ann Mallinson (Mallinson Rendel); and Bob Ross and Helen Benton (currently Tandem Press) are among the relatively long-term survivors of an increasingly competitive environment, where overseas boardroom machinations or trends in business philosophy can wipe out a household name from half a world away.

The history of Māori language publishing is another story, where factors other than economics have played an important part. From missionary beginnings it has survived 150 years of indifference and manipulation, if not outright suppression. Government and institutional support has enabled the undertaking of some large scale works, from the Māori Bible and the Williamses's Dictionary via Apirana Ngata's Nga Moteatea to the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography's Māori-language series, Ngā Tāngata Taumata Rau. Recently, independent Māori language publishing has re-emerged, with the production of educational and children's books to the fore. The award winning Huia Publishers are a notable example (examined by Helen McLean in Endnotes, 1997). Most works recently published have been translations, and there is an emerging debate about quality and sources of vocabulary.

Dennis McEldowney's stylish survey in the Oxford History of New Zealand Literature in English (1991, to be updated for early 1998 publication) identifies the key businesses in New Zealand's publishing history and adumbrates the changing scene. His footnotes are the researcher's first signposts to an uneven infrastructure of further references. Tony Murrow and Julie McCloy provide brief historical overviews, and Jo Nicol a paper on Māori publishing, in Endnotes (1995). The forthcoming Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature will also contain entries for the more 'literary' publishers. Specialist publishers in non-literary areas have commonly been overlooked. Such major enterprises as the business information publisher CCH, the medical publisher Adis, and the legal publishers Butterworths (part of Reed Elsevier) and Brookers, are beyond the pale to most chroniclers. Other non-literary types such as Moa Press (now part of Hodder Moa Beckett) and Rugby Publishing have also been politely ignored by the publishing historians.

Whitcombe & Tombs published no company history, although notes for a planned centennial volume (by A.H. Johnstone) are extensively quoted by Anna and Max Rogers (1993). Records of Whitcombe's publishing from 1905 to 1986 are held at the Alexander Turnbull Library (where they were deposited by Penguin Books). Ian McLaren's Whitcombe's Story Books (1984) is the only systematic study of any aspect of the long-lived firm's output. Reeds produced two celebratory publications, The House of Reed (1957, written jointly by A.H. and A.W.) and The House of Reed, 1957-1967 (1968), a chronicle of a hugely successful decade, written largely by A.W. Reed. Considerable records, author files and book proofs are now in the Turnbull Library manuscripts collection. Elizabeth Caffin presented a paper on Reeds' golden age to the History of Print Culture conference in Dunedin in 1996.

The records of the enterprising Harry H. Tombs Ltd are held in the Turnbull Library manuscripts collection, as is some Caxton Press material amongst Denis Glover's papers. Caxton is one of the Christchurch publishers treated in depth in Noel Waite's thesis 'Adventure and art' (1997); the others are Pegasus and Hazard (as well as the more marginal Hawk and Nag's Head presses). Rachel Barrowman has documented the history of the Progressive Publishing Society in 'Making New Zealand articulate' (1988) and her book A Popular Vision (1991). In 1995 an exhibition at the National Library Gallery of books published by Blackwood & Janet Paul was accompanied by a booklet by Janet Paul and John Mansfield Thomson, Landmarks in New Zealand Publishing. Some of Blackwood & Janet Paul's papers are held at the Turnbull Library, with some restrictions on access. Also restricted are Port Nicholson Press papers and other papers of Bridget Williams held at the Library.

Government Printing Office records exist at National Archives, with lacunae caused by the periodic fires that have depleted all government records. Rachel Salmond examines the earliest years in Government Printing in New Zealand, 1840 to 1843 (1995) and an overall history was written by W.A. Glue (1966). The University of New Zealand Press receives a brief treatment by Hugh Parton in his history of the University (1979); an article by J.E. Traue in New Zealand Libraries (1963) provides a fuller account and a checklist. The Press's papers are at National Archives. Dennis McEldowney is currently working on the early history of Auckland University Press, and the state of the university presses is surveyed by Nicola Hill and Lis Roche in Endnotes (1995).

Other house histories are few. The publishing house of William Collins issued a booklet to commemorate its centenary in New Zealand as Quenching the Thirst for Knowledge (1988). It includes a timeline of the company's history in New Zealand, whose milestones include the appointment of David Bateman as managing director in 1968 and Brian Phillips in 1978. Butterworths devoted a few pages to New Zealand ('the law publisher's paradise') in their 1980 history (by H. Kay Jones) and a subsequent (unpublished) account of their New Zealand activities has been written by Julia Millen. A detailed account of the specialist Wellington publisher Technical Publications is Francis D. Wootton's There Was a Tide (1992) and an article on a similar topic is Hugh Brown's on PSL in Endnotes (1996). The bare bones of businesses may be discerned in a number of sources: the BPANZ newsletter, The Publisher, includes profiles of publishing firms in many of its issues, and the company listings in Book Publishers and Distributors (1995- ) are accompanied by brief descriptions. Authors' handbooks at various times have included lists of publishers with descriptive detail, and publishers are listed in such publications as the New Zealand Business Who's Who (the latest edition is the 38th, 1997) and New Zealand Books in Print.

The people

The key personnel in publishing are various in their roles: owners and proprietors, managers, editors, accountants, designers, typesetters, sales-persons, and so on. In the 19th century they were likely to be involved in other activities besides book publishing—in allied trades such as printing or bookselling, or in other kinds of business. For researchers seeking, in the first instance, to identify the individuals who have been involved in publishing, general sources such as directories and electoral rolls may be painstakingly combed. Published around the turn of the century, the Cyclopedia of New Zealand, in six volumes divided regionally, provides a useful index of professions and trades under whose heading for 'Printers and Publishers' some of the pioneers will be found. Newspapers are also indexed here.

In the earlier decades of European settlement in New Zealand after the missionary era, many newspaper proprietors dabbled in publishing. A number of them appear in G.H. Scholefield's Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (1940), and even more in the first volume (1769-1869) of the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (1990), where they can be located through its Categories Index: headings for Commerce, Trades and the Press contain reference to individuals active in publishing. Key individuals in this period include the newspaper publishers and proprietors W.E. Vincent, —mainly political—activities. Barzillai Quaife, Julius Vogel, Samuel Revans and John Williamson, some of whom are better remembered for their otherHenry Wise the Dunedin directories magnate, the pamphleteer and controversialist J.G.S. Grant, and Pātara Te Tuhi, editor and publisher of the Māori King's newspaper Te Hokioi, are other notable figures. In the later decades of the 19th century the 'rag-planters', founders of provincial newspapers, proliferated. Ross Harvey's work on these individuals includes a substantial number of biographies published in 1993 in the DNZB's second volume (1870-1900). Other prominent figures who appear in this volume are the publishers J.R. Blair, W.R. Bock (of Bock & Cousins, lithographers), Henry Brett, G.T. Chapman and the Wanganui publisher A.D. Willis.

It is not until the early 20th century that the founders of the modern publishing industry appear. Who's Who in New Zealand, published from 1908, is the standard biographical reference for succinct information about individuals. George Whitcombe and George Tombs left no memoirs, but vivid impressions are recalled by former employees in Anna and Max Rogers's Turning the Pages (1993). Bertie Whitcombe, George's son, a fixture at Whitcombe & Tombs for more than 70 years (managing director for 41 of these, from his father's death in 1917) is the central figure in an unpublished centennial history by Arthur Johnstone, who joined the firm as office boy in 1909. Dennis McEldowney has contributed an entry on Bertie Whitcombe to the DNZB (vol.3, 1901-20, 1996). Whitcombe's editor from 1901 to 1907, James Hight, is better known in his academic context. His successors Arnold Shrimpton, Carl Straubel and David Lawson are more elusive, perhaps partly a consequence of the retiring, or at least back room, nature of the editorial profession.

A.H. Reed founded his Sunday School Supply Stores in Dunedin in 1907, although he did not begin publishing pamphlets until 1922 and ventured into books ten years later. He and his nephew A.W. (Clif, short for Wyclif) were better historians than their erstwhile competitors Messrs Whitcombe and Tombs. Besides the company chronicles mentioned already, A.H. produced an Autobiography (1967), and the prolific Clif (author of 160 books by 1966, to Uncle's 85) wrote a memoir of A.H., Young Kauri (1975), and Books are My Business (1966) for a British publisher's careers series. Elizabeth Caffin has contributed an entry on A.W. to the DNZB (vol.4, 1921-40, forthcoming). Both A.H. and A.W. have entries in A.H. McLintock's Encyclopaedia of New Zealand (1966), the only publishers who do.

To the activists of the new socialist and radical movements in the early 20th century, the printing and publishing of their message was a central concern. These include the Romanian-born W.P. Black and radical printing tradesmen and unionists J.T. Paul and R.S. Ross, all of whom appear in the DNZB (vol.3, 1901-20). The entrepreneur publishers Bertie Whitcombe and A.H. Reed sit perhaps uncomfortably alongside them.

Further information on individuals is to be found in general biographical sources such as the Alexander Turnbull Library's Biographical Index on Microfiche and New Zealand Biographical Clippings, 1890-1988 (also on microfiche, both 1997), the National Library's later computerised indexes, and G.R. Macdonald's 'Dictionary of Canterbury biographies' at the Canterbury Museum (Index on microfiche, 1987). Much biographical information can be gleaned from trade publications, the papers and records of publishing houses and the histories of firms and organisations. The Reed histories (1957 and 1968) contain lists of some staff, as does Glue's History of the Government Printing Office (1966). Other worthwhile sources of information on individuals include Rogers (1993), The Oxford History of New Zealand Literature in English, The Book of New Zealand Women (1991)—see the subject index under 'Literature and Scholarship' for editors—and the forthcoming Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature. The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography's database, accessible to researchers on application, contains data on many individuals who do not find a place in the published volumes. The fourth volume in the series, to appear in 1998, will include some of the figures who first made their mark in the third and fourth decades of the 20th century. The diverse sampling of those involved in publishing includes Leo Bensemann, Denis Glover, Bob Lowry, Harry H. Tombs, Henry Kelliher and the aerial photography publishing pioneer Leo White.

