Cheviot Hills, an 84,000 acre North Canterbury sheep run, was a symbol of vast and impregnable wealth to nineteenth-century New Zealand. But in the 1890s it became the first 'big estate’ acquired by the Liberal Government and broken up into small farms.Jim Gardner, a former Canterbury University historian, tells the fascinating story of the first great battle of a government championing the rights of land-hungry New Zealanders. But it is also a story about the emerging supremacy of Cabinet government and the development of modern politics.
Cheviot Hills, an 84,000 acre North Canterbury sheep run, was a symbol of vast and impregnable wealth to nineteenth-century New Zealand. But in the 1890s it became the first 'big estate’ acquired by the Liberal Government and broken up into small farms.Jim Gardner, a former Canterbury University historian, tells the fascinating story of the first great battle of a government championing the rights of land-hungry New Zealanders. But it is also a story about the emerging supremacy of Cabinet government and the development of modern politics.