Contents
The Audit Office, Wellington, N.Z., 8th April, 1929.
I hereby certify that, after investigation of the publisher's lists and other records, the average circulation of the New Zealand Railways Magazine for the 12 months ended May, 1928, is in excess of 20,000 copies per month during the whole of that period and that, during the months of February and March, 1929, the circulation has increased to over 22,500 copies.
Controller and Auditor General.
Departure Of Popular Governor-General.
(Photos, Rly. Publicity and Mr. C. G. G. Berry.)
His Excellency, Sir Charles Fergusson (the retiring Governor-General of New Zealand), and Lady Alice Fergusson sailed for England on 8th February. Below: Sir Charles Fergusson (right centre), with Guard of Honour on the Glasgow Wharf, Wellington, before departure for London. Above: The liner Rangitata with their Excellencies aboard leaving Wellington Harbour.
The New Zealand
Railways
Magazine
Railways
Magazine
Published by the
New Zealand Government Railways Department
“For Better Service”
Circulation Over 24,100
Vol. 4. No. 10.
Wellington,
New Zealand
February1, 1930
Winners
In one view of it, the whole of human life is a contest for superiority in some field or other, and anything which gives promise of a keen and obvious battle for supremacy, whether of wits—as between lawyers in a Courthouse—or of strength, agility, courage, or speed—as in the prize-ring, on the playing-field, or round the racecourse—draws the attention and interest of mankind in general. The more spectacular the stage setting, the greater the hazard, and the less the certainty as to result, the greater is the interest.
In all New Zealand's year, February is the month when physical contests of the most varied nature take place. It is the warmest part of our summer, when settled weather conditions tempt even the most frail to take outings of various sorts, and every park and playing field is filled with contestants and onlookers. And everywhere there are prizes for the winners, from the bags of sweets for the tiny tots to guineas by the thousand for the champions among racehorses.
There is just a chance that admiration for success in the realm of physical endeavour may place this in too important a place in general estimation, with results that may unbalance our judgment upon questions of relative merit, and more serious still, may deflect the natural desire for excellence of some sort, which it is to be supposed every healthy human being has, towards physical rather than mental triumphs, and for exhibition rather than for utilitarian purposes. It is certain, for instance, that the ends of general business would be better served if as much keenness could be shown by employees anywhere in their figures of output for the last day, week, or month, as in the various results of games and races announced in the sporting columns.
After all, it is the winners in mental effort who make possible the most material successes. An example of this was Lord Leverhulme, who dealt in prosaic soap, but who was aptly described as a “merchant venturer” in the best sense. “His head,” said Lord Riddell, “was of the small, compact variety, crammed full of brains of the best quality—also highly organised.” It is the capacity for attention to organisation in their mental equipment that makes world-beaters in business, science, and invention.
A well-regulated mind means order in the intellectual home, and is attained by training and effort. It is the best asset when combined with health, that anyone can have. One of the invisible but very real advantages of railway work—and transport generally—is that it requires the kind of concentration and alertness that makes for readiness of the brain, calling for cool and quick judgments, accurate observation and methodic arrangement.
While the value of physical fitness can hardly be over-estimated, is it helped in any way by the fact that a Peltzer beats a somebody's record for some running distance by some portion of a second? If out of such contest and effort good to the human race could be definitely recorded, then the almost universal admiration which it excites might be warranted—even if, for instance, it helped to improve the physical stamina of the race so that the mental work of mankind might be carried on with greater efficiency. But facts have to be faced. The average record-breaker on the athletic field dies in the forties, and racing capacity in human beings is seldom hereditary, and even if it were, the instances of racers being leaders of thought are so rare as to lend colour to the conclusion that super-effort in the world of sport has rather a stunting effect upon mental development.
It might be too Utopian to imagine the general public taking more interest in, say, laboratory experiments to discover cures for diseases than in the respective scores of a pair of international billiardists; or to forecast the building of an arena in which scientific research workers might do their work in full public view—with an admission charge to be applied to assist further research, and the “full house” notice in frequent demand! But at least some new turn which will more justly assess mental in relation to physical excellence in popular estimation, may be looked for in the ideals of pleasure.
* * *
Empire Farmers' Visit
The event of the month for New Zealand is the visit of the Empire Farmers' Delegation, the transport arrangements for which are being handled by the New Zealand Railways. A 32-page crown quarto booklet, “Empire Farmers on Tour,” with striking cover design, and fully illustrated has been issued by the Railway Publicity Branch.
It contains the following message from the Minister of Railways: (Hon. W. B. Taverner):
Gentlemen of the Empire Farmers' Party,—
“On behalf of the New Zealand Railways Department I am very pleased to welcome you to the Dominion.
You have my best wishes for a happy, helpful holiday, and I can assure you that everything within the power of my Department to make your mission an enjoyable and successful one from all points, will be gladly done.”
A foreword by Mr. H. H. Sterling, General Manager of Railways reads as follows:
“In a manner worthy of the importance of their mission, representative farmers of Great Britain, Canada, and South Africa have been warmly welcomed to New Zealand. Among their kin here they are obtaining further proof of that homely family feeling which strongly welds the British Commonwealth of Nations.
‘Historic occasion’ may be an overworked phrase, but this is a case to which the words can apply in their best sense, for this visit, conforming to the soundest principles of Empire-building, is assured of an honourable place amongst the “Principal Events” recorded in the official history of New Zealand.
Here to-day is that ever-desirable “personal touch,” that “human contact,” that “first-hand knowledge” on a large scale—so large that the value cannot be measured, as each of the envoys will be the means of spreading his impressions through extensive communities. With a continuation and multiplication of such delegations throughout the Empire, the lines of progress for all of its members will be improved for their mutual advantage. Although, primarily, the tour is concerned with farming, on which the Empire's welfare is vitally dependent, the advantages of the personal interchange of knowledge will not be limited to any special range of activities.
In their observation of New Zealand's progress in agricultural and pastoral enterprise, the visitors will see how the State Railways, with more than 3,000 route miles, reaching the main centres of production and connecting with the principal ports, have been one of the indispensable factors of success. The working-policy of the Railways has been always one to facilitate the development of natural resources, and the usefulness of the system for that purpose must continue.”
Holiday Passenger Traffic
From the 13th December, 1929, to the 11th January, 1930, the New Zealand Railways carried 617,631 passengers, the revenue therefrom amounting to £241,947. This was an increase over a similar period last year of 13,348 in passengers and £9,287 in revenue.
“I desire” said the Minister of Railways (Hon. W. B. Taverner), “to indicate my satisfaction that the steps taken by the General Manager of Railways and his staff to create additional public interest in the Railways as a means of holiday travel have met with so hearty a response from the public.”
General Manager's Message
Tariff Rate In Relation To Competition.
We have recently been giving much thought to the position that has been developing for some years as a result of some of our customers giving their high rated goods to competitive forms of transport while leaving their low rated goods with the Railways. It is quite obvious that such a practice, if allowed to go on unchecked, must eventually lead to an increase in the rates on the lower rated goods.
It is elementary railway economics that it is the high rated business that enables the Railways to keep the rates on low valued commodities down to the level that has hitherto obtained. It is quite evident, therefore, that according as the high rated goods are taken from the Railways the possibility of maintaining the low rates decreases. We have now arrived at the position in New Zealand where it is no longer possible, either from a business or an equitable point of view, to postpone action.
The easiest way out of the difficulty is, of course, to make a general increase on the charges on the lower rated goods. Consideration of this proposition, however, at once suggests the injustice that might result from raising the rates on these goods for many people who have remained loyal to the Railways and have given us the whole of their business. There is the factor also of the great desirability of keeping our low rates down to a minimum, both on general grounds and for the reason that from the special circumstances of the Dominion most of the low rated goods have a bearing more or less direct on our principal industries.
The obvious inquiry suggested by these circumstances is to consider whether some system could not be evolved that would avoid penalising our customers who have remained loyal to us while preventing those who have not done so from continuing to reap the advantages of the low rates which, by their action, they are jeopardising.
Clearly the person who takes away from us the capacity to maintain the low rates can hardly consider himself entitled to those rates. We are therefore taking action that will prevent his doing so.
This action is not only justified, but even demanded, by every reason of equity, not only as between the Department and its clients, but also as between the clients themselves and as between the community in general and the Railway users; for, if the present tendency of people to take their high rated goods away from the Department is not checked, it will result either in further retrogression as regards the financial returns from the Railways, or it will necessitate an increase in the low rates. This latter alternative I have already dealt with and have indicated that this would involve the loyal customers being penalised because of the action of those who have not remained loyal to the Department. As to the former alternative, it simply means that the taxpayer is taking over some of the transport costs of the persons who, by removing their high rated traffic from the Railways, have brought about that position.
Some mention has been made in the public Press of the goodwill aspect of the matter, and it has been suggested that action along the lines I have indicated will cause the Department to lose goodwill, with (I presume) a loss of business. The boot is rather on the other foot. Goodwill, in the last analysis, is worth the business it brings.
The man who takes his high rated goods from us and leaves his low rated goods with us is not a customer because of goodwill, but rather the opposite. The goodwill that is worthwhile—and so worth protecting and fostering—is that of the customer who remains loyal to us, and I am quite satisfied that as those customers see themselves being penalised through the action of others the goodwill of these “loyal” people (to the extent that we fail to take such action as lies within our power to protect them) will become a diminishing quantity. There is not the slightest doubt that on the goodwill argument, as well as on every argument of equity and sound business, a policy along the lines I have indicated herein is amply justified.
Christmas Traffic.
The figures for Christmas traffic are now available and show a very gratifying increase over those of last year. More especially having regard to the unfavourable weather that was experienced during the holiday period this must be regarded as extremely satisfactory.
As is well known to those who study the railway position in the Dominion, the outstanding problem is that of the passenger traffic, and this makes it all the more pleasing that we should have more than held our own during the one outstanding travel period of the year.
General Manager.
Summer Excursions Of The New Zealand Railways.
(Photo. J. R. Burns.)
A Southland excursion train halts at Puketiro to take in water.
The Railways At Play.
Scenes at the Railway Head Office Picnic, held recently at Maidstone Park, Upper Hutt.
(1) Mr. M. Poulton (Advertising Branch), winner of the Head Office 100 yards championship; (2) finish of 75 yards ladies' handicap; (3) Miss Buttimore (Chief Accountant's Branch), winner of 75 yards ladies' championship; (4) Mr. H. W. Franklin (handicapper), Mr. G. T. Tierney (sports secretary), and Mr. G. R. Wilson (starter); (5) finish of 50 yards members' handicap (age 40 years and over); (6) children's race; (7) girls' free-for-all handicap; (8) an impromptu race between Miss Whitcombe (Chief Accountant's Branch) and Mr. H. W. Franklin (Advertising Branch); (9) the three-legged race; (10) presentation of prizes by Colonel T. W. McDonald; (11) finish of 100 yards open handicap.
byE. Vivian Hall
Wars and their antidotes held the stage in January. London tried to prune navies. Speed limits may disappear from street warfare. Unemployment intensifies the problem of warring tariffs and troubled stock exchanges. In a month of air-crashes Chichester provides a bright spot.
* * *
Pruning of Navies.
In any survey of world events for January, first place must of course be given to the world-conference that met in London to try to reduce naval armaments. As publicists like Hilaire Belloc have declared that the Anglo-American preliminary conversations mean an Anglo-American understanding by which Britain accepts naval dependence on the United States, and in return is promised the suppression of submarines (carrying with it restoration of Britain's mastery of the Mediterranean), it is easy to gauge the impression caused by a published statement that the conference had decided not to discuss submarine-abolition. But the statement was promptly denied by the British official spokesman, and at present there is a general outcry against publishers of canards. Whether the conference will produce results cannot at the moment be foreseen. One eloquent incident, following the assertion of British insularity, is Signor Grandi's discovery that Italy is “almost an island.” Prime Minister MacDonald emphasises the dispersion of the British fleets in many seas. He did not mention that in 1904–14 the German threat called them home. The aim now is to see that such a North Sea concentration is never again necessary.
Motor War and the Hospitals.
War between the nations may or may not come, but the war of the street goes on for ever. Newspapers in most countries of the world express amazement at the motor traffic toll in killed and injured. A Bill before the House of Commons provides for the abolition of the speed limit for light motor cars and motor cycles. That is to say, the authors of the Bill consider that street safety is not to be insured by speed limits, and they prefer to rely on penalties for “dangerous driving” and for a lesser offence to be called “careless driving.” Whether motorists who break the speed limits will be able to break these new driving laws with equal impunity and immunity will be practically tested if Parliament passes the Bill. Meanwhile the compulsory insurance provisions of the Bill have given rise to a claim by hospitals for some participation in the benefits thereof. Not only has modern motor traffic created a host of new accidents, but, being peripatetic, it scatters its victims throughout the length and breadth of the land, creating cot cases in districts where there are few cots, overcrowding the local hospitals, and squeezing out residents with first claim on such hospitals. Moreover, “the gratitude of these motor patients to the hospitals rarely takes the form of cash,
* * *
Tariff Promise to Argentina.