People in the broader cultural sphere who had an influence on aspects of the development of New Zealand publishing include the prolific scribblers James Cowan, Johannes Andersen, Pat Lawlor and Elsdon Best. All have collections of papers in the Alexander Turnbull Library. Women in publishing have been less effectively documented, despite the preponderance of women editors and publishers in many present day firms. Sources include the Herstory diary in general and the diary for 1988 in particular, and articles in Broadsheet by R. Taylor (1982) and P. Joyce (1985). (A cumulative name and subject index to Herstory was compiled by Kathryn Peacocke in 1990.)

Publishing's denizens may wield unbridled power in their shadowy enclaves but unless their reflected glory may sell a book they are inclined to shun the spotlight. Trade literature is the place to find out about these enigmatic figures. Since 1994 a series of 'Profiles from the Trade' compiled by Whitireia Publishing students has been an occasional feature of the BPANZ's newsletter The Publisher. Those profiled so far have included Wendy Harrex, Daphne Brasell, Tony Harkins and Ray Richards.

The richest lode for information about people in publishing is still largely unexploited. Many of the best sources of historical, practical and biographical information are still active in the trade. Ray Richards began at Reeds in 1936 as the office boy, became managing director and chairman of the firm's Australian subsidiary, left in 1976 to set up New Zealand's first literary agency and became the first executive director of the BPANZ. Now more or less retired from publishing (though still producing Pony Club Manuals with sales of over 100,000) he maintains his agency with over 100 clients. Hugh Price, formerly manager of Sydney University Press and proprietor of Price Milburn, continues to publish occasionally as Gondwanaland Press and assiduously collects and records information on New Zealand imprints. Others with long careers or broad experience include Fergus Barrowman, David Bateman, Graham Beattie, Helen Benton, John and Geoff Blackwell, Elizabeth Caffin, Christine Cole Catley, Jane Connor, David Elworthy, John Griffin, Wendy Harrex, David Heap, Bert Hingley, Ros King, David Ling, Ann Mallinson, Brian Phillips, Wendy Pye, Bob Ross, Rosemary Stagg, Alister Taylor, Brian Turner, Geoff Walker and Bridget Williams. Publishers may decry the desultory dabblings of effete academics and frivolous amateurs on the more salubrious margins of their risky and sometimes cut-throat business but few have had the inclination or the time to tell the story themselves. The researcher has a rich field for exploration.

No comprehensive general study has yet been made of New Zealand publishing. Dennis McEldowney's essay in The Oxford History of New Zealand Literature in English (1991) is the closest to a general survey. Penny Griffith's preliminary bibliography, Printing and Publishing in New Zealand (1974), includes monographs published between 1890 and 1960. Blackwood Paul surveyed 'Publishing and bookselling' for A.H. McLintock's Encyclopaedia of New Zealand (1966), and Gordon Tait contributed seven pages on New Zealand to The Book Trade of the World, Volume II (1976). Ray Richards takes a practical view in 'The man in the middle' (1974). Some historical treatment is to be found in the publishing research papers by Tony Murrow and Julie McCloy in Endnotes (1995). Working Titles: Books That Shaped New Zealand, ed. Susan Bartel (1993), the catalogue of an exhibition held at the National Library of New Zealand, provides an illustrated but necessarily selective range of publications which have been influential for New Zealanders. Fergus Barrowman briefly analyses fiction production from 1979 to 1994 in his introduction to The Picador Anthology of Contemporary New Zealand Fiction (1996) and notes the contribution that publishing history has yet to make to the study of New Zealand literature.

Publishing in New Zealand was initially concerned with producing utilitarian works. As the settlers were able to move from more immediate practical concerns—taming the land, providing shelter and food—so publishing altered, from publishing as an auxiliary activity of printers, to publishing as a separate specific activity. This is virgin territory for print culture historians and it seems especially significant to more carefully distinguish when the distinction between publishers, and publishing as an offshoot of printing, became clear cut in the New Zealand context. Also essential to explore is the role of publishers based elsewhere (notably London) who were closely identified with New Zealand. Aspects of the relationship between the British and New Zealand publishing trade are noted in Luke Trainor's contribution to this chapter about colonial editions and their role in New Zealand.

McEldowney indicates another factor which needs closer examination, that of the nature of what was published and its change from works of a practical nature to an output covering a wider span. No studies have yet been made of this and the balance needs to be further explored: an analysis of imprints listed in Bagnall's retrospective national bibliography volumes is a possible starting point for the earlier periods.

Few regional studies of publishing in New Zealand exist. More are needed; they are especially important for the 19th century before the communications infrastructure was sufficiently developed for New Zealand to be considered as a single unit. K.A. Coleridge's work on early publishing and printing in Wellington is a notable exception. Her contribution in this guide on regional publishing in Wellington, and George Griffiths's on Otago, suggest what needs to be done for other regions. Each takes a different approach to this topic: Coleridge suggests what needs to be studied to develop a fuller picture, whereas Griffiths has already done some of this detailed work for the Otago region and so can present a fuller description.

Colonial editions

Colonial editions at special prices were a form of British publishing of, chiefly, fiction for the colonial markets. Study of the system offers a window on the British dominance of book culture in New Zealand until the third quarter of the 20th century and what that meant for local print culture.

The classic form of the colonial edition is exemplified by Rolf Boldrewood's A Colonial Reformer (London, 1890), number 116 in the Macmillan's Colonial Library series, which began in 1886. This is a copy of a novel purchased in New Zealand and its preliminary pages have on it the words 'This Edition is intended for circulation only in India and the British Colonies'. In form the book was like its British equivalent and was part of the same printing (indeed it became common for the sheets to be sold among publishers who then bound them for their own colonial series). Still this book, like almost all of its kind, was cheaper than the British version both in appearance—it had green cloth—and its noticeably lower sale price in New Zealand. British publishers delivered it to exporters at perhaps 50% of the price at which it was sold in New Zealand.

As this suggests, the significance of the colonial edition was not so much in any differences in production, which became small after World War I, but rather in its place in the marketing of British books, with all that meant for the colonial connection. Nineteenth-century novels, in three volumes or one, were too expensive for mass sale in New Zealand or other colonies. Local booksellers, agents and wholesalers needed the inducement of a cheap edition, extended terms of credit and—an important point—access to the most recent fiction. The colonial edition met this need. It also suited British print capitalism of the late 19th century by providing a facility for extended and cheap production, linked to heightened international competition where safe colonial markets were of benefit.

The first book issued in Macmillan's Colonial Library was Lady Barker's Station Life in New Zealand (1886). Boldrewood, the popular Australian novelist, and Barker (Mary Broome) did not, however, provide representative titles; most of the offering was popular British fiction put on the market at one title each fortnight from 1886 to 1913. Other British publishers also produced colonial editions: Bell was prominent, with 35 agents in New Zealand by 1901, as was Methuen with its editions of Kipling; some were paper bound, some cloth, some drab, like Macmillan, some gaudy with imperial symbols. The authors who were colonial, either by present or former residence, were only a sprinkling, regarded by publishers as interchangeable among their various colonies in providing frontier adventure in exotic settings. This may be seen from the reports of publishers' readers on New Zealand and on other colonial manuscripts submitted to them.

Simon Nowell-Smith's International Copyright Law and the Publisher in the Reign of Queen Victoria (1968) alerted students to the importance of the colonial edition. The publisher John Murray was first in the field with his Colonial and Home Library (1843). It was triggered by British Copyright and Customs Acts passed from 1842 to 1847 which attempted to provide protection for British books throughout the empire. Although an interesting precursor, it did not have that key feature of later colonial editions, including Murray's own, that volumes were not to be sold in Britain. A nearer analogy is provided by Bentley's Empire Library (1878-81) and Colonial Library (from 1885) which developed in conjunction with Melbourne publisher George Robertson and his London agent, E.A. Petherick, another Australian.

The trans-Tasman connection was important for colonial editions. British publishers regarded Australia and New Zealand as one market area, their branches and agents covering both. Wholesale and retail booksellers and publishers such as Robertson and Angus & Robertson of Sydney, operated in New Zealand, just as Whitcombe & Tombs established a Melbourne office. The New South Wales Bookstall Co. under A.C. Rowlandson published cheap local fiction which circulated well in New Zealand, reminding us that neither British publishers, nor colonial editions, had a total predominance. This framework gives added relevance to the recent and most complete study of the colonial edition, Graeme Johanson's Monash University doctoral thesis 'A study of colonial editions in Australia 1843-1972' (1995).

There is some evidence that the Bentley initiative, as well as the Macmillan one and those that followed in the late 19th century, were influenced by fear of United States competition, both legitimate and illegitimate. Although world copyright was foreshadowed by the 1886 Berne Convention, the United States did not subscribe to the general exchange of the protection of original work of national authors. British publishers, such as Macmillan, set up United States branches to meet the provisions of United States copyright and to facilitate sales, and indeed some colonial editions were printed in the United States. However, although there are expressions of concern about American pirate editions circulating in New Zealand, for example a United States edition of Mrs Henry Wood's popular novel East Lynne (1880) sold in Christchurch at 1s 6d when the British price was 7s 6d, the evidence is fragmentary.

Whatever the truth, Johanson provides evidence of a striking increase in book sales by British publishers to Australia and New Zealand in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He suggests that the volume of British book exports to Australia had by 1914 increased by 2.6 times the 1893 level, and raises the possibility of a proportionate increase for fiction, which might have been 20% of the total. Although it is not certain that this translates into the sale of colonial editions in Australia, let alone New Zealand where the calculations have not been done, Johanson makes a convincing case for the importance of colonial editions in Australia, and the shared market area suggests that the same would be true for New Zealand.

