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The Department arranged (as from Monday, 16th May) to provide the north-bound and south-bound expresses between Auckland-Whangarei-Opua with all steam-heated cars. This improved arrangement for the comfort of passengers has been made possible by the recent reorganisation of Main Trunk services, and other improvements recently effected.
“He's Britain's boast, and claims a toast!”—Eliza Cook.
(Photos, Rly. Publicity and “Evening Post.”) (1) H.M.S. Diomede at Wellington; (2) three British Admirals—(from left); Vice-Admiral Sir Frederick Field. Admiral Sir Hubert Brand, and Admiral of the Fleet, Viscount Jellicoe (snapped at Napier in 1924); (3) Captain Burges Watson and Rear-Admiral Blake inspecting the ship's company at Wellington; (4) H.M.S. Dunedin and Diomede at Clyde Quay wharf, Wellington; (5) marines entraining at Wellington for camp at Trentham; (6) on the march at Trentham.
As the British Navy made possible the development of the British Mercantile Marine, so the railways of the Empire have made possible the development and maintenance of trade and industry in the lands that fly the British flag. Thus the railways have a very definite interest in the Navy—they are both solid links in the chain that holds the Empire so strongly together. It was doubtless because they were felt to play so important a part in Empire development that so many of the British Dominions undertook the State ownership of their railways. Even where this has not been done, the State has usually retained a vital interest, by means of land grants and other privileges, in the building of privately-owned lines of national importance, and thus has them available for assisting development in time of peace as well as immediately convertible to the use of the State in time of war.
In Canada, Africa, India, Australia, and New Zealand colonisation has been consolidated and trade extended by railway lines opening up to the seaways fertile areas suitable for settlement from which a beneficent circle of exchange has developed. British workshops were kept busy for many decades making the rails and supplying the rolling stock for newly opened countries, and when the settlement and primary production which inevitably followed had reached the exporting stage, the British market was the most open in the world for the disposal of such products.
In his “Romance of the C.P.R.” R. G. MacBeth states that the Canadian Pacific Railway “was particularly the outcome of a new national consciousness in Canada, arising out of confederation, and it was designed with the special idea of knitting the older parts of Canada in the east with the newer provinces and territory which were growing up in the wide west, and which would some day form an integral part of a Dominion whose western border would rest on the Pacific tide.”
It is just such a consciousness of Empire unity which lies at the root of most of the important railways which gird the other British Dominions.
Primary production is still the main business of New Zealand, and Great Britain the main market for our products, while the Navy remains the guarantee for the safe conveyance of commodities exchanged round half the globe between this Dominion and the Mother Country. With an increasing consciousness of their inter-dependence has come to British communities a spirit of mutual helpfulness that may do much at Ottawa and after to stimulate inter-Empire trade, to “make sure to each his own, that he reap where he has sown” and to encourage trade with kith and kin as an essential element in the well-being of the Empire. Such a consummation will do much to bring to the railways of the Empire that additional business which they are equipped to handle and on the handling of which depends the possibility of an adequate financial return upon the British capital invested in them.
In a statement made in Auckland on 25th May, Mr. H. H. Sterling, Chairman of the Government Railways Board, said that the policy of the Board in cheapening fares had been successful.
“The Board has appreciated the fact that to attract business under present conditions, services require to be down to bedrock as regards price,” said Mr. Sterling. On the goods side, the Board found that much had already been done to bring charges to a level that would themselves attract business. On the passenger side, the Board found that the experiment had been tried of increasing railway fares in order to increase the revenue, but it had come to the conclusion that a policy of cheapening fare was worthy of a trial, not only from a competitive point of view, but from the broad national aspect of making the people's service accessible to people of limited income.
“As was announced some time ago, a reduction of fares was decided on,” said Mr. Sterling, “and the experience so far indicates that the Board's action in that connection has been appreciated not only by an accession of passenger business in the face of a severe general depression, but also in an accession of good will, resulting from a general appreciation of the Board's idea of providing transport to suit the pockets of the people.
“As I have already indicated,” continued Mr. Sterling, “the Board in its policy of rigid economy has kept a careful eye on the standard of service. Facilities for rapid transport of goods and parcels are being afforded on every hand. On the passenger side the policy of running excursion trains at bedrock rates has been further developed, while the comfort of passengers has been met by the provision of more up-to-date cars and improvement in the seating of present rolling stock.”
Efficient Service in Flood Time.
The Department maintained its regular bus service between Napier and Hastings during the recent period of flood. The snaps shew (above) a 33-seater bus on the Napier-Hastings road, and (below) a 20-seater bus passing a lorry with a party of footballers on board, the lorry being stranded in the flood waters. A paragraph relating to the maintenance of the above services during the flood period appears on page 17.