Press cablegrams received in New Zealand did not reflect the sensation caused in Empire preference circles in Britain when the Argentine Government announced that the British Government, in return for Argentine tariff concessions on British artificial silk, had undertaken that “any protective duties or restrictions which may in future be levied by Great Britain on foodstuffs originating in countries outside the British Empire will not be levied against Argentine meats and grains.” The cablegrams did not mention that Mr. Amery, who was for some years secretary to the Dominions in the last Conservative Government, said that any such undertaking given by the British Government to the Argentine Government “ought to be fought tooth and nail by those who cared about Empire trade.” Nor did the cablegrams mention a further statement by the Argentine semiofficial journal “La Epoca” that the British Ambassador had promised to submit to the British Government a proposal by the Argentine Government that the undertaking should be extended to include dairy products and fruit—export lines in which New Zealand is especially concerned. British tariff reformers who seek to put duties on foreign-produced foods, in order to encourage Empire-grown foods, object to any promise by a British Government to exempt a foreign country from such duties. They do not admit that a promise to put Argentine on an equal tariff basis with Empire units is binding on any future Government.
* * *
Politics Faced by Hunger.
While persons imbued with the national spirit call for tariffs, and internationalists call for abolition of tariffs, the unemployment that both dread tends to increase. Financial-commercial depression now includes the United States. It is admitted that politicians have so far failed to deal radically with unemployment, and it is being more and more recognised that there must be closer co-operation between politicians and practical economists. A difficulty at present is that politicians are not always economic and that economists are not always politic. Yet co-operation is increasing. It manifested itself in the United States when President Hoover (a President has greater powers of initiative than a Prime Minister) called in the heads of private business in direct conference to devise means to avert or moderate the unemployment and distress likely to result from the New York Stock Exchange collapse, with its immense monetary losses, plus its bad moral effect. The British expression of the same movement is found in Prime Minister MacDonald's decision to appoint a National Economic Committee. Everywhere it is being recognised that politics and economics can no longer be kept in separate compartments. The MacDonald Government also hopes to find some relief for bad trade in an international agreement to reduce tariffs and trade barriers. It is noteworthy, however, that Geneva cabled on 19th December that Australia and South Africa had both advised the League of Nations of “their refusal to participate in the tariff truce conference.”
* * *
Gambling and Fraud Losses.
The depth of the reaction of stock exchange disturbances on the general commercial and industrial life of a modern highly commercialized country has still to be plumbed. Stock exchange disturbances of two kinds are before the world—those caused by frenzied speculation, and those caused by criminal dishonesty, such as has earned Hatry fourteen years’ penal servitude. The proposal to charge the bankers as accessories has not materialised. Evidence was given of a deficiency of thirteen millions in Hatry's affairs, of which, it is said, only about three-quarters of a million falls on the public. Financial writers pronounce 1929 a bad year. Five hundred millions is the small sum representing the decline of stock and share values during the year, according to the “Daily Express,” which mentions the Hatry affair and the depreciations in Inveresk papers, Royal Mail Steam Packets, etc., and writes: “No year within memory has been fraught with such disasters.” But the close of the year was somewhat brightened by the reduction of the Bank of England rediscount rate. to 5 per cent. As a borrowing country, as a remote land whose trade and finance are washed by the waves sent out from Europe and America, as a fly which, even on the rim of the wheel, feels the centripetal pull, New Zealand is vitally interested in all these events at the world centres.
Trusted and Perhaps “Busted.”
If the Roman Empire had had a daily newspaper press, therein would the historians have looked for the seeds, signs, and evolution of the decline and fall. So one can imagine a future Gibbon examining with particular care the daily and periodical publications of the English-speaking world from Addison and Steele to date. And nowhere would he find a greater change than in the daily press of the Twentieth Century, once trusted, now Trusted. But publicity chains have had a bump on the London Stock Exchange through the failure of the Inveresk paper group to fulfil the financial expectations formed by shareholders concerning this linking-up. The group is both provincial and metropolitan in character, and the journalistic Napoleon in this case is an Inveresk lawyer, who has now resigned his chairmanship. The cablegram (19th December), containing this information regards the Inveresk set-back as “a city sensation of the first magnitude”; the shares were 13/9 on that date, and earlier in the year had touched 67/6. Preference dividends are postponed. Naturally, considerable noise is created by any failure to keep trust with preference shareholders whose capital (at 7 or 8 or 9 per cent.), enables these combines to be brought off.
The Fine New Waterfront Rail Approach To Auckland.
The Westfield deviation, over which goods trains are now running daily in and out of Auckland.
* * *
No account, however brief, of recent world events should conclude without a tribute to airman Chichester, “the amateur of aeronautics,” for his untrumpeted solo flight, across Europe, Africa and Asia, from England to Australia. Considering the capacity of the machine and the flying experience of its owner, this New Zealander has put up a new record in performance, if not in hours and minutes.
)Ken Alexander .
What, dear reader, is your first thought when, at dewy morn, you unreef your eye-covers and merge from the celestial reaches of the subconscious to the terrestrial sphere of the grub-conscious? Do you muse on the musicality of the double crochet, or brood on the sublime simplicity of the mating moth-ball? Does your soul echo the muted murmurs of the nesting nutmeg, or the resonant rustling or the matutinal milk-token? Does your being respond to the beacon of the milky way, or does it cry out for the bacon, toast and “tay”? Truth, dear reader, compels us to affirm the latter. Let poets dote on “the fullness of time” and the “empty spaces,” but to us of grosser grain, empty spaces have no physiological fascination—we prefer the fullness of meal time to the fullness of real time.
Truly, every man is a mirrored image of his menu. The menu makes or breaks the man, and the man is the manifestation of his menu's mastery; in fact the menu means you.
We are warned that man cannot live by bread alone, and, in the same breath, that man cannot have his cake and eat it too. Such contradictory contentions have coerced some conscientious deflectors to eschew chewing solids and go into permanent liquidation.
The liver, dear reader, is to Gastronomy what the sun is to Astronomy; spots on the sun and spots on the liver are equally conducive to “deucive” disturbances. Life owes more to the liver than the “liver” realises, but when Time slips onward as smoothly as an untailored banana, do you tender a vote of thanks to your liver, or do you feel that the phenomenon is merely another proof that you are an ultraviolet ray and a beacon in the night?
On the other hand, have you ever considered to what extent the rise and fall of notions, the cries and crises of nations have been influenced by the aforesaid porous appendage? Do you not see the writing on the liver? Cannot you envisage the hysterical effect of this apparently innocuous piece of physiological furniture on hapless humanity?
Is not your imagination fired so that you perceive a pageant of liveried livers leaping up from the beginning of the past, each laying a brick on the House of History before each in turn outlives its license as a liveree and becomes a dyer?
History bulges with instances of those who started out to be great and grew to be graters—laid low by a liver. Consider, dear reader. Napoleon, Alexander (the other one), Julius the seizer, Egbert the egg-beater, Don Quick-lunch, and Dick Tiepin; were they not all “licked” by a liver? Is it not true that when the liver lies down on the job the spleen rises up in revolt? Alexander's corn-quests were the result of hobnails on the liver rather than of hobnails on his soldiers’ sandals. No doubt he arose one morning from his canopied couch and, after kicking the royal platypus through the portcullis, howled: “Where the Helvetia is my Roamin’ razor? I'll knock the eternal
“Every man is the manifestation of his menu's mastery.”
ooze,
Blues,
choose.
excuse,
juice,
What a world of woe a liver can produce.
‘Truly, dear reader, when the liver re-fuses the lights short-circuit.
Have you ever awakened to the knowledge that life is a lemon and the world a doubleyolked mustard-plaster; when you feel that your emotions have turned grey in a night; when you resent the way the canary looks at you, and revile the dial which grimaces from your shaving glass with the malignity of a storm-tossed corn-plaster; when you swear that the goldfish and the white rabbits bare their teeth at you as you stagger out into the mustard—coloured world? Then, sad reader, you can take as read that you are seeing yellow.
This lack of luminosity in the lamps is the result either of your failure to follow the diatribes of the dietetists or your error in following too faithfully. For to every ten thousand who yelp “Eat Meat Neat,” there are another ten thousand who moan “Nuts for Nutrition.”
In addition, there exists a school of starvationists which insists that there is as much strength in an egg as in a pound of meat. True, dear reader, for many of us have met eggs which were stronger by far than a whole meat-works.
“Permanent liquidation.”
Speaking of eggs naturally brings us to Impulses, for who is there with soul so dead who never to himself has said, “I'd love, when I am full of beans, to slosh an egg to smithcreens.”
“Kicked the Royal Platypus.”
Who is there amongst us who can deny an almost irresistible impulse to yield the yolk of respectability and slip in among the egg crates with a gamp. Oh for solitude, a bin of the barn-yard's by-product and a pick-handle! Dreams, dreams—ebullient “eggsaggerations.”
The mind of man is as complex as a crocodile's cosine or the vocal vices of the mawkies, for we have all known model men, almost viciously virtuous, who have without warning become victims of the irresistible impulse; men who without malice aforethought, coercion or alcoholism, have suddenly seen red and smoked a gasper to the last gasp.
Dear reader, we ask you truly, how often has some inner voice urged you to “forbid the banns,” simply because you know that no one else is game to call the parson's bluff. How often have you been obliged to grip Hymns, Ancient and Modern, in the larger edition, firmly between your northern and southern dentures, in order to strangle the fateful words brewing in your brain—“I forbid the blinking banns.”
Repression is a codification of civilisation, and the curse of culture, just as auto-suggestion is the metaphysics of the motor merchant; but it is cruel to contemplate the fact that Charlie Chaplin has made hills of hoot by acting on his reactions and projecting pies at bald beans, while we have sat on such simple little pleasures as putting up a barrage of Eskimo Pies at the pictures. Charlie undoubtedly knows his pastry and slings a mean pie, and good luck to him if he can decoy the dough by his pie-ty, but it is a bitter thought that we are restrained by the Arms Act from such harmless little flippancies as flipping a flap-jack or brandishing a blanc-mange in a public place. Such injustice breeds bilious bigots and punctures piety.
Speaking of projecting eats through the ether, dear reader, has it ever occurred to you what a fertile field is offered for such culinary capers, by the Rimutakas? Imagine for a moment a dropsical melon released from captivity and precipitated down the precipices, racing down the rocky ravines, leaping from ledge to ledge with lachrymose laughter, squelching squashily, vaulting voluptuously, sobbing sibilantly, and
“Auto-Suggestion.”
Slip in among the egg crates with a gamp.”
Truly, such visions of verticality as the Rimutakas offer, cause the cerebrum to surge with alpinistic agitation as the train pants and labours heroically up the noble incline from Cross Creek to Summit. Recently an attenuated traveller visioned the vertical view from a carriage platform with evident disbelief, like the United States man who turned his back on the riots of Rotorua with the words: “I don't believe it.” But there was some excuse for the wayfarer on the Rimutakas, for the train had been deflected from the Manawatu to the Wairarapa on account of a slip in the Manawatu Gorge, and without notice or warning he found himself standing on one ear, as it were.
“Goo’ gor; where am I?” he whispered, like someone regaining consciousness after having been struck smartly on the occiput with a cookery-class scone.
The four gallant engines panted and pulled like iron Clydesdales; the cogs muttered grimly as they gripped and chewed the centre rail;
“I'm catchin’ the boat home to th' ole Dart t'morrer, but glad I didn't miss this,” offered the excited excursionist, and somewhere on the ocean's bosom there floats another unpaid booster of these rugged and overpowering isles. Etched on his brain is a picture of sheer fingers of naked rock groping among the mists, white ribbons of water in the gloom of the gullies, huge patches of Pohutukawa bloom splashing the mountain like blood oozing from the side of a wounded but unvanquished giant; and of a great dry watercourse—a glacier of shingle—like a half-healed sword slash in the mountain's side—“Goo' gor, ain't man minute!”
There are a million advantages in travelling by train in New Zealand and two of them are that the traveller can always be sure of splendid mountain and a wonderful gorge on the Railway.
Current Comments
The annual report of the Wellington Automobile Club states that the Club's thanks are due to Mr. H. H. Sterling, General Manager of the New Zealand Railways, for the courtesy and help he had extended at all times in any applications made to him. At the Club's annual meeting mention was also made of the fact that Mr. Sterling had taken a keen interest in making motoring safe, especially at local crossings.
