<P> In 1893 Elizabeth Yates was elected mayor of Onehunga, making her the first woman in the British Empire to hold the office . She was an able administrator: she cut the debt, reorganised the fire brigade, and improved the roads and sanitation . Many men were hostile however, and she was defeated for re-election . Hutching argues that after 1890 women were increasingly well organised through the National Council of Women, the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), the Women's International League, and the Housewives Union, and others . By 1910 they were campaigning for peace, and against compulsory military training, and conscription . They demanded arbitration and the peaceful resolution of international disputes . The women argued that womenhood (thanks to motherhood) was the repository of superior moral values and concerns and from their domestic experience they knew best how to resolve conflicts . </P> <P> Prior to 1877 schools were operated by the provincial government, churches, or by private subscription . Education was not a requirement and many children did not attend any school, especially farm children whose labour was important to the family economy . The quality of education provided varied substantially depending on the school . The Education Act of 1877 created New Zealand's first free national system of primary education, establishing standards that educators should meet, and making education compulsory for children aged 5 to 15 . </P> <P> From 1840 there was considerable European settlement, primarily from England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland; and to a lesser extent the United States, India, China, and various parts of continental Europe, including the province of Dalmatia in what is now Croatia, and Bohemia in what is now the Czech Republic . Already a majority of the population by 1859, the number of Pākehā settlers increased rapidly to reach over one million by 1916 . </P> <P> In the 1870s and 1880s, several thousand Chinese men, mostly from Guangdong, migrated to New Zealand to work on the South Island goldfields . Although the first Chinese migrants had been invited by the Otago Provincial government they quickly became the target of hostility from white settlers and laws were enacted specifically to discourage them from coming to New Zealand . </P>

When did the european settlers come to new zealand