The impact of World War I on colonial editions and British book exports to New Zealand is tolerably clear. Shipping was severely interrupted, costs of production rose with higher material expenses and wages, and binding costs, so important to colonial editions, trebled. Hardback colonial editions rose from 3s 6d to 6s and paperback editions were not produced. The formal differences between the British edition at 7s 6d and the local at 6s were reduced to a stamp notifying that they were colonial editions; the emphasis was now on the pricing arrangement, 'colonial terms'. British book exports to New Zealand fell sharply and the emphasis in the 1920s was on the protection of the booksellers' margins.

New Zealand had, in proportion to population, a large number of booksellers. The Booksellers' Association, formed in 1921, organised effectively to defend margins against, on one hand, the higher British prices and, on the other, the competition from drapers' stores. Overall, they were in a position analogous to the British book trade 20 or 30 years before and sought the same solution, a Net Book Agreement, to ensure that there was a schedule of prices without discounts enforced by agreement of the British publishers and the New Zealand booksellers. The Booksellers' Association helped form the Australian and New Zealand Booksellers' Association (1924-31) to present a united face to the publishers. Typically, they protested about libraries purchasing colonial editions direct from London, but they also demanded from British publishers' branches in Australia, such as the Australasian Publishing Co., the right of New Zealand booksellers to buy direct from London rather than getting their books from Sydney. In 1923 they asked the Publishers Association in Britain to intervene to prevent exporters directly sending colonial editions to buyers in New Zealand at cut prices. By the end of the decade a fixed schedule of prices was enforced by local booksellers and British publishers. One aim was to have the books sell in Australia at British retail prices. Colonial editions were excluded since they cost less in Australia than in Britain. Colonial editions were only a part of the total of British books, but they had over many years set the pattern whereby recent colonial fiction retailed in New Zealand at or below the British retail price, and the export price from Britain was about 50% of the sale price in New Zealand.

When the Edinburgh publishers, William Blackwood, produced two novels with Australian settings by Miles Franklin (Brent of Bin-Bin) in 1929-30, they set a price for T.C. Lothian, their agents who travelled New Zealand, of 3s 3d and a sale price of 6s. Lothian took its 10% and country booksellers would buy from wholesalers but there was a substantial basis here for an alliance between local booksellers and publishers at 'Home', especially when the British retail price was 7s 6d.

The solidity of this linkage in the book trade is indicated by the way in

This well-decorated display stand, presumably at a local trade exhibition, dates from about 1920, the year the Brett Printing and Publishing Co. became a public company. The photographer is unknown. The Auckland business was developed by Sir Henry Brett (1843-1927) from 1870 when he bought into the Evening Star, and went on to become known for a number of popular guidebooks and almanacs, such as Brett's Colonists' Guide. Brett's biography in volume 2 of the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (1993) provides more detail of his achievements, and notes that in 1929 the company bought out the Lyttelton Times Company to form New Zealand Newspapers.(Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, NZ, reference number F-125518-1/2-)Black and white photograph

which it survived the storms of the 1930s: the Depression, a period of Australian tariffs on books to protect local printing, and devaluation of the pound. Colonial editions, now termed empire editions, or later overseas editions, did not have their previous formal prominence. Some publishers, Murray and Macmillan for example, continued with overseas editions, while others used the Readers Union which from 1935 published for distribution in the dominions. But the underpinning of 'colonial terms' continued and, as R.J.L. Kingsford in The Publishers Association 1896-1946 (1970) makes plain, British publishers regarded New Zealand and Australia as their exclusive market areas. There is no work on New Zealand equivalent to Johanson's, although the matter is dealt with in part in Anna and Max Rogers's Turning the Pages (1993) and by Dennis McEldowney (1991). There is also valuable material in The Book in Australia ed. D.H. Borchardt and W. Kirsop (1988).

Johanson (1995) quotes a report for British publishers in 1929, 'the phrase "colonial edition" connote(d) not necessarily a distinctive format of a novel, but merely the practice of selling the ordinary English edition at considerably reduced rates (of a discount of 50%) for export purposes'. He traces the colonial edition through to its demise with the end of resale price maintenance in Australia in 1972. Before then, however, the writing was on the wall. In 1946, publisher A.W. Reed remarked that 'the dice are loaded against the New Zealander in his own country'. In Australia a former publisher, P.R. Stephenson, commented in 1962 that 'Australia remains a colonial dependency of Britain . . . In so far as the mind of a nation is conditioned by reading matter, the minds of Australians are conditioned 90% by imported books' (Trainor, 1996, Trainor, 1997). Similar issues may be raised concerning the impact of colonial editions on New Zealand authors. Some were published under this system and enjoyed a circulation that they might never have secured from local publication—Boldrewood provides an Australian example—but national literature may have been stunted by the British dominance.

Colonial editions are an obvious agenda item for the study of print culture. Their significance will not be known until the detailed work is done, including that on periodicals and readership. Then we shall be better placed to understand the longstanding dominance of British books, the internal dynamics that made that possible in New Zealand, and what that might have meant for the colonisation of the New Zealand mind.

Regional publishing: Wellington

There has been virtually no work on patterns of publishing within the Wellington region, apart from the brief survey article by Coleridge, 'Printing and publishing in Wellington, New Zealand, in the 1840s and 1850s' (1986), which is primarily statistical in nature. McEldowney (1991) touches on the localised character of a number of the publishers that he discusses, but this must be extracted from the general discussion in the text. This section examines the studies that need to be undertaken to present a fuller picture of patterns of publishing within the Wellington region.

The first need for any study of regional publishing is to identify the works and the publishers. Item by item scanning of The New Zealand National Bibliography to 1960, ed. A.G. Bagnall (1969-85), and of the annual volumes of the 'Current National Bibliography' (1961-65), and New Zealand National Bibliography (1968-83), will provide a comprehensive list which can then be sifted to identify the specifically regional publishers, as distinct from Wellington-based national publishers such as the Government Printing Office. Assistance can be found in the bibliography compiled by Hilda McDonnell, Wellington Books (1992), covering Wellington City, the Hutt Valley, Porirua City, and the Kapiti Coast. McDonnell's bibliography reveals the range of the very many specialist works with a distinctively regional or local character published by organisations such as schools, churches and local history associations. It does not, however, cover non-historical works, such as poetry or educational material, which are also published by very localised specialist publishers. Searching by place of publication in electronic databases, such as the catalogues of some New Zealand libraries, will also assist.

Publishers can be identified through business directories, such as the Universal Business Directory (1948- ) and other directories which are listed in Don Hansen's The Directory Directory (1994). This exercise will identify a number of publishers based in Wellington, but will miss many of the small part-time and one-person operations which were sometimes significant commercial publishers in specialised areas. For the earlier years, up to perhaps 1930, it will be desirable to also identify the printers in this way, since nearly all except the largest publishers were chiefly printers or booksellers, possibly acting on commission from the author.

Once publications have been identified, reviews of them may provide further information about the publishers and their activities. Reviews can be located by using the Index to New Zealand Periodicals (1940-86), Index New Zealand (1987- ), and the specifically business index Newzindex (October 1979- ). For the period before 1940 the only universally applicable method of locating relevant articles is by direct searching of the newspapers and periodicals, although some individual titles have been indexed (often selectively) in the Alexander Turnbull Library and other institutions.

Regional publishing: Otago

Dunedin's economic vigour enabled it to dominate southern publishing in the 19th century and lead the field in New Zealand. Of the 550 items listed in the New Zealand National Bibliography as being published south of the Waitaki River to 1890, 90% came out of Dunedin. Few of them carried a publisher's imprint, 10% carried no imprint at all, and most were attributed to a printer: 67 items for the Otago Daily Times, Mills & Dick 65, Fergusson & Mitchell 38, and so on. Printing in smaller towns was confined almost entirely to local newspaper offices.

In subject matter, religion (66 titles) headed the list, publications on evolution, free thought and spiritualism swelling the total to 88 (several titles, fitting more than one category, have been counted into each category). Verse (31), fiction (17), and 'general literature' produced 89; local bodies and amenities 56, commercial 44, education 36, and politics 32. Clubs and societies, and personal pamphlets each produced 24. Such modern preoccupations as women, Māori and sport together barely reached double figures.

Local bodies, companies and organisations issued many of the items, and so did private individuals—mostly in testimonials, petitions and pamphlets, but also in more ambitious works. Victor Nicourt, French master at Otago Boys' High School, published the Otago French Primer for Beginners on his own behalf in 1866. The most prolific individual publisher, so prolific that he distorts the statistics, was J.G.S. Grant, who pumped out 60 literary, political and philosophical pamphlets.

Though some Otago writers had work published abroad, there was a noticeable willingness to publish within the local community, for the gold-rushes enabled enterprising booksellers and printers to reach an adequate market. Title pages seldom stated when bookseller or printer was also doubling as publisher, but in some cases the distinction is clear. Ben Farjeon's 1866 novel Grif: A Story of Colonial Life was issued by 'William Hay, Publisher, Princes Street'; and the title-page of J.T. Thomson's Rambles with a Philosopher (1867) and the verso in John Barr's The Old Identities (1879) credit Mills, Dick & Co. as both publisher and printer.

Booksellers such as Hay, J. Wilkie, James Horsburgh, Joseph Braithwaite and R.T. Wheeler developed publishing as a sideline. Horsburgh leaned towards religious and prohibition titles, but also issued Professor Black's Chemistry for the Goldfields (1885); Braithwaite favoured the Freethinkers. Wilkie, in 1888-89, published five competent works of fiction by four different authors, all using pseudonyms.

Surviving information on print runs suggests that 19th-century publishing in Dunedin could easily be underestimated. Salmond's The Reign of Grace (Horsburgh, 1888) went through five editions, each of 1,000, in a year; Marshall's Homeopathic Guide, issued by a local pharmacist in 1884, had a print run of 5,000; and J.F. Neil's New Zealand Family Herb Doctor (1889) reached three editions and 5,000 copies by 1891.

Dunedin publishing did not end with books and pamphlets, for newspapers and periodicals abounded. More surprising was the city's investment in directories. Local directories had already been issued before the 1870s by Lambert, Harnett, Mackay and Wise. But Wise's New Zealand Post Office Directory (1872) laid the foundations of an empire which took in New Zealand and parts of Australia. John Stone, who entered the field in 1884 and was outstandingly successful with his Otago-Southland directories, also serviced North Island markets.