* * *
New Zealand possesses many unique mountain railways, but it is in Switzerland and Austria that the most remarkable lines of this character are to be found. Quite recently there has been celebrated the jubilee of the first Alpine railway, directing attention to the wonderful accomplishments of the railway engineer and operating officer in this rugged corner of the globe.
Just seventy-five years ago the first Alpine line—the Semmering Railway—was opened to traffic. The system was constructed by the Austrian Government as part of the important through trunk route between Vienna and the seaport of Trieste. Twenty-six miles in length, the Semmering Railway has a maximum grade of 2.5 per cent. There are fifteen tunnels on the system, innumerable viaducts, and 118 arched bridges. Nineteen regular passenger trains cover this mountain route daily, including several trains-de-luxe and International expresses.
* * *
In travelling, it is the citizens’ duty to patronise their own railways (says “The New Zealander”). Why give the cream of the traffic to private concerns, and the heavy and laborious work to the Firm? Why lessen the earning power of the Firm? Why, while partners, reduce the efficiency and threaten the welfare of the National Firm?
All citizens should school themselves into the larger national life and accept, loyally, the responsibility that is theirs, as partners in the Firm, and (even at the risk of a little inconvenience) support their own Firm, and travel by rail.
* * *
Accurate statistics show that a person is safer on board a train than at home, which speaks more for the security of railroad transportation than of the insecurity of a man's “castle” (says the “Toledo (Ohio) Times,” U.S.A.). Railroad travel is 100 per cent. safer to-day than it was five years ago. Last year there was only one fatality as a result of a railroad accident for every 49,000,000 passengers carried. Five years ago the average was one fatality for each 24,000,000 passengers. When it is considered that only sixteen of the 800,000,000 persons transported on trains in the United States last year were killed, the safety of this mode of travel causes greater wonder. (New Zealand's safety record is 80 million passengers carried during the past three years without one fatality, thus giving our railways, in this respect a foremost place amongst the railway systems of the world.)
* * *
Three thousand or more employees of the London and North Eastern Railway will participate in the comprehensive scheme of “railway education” which the Company is providing for their salaried staff during the autumn and winter months. The classes are optional, but every facility is given to encourage students to attend.
The scheme, which strongly appeals to the men, includes courses in technical subjects, such as train signalling, passenger and goods accounting (conducted by qualified members of the Company's own staff) and the more advanced subjects of railway law, railway economics, railway operating, and economic geography.
This secondary course is made possible by the co-operation of the Universities of London, Cambridge, Nottingham, Sheffield, Manchester, Leeds, Durham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, St. Andrew's, and Aberdeen, under whose auspices classes are held at most of the important centres on the Company's system.
A Cathedral-Like Railway Station.
St. Pancras Passenger Station, London, Midland and Scottish Railway, London.
Our London Letter
The modernising of passenger terminals to meet increasing traffic requirements is a feature of present day railway enterprise in the Homeland. In his current letter our Special London Correspondent gives some interesting particulars of London's principal passenger stations and reviews recent developments in electrification on the Home Railways.
New and commodious passenger stations recently opened in and around London and other Home centres direct attention to the efforts now being made by the group railways of Britain towards the improvement of their passenger stations, alike in town and country. A wonderfully well-equipped passenger station has just been opened by the Southern Railway at Wimbledon, on the city's south-western outskirts, and at Piccadilly Circus and Underground lines a magnificent new passenger depot was recently opened. Very shortly the removal of Charing Cross Station to the southern bank of the River Thames will give the metropolis another really handsome terminal built on the most commodious lines.
The care now being devoted to the improvement of the Home railway passenger stations is most commendable. Time was when almost any rough and tumble structure of wood, brick or iron was considered sufficient to serve as a railway station. Nowadays, progressive railways recognise the need for providing attractive and commodious station premises in every important centre, and, since the Great War, this movement towards the improvement of British passenger stations has been most marked. London is fortunate in the possession of several handsome passenger stations, befitting the capital of the Empire and the important business handled thereat. The Waterloo terminus of the Southern Railway, opened for traffic after rebuilding some nine years ago, is one of the finest passenger stations in the world. Paddington Station, in the aristocratic west-end, is the handsome headquarters terminal of the Great Western Railway, while in the Euston Station of the London, Midland and Scottish line, we have a truly imposing structure which any railway might be proud to own. Probably the daintiest London terminal, from the architectural viewpoint, is the St. Pancras Station of the L. M. and S., once the London headquarters of the Midland Railway, as it was styled prior to grouping. Built on the site of an old Roman encampment, St. Pancras Station is fronted at one end by the handsome pile of the railway-owned hotel, with its two elegant spires, while at the opposite end of the structure is a pleasing clock tower, reminiscent of that which houses “Big Ben” at Westminster.
Outside London, many provincial centres possess railway stations of real beauty and architectural charm. To demonstrate what a really intelligent architect can accomplish in the way of providing station accommodation worthy of a great and historic city, the York Station of the L. and N. E. Railway stands as a fine example. Here is found a wonderful elliptical roof, covering the long curved platforms, quite unlike anything of its kind elsewhere. Perth General Station, in Scotland, is
A strong impetus towards passenger station improvement is being given nowadays by the development of electric in place of steam haulage. Many of the station improvements recently carried out, both in Britain and on the Continent, have followed the change-over from steam to electricity. Progress in electrification
And Here'S A Trim Scottish Depot.
The Joint Passenger Station at Perth, Scotland (L.M.S. and L.N.E. Railways).
The London-Brighton electrification is estimated to cost something in the neighbourhood of two million pounds sterling. The tracks involved are those between Victoria Station and Brighton Station, with branches from Preston Park (near Brighton) to Worthing, and Redhill to Guildford, via Reigate and Dorking Town. This work will be the first main-line electrification scheme of any magnitude attempted at Home, and it is thought that three years will be spent on the job. Direct current, at 1,500 volts, with third-rail transmission, will be employed, and trains will consist of motor and trailer cars operated on the multiple-unit principle. A very heavy passenger business is handled all the year round between London and Brighton, and it is over this section of track that the world-famed “Southern Belle” Pullman has for many years been breaking records for fast running.
In many ways electrification will be a boon to railways. Take the coal problem, for example. Locomotive coal consumption is one of the largest items of railway expenditure, and the arrangements which have to be made for supplying every individual locomotive with its daily load of fuel, call for much labour and expense. It seems a simple matter for a railway to purchase so many tons of coal from one or more collieries, and distribute this fuel amongst the various engine sheds according to their requirements. In practice, a thousand and one problems are involved in the acquisition and distribution of suitable fuels for locomotive use.
At Home, immense attention is devoted to the subject of locomotive coal supplies, and the coaling arrangements in force are of great interest.
Coal from different pits varies enormously in quality, and not only must the question of its heat-giving properties be studied, but there must also be considered its action on the firebox—i.e., whether, when burnt, it forms a running scar or a loose, white ash of a non-adherent nature. Before purchasing, the Home railways make chemical analyses and perform tests, under actual service conditions, of all likely coal supplies.
A Famous British Flier.
“Southern Belle” Pullman Car Express leaving London for Brighton.
All-steel passenger carriages continue to hold favour in Europe, and nowadays, as the old wooden stock becomes obsolete, all-steel construction is usually adopted. The subject of the all-steel passenger coach is one of the many topics to be discussed at this year's International Railway Conference, to be held at Madrid, Spain, in May. For submission to this Congress, two French railway officers—Messrs. Lancrenon and Vallencien—have prepared a most readable report on the advantages of the all-steel carriage, as demonstrated in Belgium and France and their respective colonies.
From this report we learn that the leading French and Belgian railways are agreed that all new passenger stock should, as far as possible, be of metal construction. This construction holds many advantages from the point of view of safety, and the replacement of wooden joints by riveted or welded joints gives
Through the acquisition by the Home railways of important road carrying organisations scattered throughout the country, the problem of cut-throat road competition has finally been disposed of. Throughout last year, working agreements were come to between the four group railways and the leading ‘bus companies, the first big fusion being that between the Great Western Railway and the National Omnibus Company. This was followed by agreements between this road undertaking and the other railways. In April the Western Welsh Omnibus Company was established by the Great Western Railway and South Wales
A Summer Holiday Outing In New Zealand.
Excursionists on the wharf at Picton, South Island, before the opening of the Regatta on New Year's Day, 1930.
Kiln-Drying of Timber
Kiln-drying timber plant is to be installed at the Otahuhu (North Island) and Addington (South Island) railway workshops, at a total cost of about £20,000, for treatment of departmental supplies of New Zealand timber. The plant will be capable readily of extension to treat timber for other departments.
In making this announcement, the Minister of Railways (Hon. W. B. Taverner) said that the Department was convinced that it would benefit by securing better conditioned, more lasting timber for its constructional work. By cheaper, as well as more effective conditioning, kiln-drying would allow indigenous timber to replace a great deal of imported timber, and would render useful for constructional purposes a considerable amount of sap wood and non-heart grades, that would emerge as an inferior product from the old seasoning process of air-drying.
It was well known that the New Zealand timber industry in its attempts to secure higher utilisation of the tree, and, therefore, better economies, had in some cases found a difficult problem in the comparatively small percentage of heart. Any conditioning process that would secure higher results from non-heart timber, the profitable disposal of which had been a longstanding trouble with sawmillers, would therefore be of vital help to the industry, and he hoped the two kilns would become of national importance, in that they would provide the constructional shops of the Railway Department with better timber at less seasoning cost, make available for them a greater proportion of New Zealand timber, and inspire the timber industry and all wood users with the idea of higher utilisation and greater economy through the medium of artificial drying.
Evidence of the success of kiln-drying abroad was complete. The evidence of its success as applied to New Zealand timbers was not as complete as it might be. He hoped that that would no longer be the case when the Railway Department's kiln-drying was in full operation. He wished to emphasise that in this enterprise the Department had the valuable co-operation of the Department of Forestry.
“Kiln-drying,” continued the Minister, “will enable a direct financial economy to be effected. Substantial though this saving is, the better service, the longer life, and lower maintenance cost that may be expected from vehicles constructed with kiln-dried timber is far more important. Compared with air-dried timber, economy will be effected in the milling process in the workshops, because with the kiln-dried article there will be less warping and shrinkage. A more regular product will be treated in the workshops, and loss due to handling and milling timber that afterwards proves serviceable will be cut out.
“An approximate analysis of the two million feet to be used annually at the Otahuhu workshops indicates that without kilns it will include 350,000 feet of imported hardwoods. With kilns that figure will fall to 100,000 feet. Without kilns the requirement of scarce and costly kauri will be 500,000 feet, and rimu 600,000 feet, but with the kilns kauri can be reduced to 100,000 feet, while rimu will be increased to 1,000,000 feet. As rimu is the timber in principal production in New Zealand, and a timber intimately wrapped up with the non-heart problem, these figures are very informative, and will, I think, be widely noticed and appreciated.
“Continuing the comparison, the use of kilns will, it is estimated, increase the use of totara from 150,000 feet to 200,000 feet, increase matai from 100,000 to 200,000 feet, and will reduce the quantity of imported timber to a corresponding extent, as kiln-drying should make not only for greater utilisation of the non-heart portion of the tree, but also the greater utilisation on the varieties of trees in a native forest. Some New Zealand timbers are not suitable for the Railway Department's purposes when air-seasoned, but become so when kiln-dried.
“Coming to the point of salvage of non-heart timbers, it has to be borne in mind that the time taken by air-seasoning relative to kiln-drying not only means money, but means also greater risk to such timbers from exposure, because sapwoods are susceptible to the attack of pests while being air-seasoned. It is expected that kiln-drying will altogether overcome that difficulty, and will provide a sufficiency of the standard finished product, while reducing timber stocks and storage space required for air-seasoning, and will be both better and cheaper for the Department, besides assisting an important New Zealand industry.”
Department's Action Appreciated by Sawmillers
“The sawmillers of the Dominion will be distinctly interested and pleased to hear this announcement by the Minister of Railways,” said Mr. A. Seed, secretary of the Dominion Federated Sawmillers’ Association. “The need for kiln-drying plants for our timbers, to place them in better condition to compete with imported woods for many purposes, has been a long-felt want.
The Men Who Keep The “Iron Horse” In Perfect Running Order.
Members of the Locomotive Staff at Thorndon, Wellington.
“The cost of installation of these kilns, however, is the obvious obstacle that has prevented their installation by the sawmillers themselves, as very few indeed have areas of bush giving sufficient cutting life to warrant such heavy capital expenditure. Therefore, the installation of an up-to-date kiln-drying plant in each island by the Railway Department should certainly lead to that higher utilisation of the produce of New Zealand mills that the Minister predicts; and this will be of decided benefit to our industry.