Despite the generally depressed condition of industry and trade, the Department is still able to show a steady improvement in its net revenue position. How long this can continue will depend largely upon the general course followed by the external trade of the Dominion, and in this respect the outcome of the Ottawa Conference is of considerable moment to the railways of this country. The improvement referred to above has been effected partly by a lower-fare policy, but chiefly by very heavy economies in expenditure, amounting to nearly £1 ⅔ millions in the past eighteen months. This source cannot be tapped indefinitely. There is an irreducible minimum in the cost of railway operating as the essential factors of safety and efficiency have to be steadfastly maintained. Substantial net gains may be looked for, however, if a trade revival sets in, for the railways are now ready to carry a substantially augmented passenger and freight traffic without adding materially to the cost of operating. Hence the possibility of improved Empire markets for New Zealand's primary products appears to be the main present hope for further improvement in the railway position here.
The passenger situation is becoming better stabilised as a result of the operations of the Transport Act. Freight traffic, however, is a difficult problem at present owing to competitive conditions under which the Railways as “common carriers” are at a disadvantage with road competitors who, while giving no general “common carrier” service, are eagerly catering for parcels of traffic which look tempting—easy to handle, available in bulk lots, etc.—and which the Railways depend upon to balance those other classes of traffic—difficult to handle, capable of paying only a low freight, available only in small lots, etc.—which they carry as part of their transport service to the Dominion. This uneconomic competition “rocks the boat,” cuts across the lines of any scientific adjustment in rates, and is not in the best interests of the people as a whole.
Meanwhile it is good to have such frequent evidence, as the information that reaches me from all sources presents, that the attention and courtesy of the staff as a whole is meeting with general public approval and commendation. To deserve patronage is one of the surest ways to obtain it, and the courteous and helpful attitude of the staff towards the clients of the Department has been an important feature in securing recently much new business for the Railways.
General Manager.
Pageant of Empire—Foreign Tariff Walls—To Ottawa for Cure—Swollen Interest—An Anglo-New Zealander.
Not only an Empire event, but a world event, will be staged when the Imperial Conference meets at Ottawa. Never before has an Imperial Conference been held in the presence of a Western world divided as to-day into gold and non-gold (mostly sterling) countries, and never has such a Conference been held in the pit of a deep depression—so deep that the pricefall has increased the annual burden of borrowers by at least 30 per cent. And although every Imperial Conference has had tariffs more or less before it, not one has seen the small States of civilisation so over-tariffed as now, and certainly none has contemplated the significant fact of the new tariff in Britain.
So many new starting points may lead to new decisions. Forced off the gold standard and free-trade, foiled in her European campaign for such tariff reductions as will give her goods a secure place in the markets of the post-war “Balkanised” Europe, and weary of trying to help trade by “temporary loans” to Greek and other defaulters, the Mother Country turns with a new mind towards the possibility of reassuring intra-Empire tariffs on a reciprocal trading basis, which may mean a planned redistribution of industries throughout the Empire, each unit specialising in what suits it. Reasoned schemes of tariff preferences no longer collide with the free-trade stone wall. Depression has so smitten both free-trade and super-tariffism that there is room for compromise.
Geography gave the Americans half a continent in which to expand—an almost self-contained land. The States were fairly sure to remain a free-trade unit provided that they remained a political unit; and Abraham Lincoln saw to that. Result—high tariffed U.S.A. has a no-tariff home market of about 140 million people! But Geography gave Britain a far-flung Empire totally without territorial continuity, and mostly allowed to grow up in the atmosphere of its own several tariffs. If the Empire now can be brought together on a basis of low tariff—counter-balancing that great no-tariff internal market of the United States—history will contain no more picturesque page. Canada is geographically part of the American land-mass. She has felt the pull of her great U.S.A. neighbour and of the Empire. And in Canada this epochal Empire Conference is significantly to be held.
It is one thing for Geography to dominate politics as hitherto in the United States. It is another thing for politics to dominate Geography. Have the English-speaking people of the British Empire the political genius to bring into closer trade relationship their geographically sundered lands—also, perhaps, India and the colonies—so as to give practical meaning to the principle that “the sea unites, it does not divide”? At a time when politics has cut Europe into high-tariffed compartments—a far cry from Briand's “United States of Europe”—have the British Dominions the will and the power to reverse the process? America, Europe, Russia—even Japan and China—are all keen spectators of this great Ottawa pageant.
There are more things than tariffs to compromise about. There are loan burdens. The pricefall has greatly increased the amount of goods that a primary produce exporting country must send to Britain in order to pay 5 per cent. on £100 borrowed. Australian calculators say that if the British lender reduced his rate of interest to 4 per cent. he would still be receiving in commodity value a little more than when he lent the money. They suggest that if the British Government could prepare the British market for a big Treasury conversion the British Government might do likewise for Australian borrowers, particularly as the Commonwealth Government prevented one of the States from defaulting. New Zealand cannot be deaf to these remarks. Sterling developments also open new possibilities in currency.