Though the bookseller R.J. Stark issued Thomson's A New Zealand Naturalist's Calendar in 1909, southern publishing in the early 20th century generally depended on printers. Newspaper offices such as the Southland Times, Gore Publishing Co. and the two Oamaru newspapers frequently issued in pamphlet form material from their own columns, and the Otago Daily Times published many notable regional histories: Memories of the Life of J.F.H. Wohlers (1895), Gilkison's Early Days in Central Otago (1930), Pyke's Early Gold Discoveries (1962), and the three-volume Advance Guard (1973-75), before its publishing department stuttered to a close.

The rise of Whitcombe & Tombs changed the regional pattern considerably. George Whitcombe, bookseller, and George Tombs, printer, merged their independent Christchurch businesses in 1883 then took over a branch of Fergusson and Mitchell in 1890, creating a base in Dunedin. Bertie Whitcombe, general manager from 1911, opened bookshops throughout Australasia and soon dominated New Zealand publishing, particularly in children's books.

Whitcombe's success, coinciding with a developing New Zealand identity, offered an example for other firms to emulate. Two such—Coulls Somerville Wilkie and the House of Reed—had Dunedin origins. The economic situation after World War I had caused disarray in the city's bookselling and printing trades. J. Wilkie and Co., taken over by the Somerville family in 1894, produced Wilson's Reminiscences of the Early Settlement (1912), but in 1922 amalgamated with Coulls, Culling & Co. to create the enlarged printing firm of Coulls Somerville Wilkie. As for the book trade, the only survivors in Dunedin were Whitcombe & Tombs, A.H. Reed and Newbold's secondhand bookshop. Reed, then a wholesaler of devotional literature, formed a partnership with his nephew and occupied a gap left by the financial collapse of the Bible Depot.

In 1932 Coulls Somerville Wilkie and Reed jointly published Samuel Marsden's letters and journals on behalf of the University of Otago. Coulls Somerville Wilkie, more conscious of good design than many contemporaries, continued in book work until after World War II, but remained essentially printers. The two Reeds, however, became increasingly involved in authorship and publishing, and their Dunedin operation laid the foundation for a national publishing firm.

Early in 1946, two years before the centenary of the Otago settlement, a special committee commissioned a history of the province, expanding the concept to include 20 district histories under the general direction of A.H. McLintock. The project was outstandingly successful: 16 ancillary titles eventually appeared, totalling some 25,000 copies; a volume in matching format was commissioned by Western Southland; McLintock added The Port of Otago (1951); and the Otago Daily Times ran a novel-writing competition which produced Georgina McDonald's Grand Hills for Sheep (1949). The body of Otago history almost doubled overnight. Unfilled gaps became apparent and the concept of publishing by community committee showed how those gaps might be filled.

In another development the McIndoe family's long-established jobbing printing firm was led by John McIndoe junior, back from RAF service, into publishing from 1956. In the following 30 years until his retirement, McIndoe became one of New Zealand's best publishers, showing an awareness of literature and social issues. Significant works of poetry, novels, short stories and substantial histories of Otago and Canterbury, as well as booklets of charm and individuality, were produced. Generally southern publishing has been solid but unstylish, but John McIndoe had an eye for design and typography.

In 1968 McIndoe also became publishers to the University of Otago Press. Prior to this, university publishing activities included those of the Bibliography Room which in the 1960s and 1970s produced booklets of verse by such writers as James K. Baxter, Hōne Tūwhare and Ruth Dallas. An attempt in 1948 to establish a University Press came to nothing and though the Press adopted an imprint in 1959, its early titles never achieved viability.

Under the editorial direction of first W.J. McEldowney and from 1988 Helen Watson White, and with production and distribution by McIndoe from 1968, more substantial works appeared. John Parr's Introduction to Opthalmology, feared uncommercial, turned out to be a runaway success. In 1993 Wendy Harrex was appointed to run the Press full-time on the lines of an independent publishing house, increasing output to 20 titles a year and broadening its range.

Individual publishers, mainly of verse, appear from time to time. The most determined of them has been Trevor Reeves, of Caveman Press, who issued numerous booklets of poetry and crusading politics. But neither the individuals, nor such provincial newspaper jobbing offices as the Southland Times and the Oamaru Mail, both of which published books with short bursts of enthusiasm, have become full-time permanent publishers.

In Invercargill, the Southland Times interest was taken over in the 1960s by Craig Print, its work in this field greatly expanding as Southland communities, following Otago's example, began producing many substantial local histories. In 1976 the company published Sheila Natusch's On the Edge of the Bush on its own behalf and has since maintained a steady output, mainly of history and non-fiction, and not restricted to Southland. It has now printed or published over 300 titles.

Since the late 1970s Otago Heritage Books, functioning as both publisher and bookshop, has issued many titles on aspects of southern history, including the notable four-volume Windows on a Chinese Past (Ng, 1993- ). Longacre Press, set up by McIndoe's former editorial team when that firm moved out of publishing, began operations with the sumptuous Timeless Land (1995). Its main thrust has been in the field of young adult fiction, and its products have been popular in Australia as well as in New Zealand.

Marketing is a permanent problem for southern publishers. Population imbalance and transport costs meant that a publisher of McIndoe's standing found it barely possible to distribute good quality poetry nationwide. No southern publisher has tackled the national popular market front on. Craig Print and Otago Heritage design their output to markets within reach, Longacre aims for a niche market, and the University of Otago Press depends in part on its academic and textbook interests. Nevertheless, considering the region's small population, publishing in Otago and Southland has maintained quite remarkable vigour, particularly in the field of history.

The student of publishing in New Zealand is handicapped by the lack of bibliometric studies. There is, for instance, no equivalent for New Zealand of Simon Eliot's Some Patterns and Trends in British Publishing 1800-1919 (1994), a study which examines the size, patterns and nature of book production based on detailed statistical analyses of lists of what was published. We do not have for New Zealand any firm knowledge of quantities published, and what kinds of publications they were, beyond the most cursory information. Short surveys of some of the most important of the categories of publications produced in New Zealand form the bulk of this chapter. The selection of categories is not comprehensive: there is, for example, no coverage of map publishing. Nor is the selection balanced, and in this sense it reflects the current state of research into aspects of New Zealand's print culture.

Government publishing

From its earliest days the State in New Zealand has been a major publisher. The colonial government's first official notices were printed on the Church Missionary Society's press in early 1840; its first separately issued official Gazette came out towards the end of the same year. Rachel Salmond tells the story of those early and sometimes makeshift days in Government Printing in New Zealand, 1840 to 1843 (1995), drawing expertly upon archival sources. W.A. Glue's History of the Government Printing Office (1966) takes the narrative briskly forward more than a century. Glue's account focuses on personalities, equipment and buildings, but nonetheless makes the magnitude of the State's undertakings as a publisher clear. Its parliamentary publications kept citizens informed in great and sometimes crushing detail of their government's activities; its legislative publications guided citizens (or at least their lawyers) on their rights and duties; its departments became exemplary publishers in the fields of agriculture, education, statistics, science and health, with even occasional excursions into the world of arts.

Unfortunately, the mass of material so produced over the years has been less than perfectly mapped. Alison Fields, writing in New Zealand Libraries (1995), noted that New Zealand is one of the few countries in the world to have national bibliographic coverage for monographs for the entire span of its written history. Yet, within this record, government publications are in fact a submerged, although substantial, part of a miscellaneous bulk. Navigational problems are acute. Guides include Kathleen Shawcross et al., A Guide to the New Zealand Primary Sources in the Davis Law Library (1977), C.L. Carpenter's Guide to New Zealand Information Sources Part V: Official Publications (1980), updated by Jill Best in 1994, and J.B. Ringer and C. Campbell's New Zealand Government Publications: An Introduction (1980). The Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives has published the Users' Guide to Parliamentary Publications (1989). David McGee's Parliamentary Practice in New Zealand, first published in 1985 but revised and expanded in 1994, includes much incidental detail on the organisation and form of parliamentary publications. J.B. Ringer's An Introduction to New Zealand Government (1991) includes not only chapters on parliamentary, legislative and statistical publications, but also notes on publishing by local government and selected quasi-state organisations. The tripartite format of each chapter offers background information on the history, functions and structure of government, guidance on using related publications and lists of further references. This guide, however, like the others mentioned above, now badly needs updating, particularly in relation to the new MMP environment.

The above guides are manuals of a kind, pragmatic in nature. This is also true of the few legal textbooks that give guidance on the availability of statutes, the most informative of which is perhaps J.F. Burrows's Statute Law in New Zealand (1992).

Over the past decade attention has gradually turned from the practice of government publishing to its theory: from what is available to what should be available, and in what format. This has been in part inspired by the consequences of the major government restructuring which began in the mid 1980s. The deregulation of government printing in 1986, the sale of the Government Printing Office in 1989, and the continuing fragmentation of the public service have had a major effect on departmental and other government publishing programmes. Pleasance Purser's article 'Production, distribution and bibliographic control of New Zealand government publications' (1988) reviewed the scene after deregulation but prior to the sale of the Government Printing Office. D.I. Matheson's 'Access to New Zealand government information' (1988) reviewed current and potential problems of accessing information.

It should be clear by now that there are large gaps in research on New Zealand government publishing. The bibliographic groundwork has not even been done. Some departments have issued spasmodic promotional catalogues of their publications; some have more or less regularly issued bibliographies or chronological lists (the Department of Statistics has been perhaps the most consistent performer here). However, few if any systematic and comprehensive bibliographies of any aspects of government publishing have been compiled, nor are satisfactory cumulative indexes available to the major publications.