“There is still far too much timber being imported into the Dominion (greatly accentuating the unemployment problem), and its use is fostered by somewhat unreasonable local prejudice against our own timbers,” added Mr. Seed. “The action of the Railway Department in thus seeking means towards the higher utilisation of New Zealand woods—and curtailing the consumption of imported—will therefore give a useful lead to other timber-using interests, besides the benefit that will accrue to the sawmilling industry from the Department itself.”
Care Of The Locomotive.
Oiling up for a Suburban run on the New Zealand Railways.
The Telephone
How to use it Properly
A Friend in Business
“I have had in mind, for some time, the need for a practical talk on how to produce improvement in the use of the telephone. You might write up something on these lines,” said Mr. H. H. Sterling, General Manager, New Zealand Railways, one sunny morning when the telephone happened to be particularly busy. The following, therefore, are the lines upon which Mr. Sterling wished the matter presented.
“When the telephone rings, what do you do?” Upon the answer to that question depends a great deal of business efficiency. In every business office the answer to the ring should be immediately an announcement of the name of the office responding. On the railways, for example, if a ring arrives for the “Inward Parcels Office,” whoever answers the telephone should say, without one word of preamble, “Inward Parcels Office here.” This lets the ringer know straight off that he is in touch with the office rung. His acknowledgment should be an announcement of his name and the purpose of the ring. This lets business proceed with quickness and despatch. It is the correct opening for a business conversation by telephone, and should be universal throughout the commercial world. To take a concrete instance: Miss M. Jones, of Wellington, wishes to reserve a seat. She rings 44–120. The conversation then proceeds:—
Nearing The End Of Its 426 Mile Run.
The Wellington-Auckland “Limited” Express speeding through Manurewa, on the outskirts of Auckland.
Office: “Central Booking Office here.”
Miss J.: “Will you, please, book me a reserved seat by the ‘Daylight Limited’ to Auckland, on 12th December?
Office: “Certainly…. Car X, seat 8. Will you call here for the ticket, please?”
Miss J.: “Yes, thank you; about 3 this afternoon.”
Office: “Thank you.”
Anyone who answers a telephone ring by saying “Hello,” is wasting time. That answer merely lets the ringer know that someone is on the telephone, but gives no indication of who it is, or whether the number desired is the number that answers. It leads to further questioning, and shuttle-cock of query and answer that wastes time. On the other hand the immediate announcement of the telephone title of the receiver of the ring indicates to the person ringing that a businesslike procedure is expected. It cuts out the persiflage, and sets the psychology right for prompt despatch of the business in hand. It is neglect to make this opening properly that leads some people to regard the telephone not as a blessing but as a curse, because to them it has every appearance of a business interrupter and a time-waster.
Now, really speaking, the telephone is a most valuable friend to the business man. Its installation in business houses was intended to save time; and, times out of number, it saves journeys, helps to explain letters, reduces misunderstandings, and leads to expedition in the conduct of whatever business is in hand.
The man who regards the telephone as a nuisance is rejecting his best business friend through failure to recognise its worth and organise its use. Consideration for others, on the lines that he himself would expect consideration, will prevent the use of the telephone for trivial and unnecessary purposes.
In the home, of course, the situation is different. Very often the telephone is used purposely as a time consumer; or, at least, as an easy way of carrying on or arranging social amenities; but the business use of it falls in an entirely different category. If the telephone is used with reasonable brevity, if the person ringing knows what he wants and can state it clearly and concisely, and the person receiving the ring knows his business and can answer the query promptly and adequately, the quantity of business that can be despatched in a given time is multiplied many fold. On the other hand, should the telephone be used for trivial or private purposes during business hours, a totally different situation arises.
A very prolific cause of complaint in regard to telephones is the delay occasioned when an enquirer is asked to “wait a minute” while the office obtains the necessary particulars. If, in reply to an inquiry, an immediate answer cannot be given, it is far better to take the enquirer's number and ring up when the query
On The Sunny East Coast Of The North Island.
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
The General Manager of Railways, Mr. H. H. Sterling (right) and party, snapped during the recent excursion to Putorino, on the North Island East Coast Railway.
Although the negative type of advice is often the most unsatisfactory, it can be used with telling effect when applied to the telephone. The following “Don'ts” are therefore suggested from practical experience of the inept use of telephones:—
1. Don't say “Hello” when answering a telephone call, but give the official title of your office.
2. Don't ask an enquirer to “wait,” when any delay is likely to occur before you can make adequate reply. Offer rather to ring later.
3. Don't use the telephone during business hours for purely private purposes.
4. Don't carry on an argument over the telephone.
5. Don't forget that business is attracted by telephone courtesy and capacity, and that the proper use of the telephone is one practical test of your personal efficiency.
)James Cowan .
(Concluded.)
In Stewart Island, just as in the North, the annual arrival of the far-flying pipi-wharauroa, the shining cuckoo, from the tropic islands of the Pacific is the signal for the people of the native race to plant their food-crops. Its name means, literally, “long-journeying little bird.” Cruising around Paterson Inlet, long ago, I learned from an old Maori, Mohi, the folk-talk concerning this harbinger of summer weather. Its first long-drawn call is a reminder to get busy in the cultivations.
Here it has an honorific title, Te Manu a Maui, or “Maui's Bird.” Maui is the traditional tutelary deity of the food gardens. Its call when it first arrives on these shores in spring sounds like “Kwee, kwee, tio-o.” The Maoris interpret the “Kwee, kwee” as “Koia, koia” (“Dig away”), and they proceed to obey its musical injunction. Later on its clear whistling cry sounds to the Maori ear a paean of rejoicing at the warmth of midsummer, “Kui, Kui, whiti-whiti ora, tio-o!” This high call, with its melodious whistle at the end, is peculiarly the pipi-wharauroa's cry; it can never be mistaken for that of any other bird. But it is curiously interesting to find this same oft-repeated “tio, tio” call in the classic song of the hoopoe summoning its fellows in “The Birds” of Aristophanes.
The other cuckoo, the koekoea (or kohoperoa, (the long-tailed cuckoo) has a harsher note, but it, too, is a welcome visitant. The pipi-wharauroa seems to be less shy than its long-tailed cousin. This little messenger, whose life knows no winter, is sometimes to be heard even in gardens and plantations in the New Zealand towns.
Old whaling days! No end of yarns about those roaring times of hard-toiling crews, driving captains and bucko mates. In the years when sperm and right whales were plentiful there were whole fleets of American whaleships about these coasts, with here and there a Colonial barque and schooner. If you seek tales of those greatly adventurous years read the late Frank Bullen's “Cruise of the Cachalot,” that epic of the whaleman. Bullen's “Cachalot,” he told me when he was in New Zealand a good many years ago, was really the “Splendid,” a New Bedford ship which spent many seasons whaling around our coasts. It was in the early Seventies, when the seas were alive with whales, now all but extinct—at any rate, the great sperms. It was a truly sporting business, in the sense that the whale had a fair fighting chance against the crews that tackled him with hand-hurled harpoon and jabbing lance. The horribly scientific whaling of to-day—how different! Slaughter, greedy slaughter; the biggest whale that swims the seas has not a ghost of a chance against those huge fleets of steam killers with their guns and bombs.
This, above all other parts of New Zealand, has for a hundred years been a land of sailors, Maori, pakeha-Maori, and all the numerous sub-degrees and shades of a half-caste ancestry. Stewart Island, with its so broken coastline, its many coves and bays and island-sprinkled harbours and coasts, is a natural nursery for seamen. The absence of roads, except for a very few miles around Half-Moon Bay, compels sea travel. There are many motor launches nowadays, but the fine art of seamanship is fostered in the numerous small sailing vessels— schooners, ketches and cutters, most of them with auxiliary engines of one sort and another. Old whalers, old sealers are here, with endless tales of adventure in stormy seas and on rock-bound coasts. Some of the younger men have seen service in the Norwegian whaleships of the most modern type that make Paterson Inlet their winter headquarters between cruises to the far-south Ross Sea.
Many have served in the Government steamers, and no better crews can be found for the rough surf-boat work at the lighthouses around the coast. The native settlement at The Neck, near the entrance to Paterson Inlet, is an all-sailor community. The historic Maori name of this half-caste village, by the way, is Te Wehi a Te Wera, which holds a story. A chief named Te Wera many generations ago came here from
whakahau, or sea-lion, which reared itself up and roared at him. It so startled him, old warrior though he was, that he turned and ran, and the beach to this day is known by the name he gave it in memory of the fright (wehi) he suffered.
The women in some of these bays are as expert sailors as the men. They can handle wheel or tiller and “come in on that there jibsheet” and give a hand at reefing and furling sail. Two old acquaintances of mine, who have been settled on the island for many years, spend half their time on the water in their cutter-yacht.
“In small proportions we just beauties see.“—Ben Jonson.
(Govt. Publicity photo.)
Charming islets of tropic green in Paterson Inlet, Stewart Island.
From the old hands at The Neck one hears yarns about that remarkable little Irish whalechaser Captain Paddy Gilroy, and about the two Captains Anglem, father and son. The first Anglem came this way whaling and sealing and greenstone-hunting on the West Coast of the South Island a century ago. He had no end of adventures. His half-caste son, William Anglem, was at one time Gilroy's mate in the famous old whaling barque “Chance,” and his daughter was Gilroy's wife. We shall hear more about Gilroy and the “Chance” presently, also about that capital old Maori sailor Tohi te Marama, popularly called “Buller,” whom I knew many years ago. He was a full-blood Maori, a rather rare bird in these parts these times, for pakeha and Maori have been blending races for a century. Every shore-whaler and sealer of early days quickly took to himself a “sleeping dictionary.”
To return to the first Captain Anglem, the highest mountain in Stewart Island is named after him. It is a trifle over three thousand feet high. Its Maori name is Hananui, meaning “Great Glow,” probably in allusion to the sunlight effects of morning and evening on the rocky peak. At its summit is a deep crater which contains a small lake.
That Maori old-timer not mentioned was a perfect type of the South New Zealand seaman. Tohi te Marama had been one of the hard-case crew of the little whaling barque “Chance,” whose raffish-looking hands were described by Frank Bullen in his “Cruise of the Cachalot.” When I met him he was over seventy years old, but he was still sailorising, pilot aboard a Dunedin schooner which went round to Milford Sound with a gang of men to work the tangiwai greenstone reef on the seaward slope of the Mitre Peak range.
Never have I seen a man with a more richly weathered sea-seasoned face. His complexion was a prime old saddle-brown with a dash of the ruddy glow of three-quarters of a century of hot sunshine and a tough hardness of features that came of the same period of Antarctic-born gales and roaring westerlies. His keen old eyes that had looked out to windward so long were enclosed in a network of wrinkles, and the more he laughed, this jolly-hearted ancient mariner, the more those wrinkles grew.
There wasn't a hair on his face; I don't think he ever needed to shave; the gales of Foveaux Strait would be sufficient barber.
“Calm as a cradled child in dreamless slumber bound.“—Shelley.
(Govt. Publicity photo.)
One of the many beautiful coves in Paterson Inlet, Stewart Island.
Fossicking around among these brown veterans for folk-lore of coast and island, I happened to ask this Maori sailorman whether he could give me any ancient waiatas or chants concerning Rakiura and the fiordland shores and sounds. Tohi thought for a moment, then he grinned till his shrewd eyes almost disappeared among their wrinkles. “Yes,” he said, “I know some good old songs, and this is the one I like best of all.” And he threw his head back and trolled out in deep-sea fashion:
The famous old chanty was Tohi's favourite waiata. “Yes, boss,” he said, “I was the chanty-man long ago aboard the ‘Postboy,’ topsail schooner. I was second mate of her, away back in the whaling and sealing times. I know every bit of a bay, every seal-cave along the coast and around the islands. I was at Sydney in her in the Fifties, when everyone was going mad over the gold-diggings in Victoria and America. I was nearly going off in a vessel to the Sacramento diggings in California. But I came back to the old place and went sealing in the Sounds, and then when Paddy Gilroy got the ‘Chance’ I went with him whaling on lays, same as all the rest of the boys. I went to sea when I was twelve or so, and here I am, at it again.”
The sailorman after whom the island is named calls for a note. Captain William Stewart, who discovered the insularity of Rakiura, must not be confused with that other Stewart, the master of the notorious brig “Elizabeth,” in which Te Rauparaha made his cannibal expedition to Akaroa about a century ago.
Our Stewart was sealing, whaling and trading around these coasts for a long period in the early part of last century. A hundred and twenty years ago he sailed round the island, and thirty years or so later he piloted H.M.S. “Herald” to Port Pegasus and other bays of the island.
