1872: Hochstetter Water Race
October 4, 2021
By AHNZ
On 14 January, 1878, two canoes raced each other through remote West Coast bush to the picnic at the end of a huge snaking government-made aqueduct. This was opening day for the Hochstetter Water Race between the lake of the same name and the goldfields of Nelson Creek 30km away.
“The government water race project was not a financial success. After 13 years just £125,000 worth of gold was won using water from a system that cost £90,000 to build, £15,000 to maintain, and was on the verge of collapse in several places.” – Display panel, Nelson Creek (2021) based on Wright (1993)
“Regardless of its engineering merit, this scheme must go down as one of the great financial disasters in the country’s history” wrote the Department of Conservation’s Les Wright in his article Thinking Big in the 1870s. It was actually one of the, and probably the first, disasters in a series of disasters known to New Zealand history as the Vogel Public Works Era.
The Continuous Ministry
Our political background for the Nelson Creek Race was a powerful central government presided over by a group of men known as The Continuous Ministry. They were a loose association of politicians who all batted for the same team, coming and going from an ongoing political project that held power from 1869 to 18901. These included Frederick Whitaker, Harry Atkinson, John Hall, William Fox, various Puppet Premiers, William Reeves, and in particular Julius Vogel.
The Generation of New Zealanders who elected these men were the children of the Founders Generation, now all grown up. In Strauss-Howe parlance this was an Prophet generation as was the generation we know so well in our own time: The Baby Boomers. The benefactors of good times, the Prophet kids come of age questioning the values and standards and habits of the hand that fed them, embarking on a Great Un-learning followed by a Great Re-learning. Strauss-Howe call these 20-year eras an Awakening. It’s associated with Hippy-Dippy-Free-Love-Woodstock/Nambassa-Long-Hair-Flower-Power-Student-Protest-Drugs-and-Communes. However, a key characteristic of New Zealand Prophet generations evidently involves forgetting everything your culture knows about balanced budgets and the risks of deficit financing.
Just as the Baby Boomers alive today had their Ohu Scheme stage, the Vogel Boomers formed semi-succession Local Government Leagues (eg. Northland, Wanganui, Timaru, Oamaru, Geraldine) and sought to found new Village Settlements2. Next in sequence, the Baby Boomers’ folly was exploited by politicians for massive state projects called Think Big exactly as the Vogel Boomers had the Vogel Public Works Era. Then, as we know, comes a proportionate recession; The sugar crash after the sugar rush; The hangover after the buzz…
Vogal Administers Steroids
On 28 June, 1870, Vogel caught the drift of what the new New Zealanders were yearning for and started driving it with a vast Public Works scheme. This excuse fitted the speculator agenda to buy unimproved land on speculation then pull political strings to add value to it at taxpayer expense so they could cash in. That was the ‘pork-barrel’ politics presided over by the Continuous Ministry thanks to the perfect storm of young idiots and old greed; Another example of a Bootleggers and Baptists political exploitation.
“So directly linked, indeed, were public and private advantage, that during the seventies they became scarcely distinguishable…Land values could be increased by the expenditure of government money in a district, to the profit both of the local settlers and voters- and land speculators. And land speclators, whether businessmen, squatters, lawyers or farmers, formed a large and probably majority group in Parliament. As Vogel’s borrowing programme was implemented, a land boom set in. Astonishing profits were made overnight. Reeves (snr) joined a syndicate of capitalists who acquired a speculative holding of 20,000 acres at…” – p33 William Pember Reeves, Sinclair (1965)
“The Long Depression overlapped the end of the seventies and beginning of the nineties and those migrants who had arrived in hope hung on in despair…had a devastating effect on national morale. Those who could afford to, emigrated…resulting in the first European population decline since before the Treaty of Waitangi. “- McLauchlan (2004)
“Christchurch, where the Vogel land boom had been most frantic, was one of the first towns to be hit by the depression, and it was hit the hardest.” – Sinclair (1965)
Before re-learning the traditional wisdom of prior generations huge damage had been done to New Zealand by Vogel’s scams. He led our radical ancestral morons straight into the twenty years of The Long Depression. Now New Zealand had too many roads, bridges, railways, and immigrants that we did not need. The more of these deficit-financed white elephants a region had used its political strings to get for itself the worse its hangover would be.