Apart from Salmond (1995) and Glue (1966), and a chapter on the Government Printing Office in R.A. McKay's centennial compilation (1940), little or no work has been done on the history of the government's involvement in publishing. This is especially true of departmental publishing. Few departmental histories make more than a fleeting mention of their department's publishing programmes. This is the case even for the publicly-funded scientific institutes, one of whose primary functions is, presumably, to publish. A rare exception, Rose-Marie C. Thompson's The First Forty Years: New Zealand Oceanographic Institute (1994) still devotes no more than two pages to the topic. A more notable exception is Sir George Wood's Progress in Official Statistics 1940-57 (1976).

No work at all has been done on the publication practices of local and regional government, or state owned enterprises; little research has been done into the accessibility and usefulness of government information in print form. R.C. Lamb, writing in New Zealand Libraries (1958), examined the idiosyncrasies and shortcomings of a cumulative index to the Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives (matters left uncorrected in subsequent indexes). Genealogical researchers such as Denis Hampton and —uses incidental to the original purposes of publication. Alan Tunnicliffe have focused on the historical uses of major publications to family historiansDavid Hay in What About the Users? (1991) suggests that public sector reports in today's formats are of little use and little valued by external users (that is, users other than parliamentarians and their staff).

The ideology underlying government publications has also been little studied. The Education Department's long term flagship, the School Journal, is one exception, with a pioneering essay by David Jenkins on its social attitudes (1939), and a history by P.R. Earle (1954), followed by an article by B.P. Malone, 'The New Zealand School Journal and the imperial ideology' in New Zealand Journal of History (April 1973), and more recent unpublished work by Rebecca McLennan and Michael Reid. Now that government departments and agencies have more overtly than ever taken up advocacy roles, similar service could well be done for virtually any of them. A framework for future study is potentially provided by Judith Urlich's thesis 'Government communication in New Zealand: changing roles and conventions' (1995), although this pays little direct attention to individual publications or publications policies. The field is therefore open.

Science journal publishing

Scientific publishing is defined as the formal communication across time and distance of methods, results, and implications of scientific research. Its purpose is both deposition (archival aspects) and transmission (awareness aspects); fellow scientists (peers) are the prime target audience for science publications which comprise mostly articles ('papers') in learned journals.

In New Zealand, Māori had of old a practical interest in scientific matters (horticulture, fishing, medicine, geography) but without a written language their findings cannot be considered published. It was not until this century that their orally transmitted knowledge started being committed to the scientific record.

Although sighted in 1642 by the Dutch explorer and trader Abel Tasman, New Zealand was not visited by western scientists until 1769. They recorded their observations in discovery logs, made public upon return to their homelands. These publications, mainly of a descriptive nature in the fields of plant and animal taxonomy and geography/geology, are exemplified by the logs of Captain James Cook, and of the scientists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander who accompanied him. The first book published about New Zealand was an account of Cook's first voyage by John Hawkesworth (1773) based on material from the journals of Cook, Banks and others aboard HMS Endeavour. Ernest Dieffenbach's Travels in New Zealand was the first general scientific account of the country. Published in London in 1843, it attracted the attention of other scientists and travellers from the United States, France, Germany, and Austria. Consequently many detailed reports, books, and articles concerning scientific matters relating to New Zealand appeared from Northern Hemisphere publishers.

Since the early colonial days (the mid 1800s) New Zealand has had an active scientific community. Scientific societies were formed in nearly every main centre and several major museums and universities were built. A national scientific academy was established in 1867. Initially named the New Zealand Institute, in 1933 it became the Royal Society of New Zealand. Sir Charles Fleming published a centennial history of the Society: Science, Settlers, and Scholars (1987). In it he lists one of the main reasons for federating local societies under the New Zealand Institute as 'to give a publication medium for New Zealand scientific research, such as none of the individual societies could afford'.

The early New Zealand Institute publications were in two categories, published in a single volume: Proceedings, defined as 'a current abstract of the proceedings of the Societies . . . incorporated with the Institute' and Transactions, 'comprising papers read before the Incorporated Societies'. In 1885 the Board of the Institute also resolved to publish monographs, eventually bringing out a Bulletin series as well as occasional publications. Dissatisfaction with the annual Transactions (particularly the lag between submission and publication) led to the establishment of a quarterly Journal of Science in Dunedin in 1882. Too few contributors and subscribers meant that this journal folded after three years, to be resurrected in 1891 but lasting only one more year. In 1887, the New Zealand Medical Journal was established. It ran for ten years, was briefly discontinued, then resumed under the same name (restarting with vol.1) in Dunedin in 1900, where it is still being edited.

The establishment of the Polynesian Society's Journal in 1892 was followed by that of the New Zealand Journal of Agriculture in 1910, and by the New Zealand Journal of Science and Technology in 1918. Neither of the latter has survived, but a greater variety of more specialised journals, research reports, and bulletins has emerged from various sources.

The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) was established in 1926. By the Scientific and Industrial Research Act 1926, it was given a statutory responsibility for the dissemination of scientific research. It took over publication of the New Zealand Journal of Science and Technology (established in 1918) from the Board of Science and Art, established in 1913 primarily to print scientific papers. The editor of the New Zealand Journal of Science and Technology was also responsible for a Bulletin series initiated by the Board of Science and Art, the Annual Report of DSIR, and Geological Bulletins of the Geological Survey, previously published by the Mines Department. The Geological Survey had been established in 1865 and, with the Government Analyst and the National Museum, was part of the first government-funded scientific organisation in New Zealand. It became a prolific publisher of New Zealand scientific books and maps.

Between 1938 and 1957, the New Zealand Journal of Science and Technology published alternating Parts A (Agricultural Section) and B (General Section). Science and scientific output greatly expanded in New Zealand, especially at universities which added active research to their teaching obligations. To provide publishing avenues for this expanded research effort, in 1958 the New Zealand Journal of Science and Technology was replaced by the New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research, the New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics, and the New Zealand Journal of Science. Soon after, additional journals emerged:

New Zealand Journal of Botany (est. 1963) New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research (est. 1967) New Zealand Journal of Experimental Agriculture (est. 1973) New Zealand Journal of Zoology (est. 1974)

The relative importance of the generalist New Zealand Journal of Science decreased, and in 1984 it was replaced by the New Zealand Journal of Technology; it folded in 1987.

A perceived overlap between the New Zealand Journal of Experimental Agriculture and the New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research was remedied by changing the name and content of the former to New Zealand Journal of Crop and Horticultural Science in 1989. The New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research then concentrated on pastoral and animal research.

Agricultural extension had been a prime role for the New Zealand Journal of Agriculture (1918-88), originally established as Journal of the Department of Agriculture (1910-12), later the Journal of Agriculture, NZ (1913-18). This journal remained with the Department of Agriculture until 1965 when a commercial publisher gave the contents a more popular focus. After a series of takeovers, it finally disappeared.

Within the DSIR, direct responsibility for publishing had mostly resided within its head office, since 1944 as a separate unit, from which a Science Information Division emerged in 1975. The Science Information Division undertook to produce the Department's journals and bulletins series, as well as a variety of other science publications. The publications were produced using hot-metal typesetting and printing, predominantly at the Government Printing Office. Although established in 1864 as the Government Printing and Stationery Department for parliamentary documentation, the Government Printing Office became also an important publisher of science monographs, such as the monumental Flora of New Zealand series.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, computer developments and applications started to have an increasing impact on New Zealand publishing and on the scientific community. The Government Printing Office introduced computer typesetting in New Zealand in 1976. Developments in association with the Science Information Division of DSIR resulted in the ability to prepare input files outside the printing plant, for example at the Hansard office. This was a world first. The cost-effectiveness of this and other developments undoubtedly helped to further centralise the production of DSIR journals, bulletins, and other departmental publications.

In 1989, following major changes in government structure, DSIR had to compete for research funds, which forced it to streamline its operations, including publications. Reorientation placed greater emphasis on the profitability of publishing scientific and popular-scientific books. The name of the unit was changed to DSIR Publishing in 1988. As DSIR Publishing now had to charge other divisions within DSIR and outside organisations for its services, scientific publishing became less centralised, even within the Department. For example, the Entomology Division assumed full production control of its monumental Fauna of New Zealand series. The 1989-90 financial year saw the biggest reorganisation of DSIR since 1926. As a result DSIR Publishing's books enterprise was closed down entirely, leaving only the journals and the Alpha series of educational leaflets. Printing was tendered to commercial printers, since the Government Printer, now GP Print, had been privatised.

It was mainly for financial reasons that the DSIR in 1990 sought to distance itself entirely from its research journals. A Cabinet Committee on Education, Science, and Technology indicated that the potential of the journals should be investigated. After wide consultation with the scientific community, officials from DSIR and the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology found that publication of New Zealand journals was justified on several grounds, which included the 'profound' influence they have on the quality of research, and 'preservation of knowledge'.

As a result of the external evaluation, the six journals were transferred to the Royal Society of New Zealand, separate from any government department, on 1 July 1991. The unit started operating under the banner 'Scientific and Industrial Research Publishing of New Zealand', SIR Publishing for short. With the transfer came an allocation of funds (supplementary to subscriptions) for three years. Funding has continued for these New Zealand science journals through an annual contract with the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology.

Now the major national scientific publisher, the Royal Society continues to produce the quarterly Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand (successor to the Transactions 1869-1971) and the annual Proceedings of the Society, alongside the 'ex-DSIR journals'. Although experiments with various electronic formats for journal distribution have been conducted using CD-ROM and the Internet, the principal form of science communication remains that of articles printed in its seven quarterly scientific journals.

Newspapers

Newspapers assume special significance in the New Zealand publishing context. Unlike the situation in Britain, where book publishing was established well over one century before newspapers were produced, in its New Zealand colony newspapers came first. J.E. Traue comments, 'If New Zealand's cultural topsoil was deficient in monographs, it was enriched by the newspaper printing press,' and he demonstrates this by citing numbers of newspapers produced in New Zealand: 16 by 1851; 28 by 1858; and between 1860 and 1879, 181 newspapers were founded (1985, pp.12-13). The study of newspapers in New Zealand, especially for the 19th century, therefore assumes special significance in the history of print culture in New Zealand.

