In the mid-1800s, New Zealand and Britain were two very different countries. While Britain was a flourishing country with big cities, tall buildings, a steadily growing population and civilised enough to have organised people into classes, in New Zealand the Maori had only settled three-hundred years earlier, the land was heavily forested, there was no major cities or towns and there was no money – only trade.
Although Britain was much more developed than New Zealand, it was becoming overcrowded and many unpleasant factors resulted; and these are the push factors that caused people to migrate to New Zealand. Also the exaggerations and lies told about New Zealand were pull factors that further enticed migration to New Zealand.

A push
An assisted passage was where the person worked to pay back the expense of the passage. With free and assisted passages, now lower class families could afford to migrate to New Zealand, where they thought they could start a new life. This encouraged many poor families to migrate, as there was not much for them in Britain anyway. The journey to New Zealand was rather pleasant for middle and higher class families. But for the lower class, they were all crammed into the bottom deck of the boat, with hardly enough space to breathe, let alone live there for the six month long journey. The lies that the New Zealand Company had fed the migrants gave them false hope, and when they finally arrived in New Zealand they were very disappointed.
For migration to New Zealand to become possible, the New Zealand Company had to attract investors, so another pull factor for higher and middle class families was that if they were to invest in the New Zealand Company they would receive 100 acres of fertile farmland. This again, is not true, as there was no fertile land, only dense bush and forests, and the land that the company was giving away never belonged to them in the first place. Still the thought of owning so much land and starting a farm where lots of money could be earned enticed many people to migrate, even if it was not valid. So this meant that when the investors arrived in New Zealand, they had to cut down the trees to make farmland, but