What happens
A radio documentary traces New Zealand's history as the sea lane center of the South Pacific, from the arrival of Captain Cook and the colonization schemes of Edward Gibbon Wakefield through the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi with the Maori chiefs. It follows the New Zealand Wars, the rise of Prime Minister Richard Seddon, New Zealand's part in the First World War, and the growth of its Labour Party. Two servicemen, one a New Zealander and one an American, talk on a Pacific battlefield about the country's ties to Britain and its growing link to the United States. The Pacific Story series presented this episode on January 16, 1944, on the National Broadcasting Company network.
New Zealand and the South Pacific, from the 1700s to the 1940s, with a wartime scene on a Solomon Islands battlefield
Characters: Captain Cook, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, Captain Hobson, Mr. Busby, Reverend Williams, Heke, Brigadier General Cameron, Rewi
Listen for: The Treaty of Waitangi reading and the Maori chiefs' response, Rewi's defiant words at the Orakau pa, and the closing talk between the two servicemen about New Zealand's future in the Pacific
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.