This section is primarily concerned with publishing of newspapers, rather than with production aspects (see Chapter 2) and with the role of the media in the political process; note, however, that this distinction is on occasion difficult to draw and so the user can profitably read both sections. It is also heavily weighted to 19th- and early 20th-century newspapers, the period which has been most closely examined. Research into more recent aspects of the newspaper press have been largely concerned with control and ownership of the newspapers and with their role in the political process, which is not the primary interest of this section.

The student of the history of New Zealand newspapers needs to be constantly vigilant about distinguishing fact from fiction, and this is as true for recent material as it is for the 19th century. Journalists and editors, perhaps because their stock in trade is skill with words, manufacture their own myths and history rather more than other writers.

A considerable amount of information about newspapers is to be found elsewhere in this guide. Note in particular the section on Māori newspapers later in this chapter, and also the sections in Chapter 6 which note newspapers published in New Zealand in languages other than English and Māori.

History

New Zealand, as a British colony, took its models from that country and retained strong links to it. Newspapers were no exception. British immigrants were advised to arrange, before leaving, 'to receive a file of some weekly London paper' (Wakefield, quoted in Hankin, 1981, p.39); this provided important links to 'home' and reinforced the colonial's ties with Britain. However, no research has been carried out to establish more precisely the similarities between the British models and their New Zealand offshoots, nor to ascertain when and how divergence from the models occurred. Works about British newspapers such as Brown's Victorian News and Newspapers (1985) provide a starting point for such research, and Australian models should also be examined for similarities and differences.

Harvey in 'Formula for success' (1993b, pp.208-209, based on Day, 1990) has characterised the establishment of newspapers during this period. In the 1840s and 1850s newspaper ownership was unremunerated, political advantage rather than financial profit being the main incentive. During the 1860s many newspapers were established with financial profit as the main motive: both large city dailies and small circulation weeklies were feasible, and newspaper management became a full-time occupation. The 1870s saw a rapid expansion in the number of titles and the opening of the trans-Tasman cable in 1876; and in the 1880s the telegraph and other factors resulted in a uniform news service and newspapers played a role in establishing the national identity.

Newspapers were initially established in New Zealand as government organs, whether directly or indirectly subsidised, and were centred at or close to the main areas of European settlement. Government control of these early newspapers is an essential element to understand and has been examined in several studies, most notably in G.M. Meiklejohn's Early Conflicts of Press and Government (1953) and Rachel Salmond's Government Printing in New Zealand, 1840 to 1843 (1995). A still useful study of these early newspapers is Patricia Burns's 1957 thesis 'The foundation of the New Zealand press, 1839-50'. More recent is Patrick Day's The Making of the New Zealand Press (1990) which examines the shift of newspapers from a primarily political role to become profit-oriented businesses.

As European settlement expanded and as land communication links (rail and road) were gradually developed, more newspapers were established. A newspaper was regarded as an essential requisite of every progressive town, as this 1875 rhyme suggests: 'Our printing press, telegraph, and steam, / Proclaim our town's advance no idle dream' (Hogg 1875).

Newspapers (many of them short-lived) were established as a response to the sharp increase in immigration which followed the discovery of gold; the phenomenon of the goldfields newspaper in New Zealand has been briefly examined by Harvey (1994) but deserves more serious attention. The arrival of the telegraph in the mid 1860s caused a major shift in focus from local opinion to news from a wider catchment area, and the inclusion of overseas news became feasible when a cable link to Australia was established in 1876. Day (1986) notes some aspects of this in 'Julius Vogel and the press'. The 1860s and 1870s saw the founding of the major dailies, most of which are still publishing today.

Surprisingly little attention has been paid to the period of consolidation which occurred from the 1880s. As settlements became more established, their newspapers became more stable. Chains of newspapers were now feasible in country areas such as Taranaki and Southland where there was sufficient population density to support them. They were established by such 'rag-planters' as Joseph Ivess and J.H. Claridge: Ivess is examined by Harvey (1988), and Claridge's activities are noted by C.J. Claridge (c.1965), J.C. Claridge (1975), and Stella Jones (1979, 1980). The consolidation extended also to the main population centres where some vigorous battles for circulation ensued during this period. The 1890s saw the introduction of technological innovations, chief among them mechanical typesetting machinery (primarily Linotypes), which had a major impact on the personnel of the newspaper trade and on the trade organisations. Curiously, this appears not to have been studied in the New Zealand context.

Geographical conditions in New Zealand were particularly conducive to the establishment of small-town newspapers. (A study of the relationship between New Zealand's geography, its settlement patterns and its newspaper press is well overdue.) A short tongue-in-cheek but informative introduction to the difficulties which small-town newspaper operators faced is found in 'New Zealand's country press' (1906). This attributes the high rate of failure of such enterprises to lack of capital, especially during the initial period until a new country paper became firmly established.

The weekly newspapers, which were usually particularly targeted to rural areas, were influential—older New Zealanders will recall the pink covers of the Auckland Weekly News—and require further study. No serious research has been carried out into the contents of these or into their influence, for example as a factor promoting social cohesion. An interesting small study could also be made of the uses which were made of these weekly papers beyond those immediately intended: E.H. McCormick, reminiscing about his childhood, noted:

We had long ceased to paper our houses with the illustrated pages of the Auckland Weekly News, although traces of this pioneer custom were still to be found in the privies and occasionally in the kitchens of our rural neighbours . . . We had passed beyond that unsophisticated stage and now used the supplements issued with various journals, hanging them, suitably framed, on a background of floral or oatmeal wallpaper. (McCormick, 1959a, p.12)

Up to World War II, the newspaper in New Zealand was essentially of two kinds: a large metropolitan paper, owned by a company or perhaps still under family control; or a small or medium-sized country paper, perhaps issued daily but more likely issued bi-weekly or tri-weekly, and very likely to be under the control of a working proprietor in the case of the smallest papers or, in larger towns, family owned and perhaps also family operated. World War II changed this. Skilled personnel was in short supply and many newspapers closed, never to reopen. (This, too, has not been well studied: for instance, a series of case studies to more closely identify the forces which caused closure could be carried out.) After 1945 the ownership of newspapers gradually consolidated into the hands of a small number of companies.

Other factors also reshaped the face of newspaper publishing in New Zealand, although few of these, if any, were unique to New Zealand. Overseas ownership of the media was hotly debated, especially during the early 1980s. Competition from other mass media was of concern. Technological change, this time from hot-metal to electronic typesetting, and reskilling caused considerable anxiety in the newspaper trade, as Hill and Gidlow (1988) demonstrate. The rise of free community papers ('shoppers') is a phenomenon which warrants further study. The combination of changing demographics and changing economics of production have resulted in casualties, recently the Manawatu Herald, well over one century old, in May 1997.

Media comment about newspaper publishing in the 1980s and 1990s is plentiful and is usually focused on the question of ownership and control, especially in relation to ownership by overseas companies or by investment houses. Some of the most informative of this writing is the media comment found in the monthly magazines North and South and Metro. Examples include Pat Booth's 'Catch a falling star: Christchurch's newspaper blues' (1991), Carroll du Chateau's 'Why two old bodgies couldn't save the Star' (1991, about the Auckland Star) and Jim Tucker's 'Sunday snooze' (1994, about Auckland's Sunday newspapers). The indexes to current New Zealand periodicals can be used to identify similar material.

Sources

Harvey (1991a) summarises the history and current state of the bibliography of 19th-century newspapers published in New Zealand, concluding that they are 'bibliographically well controlled but . . . only to a limited degree'. To locate surviving copies the starting point is Harvey's Union List of Newspapers (1987). Still lacking is detailed bibliographical work to provide a full account of the number of newspapers published, where they were published, and their impact on New Zealand society, for by no means all newspapers published in New Zealand have been preserved. Harvey has made a preliminary beginning on this for 19th-century newspapers (Harvey 1989b). Other listings, compiled for specific reasons, also exist and are useful to the researcher; for example, the List of Newspapers Placed on the Register at the General Post Office, Wellington was first published in about 1883 and notes titles registered in order to be eligible for cheaper postal rates.

Few New Zealand newspapers have been indexed. Those indexes to individual titles which have been compiled are listed in Peacocke's Newspaper Indexes in New Zealand (1994) and also Harvey (1987). Useful detailed indexes to a range of titles published in one city or region also exist in libraries throughout the country; an example is the index located in the Dunedin Public Library, to references about newspapers published in Dunedin city.

The major collection of New Zealand newspapers is at the National Library of New Zealand in Wellington. Significant collections also exist at Auckland Public Library and at the Hocken Library, University of Otago (these are especially strong for local titles) and at the British Library, London. The National Library of New Zealand's microfilming programme has provided increased access to many newspapers.

Scholefield's Newspapers in New Zealand (1958) remains the only general survey, but is not error free and should be used with caution. Much briefer general accounts are those by Cohen (1922) and Mills (1940) which incline towards the myth-making approach to newspaper history often favoured by journalists. Ruth Butterworth (1989) has provided a more recent, but regrettably short, overview.

No recent studies have been made of newspapers in particular regions or localities, yet there is considerable scope for such studies, particularly for the 19th and early 20th centuries when local and regional interests overrode national interests, and when communications channels were not fully developed. Existing studies include F.A. Simpson's 'Survey of the newspapers and magazines of the Province of Otago' (1948) for Otago, A.A. Smith's Printing in Canterbury (1953) and A.E.J. Arts's A History of the Canterbury Master Printers' Association, 1889-1989 (1989) for Canterbury, and R.F. Johncock's Brief History of the Press (1991) for Hawkes Bay.

Material about local newspapers and their history is frequently present in local histories. Two examples of the many which abound can be found in Tauranga 1882-1982 ('Communications', 1982) and in Bagnall's Wairarapa (1976).

Newspapers in Māori are noted later in this chapter. Newspapers in languages other than English and Māori are noted in Chapter 6.