In 1825–26 we find him in command of a Sydney schooner called the “Prince of Denmark.” He took a party of timber-sawyers and shipwrights from the Bay of Islands to Stewart Island and established a shipbuilding yard at Pegasus Bay. The enterprise did not last long; a vessel commenced for Stewart was not finished. The men spent three years in building a 60-ton schooner for the Wellers, who owned a whaling station in Otago. This schooner, which took a cargo of whale oil and flax to Sydney, was given the name of “Joseph Weller” (and it was long before the days of “Pickwick.“).
She was the first pakeha vessel built in Stewart Island. The name Shipbuilders’ Cove, in Port Pegasus, remains to remind us of that century-ago schooner-launching.
Away around on the surf-battered west coast are Doughboy Bay and Mason Bay, locally celebrated as places where valuable finds of ambergris have frequently been made.
“Among the leaves he boldly struts and loads his bill.”
(Govt. Publicity photo.)
The weka (or woodhen), Stewart Island
Codfish Island—Maori name Whenua-hou, or “New Land”—is a now lonely spot with a somewhat hectic past. A century ago sealing gangs from Sydney were frequently left at various places around Stewart Island to get skins while the vessels went on to the further south islands. It was no country for a man who loved a peaceful life. Savage Maoris sometimes hunted them down, and having slaughtered them did not waste the meat. If they chanced to escape ambuscade by the cannibals, they were as often as not practically marooned by their employers who failed to send a vessel to take them off. Later there was a small colony of pakehas with Maori wives; Bishop Selwyn found a half-caste settlement there in the “Forties.” Now only the visiting mutton-birders liven its desolation.
The Toll Of The Road.
Ninety-one people are killed every day by motor-cars in the United States, according to the Paris edition of the “New York Herald.” Last year there were 33,215 casualties with August as the most dangerous month. In Britain the average number of people killed by cars last year was 17 a day.
Through the North Island Main Trunk Route by New Zealand's “Daylight Limited”
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
Hapuawhenua viaduct is one of New Zealand's most remarkable bridges. It is built with a 10 chain curve, is 932 ft. long and 147 ft. above the centre of the gully. Concrete tanks, filled with water, are provided at each end of the viaduct as a fire precaution.
Superannuated Railwaymen
What do They Engage In?
It is often asked of a New Zealand Railwayman “what will you do when you retire?” The following unique letter received by our Chief Accountant (Mr. H. Valentine), from Mr. W. S. Smith (a former Goods Shed Foreman in Dunedin), tells what one original and enterprising individual is doing “in retirement.”
Some few weeks ago a declaration form (from the Superannuation Branch in your office), which has to be filled in and returned as proof that I am still in the flesh, was received at my home in Sydney. This fact, as you are aware, has to be attested to by the New Zealand Government's representative here or by a Justice of the Peace. I asked my wife to call on Mr. Blow and explain my position as regards seeing him personally. He (Mr. Blow) is punctilious in the discharge of his duties, which is befitting a man holding the position he does. He consented to signing the form, (to which my signature had already been attached), after my wife was able to satisfy him that she was not yet a widow. Just now, I feel that the mournful duty of reporting my demise is likely to fall to one of her successors. He requested, however, that I should write to you and explain matters. By doing this unofficially I shall be better able to give full details, so please pardon my digression from the usual channel.
Since June last, I have been camped on the top of the Blue Mountains, 4,000 ft. up, following the alluring vicissitudes of a gold digger's life. Four of the worst months of the year under canvas in preference to the comforts of a well-appointed home in Sydney. Why and for what purpose? With the liberal assistance of a permanent retiring allowance, I have all I require for my daily needs, but nothing much to give away. The poverty and distress among the poorer classes in this city is appalling. It is the product of continual industrial upheavals. I am past the age to hope for suitable employment that would help to supplement my income. There are hundreds of younger and better qualified men than I vainly seeking for that already, so I resolved to get out and do what I could with pick, shovel, and dish, and all I win, be it little or much, if Dame Fortune is good enough to smile on my efforts, will be devoted to the alleviation of the poverty and distress I have already mentioned.
So far, nothing of a startling nature has been revealed, but I am so well satisfied with my prospects that I am going to continue for a few months longer, despite all the disabilities and discomforts of a “hatter's” life. My camp is right in the bush and isolated in the fullest sense of the term. Twenty miles from the nearest Railway Station and Post Office, twelve miles from the nearest habitation, and 120 miles from my home. Here I am, away from the sight or sound of man, with no other companions than the feathered tribes, the beautiful wild flowers, the tall gaunt gum trees, and the starry heavens at night. In nature's workshop, in nature's cathedral, I work and worship daily in the hope, or I might say, assurance, that my efforts will be crowned with success. In this adventure I have the sympathetic and active assistance of my dear and valued friend, Mr. Paget, and our ladies, without whose interest and co-operation the successful achievement of my enterprise would be difficult as well as doubtful. I have shut the door on 68, but can still sling a long handled shovel to the time of a lively tune.
I have been working in a valley which terminates at the top of a high waterfall at the head of a deep gorge. I have dug cross and circular trenches six and seven feet deep to trap the water, which, in the rainy season, rushes down
Although satisfied with my prospects it would be as well here to mention to expectant friends that loans of “fivers” are not yet available. I have finished that job which is in the vicinity of my camp and now daily cross a ridge to another valley which connects with a gorge deeper and more rugged and precipitous than the one nearer my camp. Here I am tapping
Valuable Freight In Transit.
A special train chartered to transport motor cars from Wellington to Auckland, North Island, New Zealand.
This note will be left at an established depot five and a half miles out, where it will be and again, could be picked up through a break in the trees over head. I had one eye on the star and the other on the ground, which was broken and rough. Suddenly my foot caught in the end of a fallen log and I went headlong down hill, my packs one way, my lantern another. An Australian born bushman, whose variegated vocabulary is the envy of the world, might have been able to give vent to expressions suitable to the occasion, but I was both winded and speechless, so I got up, found and relit my lamp, and recovered by lost luggage—no charge—and set off again, reaching the camp without further mishap. A survey of the damage revealed pants hopelessly settled. That did not matter much. Public decency does not compel one to wear them where I am living. Two breakfasts lost in the egg department,
The weather is getting warmer and I am not sorry. A few weeks ago a cyclone, accompanied by a snow blizzard, came along and I had the time of my life keeping the tent anchored down. I was in and out until nearly two o'clock in the morning, shovelling snow off the tent fly. I had no wish to sleep my long last sleep beneath the folds of a frozen tent. With the warm weather we get flies, ants, and snakes. On the way out to work yesterday I went down to my first claim to see how things were. Like most bush travellers, I had a stout stick about five feet long. It serves a twofold purpose. It helps you over the rough country and is handy as a weapon should a snake rear itself in your pathway to dispute your right to invade territory entirely occupied by wild life. My stick proved useful on this occasion. About half way down I came across a big black brute stretched right across my track. Hostilities on both sides opened at once. I went at him and he turned to run. I got a blow in but not fair on. He turned and came at me. It was my turn to retreat and in so doing, fell over a small log on to the broad of my back. As he was fast approaching I did not wait for the count usually allowed in the boxing ring. Quicker than it takes to write, I was on my feet again.
Glen Innes Station On The Westfield Deviation.
(Photo, W. W. Stewart.)
The above illustration typifies the style of the station buildings and platforms on the new line at Auckland, New Zealand.
If I have not wearied you, I hope I have at least satisfied you that that monthly instalment is still to continue and likely so for a good many more years to come.
Those responsible for the drafting of the Railway Superannuation Act showed, in my opinion, want of forethought and vision in not making provision for the quiet removal of all beneficiaries who exceed the allotted span. Such an oversight would not have occurred in countries say like China, for instance. There you would not be allowed to remain a burden on the taxpayer for as long as it suited you. You would be told to do it yourself or sharpen an axe and get some other fellow to take you down to the back of the abattoir and do it for you.
If the opportunity should come to you, would you please convey my sincere good wishes to all those I had the pleasure of meeting at our annual conference reunions? To them all my kindest regards and best wishes—the same to yourself.
By Those Who Like Us
From the Secretary, Methven District High School Committee, Methven, to the District Traffic Manager, Christchurch:—
I have been instructed by the Methven District High School Committee to write and thank the Railway Department and express our appreciation for the splendid train service provided for the conveyance of the Methven and surrounding Schools to the Winter Show recently held in Christchurch. The opinion was freely expressed that such services greatly popularise the Railways.
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From the Manager, The Marton Sash, Door and Timber Company, Ltd., Marton, to the General Manager of Railways, Wellington:—
We wish to express our appreciation of the transit facilities afforded to us by your officers in connection with an urgent order which we received this week.
The position was that we were offered an urgent order for heavy long length timber in competition with oregon, on condition that it was delivered in Wanganui on Saturday morning. The mill received the order on Wednesday morning, and the timber was cut and loaded by Thursday afternoon. The stationmaster at Ongarue, and the transport officer at Ohakune, at our request, made special arrangements for transit to Wanganui, and we are pleased to say that the trucks in question, being U.B. 529 and U. 99, ex Waione siding, arrived in Wanganui last evening.
The timber was required for special urgent work, and the facilities which your officers were able to extend to us enabled us to take and execute this order in competition with imported oregon timber, thus providing, not only work for ourselves, but freight for the Railways.
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From the Manager, Wright, Stephenson and Co., Ltd., Hamilton, to the Traffic Inspector, Frankton Junction:—
In connection with our national bull sale at Claudelands, we have to say how very much we appreciate your prompt attention to our requirements, and the courtesy of yourself and your staff. Largely due to your kind co-operation, all trucking arrangements were carried out expeditiously, and all the bulls had been despatched to their destinations by the day following the sale. (Mr. A. J. McGrail, Wagon-supply Officer, Frankton Junction, was the officer responsible for the good work done in connection with this service to the Department's clients.—Ed. “N.Z.R.M.“)
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From Mr. A. S. Warwick, Napier, to the Officer-in-Charge, Central Booking Office, Napier:—
I wish to express my appreciation on behalf of my company for the manner in which you arranged the three special buses put on for “Alice in Wonderland,” especially for the one that conveyed the children from the Children's Home in Priestly Road, to the theatre and return. Also, for the two buses put on in connection with the visit of the “Bohemian Girl” to Hastings, on the 26th.
I would like to say that if, at any time, I have any further necessity, I shall unfailingly make use of the buses of the Railway Department, as we were entirely satisfied with the arrangements made by you, both as regards price and all other matters.
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From the Secretary, Otago Rugby Football Union, Dunedin, to the District Traffic Manager, Dunedin:—
I have been instructed to convey to you my Committee's appreciation of the excellent arrangements made in connection with the tour of the Otago Football Team recently. The manager reported that the arrangements were most satisfactory and that no hitch of any kind occurred.
Commerce Train Tour
Potentialities of The Far North
Some Representative Opinions.
The following opinions have been given by some leading representatives of Commerce who made the journey, regarding the value, from a national aspect, of the recent tour through the Auckland province. The information is particularly valuable at the present time in view of the project, now under way, for a tour through the southern portion of the North Island by the Wellington Chamber of Commerce.
The tour was, to me as a new arrival in New Zealand, a splendid introduction to the real source of the wealth of the Dominion, i.e. the pastoral industries. The opportunity which was extended to me of becoming a member of the party was very much appreciated.
In my opinion tours of this kind can be productive of nothing but good. I have been somewhat struck by what, for want of a better word, I may term a little asperity of feeling between various parts of this country, and anything which will bring people together necessarily tends to the removal of misunderstandings. I hope, therefore, that this system of visits from one part of the country to another will continue.
I think the Auckland Chamber of Commerce are to be congratulated very much upon their initiative in this matter, and the Railway Department should receive an equal measure of praise for the excellence of the arrangements made for the comfort of the whole party.
—From Mr. L. A. Paish,
(British Trade Commissioner.)
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The trip was a revelation to all members of the train. Firstly, we were indubitably impressed with the wonderful service and cooperation extended by every member of the Railway staff to the members of the party. New Zealand indeed has nothing to be ashamed of in her railways, and has a great deal to be proud of, for few countries in the world could have provided as comfortable transportation facilities on a long journey as were furnished to us.
I was impressed by the wonderful development which the northland of New Zealand is making as a result of top-dressing, and the increased facilities being afforded by the opening up of roads. The backbone of New Zealand undoubtedly is concentrated around the land, and the first hand information which we were able to secure on the problems which the farmer has to confront will prove of substantial assistance to the city traveller who was making his initial journey to the far north; also the opportunity which Trade Commissioners were afforded of knowing intimately the members of the Commerce Train and the leading citizens of the north, will surely react to the mutual benefit of both.
I congratulate you most heartily on the successful effort, and can only say that it is my great desire to accompany you if another trip of this type is arranged next year.
—From Julian B. Foster,
(United States Trade Commissioner.)