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Nelson Creek’s Great Aqueduct was a lead project in the race to make New Zealand poor. It was a great folly. How it ever became Green Lit in the first place appears to have been a political panic reflex followed up by neglect. In other words, a rehearsal for the way the rest of the Vogal Boom would play out too.
The only South Islander that Vogel and Fox could attract to their Executive Ministry was William Reeves, father of William Pember Reeves. He was enticed with the newly invented portfolio of Resident Minister for the South Island and given extensive control over public works. These were the early days when the cabinet had made grand election promises about the Debt-Powered Fantasmagorical Wonder Utopia ahead but delivered absolutely nothing. In 1872 The Continuous Ministry was on a countdown to be eviscerated by the Opposition led by Edward Stafford. Power players such as Fox and Vogel were absent, called away, leaving second banana-types like Reeves to run the ship of state and actually implement the policy. It was in this context that Reeves pressed ‘Go’ on the £30,000 aqueduct. There had to be SOMETHING to tell investors that their money wasn’t gathering dust and SOMETHING to show the House of Representatives that the Vogel Gang were not all hat and no cowboy.
The Hon. W. Reeves to His Honor O. Curtis.— Public Works Office, Wellington, 20th May, 1872.
Sir, – I have the honor to inform you that the Government, having taken into consideration the recommendation of the Provincial Council of Nelson,…have decided to undertake the construction of the work referred to …as the “Nelson Creek water supply,”.. – AJHR (1872)“Stafford caught sight of Reeves laughing and struck directly at his jugular…then accused him of being totally ignorant about all the South Island’s authorized public works. This devastating personal attack effectively killed Reeves’s political career.” – p318 Bohan (1994)
We’re so sorry, uncle Albert
But we haven’t done a bloody thing all day
We’re so sorry, uncle Albert
But the kettle’s on the boil
And we’re so easily called away
– Uncle Albert Admiral Halsey, McCartney (1977)
The Ministry’s attempts to cobble together some evidence of effort, something to show for the huge debt they had incurred (which we’re still paying off) failed. Stafford struck, took out Reeves entirely, and brought down the Ministry for constantly being called away and for not having done a bloody thing all this time. Weeks later, it capatalised on a Stafford slip to re-constitute itself anew. Meanwhile, in the remote West Coast bush, the aqueduct was now being put together even if our politicians didn’t know or had forgotten.
What had happened here was a perfect instance of the old Goethe story most brilliantly re-told in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice from Fantasia (1940.) Vogel is the Sorcerer, Reeves is Mickey Mouse. Tasked with the physical labour of carrying water while the sorcerer is away his apprentice borrows the magical hat (State power.) Casting a spell (public works order,) the work now does itself powered by magic (government debt) so that the apprentice (Minister) can now take his eye off the project and have a big nap. Meanwhile, the un-managed project gets out of hand. Water spilling everywhere, things breaking, expenses over-run!
Lake Hochstetter To Nelson Creek Water Race
Nelson Creek had been ‘rushed’ in mid-1865 for its rich alluvial gold. There was a false-start when the man, Nelson, was threatened with having his ears cut off for lies until he was proven right about locating a gold site. The trouble with Hatters Terrace, as it was first called, was lack of water supply for the sluicing technique to work. While local, private, diggers got on with sorting this out others called out to Big Government to come to the rescue and that’s how this mess all got started.
The build project was a shambles from the start, constructed piece-meal rather than in logical sequence. By 1874 it was reported as clearly disorganised with sub-contractors going unpaid and striking workers. As a Vogel Works show piece it had to be saved. So, from 1876-7 the lagging project was set back on track and progress improved but only at escalating cost to the taxpayers present and future. Once operational the water scoured out rock tunnels and had to be re-made. Even so, at the terminal end the water arrived uselessly 60m too low! On opening day, 14 January, 1878, the celebration picnic and banquet were premature because the troubles were far from over.