The only detailed published history of an influential daily newspaper is R.B. O'Neill's 1963 study of the Christchurch Press. Other newspapers await similar detailed studies. More plentiful are studies which address specific periods during the life of a newspaper or a newspaper business. Two works based on work originally submitted as university theses are Salmond's Government Printing in New Zealand, 1840-43 (1995) which examines John Moore's role in the Auckland Newspaper and General Printing Co., and the role of the newspaper in the governmental process in a fledgling British colony; and Lishi Kwasitsu's Printing and the Book Trade in Early Nelson (1996) which notes the Nelson Examiner from 1842 to 1874. Frances Porter's Born to New Zealand (1989), a biography of Jane Maria Atkinson, includes in passing much about the day-to-day editorial concerns of running the Taranaki Herald during its early years. Harvey (1994) notes one year of the Inangahua Herald, Reefton, a case study of the setting up of a goldfields newspapers. R.C.J. Stone's biographies of the Auckland businessman Logan Campbell (1982, 1987) include much about the day-to-day running and financing of the Southern Cross. Many similar works have been published.

Anniversary issues—especially centennial issues—of newspapers may provide useful information, although the user should take into account their often anecdotal and not always critical approach. Some which contain useful newspaper history (as distinct from anecdote, or reproductions of early issues) are:

Taranaki Herald Centennial Issue 1952 Taranaki Daily News Centennial Number, 14 May 1957 The Otago Daily Times First Hundred Years, 1861-1961, 15 Nov. 1961 The Ensign 1878-1978 (Gore) 120 Years: The Nelson Evening Mail, 1866-1986, 11 March 1986

Theses are also an important source of studies of individual newspapers or of specific periods of their lives. An example of this genre is Graeme Robinson's 'The Evening Press 1884-94' (1967).

An unusual, perhaps unique, source for newspaper history is a film running just over two minutes which depicts some of the activities involved in producing the Taranaki Herald in 1912 (The Production of the Taranaki Herald and Budget, 1912). Its shot list notes: 'Public Offices and Office Staff; Editorial Room; Linotypes, setting the evening paper; Stereo room, casting plates for printing press; Machine room, Foster Rotary single reel press; Premises; Exterior shot of building, people rushing out with newspapers.'

The only newspaper company history is Leslie Verry's 1985 study of Wellington based Independent Newspapers Ltd (INL). This contains histories of the individual newspapers which eventually combined to form INL, chief among them the Evening Post, the Dominion, Truth, the Waikato Times, the Manawatu Evening Standard, the Southland Times and the Timaru Herald; and more recent history of the company and its mergers and takeovers. Verry's final chapter is titled 'How independent are Independent Newspapers?', the theme of much of the recent writing about newspapers in New Zealand.

Much has been published about individual newspaper personnel, although it has not yet been collected into a directory of printing trade personnel. Starting points are the entries in biographical compendiums. The biographical entries in the Cyclopedia of New Zealand have been extracted and reproduced in Printing, Bookselling and their Allied Trades in New Zealand c.1900 (1980). The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (1990- ) notes the biographies of some newspaper personnel, and the earlier Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (ed. Scholefield, 1940) is still a valuable source. For the late 1870s and early 1880s useful biographical data about newspaper personnel (especially those who were itinerant, moving within New Zealand as well as between New Zealand and other countries, mainly the Australian colonies and California) is present in the New Zealand Press News and Typographical Circular and the Colonial Printers' Register.

There are also many periodical articles and monographs with biographical content. An early Wellington newspaperman and his role in the New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser (Wellington, 1842-43) can be found in Coleridge's 'Edward Catchpool, Master Printer in London and Wellington' (1993). The newspaper activities of Barzillai Quaife, the editor of the anti-government newspapers the New Zealand Advertiser and Bay of Islands Gazette and the Bay of Islands Observer published in Kororareka (Russell), New Zealand's first seat of government, are noted in Peter Kennett's biography (1991). From a later period Alexander McMinn's activities have been documented by Frean (1985). The activities of J.H. Claridge in establishing numerous newspapers in the early 20th century can be read about in at least four sources (C.J. Claridge, c.1965; J.C. Claridge, 1975; Jones, 1979, 1980). Autobiographical accounts by journalists include Robyn Hyde's Journalese (1934) and William Thomas's The Inky Way (1960).

Politicians in New Zealand have often also been newspapermen, not surprising as the newspaper was, until the advent of other mass media, the primary vehicle through which politicians could express local needs. They have been well investigated by New Zealand historians. Some, like Julius Vogel, have warranted more than one study (Dalziel 1986, Day 1986). McIvor's biography of John Ballance (1989) includes much about Ballance's newspaper, the Wanganui Herald. The newspaper activities of a less successful politician, Joseph Ivess, are noted by Harvey (1988).

Much unpublished biographical material still remains to be fully assessed. One example is the diary of David Burn, an invaluable and probably unique autobiographical account of the day-to-day activities of an Auckland newspaper editor and shipping correspondent during the 1840s and 1850s; a flavour of it can be found in Harvey (1990). Another example is T.S. Forsaith's 'Autobiographical memoranda' (1846- ) which includes material about the Daily Telegraph (Dunedin).

Press associations were formed for the purposes of controlling and disseminating news by regulating access to the telegraph. They played a key role in New Zealand's newspaper history. The New Zealand Press Association was established in 1879 as the United Press Association, continuing the activities of several similar organisations such as the Reuters Telegram Co. The United Press Association changed its name to the New Zealand Press Association in 1942. Throughout its 19th-century existence it was the cause of much contention, particularly because it acted as a cartel which represented the interest of its powerful members, the major metropolitan daily newspapers, and in effect ignored all others. It monopolised the supply of news to New Zealand's newspapers by its control of the telegraph and consequently was frequently criticised, for example by politicians—there was a parliamentary enquiry into its activities in 1880 (Press Telegrams Committee 1880)—and by newspaper proprietors who were not eligible to become members of the Association.

The standard history of the New Zealand Press Association and its predecessors is James Sanders's Dateline-NZPA (1979). An earlier and still useful work is George Fenwick's The United Press Association (1929). The archives of the New Zealand Press Association archives, held at the Turnbull Library, contain a wealth of information about the day-to-day operation of

At the time the Otorohanga Times was established as a bi-weekly newspaper in 1912 the population of the riding it served was only 822, and this photograph (by an unknown photographer) dates from then. The paper was founded by James Henry Claridge (1862-1946; in suit and bowler hat) who is associated with nine Waikato country newspapers, described in his 75 Years in New Zealand . . . (1938). He also wrote a 22-page verse account (The Iron Horse) of a trip on the Auckland-Wellington train, published in 1936. The Otorohanga Times continued until 1980 when it merged with the King Country Chronicle to form the Waitomo News. (Alexander Turnbull Library, reference number F-12462-1/2-)Black and white photograph

the news gathering process, for both overseas news and local news redistributed to newspapers through the telegraph system leased to the Association. This material will repay further investigation.

Another relevant association history is that of the New Zealand Journalists' Association (1962), covering the period 1912 to 1962.

The day-to-day activities involved in running a newspaper and the economics of the newspaper business have been an area of interest to researchers. Harvey (1993a, 1993b) examines available evidence about profitability, circulation, income, expenditure, advertising revenue and similar factors for 19th-century titles. Other publications deal with specific aspects. Advertising is noted in Roderick Cave's 'Advertising, circulation and profitability' (1989), Coleridge's Building a Paper Economy (1991) and 'Newspaper advertising in a pioneer colony' (1995), and by Kwasitsu (1996). Aspects of government advertising, an important form of patronage for early New Zealand newspapers, is noted in Harvey (1988-89); there is scope for further study on this, and the returns of government advertising published in the AJHR provide a starting point. Circulation figures for 19th-century newspapers are noted in Harvey (1988-89), and in Harvey (1996) which examines circulation figures in relation to population size for a range of titles.

Aspects of the news-gathering process in the 19th century are covered by Day (1986) for the role of the telegraph, and by Rollo Arnold, who provides in Chapter 15 of New Zealand's Burning (1994) a study of the role of the 'own correspondent' (local correspondents) and also of the weekly newspapers. News gathering in more recent times can be read about in John Hardingham's The New Zealand Herald Manual of Journalism (1967).

Harvey's 'Editors and compositors' (1990) notes, from contemporary accounts, some of the day-to-day activities involved in running newspapers in 19th-century New Zealand.

Further research

Despite the considerable number of publications which exist about New Zealand newspapers, particularly for the 19th century, much research is still needed. In addition to the lacunae noted above, more needs to be known about newspapers published in specific regions, and about news-gathering (including the role of the telegraph). More histories of individual newspapers are essential, for example to allow better knowledge of whether New Zealand newspapers differ from colonial papers published in other countries. This list can be refined and extended almost indefinitely.

Many sources are available to further this research. The New Zealand Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) warrant attention: they include, for example, information about postage rates and subsidies for newspapers, about funding of the Māori language newspaper Te Waka Maori, and about government patronage in the form of advertising. Significant archival material is available in libraries: demanding attention in this category are the New Zealand News archives (Turnbull Library), a major source awaiting further investigation and analysis. They include, among much else, detailed business records of the Lyttelton Times Co. Other extant business records of newspapers are noted in Chapter 2. Government publications, such as the AJHR, will reward further study. The registrations of newspapers required under various Acts from 1868, available at National Archives and some High Court registries, are also an untouched source.

Māori newspapers

Many newspapers published in the second half of the 19th century used Māori language, though not all were published by Māori. The earliest titles were those published by the government or its spokesmen. Te Karere o Niu Tireni (in various titles, 1842-63) contained government announcements and correspondence, Te Pihoihoi Mokemoke i runga i te tuanui (1863) was established to counter Te Hokioi (see below), and Te Waka Maori (1863-79 and 1884) was under government control after its first few years. Newspapers produced wholly by Māori begin with Te Hokioi o Niu-Tireni, e rere atu na (1862-63) under the auspices of the Māori King Pōtatau, and range from

Te Paki o Matariki (1892- ) produced for King Tāwhiao, to Te Wananga (1874-78) and Te Puke ki Hikurangi (1897-1913). These newspapers illustrate the high degree of Māori confidence in printing their own language and are invaluable historical and cultural taonga. Periodicals in Māori which used a newspaper format also included several of a religious motivation: The Anglo-Maori Warder (1848), Te Whetu o te Tau (1858), Te Haeata (1859-62) sponsored by the Methodist Church, Te Korimako (1882-88), and Te Hoa Maori (1885-97), published by the Plymouth Brethren, are examples. Most of these newspapers in Māori took a particular stance on political or religious issues, but they all frequently also contain reports of hui, obituaries, waiata, advertisements, local news, correspondence and so on, which are all valuable sources of historical information.