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I should like to pay my tribute to the efficient organization of the 1929 Commerce Train operated by the Railway Department in conjunction with the Auckland Chamber of Commerce. One of the essential duties of a Trade Commissioner is to become conversant with the activities and resources of the country in which he is located, as without that knowledge he is not able to perform efficiently the duties entrusted to him. The basic idea of the
“Sequestered pools in woodland valleys,
Where the slaves of Nature stoop to drink.“
—Longfellow.
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
A charming scene near Cooper's Beach (a favourite camping and sea-bathing place about two miles north-west of Mangonui), North Auckland, New Zealand (visited by the Commerce Train Party).
Commerce Train is to enable commercial men to ascertain by personal contact these resources and potentialities as well as the problems of the rural community. The 1929 Commerce Train succeeded admirably in fulfilling this objective and so far as I am concerned was an unqualified success. The itinerary was such that we were able to see the great developments in the South Auckland district and then proceed further north and witness the spirit of those people who have gained (and I venture to predict will continue to enhance) an enviable reputation enjoyed by New Zealand throughout the world. We saw large areas of land being brought under cultivation and parallel with this observed the fertility and productivity of these broad acres. I am more firmly convinced than ever of the wonderful future before this Dominion, and I have to thank those responsible for the organisation and operation of the Commerce Train for the splendid efforts made and facilities afforded me to know New Zealand better.
—From Mr. C. M. Croft,
(Canadian Trade Commissioner.)
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Those of us who were privileged to participate in the first “Commerce” tour of 1928 were inclined to be rather assertive in prophesying that its outstanding success could not possibly be repeated in the tour of 1929. There were good grounds for this view. The comprehensiveness of the territory covered, the large number of townships and features visited, the hospitality extended, left us all somewhat sceptical as to whether or not the Railway Department and the Auckland Chamber of Commerce could introduce changes, diversify the routes, create the same esprit de corps among the train party, and expect from the settlers, local bodies, and other organisations the same generous hospitality and warmth of welcome.
Comparative views exchanged among members who made both tours are unanimous that the second trip was equally successful, equally educational, and undoubtedly fulfilled its chief objectives.
The fertile long settled pasture lands of the Thames and Te Aroha districts were contrasted with the newer farm settlements of the far north. The activities of state were studied at first hand so far as public works were concerned, and the great progress made in rail, and road transportation in the north were self evident, and their assistance to future industry and commerce were duly appreciated.
To me the second trip was a revelation in two respects: the glorious fifty odd mile stretch of sandy beach on our northernmost peninsula, capable I was told of accommodating 40 odd motor cars travelling abreast in a straight line for 30 miles, its richness in sea bird life, and its untold and yet almost unexploited potential wealth in the succulent toheroa, Luried under a few inches of sand, and capable of being harvested in such quantities as to afford in the future a most valuable food for export to the markets of the world.
The second opinion made was the manner in which problems were dealt with by local representative speakers who spoke at the various functions. All will agree that the speeches were delivered by men well versed in their subjects, and were so logically and earnestly given that they made a deep impression upon the members of the “Commerce” train party.
Yes, the 1929 tour was a great success from every point of view and its organisation, down to the veriest detail, gave emphasis to the fact that the Railway Department carried out its trust in a manner deserving of the highest commendation.
—From Mr. J. W. Collins,
(Secretary of the Department of Industries and Commerce.)
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The 1929 Commerce Train proved a striking example of what can be accomplished by team work properly organised. The Department itself in its sundry branches, local committees in the various districts touched at, and many others were all constituted links in a long and sinuous chain, failure on the part of any one of which might have let the whole organisation down. But everything had been planned with such meticulous attention to detail and all concerned played their parts so loyally and well, while that fickle jade the weather once again proved in such benign and complacent mood, that not a single hitch occurred. All this, in delightfully happy combination with the wonderful spirit of camaraderie pervading the train and with the mutually stimulating contacts leading to closer understanding between, on the one hand, city dwellers, and on the other, the splendid country folk living so close to the soil in a surprisingly beautiful and productive territory, conspired to make an impression on the minds of the tourists that will remain indelible down the years.
—From Dr. E. P. Neale,
(Secretary of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce.)
Oils used for bearing lubrication are principally derived from petroleum. Crude petroleum is a more or less mobile liquid, obtained from different strata below the earth's surface. Some crudes are very liquid and flow freely, while others are thick and viscous. In density, petroleum crude is somewhat lighter than water. Its colour varies from pale to amber to black, depending on its composition. Each crude has a characteristic odour, affected by the impurities it contains.
A Famous Mountain Railway.
Three engine train ascending the Rimutaka Incline, North Island. (Grade 1 in 15.)
All petroleum crudes consist of chemical combinations of carbon and hydrogen in varying proportions, sometimes chemically combined with impurities and usually contaminated with water, salts and earthy matter. They are exceedingly complex mixtures of many components or groups of substances, such as naphtha (gasoline), kerosene, paraffin, wax, lubricating oils and heavier substances of varying nature. These components appear in widety varying proportions in the various crudes.
The processes employed in oil refineries are for the purpose of separating the crude into such components as will find a market readily. Where the process is designed to produce a maximum quantity of gasoline and kerosene, their quantity is increased by employing a cracking process, which breaks down some of the heavier fractions. This is spoken of as destructive distillation; due to its effect upon heavier components of the crude, including the lubricating oils. Lubricants resulting from this process are therefore generally of inferior quality.
In the manufacture of high-quality lubricants the crude is selected on the basis of the lubricating oil components contained and the freedom of the crude from objectionable and injurious impurities. The fractional method of distillation is employed, carefully avoiding all excessive temperatures that might injure or break down the lubricating-oil fractions or residues.
Durability, resulting from extreme purity and chemical stability, is a special qualification demanded of oils subjected to long continued service in the automatic oiling systems of modern machines.
In the production of such oils, a crude petroleum is selected with a view to the presence of those hydrocarbons which possess the highest lubricating qualities; and to the absence of oxidised and unstable hydrocarbons, sulphur compounds, and other chemical impurities. These crudes are distilled under most favourable moderate temperatures; they are frequently produced by distillation in a vacuum, and are refined by chemical and absorptive methods to standardise purity, stability, viscosity and colour.
Where the method of lubrication requires that
While an oil adapted to this purpose may not require all of the refining process employed in the manufacture of oil for continued service, a crude must be selected which contains the required elements necessary to high lubricating value and adhesiveness, and the process of manufacture must preserve these properties. The further elimination of all impurities, which would in any way impair the value of the oil, produces an oil of high quality and standardised viscosity.
A ring oiled bearing as constructed for a large electric generator.
Mineral oils are compounded with small proportions of animal and vegetable oils, for particular purposes. The vegetable and animal oils (commonly termed “fixed oils”) usually employed are refined rape oil, peanut oil, castor oil, neatsfoot oil, tal-low oil, lard oil, sperm oil and fish oils. These fixed oils vary in colour, viscosity and saponifying value. They also possess properties of great adhesion and “greasiness” or “oiliness.”
This property of greater adhesion is a particularly valuable qualification for lubrication; especially for large, slow moving journals, where the supply is furnished by means of drop or wick feed oiling. Under such conditions lubrication is attained through the formation of a complete oil film, resulting largely from the adhesive property of the fixed-oil content.
The fixed oils will emulsify readily with water, which qualification is also retained after the mixture or compounding of the fixed oil with the mineral oil. This property of a compounded oil is utilised to advantage where oil stains on fabrics, due to carelessness in handling the lubricant, must be removed by washing and scouring. Mineral-oil stains, if set by time or oxidised by sunlight, cannot be eliminated from fabrics by any scouring method.
This emulsifying property of compounded oils is also utilised where continuous operation is demanded and where adverse operating conditions, causing overheating of the bearing, are relieved through the application of water… Water which reaches the bearing surface, instead of washing away the oil film, produces a rich oily emulsion or lather of exceptional lubricating value.
The greater adhesiveness of a compounded oil is also of value under severe service conditions, where a heavy-bodied mineral oil is too thick to be distributed in a complete oil film, and where the use of a lighter-bodied compounded oil will assure the correct formation of the oil film and satisfy lubrication requirements.
Bearings vary in size from small to very large; they run at speeds from slow to extremely high: they operate under temperatures from below zero F. (—18 deg. C) to 300 deg. F. (150 deg. C.) and over; and pressures range from light to abnormal. In every plant and on individual machines there are many bearings, on which the method of supply varies from hand oiling to circulation systems, in other words, from the crudest method to the most refined. In different industries the same machines are subjected to different service; some subject to water contamination, others subject to the presence of dirt and impurities.
Because of the many complexities and influencing factors, it is impossible to lay down simple rules, arbitrary specifications or other rule-of thumb methods, for the selection of oils. The correctness of an oil can be judged only by the actual service that it renders under the existing conditions of practice. For this reason, broad experience is essential in order that the correct selection of the most suitable lubricant can be made.
Correct lubrication may be regarded to-day as a science. Just as the chemist knows what results will follow the mixing of two substances under known conditions, so the fully-informed lubrication engineer can foretell what results will be the effect of applying a given lubricant to a bearing subjected to known mechanical and operating conditions.
Incorrect analysis of the factors influencing lubrication, failure to observe the true conditions, and lack of knowledge of the correct lubricants, necessarily lead to incorrect lubrication; and the penalties are troubles, wear and repairs,
Bearing troubles may make themselves known in a number of ways, each trouble resulting from one or more of several causes.
Hot bearings, eccentrics and guides, generally indicate excessive frictional losses. The temperature rise may be excessive, leading to further troubles, such as seizure of the bearing surfaces, the melting of the bearing metal and damage to the journal. A knock in the bearing may be the result of too great clearance, due to wear or improper adjustment or due to the need of a heavier oil than that in use. Rapid wear of bearings and journals may call for frequent repairs and renewals, or may cause the parts of the machine to run out of proper alignment. Unnecessary friction may be observed through an increase in the power that is demanded to operate the machinery.
An Interesting Workshops Scene.
The last two locomotives (W.W. 645 and Ab. 714) to be delivered from the old workshops at Petone. Locomotive building and repairs are now carried out at the Department's up-to-date workshops in the Hutt Valley.
A complete oil film is known to be the great essential of correct lubrication. Hence, incorrect lubrication which leads to troubles is due to conditions that interfere with the formation and maintenance of an effective oil film.
The causes of bearing troubles may be classified under the following six heads:—(1) Incorrect structure of the bearing, as influenced by materials, design, workmanship, adjustment and wear. (2) Excessive pressures, resulting from misalignment, heavy belt pull, or overload of the machine beyond its designed capacity. (3) Temperature extremes, resulting from surrounding conditions, hot or cold, or from frictional heat and deficient radiation. (4) Contamination of the lubricant before or during use in the bearing. (5) Incorrect methods and practices of lubrication. (6) Unsuitable lubricant for the conditions.
(To be continued.)
Station Gardens in Canterbury
Results of Competition for 1929
Wins for Rakaia and Dunsandel.
With a view to giving additional encouragement to staffs in the Canterbury District who have, for some years, improved the appearance of their stations by maintaining attractive gardens, and to promoting interest in beautifying activities at other stations, the Canterbury Horticultural Society has associated itself with the Railway Department in arrangements for an annual station garden competition. The Society has been presented with a valuable challenge cup trophy by Mr. L., B. Hart for competition among railway station staffs for the best kept gardens in the Canterbury District. In addition to the challenge trophy, the Society has kindly offered to donate a number of prizes for gardens showing special merit.
Won By The Rakaia Station Staff, 1929.
The challenge cup trophy presented by Mr. L. B. Hart for annual competition for the best kept station garden in the Canterbury district.
The Society has also kindly offered to give stations any information which will assist in establishing and stocking a garden and will also supply each station entering for the competition a free copy of its monthly magazine “The City Beautiful.” This publication contains a great deal of information useful to those interested in the cultivation of flower gardens.
The conditions are as follows:—
1. To gardens established prior to 31st March, 1929, challenge cup to be held by the successful station for one year; also a miniature replica of the cup to be held permanently by the successful station.
2. For gardens established since 31st March, 1929. Cash prizes.
Judging will be done by members of the Society about the end of January each year, points to be awarded under the following headings:—General arrangement and effect; order and neatness; succession of blooms; special features; colour, etc.
During the closing months of the 1929 season, the competition aroused keen interest among members of the staff at a number of stations throughout the Canterbury district, resulting in many beautiful displays at the various competing stations. Stations which, hitherto, presented a rather drab appearance were attractively laid out in neat garden plots with lawns, rose beds, and rambler roses, flowering shrubs, beds of annuals, rockeries and other garden features which completely transformed the station environs into a blaze of colour and wealth of perfume. As seen from passing trains, these station gardens are most pleasing to the eye and add greatly to the pleasure of train travel. The recent displays in Canterbury elicited much favourable comment from members of the travelling public and from public bodies and individuals whose business brings them into contact with the stations concerned.