It turned out the Government had not bothered to secure the legal rights to take water from Lake Hochstetter. It also turned out the Government had not bothered to secure legal rights for the outflow at the other end and it was running all over someone’s claim! In both cases an injunction was placed and the complainants were able to powerfully negotiate their terms to allow The State to use this giant expensive water race! It’s wonderful how the Rule of Law applied in the 1870s in contrast to the 2020s where our Government would simply steal what it wanted by Eminent Domain or Retrospective Legislation.
“Patrick Magee recalls that his father originally held the water rights over Lake Hochstetter and when the government decided to build a big water race to supply the Nelson Creek goldfield, they had to buy these rights. The race was estimated to cost 90,000 pounds but actually cost about 130,000 pounds and was not a payable proposition.” -Kokshoorn (2011)
“Any impression that everything was turning out perfectly ended when water was first run though the top end of the system in 1877, scouring out a tunnel and exposing several other defects. There were already grumblings that, thanks to a fault in the survey, the race took several sudden drops en route and finished 60m below the level intended- too low to be of full value..” – Wright (1993)
“If something is not shortly done the men will have to break up their homes and to seek a living in some land where gross mismanagement reigns not rampart; where gigantic failures in carrying out public works and gigantic frauds on the requirements of a people are not, winked at; and where miners, as a class, are estimated at something more than subjects to be bled and taxed” – Grey River Argus (July 1878); Papers Past
By the time the Great Aqueduct was finished much of the ground it was built to sluice had been worked out with smaller, private, races. The fees for using this Government water and the tax on gold mining never came anywhere close to paying for this giant White Elephant. By 1891 the race was at the point of collapse when the Government gave up and (suspiciously) leased out the entire infrastructure to its manager to try to make a buck on. It was closed in 1893 and had collapsed by December of that year.
Wright wrote, “With some clearing of the ditching, board walks through the tunnels and swing-bridges across the ravines, the race would still make a magnificent walkway. It is a pity that nobody- not even a government- could be expected to come up with the millions of dollars required.” Perhaps one day The Lake Hochstetter To Nelson Creek Water Race will become one of New Zealand’s Great Walks. Perhaps the next iteration of the Vogel Boomer/Baby Boomer generation will do this in the 2050s when they come of age and it will again help cause another depression? The walk at Nelson Creek is pretty good today as is. New Zealand ought to know that the many cut rocks and landmarks at Nelson Creek are a unique monument to an important era in the history of the entire country.
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1 The Continuous Ministry was interrupted once by George Grey’s 2 year Ministry. It wasn’t interrupted so much as benched and given a chance to regroup with a new accent after a 1 month Stafford Ministry.
2 The Vogel Boomer Generation were so keen to settle and spread that their energy gave Vogel license to abolish the Provinces. Besides, their standing in the way of his Public Works was also a major reason to abolish them. Vogel needed their land as collateral for his loans the same way Labour 6.0 today needs Local Government’s water for their loans- hence Three Waters 2021.
Ref. Thinking big in the 1870s, Les Wright, New Zealand Map Society journal (1993); AHNZ Archive
Ref. William Pember Reeves New Zealand Fabian, Sinclair (1965)
Ref. A short history of New Zealand, McLauchlan (2004)
Ref. Edward Stafford New Zealand’s First Statesman, Bohan (1994)
Ref. FURTHER PAPERS RELATING TO WATER SUPPLY UPON THE GOLD FIELDS. (NELSON.), AJHR (1872), Papers Past
Ref. The Golden Grey: West Coasters 1860-2010, Kokshoorn (2011)
Image ref. Bridge at Nelson Creek, AHNZ Archive (2021)
Image ref. Collingwood Gold Fields Company water race, Tyree Studio: Negatives of Nelson and Marlborough district; Alexander Turnbull Library
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