Periodicals in Māori which can be defined as newspapers declined in numbers from the early 20th century. Although there were several Māori magazines, it was not until the 1980s that Tu Tangata subtitled itself Maori News Magazine. Māori newspapers began to flourish again from the 1980s. Some are listed in a 1986 Tu Tangata article, for example Te Iwi o Aotearoa, Maori Kuii-ee! (from Sydney), and in the 1990s Kia Hiwa Ra (Te Kūiti).

Brief overviews of the early Māori newspapers are included in articles by Sheila Williams and by Nicola Frean in the 1990 issue of the Turnbull Library Record.

Publications about Māori newspapers have so far concentrated on extracts from them. Huia Publishers has produced three volumes in Māori only, Te Pakiwaitara, Te Puni Wahine, and Te Mareikura. Letters to newspapers are included in the writings of Sir Apirana Ngata, and of Rēweti Kōhere, edited by Wiremu and Te Ohorere Kaa. Individual stories in Māori newspapers have been the focus of Margaret Orbell's articles in History Now.

Study of Māori newspapers has been hampered in the past by the location of scarce copies in research libraries. In an attempt to improve accessibility the Alexander Turnbull Library, in cooperation with other libraries which held copies, first produced microfilm copies through the National Library, then in 1996 produced microfiche copies, aiming to allow study through any library or institution with a microfiche reader. The complete set of Niupepa 1842-1933 has been purchased by a few major libraries, and digitisation of the papers is currently under discussion. However, the microfiche edition includes only those titles which began publication before 1900. Some later titles are available on microfilm from the National Library of New Zealand.

Avenues for further study of Māori newspapers are many. Bibliographic coverage is patchy so far. Ross Harvey's 1987 Union List of Newspapers gives place of publication, frequency, date ranges, title changes and holdings information for most early titles. Cataloguing of the early titles for the New Zealand National Bibliography in 1989, in preparation for microfilming, means a form of bibliography can be produced through the New Zealand Bibliographic Network. A 12-page booklet issued with the 1996 microfiche gives title, place of publication, language(s) used, frequency, alternate titles and continuations, inclusive dates, and number of microfiche, for the titles which were microfilmed. An Early Māori Imprint project is currently in progress in the Alexander Turnbull Library and will include many of the titles above, but only a small part of its overall coverage will be periodicals, and those only from the 19th century. Bibliographic coverage as planned will therefore remain patchy; in addition, studies interpreting the content of Māori newspapers will require further information about their context, ownership, and readership.

There is therefore an urgent need for a distinct and detailed bibliography of Māori newspapers including, for example, changes in size and pagination, title changes, supplements issued, editors, printers and publishers, addresses, and language, and summary of contents. Twentieth-century newspapers in particular need study, as they are excluded both from the microfiche available, and from the Early Māori Imprint project. Studies of individual newspapers are also needed, and hopefully they will be written by Māori with access to iwi support and resources. Comparative studies of, for example, production, readership, iwi linguistic variations, and the way Māori owners and publishers used Pākehā printers, will not be possible until sufficient individual studies have been produced.

Newspaper content is a rich source of historical material (used by Judith Binney and Anne Salmond among others) and more writers confident in using sources in 19th-century Māori are needed. Indexing of the newspapers would help enormously. Māori newspapers are also a rich source for linguistic studies. Elaine Geering's analysis (1993) of words 'loaned' from Māori to English from the 1860s to 1900, drawing on articles in the Weekly News and Auckland Weekly News, is an example of this from an English language viewpoint. In contemporary times, an interesting comparison of print and oral cultures could be made between the growth of Māori radio stations such as Te Upoko o te Ika and Te Reo Irirangi o Te Arawa, and modern Māori newspapers.

Periodicals

Periodicals include glossy magazines, annual reports, newsletters, critical journals, conference proceedings, monographs in series, directories and almanacs. They are published for a variety of purposes by private firms, government agencies, educational institutions, political parties, individuals, church and community groups. Many periodicals are not strictly published items, for example, newsletters that are intended solely for the members of a club. In New Zealand most periodicals have been written in English, but some have been written in other languages, especially Māori. They are usually published on paper but sometimes in microform and now electronically. Some periodicals are produced simultaneously in more than one medium. Some have been copied to other media, such as microform, for preservation.

Periodicals, along with newspapers, have been very important in the development of New Zealand literature. In the 19th and early 20th centuries they were the main outlets for writing in New Zealand because of the commercial difficulties of publishing books here. The publishing of periodicals has until recently paralleled that of newspapers, and it is sometimes difficult to distinguish one from the other. The pictorial newspapers such as the Otago Witness and New Zealand Free Lance that were popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries have been considered as both newspapers and periodicals.

Newspapers and periodicals have been published since the early days of European colonisation. Most had a short life span. In the 19th century periodicals and newspapers regularly failed because the population was too small and scattered to support them financially. In the 20th century there were additional reasons for their failure, such as shortages of staff and paper during World War II, and the competition from broadcast media, especially television. Periodicals have, in New Zealand, also had to compete for readers with overseas magazines like the Bulletin. Newspapers and periodicals also competed with one another, especially in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when newspapers regularly carried literary pieces and published weekly digests and pictorial issues.

Most popular and serious periodicals published in New Zealand have lacked originality. They were usually modelled on British and Australian titles. In the last 20 years there has been a resurgence in periodical publishing with the success of general interest magazines like Metro and North and South and niche magazines like New Zealand Gardener and Marketing.

Despite their undistinguished and often ephemeral nature, New Zealand periodicals are a valuable source of information, covering a wide range of topics. They can all conceivably be used for research. They often provide a record of an organisation and its business. However, there has been little research into periodical publication in New Zealand. Only literary periodicals have received much attention, although there has been a little done on directories and almanacs by Hansen (1994).

The essays by McEldowney and Thomson in the Oxford History of New Zealand Literature in English (1991) and G.A. Wood's Studying New Zealand History (1992) are the starting points for research into periodicals in New Zealand. They give some history and cite the basic sources for research. Research into periodical publication is, however, hampered by the fact that there is no definitive listing of New Zealand periodicals. It is probably impossible to know how many periodicals have been produced because so many were ephemeral, short-lived and local. The Alexander Turnbull Library estimates that there have been at least 20,000 titles produced. The Union List of Serials in New Zealand Libraries, (3rd ed. 1969) has over 40,000 titles, but unfortunately the New Zealand titles are not distinguished from the overseas ones. According to the New Zealand Official Yearbook 1990, 560 periodicals that accepted advertising were published in 1989. New periodicals have been catalogued in the New Zealand National Bibliography since 1966. Periodicals registered with the Post Office were listed annually in the List of Newspapers and Magazines Placed on the Register at Post Office Headquarters, Wellington (1886-1986).

Some subject bibliographies of periodicals have been published, such as Iris Park's New Zealand Periodicals of Literary Interest (1962), and subject bibliographies that include some periodicals, for instance Ann Burgin's Women's Societies in New Zealand (1965). Periodicals are often cited in the bibliographies included in monographs.

The best collection of New Zealand periodicals is held at the Alexander Turnbull Library, which is responsible for building and maintaining the nation's collection of serials published nationally. Local periodicals are only collected comprehensively for the Wellington region. Good collections of New Zealand periodicals are also held at the National Library, the Parliamentary Library, the Hocken Library, the larger public libraries, the university libraries and the libraries of the major museums.

Periodicals need indexing to improve access for researchers. Although considerable indexing of New Zealand periodicals has been carried out, much of it is recorded on card indexes in libraries and is not readily accessible. The Index to New Zealand Periodicals (1941-86) is the most important index. This was continued as Index New Zealand and is available online as INNZ through Kiwinet. Other databases on Kiwinet include entries for periodicals, such as the Legal Index (LINX) and Newzindex (NEWZ). Some periodicals issue their own indexes, for example Landfall, and indexes have been published for some periodicals, for instance J.J. Herd's Index to 'Tomorrow', 1934-40 (1962).

Even when periodicals have been identified, the next problem is locating them. Many important older periodicals, such as New Zealand Building Progress and the New Zealand Tablet, are quite rare. The National Library of New Zealand has recently begun microfilming periodicals, for example Tomorrow, in an attempt to improve access. On-line indexing, and indexes on CD-ROM and microfiche, will also raise awareness and appreciation of periodicals as a research source, and encourage further research into their publication.

The scope for further research into New Zealand periodicals is immense. There is a great need for subject bibliographies of periodicals to augment the basic bibliographical details given by library catalogues. Research is needed into the commercial aspects of periodical publishing. Some starting points are available: Here and Now and Comment published articles on these aspects in the 1950s and 1960s, and Nielsen Press Research have published media guides since the middle of the 1980s that give information on print runs, circulations, subscriptions and advertising rates. Coleridge (1995), Harvey (1993b) and Cave (1989) have published articles on the commercial aspects of the press in New Zealand in the 19th century. While these articles are mostly concerned with newspaper publication, their approach can be applied to periodicals. Anniversary issues of periodicals sometimes contain information about their publishing history.

Some other areas that require research include: popular periodicals, especially women's magazines and sports magazines; the influence of overseas periodicals on New Zealand periodicals; politics and periodical publishing, for instance, the role of government in periodical publishing, the ideological underpinnings of periodicals, and the influence of periodicals on public opinion.

Children's books

From the earliest years New Zealand's isolation and small population have had a profound impact on local publishing for children. During the last century and early this century, New Zealand authors have had to find publishers overseas. As few copies of these early books made it back to these shores the authors were frequently popular overseas, but remained little known or unacknowledged in their homeland. Within N