The judging of district railway station gardens in the initial year of the competition for
The competing stations were in two divisions:—A, those with gardens established prior to March, 1929, and B, those gardens commenced since that date. In each case the maximum number of marks was 100. In the A division, Rakaia station (stationmaster Mr. D. Finlay), 73 points, was placed first, and Heath-cote (Mr. E. Davidson), 70 points, second.
In the B division, Dunsandel (Mr. W. A. Breach), 61 points, secured first award, and Belfast (Mr. H. E. Pittaway) 56 points, second place. The garden at Ladbrooks, a small station in charge of a tablet porter, was highly commended.
The judges were Messrs. H. L. Darton, W. J. Humm, and J. Gilpin, together with the acting-District Railway Traffic Manager, Mr. B. R. Sword. There were four competitors in the A, and three in the B division.
“
I think I am quite wicked with roses. I like to gather them, and smell them till they have no scent left.“
—George Eliot.
A glimpse of the pretty rose garden at the Balclutha Station, Southland, New Zealand.
Mr. Darton said that the judges had been highly pleased with the evidence they saw of fruitful efforts to beautify the stations of the district. Points had been given for order and neatness, the successful rotation of flowers in season, and special features. All competitors scored highly for order and neatness.
At Rakaia the weeping elms on the platform and the nikau palms formed an attractive basis of ornamentation. Dunsandel made a brave showing, and the rock garden at Belfast commanded admiration. Heathcote, with its favoured climate, promised to be one of the most attractive stations in the future.
The station garden movement which is being taken up with much enthusiasm by station staffs throughout New Zealand is a commendable one and is destined to achieve far-reaching results in the general betterment of our railways.
)Tangiwai .
The man who owns a hundred acres or so of the good levels of Matamata, on the Waikato-Rotorua railway line, is on a first-rate paying wicket. It beats any goldmine for regular returns. These sage remarks are prompted by the announcement by the Matamata Chamber of Commerce that the output of four dairy companies within half-a-dozen miles radius of the local post office totalled almost £1,000,000 last season.
Certainly not even Taranaki can better the income from a similar area of cow country. Not long ago the writer visited a little Matamata Plains farm, just a hundred acres. The owner proudly said: “There's not a yard of waste land here; every acre's working.” He had a hundred cows, and made a very good living out of the property; had a motor-car for himself and his wife, and the boys of the family had their own car and found plenty of time to use it after attending to the duties of the day.
A member of an acclimatisation society has been urging that New Zealanders should plant native trees wherever possible, and especially berry-bearing trees, for the sake of the native birds. Certainly it is time someone took up the cause of these vanishing sweet singers of our forests, in the matter of food supply. Look at many of our public parks, planted with that depressing and altogether miserable pinus insignis or with bluegums and wattles—anything but our New Zealand trees. There is a valley not far from where I write, a city park, filled with Australian eucalyptus—“a ragged penury of shade”—not a New Zealand tree raising its graceful head in the alien company. The valley could have been made a Maori-bush glade of cool beauty, a glen of a score of forest tintings and with food-trees that would resound with the notes of the tui and maybe the bell-bird, for our native birds are soon attracted to a place where their accustomed berries are plentiful.
Fortunately there is an increasing interest in this country in the preservation of our birds, and land-owners in many places preserve patches of native timber not only for shelter, but for the sake of the pretty bush creatures. An example of this I noted some time back on the road between Rotorua and Tauranga. At Ngawaro, in the partly-cleared rough country half-way to the coast, an owner has planted many miro trees in a suitable area, in order to provide food for the pigeons and other birds. The tawa tree, too, the kahikatea, the pohutu-kawa, the kotukutuku and even the native flax all attract the birds, especially the tui and the bellbird. Sometimes these birds reappear in numbers in a district from which they had apparently vanished, as soon as the berry trees and the honey blossoms they like are provided for them.
The miro especially brings its bush birds to pay for their board with their cooings and bell notes.
It is a wonderful geological story the Hinuera Valley has to tell, that ancient waterway along which one motors between Mata-mata station and the rail-head at Cambridge. It is a smooth-floored valley with vertical walls of columnar rock of volcanic origin, extending from about Horahora—where the hydro-electric works are—on the Waikato river above Cambridge, into the Upper Waihou Valley. It is easy to read the history of that strange valley (correctly it should be spelled Hinuwera), as revealed in its peculiar contour and its dark cave-riddled cliffy palisade. In past ages the Waikato river flowed through this gorge into the Upper Waihou and thence to the Hauraki Gulf.
This is but one of the chapters in Waikato's varied history. At a later period the western ranges, where Ngaruawahia now is, deflected it eastward over the Piako flats. The Manga-whara Creek, that sluggish stream you cross in the train at Taupiri station, indicates its ancient course before some convulsion of the earth opened for it a niche in the hills through
Waiareka Railway Junction, South Island, N.Z.
The interesting feature of this junction is that the railway line is several feet below the station buildings.
The Maori was as fond as any Pakeha of borrowing foreign names that took his fancy. Seventy years or so back there were numerous “Californias” here. In the heart of Waikato, on the famous battlefield of Orakau there is the hill called “Kareponia” after the goldfield where even Maoris tried their luck in the ‘fifties. This California was a wheat-field, and flour was sent all the way to Auckland, and some was bought for shipping to San Francisco.
The people of Orakau and Parawera and the vicinity adopted the name of California into their language. It may be heard to-day among some Maori sub-tribes on the old Waikato frontier line, a curious strictly local usage. When a person calls from a distance and awaits a reply, and when it is necessary to call loudly and throw the voice across, say, a gully or a river, or to someone upon a hilltop, one may hear the expression used: “Kia kare ponia to reo,” meaning, “Let your voice be as California,” i.e., let it be penetrating and carry as far as from here to California.
The Wondrous West Coast.
“Charm of Franz Josef.”
It would be difficult to imagine a more effective method of arousing interest in the wonders of the West Coast of the South Island than the pleasingly got up and informative folder just issued by the Publicity Branch of the New Zealand Railways. Not only does it create interest by its well-chosen and admirably reproduced photographs of alpine, bush and river scenery, and by its lucid and interestingly written letterpress, but it also awakens a strong desire to see scenes so alluringly pictured and described. In short, “Charm of Franz Josef, New Zealand,” as the folder is entitled, effectively fulfills the object of such publications.
The cover, the factor that makes the first appeal to those taking up the folder, is most attractive, and depicts the Franz Josef Glacier, Westland's wondrous ice-river, set in an enchanting framework of forest and tree ferns; with the eternal snow-capped mountains as a fitting background. “On the Woodland Way to Franz Josef Glacier” is the first full-page illustration, and it conveys a splendid idea of the glorious mixture of bush and mountain, river and sea, which characterises the scenery of a great part of the route. Other illustrations picture the Waiho Hotel, a party of tourists on the glacier, visitors indulging in ski-ing and other snow sports on the vast snowfield at the head of the glacier, Lake Matheson, with its mirror-like reflection of Mounts Cook and Tasman and the terminal of the Fox Glacier, and a view of Staircase Gully viaduct and of the rugged scenery of the Waimakariri. These two last-mentioned illustrations suggest that the New Zealander does not need to travel to Canada, or any other part of the world, to witness scenery of surpassing grandeur.
The letterpress is by that well-known New Zealand penman, Mr. James Cowan, whose talents as a descriptive writer are here displayed on a subject to which he does adequate justice in an easy, flowing style that captivates the reader's interest and keeps it from the opening to the final words.
The Publicity Branch of the New Zealand Railways is to be warmly congratulated on the production of an excellent piece of work, which must result in making the charm of Westland's scenery and the attractions of the Franz Josef Glacier more widely known. Not only New Zealanders, but tourists from all parts of the world, will find the folder interesting and valuable, not only as an informative publication, but also as one artistically effective.—(From the N.Z. Traveller.)
Told ByLeo Fanning
He who believes firmly in the freehold of land regards an agitation for leasehold as a mischievous fad. In the view of the leasehold theorist the practical freeholder is an unreasoning, selfish, conservative hobbyist.
* * *
A cynical French philosopher wrote to the effect that speech was given to man to conceal his thought. Some of the loquacity of public speakers rather gives an impression that the speeches are concealing a lack of thought.
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A proverb which alleges that “all things come to him who waits” has two words missing—“and works.” The things which come to him who waits, without working, are the common and the uncommon cold, very large doses or douches of hope deferred, and the order of the boot and the sack. With that proverb you have to take about a dozen others, of which one is “Patience and perseverance conquer all things,” or in the modern vernacular: “Persistence gets there,” or “Hustle does it.”
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One of the men most to be pitied is he who believes that the public is just a multiplication of himself, with the same likes and dislikes. Against this kind of self-deception shrewd editors of magazines and newspapers have to be ever on guard. An editor who lacks a sense of humour and believes that the public has the same defect is headed for trouble.
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Man's belief that he is the natural overlord of the world is not admitted by the animals; indeed they often fiercely dispute the claim; and even the insects have very emphatic opposing opinions on that question. The truth is that each species of beast, bird, and insect believes that the world exists for itself, and that the other creatures are trespassers, intruders, nuisances. We know what the farmer thinks of the rabbit, but what does the rabbit think of the farmer? What is the rabbit's view of the world? To the rabbit it is a region where some places are better for burrows and herbage than others; a region which would be much more pleasant for rabbits if foxes, ferrets, hawks, human beings, and other undesirables could be excluded?
* * *
New Zealand's kiwi is threatened now with extinction because ages ago this bird's ancestry—by a queer oversight of Nature—lacked an enemy. If dogs, stoats, weasels, and other enemies had been here in the dim past, the birds would not have lost their power of flight. The kiwi, nocturnal, hidden away in the dense depths of the forest, felt safe. How was it to know that dogs and other intruders would come and make it pay the penalty for the ancestral disuse of wings?
* * *
With cables, wireless, and other inventions, the world has much equipment to-day for the making of better understanding and goodwill among the nations, but, alas, the same machinery can be used as actively for evil as for good. The highly-specialised and thoroughly-organised arts and crafts of propaganda can quickly make much mischief, which is only slowly undone—and may not be wholly undone in the course of a generation. The maintenance of the world's peace will not be nearly so dependent on the present League of Nations or on a much
* * *
Looking back over the past eight or nine years, with their occasional booms and slumps, some thoughtful New Zealanders with a fair knowledge of their country's resources—a wonderful dower of natural wealth for a small population—must be surely amazed by the increasing disposition in this Dominion to sink into sloughs of pessimism. Here we are with a country capable of maintaining ten millions of people in comfort (if the people will do the right measure of work), but let butter slide back for a season, or tallow tell a tale of decline, or wool have less pull, and “God's Own Country” is alleged to be going to the dogs or the devil. Out comes somebody's periodic pitiless pill for the body politic, and the brows of bank managers are clouded with dark care. Such things are spectacles to make angels weep and devils grin.
* * *
New Zealand has an enthusiasm for health, education, and material comfort. The colleges are turning out engineers for the world at large,
Samples Of New Zealand Railways Permanent Way.
Some recent points and crossings work carried out at East Town Workshops, North Island, for Palmerston North Yards.
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Fragrance of ferny earth in New Zealand's forests amid the murmurs of rills and the wild melody of the tui! It makes the tired mind forget telephones, wireless, motors, speeches, lectures, and other oppressions of civilisation. In the verdant woods things sort themselves into their proper perspective. If councils, leagues, federations, and other bodies would only hold their sessions in freedom, how thankful the public would be!
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A Tin Day should be proclaimed against the picnicker who is known to have desecrated a place of beauty with a litter of tins, bottles, paper and fruit skins. On Tin Day the burgesses of the vandal's neighbourhood would be privileged to heave into his premises old or new tins, bottles (whole or broken), scrap iron, and other useless hardware. Not many Tin Days would be needed to check the vandalism.
Wit And HumourThe night was dark and the hour late as a solitary wayfarer passed along the deserted street. Was it deserted, though? No!—three slinking figures emerged from the shadows, marked their prey, and then attacked him.
Three to one is powerful odds, but the wayfarer held his own. One by one his assailants landed with a thud on the ground, battered and bruised, their clothing torn.
The Wail-Way And The Rail-Way.
Motor Cyclist: “What's the best way to Trentham Racecourse?“
Disgusted Motorist: “By rail—eh!”
A policeman hurried up and surveyed the wreckage.
“Fine work!” he said, addressing the hero, who was calmly lighting a cigarette. “Ju-jitsu?”
“No,” answered the other. “Railway porter.”
* * *
Mr. Richman: “Do you like the place? Shall we buy it?”
His Wife: “Oh, it's perfectly lovely! The view from this balcony is so fine that it leaves me speechless.”
Mr. Richman: “Then we'll buy it.”
* * *
Foreman: “Here now, Murphy, what about carrying some bricks?”
Murphy: “I ain't feelin’ well, guv'nor, I'm trembling all over.”
Foreman: “Well, then, lend a hand with the sieve.”
Sir William Scott wrote Ivanhoe and Emulsion.
Charles Ii. told the people they could get drunk or gamble, or do what they liked. This was called the Restoration.
The cold at the North Pole is so great that the towns there are not inhabited.
The Duke of Marlborough was a great general, who always commenced a battle determined to win or lose.
* * *
Passenger (to negro porter while on train for New York): “What time do we get to New York, Sam?”
Porter: “We is due to get there at 1.15; but if you has your watch set by Eastern time it would be 2.15, and, of co'se if you is goin' by daylight saving time it would be 3.15, unless we is an hour an’ fifty minutes late—which we is.“—Santa Fe Railway Magazine.
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The latest definition of rigid economy.—A dead Scotsman.
* * *
Another one is about the Scotsman who paid twenty shillings for a twenty-minute sightseeing trip in an aeroplane. While he was up there he tried to persuade the pilot to try for the endurance record.
Conducted bySheila G. Marshall
Out of the Night
The man trudged along—his shoulders slouching forward and his feet dragging heavily—still he walked on in a kind of dogged animal stupor. The night wind ruffled his black, untidy hair and drenched his brown face with a salty mist—his ragged coat flapped forlornly behind him—leaving his strong hairy chest bare to the breeze. On his back was a pack which looked heavy, even for his massive shoulders, and he clutched in his big hand a powerful notched stick.
There was nothing remarkable about this man who walked there through the night. He was neither tall nor short, neither old nor young—neither very ugly nor very prepossessing. He was quite an ordinary looking fellow—but in his very blue Irish eyes was a kind of fierce unconquerable misery—as though he were always fighting against overwhelming odds—and always losing. I have seen that very look in the dull eyes of an old draft horse pulling a load up a steep hill on a broiling day—a look of patient suffering and infinite sadness. But in these Irish eyes there glowed still the fire of youth—of hot blood and keen determination. His mother had never liked them—“Davie has kind of mad eyes,” she used to say—“they fair give me the creeps!”
He walked as if impelled by some unseen force—his hands thrust behind him—his eyes—those fierce, sad, animal eyes fixed upon the jagged horizon. Never once did he look to the right nor the left though the sun was setting in a stormy blaze of gold. The man began to hurry as fast as his awful weariness would allow him.
“Confound the night!” he said, for he was no lover of vivid sunsets, but merely a man with a goal to be reached as soon as possible—with a definite object before him. He reminded one of a dog who has been ordered home and is dead to the promptings of all instincts—the lure of all side tracks.
Night fell with that almost incredible swiftness so characteristic of New Zealand countrysides — night moonless, caressingly black and kindly, enveloping—a heavy impenetrable blanket.
Nothing ahead—nothing behind—nothing on either side or overhead, but something very solid beneath—the hard clay and the green grass. Our man—if he had known how to pray—would have offered thanks to Mother Earth. Instead, being very largely animal and child, he wanted to bury his face in the kindly soil and shut out the awful void of darkness. But on he walked and the hours slipped by as they always will.
Suddenly he knew that he was nearly there. Up went his head, back went his shoulders—he almost ran down the gently sloping hill-side. Ahead in the blackness he fancied he saw a
Native Melody On Alien Instrument.
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
New Zealand Maori playing the Jew's Harp.
Familiarly but gropingly — eagerly, he went up the overgrown path—sometimes waist high in brambles and tall, strange grasses. Then he came to the orchard and the moon broke timidly through the blackness—revealing the soft shining roundness of apples. In his ecstasy he seized one and kissed it passionately. We must forgive him for he had been long away, and just beyond the laden trees where he had romped as a boy lay the home of his childhood—“The Brow” as it had been called by the surrounding farmers because of its position on the hill. It had been a magnificent old homestead in the days when Gregory St. Clare had lived there and brought up his children within its kindly walls. St. Clare had bought his land from the Maoris “for a song” and established the wealthy station, built “The Brow”—married and settled there.
All that was many years ago—the family of St. Clare had quickly “gone to the dogs”—the land had been bought by an enterprising farmer who had built a bungalow there and left the old homestead deserted. One of the St. Clare boys, Gerald, he employed as a shepherd—the others had disappeared after spending the enormous wealth bequeathed to them by old Gregory. They had no love of the land and they cleared off as quickly as they could. The man whom we have followed through the night was John St. Clare—an utter failure in the game of life—who, “down and out,” had come to visit his brother Jerry—the shepherd. First he wanted to wander through the old rooms of “The Brow” before he went down to the bungalow and saw “old Jerry.” He thrust aside the greedy creepers and stood upon the rickety verandah in the darkness. The front door stood open — showing in the moon-light the wide hall half full of thistles and weeds and indescribable filth. He felt a swift pang of misery as he recalled its former lofty magnificence. Over the debris he crept among the shadows and moonbeams to the great staircase—rising into the blackness above. For a moment he leant wearily against the massive bannisters thinking of the days when he and his brothers had spent many an hour sliding joyously upon them. Then he began to climb—over the brambles, up—up. He wanted to see the nursery. Was that picture of “The Holy Grail” still on the schoolroom wall—how he had loved it! And the big window seat where Julian and Joan, the twins, had read their books by the hour. Julian and been killed in a brawl in a public house in Mexico and Joan—had disappeared.
Now he stood in the upstairs passage remembering how, as a little boy, he had been terrified by the rows of closed doors and how Jerry had sometimes accompanied him to bed although he was older and allowed another hour of noisy play in the orchard.
There was the nursery door—ajar at the end of the passage—John St. Clare stole in like a frightened child—trembling—eager. He could hear the shouts of Jerry behind the door—he could see Joan and Julian curled up in the window seat—and although the old room was quite empty he could see a crowded tea table in
Next morning Jerry St. Clare—mustering sheep in a nearby paddock, fancied he heard a strange sound from the “Brow.” He dismounted—stood motionless on the verandah—paralysed with fear—for up above he heard shouts of wild laughter—peal upon peal.
They found John in the nursery, playing soldiers on the floor with sticks and laughing horribly. He had gone mad—“Poor chap,” they said, “the St. Clares were always a queer lot—bad eggs!”
A few years later Jerry died and the old “Brow” stands there still—weathering storm after storm—filled with shadows and echoes of children's voices.
* * *
Longer Frocks
Have they come to stay? Last year only the very “ultra” girl appeared in a high waisted frock with a much longer skirt—but now it seems that they are not only going to stay but are the thing for this summer. No more ugly knees! And very very few girls can afford to show them. The longer skirt is much more graceful and becoming—and for dance dresses is quite essential. Nothing looks more “unfinished” and awkward than a short and skimpy evening frock—you will all agree with me here. While you are dancing they have a habit of creeping up and up and when you are sitting down there are no divine fluffy billows to shake out round you—no alluring filmy flounces. Definitely dance frocks this season are long and flowing, sometimes even touching the ground at the back—while waists are rising. Some of the latest evening frocks present quite a Victorian appearance but they are wonderfully graceful and comfortable and make one scorn the wretched little short tight skirt of a year ago.
Our day frocks are also to be longer—two inches below the knees—dwellers in “Windy Wellington” will be glad to hear this—costumes and coats with longer skirts and more freedom as to width. Remember this when you are planning your wardrobe, for the winter—and although “black and white” is going to be the rage this season—consider that few girls can really wear black. If you are pale and dark don't even think of yourself in black—turn to the greens and reds and blues.
Growing your Hair
Everyone seems to be doing it now, but in my opinion very few will persevere because it is such a nuisance to grow. What is the benefit of long hair? Many (especially men) think that a woman shorn of her “crowning glory” is devoid of any attraction whatsoever. They shrug their superior shoulders and make the best of it, and now they hail with great joy the rumour that woman, the ever capricious—has decided to grow her locks once more. You will find that although a number of us are enduring the discomfort of a growing mane—yet the majority are still in favour of the shingle and the bob—and in my opinion always will be. Before you decide to be ahead of the fashion consider the question carefully. Perhaps you think that long hair really suits you better, but as a general rule—girls always look just as attractive with a shingle. And think of the nuisance of brushing and washing—of buying hats—of hair-pins! How antique they sound—reminiscent of crinolines and bustles. The girl with flowing tresses thinks twice about a plunge in the sea before dinner and we can't blame her. From all points of view the shingle and the bob are sensible, attractive and healthy. In this modern age we haven't a minute to waste—simplicity is our slogan and common sense and comfort our watchwords—the glory of a heavy mass of shining hair must be a thing of the past. But because we have made this sacrifice upon the altars of comfort and relinquished what has always been considered by the poets our greatest beauty—there is no earthly reason why our hair—or what we still have of it—should not be beautiful. The great temptation of short hair is to neglect it—a quick run of the comb and we are tidy and satisfied, while the brush which played such an important part in the toilets of our mothers—lies neglected on the dressing-table. We can't hope to have soft shining shingles and bobs if we are content with a hasty combing or if we are stupid enough to have our hair waved so that we are afraid to brush it. Far better to have beautiful straight hair than dull half-dead waves. This fad of the “water-wave” will soon die, and it is just as well. In my opinion if nature endowed you with curls, so much the better—but otherwise stick to your straight mop. Brush it thoroughly twice a day, don't wash it two or three times a week, and for goodness sake don't grow it. Perhaps in the years to be poets and painters will be worshipping deities with shining shingles!
Camping
“Breathes there a man with soul so dead” who can resist the lure of summer? Can anyone turn a deaf ear to the call of the seagulls—to the lonely cry of the more-pork—to the joyous chirping of the cicada and the cry of the bell-bird from the green depths of the forest? Is it possible that any human being can close his eyes to the coolness of the trees, the blueness of the waters—the stretches of golden sand, the calm pale stars in the blackness of the heavens? At this time of the year our eyes ache at the sight of magnificent buildings—the sound of the tram car makes us shudder and the smell of hot asphalt and dusty offices fills us with disgust. Originally we belong to the forests and the “wide, open spaces” and always there is in our blood a wander-lust—an unquenchable craving for a closer contact with nature—with whom we fought so keenly in our early civilization—whom we have almost conquered—but for whom we still yearn as a child longs for its mother in the appalling blackness of a stormy night. Haven't you often felt a wild restlessness in your blood—a longing to cast off the trappings and conventions of society and to live once more in a rocky cave? True the cave would be much more comfortable with electric light and water laid on—in fact we should demand this—but what I really mean is that deep down in our hearts is a desire to be closer to nature. Perhaps once a year we can satisfy this hunger for two or three weeks. We may be doomed to spend eleven months in a tidy, busy office on the fifth floor of a cool, clean building—returning to a little house in a neat row of little houses—but for a brief while we may escape from this comfortable mediocracy and pitch our tent “far from the madding crowd” by some chattering, sobbing stream in the heart of our country's glorious bush—or on the rugged, wild coast. We will cook our meals round the camp fire—we will eat heaps of dirt, drink smoky tea, burn our hands, cut our feet, suffer countless mosquito bites, and sleep, God knows where—but how happy we will be! We will feel like a prisoner when the doors are flung open and the world and all that it means rushes before him. Of course we have to go back again to the city where Smith differs from Jones only in that he takes sugar in his tea whereas Jones does not—and of course we are contented enough while we are there. As a rule we are too busy to be otherwise—but sometimes when the sad moon smiles down upon the sleeping city and the roofs of the closely-packed houses shine in the soft whiteness of her light—we feel a longing to be away from it all—out under the stars.
We pitch our tent beneath the friendly trees—we have a serious and prolonged discussion as to the best place for it—we finally come to a decision, and hey presto! there is our little home—cosy and inviting with our bed of piled-up manuka waiting to receive our weary limbs. We cook weird and wonderful things. A delicious fragrance mounts up to the night—the moths flutter round our fire—the ‘possums peer down—attracted by the smell and the sight of these queer creatures squatting round the warmth. Then we all light cigarettes and lie in the glow of the fire—talking softly while the owls cry in the distance and the winds rustle leaves overhead. This is the life!
The Young Engineer.
“Who can foretell for what high cause, this darling of the gods was born?”
A Great Athlete Visits New Zealand.
(Rly. Publicity Photo.)
The start and the finish of an interesting race. Dr. O. Peltzer, the world-famous runner, wins the 880 yards handicap at Wellington, N.Z., on 8th February. (Inset: Dr. O. Peltzer.)