The assassin's hand has been active in two countries. The murder of the Japanese Premier may mean still greater demerance of the military party in Japan—with increased possibility of clash with China and Russia—but its meaning is obscure at time of writing. The assassination of President Doumer—charged by some people to Russia—may have been due to a personal freak. While no leader is safe from individual crimes, it is good to reflect that so far assassination has not been added to the sufferings that depression has caused in Britain and America. The patience of the British people in the slump years is as great an epic as their fortitude in the Great War. What ruling and governing system anywhere has stood the storm better than the British Crown and Parliament?
Thirty-nine years a resident of New Zealand, and thirty-six years a resident of England, William Pember Reeves died at seventy-five. He began by drafting the New Zealand labour laws of the 'nineties, and finished by being Chairman of the National Bank. He worshipped at the same time at the shrine of the Muse and of the tailoress, for while he was writing in verse “The Passing of the Forest” he was also writing Bills to limit hours in factories and shops. A mind equally at home in New Zealand and London, in the Labour Department of this country and in the London School of Economics, cannot be accused of being “a single track mind.” Owing something to law, a bit more to journalism, still more to politics, and to the economic thought which comes with years, this New Zealander walked calmly down a very varied track of life. His mind also embraced the Near East. He wrote Near East articles, was a Phil-Hellene, and wore Greek orders.
International finance, on which many hopes have been built, recently took on a new form through the League of Nations. It seemed that as a channel through which solvent countries (if there are any) might lend to embarrassed countries, the League might do a great work. The operation, like all other lending, was put forward as a boon to both debtor and creditor. The debtor's buying power would be released for the creditor's goods, and the debtor would pay the interest—somehow. But depression has brought an early breakdown, in that Greece has failed to pay interest on a League-sponsored loan. And now (21st May) Britain has told the League that she will
Contemporary events are not always seen in the clearest light, but it is probable that some day a wonderful book will be written dealing with various credit expedients as tested in the great depression of the years 1929——. Credit extensions in the form of time-payment systems reaching down to humble goods of the home, and (at the other end of the scale) loans to Governments who soon find themselves between the fires of default outside or civil war within, provide an unprecedented field for economic research. The whole story of how the world lent to Germany in order that Germany should repay the world (and pay “reparations”) will one day be told by a writer not excited over whether Dr. Bruening's “can't pay” is merely “won't pay.”
If international “temporary” loans, and the default arising therefrom, are the top story of an extended credit structure, Kreuger's bogus Government bonds are certainly the top note in forgery. When
In The Sunny Hawke's Bay Province.
(Rly. Publicity photo.) Dannevirke, the centre of a rich farming district in the North Island of New Zealand.
When modern civilisation is not counting debts it is concerned with locomotion, particularly with speed. It thrills to see a woman, Mrs. Putnam, of America, fly the North Atlantic solo in record time. It pauses a while to smile over the engagement of such highfliers as Mr. Mollison and Miss Amy Johnson—and it sighs with the disappointed Lady Diana Wellesley. George Endresy, the Hungarian Atlantic flyer who crashed and died en route to Mussolini's conference—Endresy, of “lustre to Hungary” fame!—claims a tear, and the world smiles again when it sees that the Spanish Major Franco, aviator-politician, is too Republican to accept the Duce's invitation.
Pausing, amidst the present disturbed social and economic conditions for a look round, and confining one's vision to a retrospect of the development that has taken place in the Dominion's transport system since the foundation of New Zealand as a British colony in 1840, then following the evolutionary progress of that transport, decade by decade, we are compelled to appreciate the distinctive benefits and advantages which railway communication has conferred upon this Dominion and its people as a whole.
New Zealand's transport requirements, in the first twenty years after its foundation, were served by bullock wagons, horse-drawn vehicles and coastal vessels, these methods serving—perhaps inadequately—to meet the needs of those hardy pioneers who, with a fortitude truly characteristic of the race and worthy of our highest admiration, faced and surmounted the difficulties and discomforts associated with the new land of their adoption.
With the progress of settlement over a period of twenty years the inadequacy and inefficiency of such transport methods became apparent, and the necessity for improvement became dominant, resulting in the inauguration of the first section of railway in the “sixties.”
The genesis of progress is necessity. Hence we visualise the extension of railway enterprise through the next three decades—small sections here and there with the ultimate objective of a main artery—till we arrive at the “nineties,” and then a rapid railway advance is made. Lines are flung far and wide, culminating with to-day's 3,280 miles of railway system. The goal has been attained—the development of this fair land accomplished and the transport needs of its people well and truly served.
True, coastal shipping service has survived and prospered, but horse traction is merely a speck on the horizon—the “iron horse” has taken its place. For practically sixty years steam has held sway, commanding homage from all sections of the community; and the acknowledgment of its power as the principal agency of development, progress and prosperity has been undisputed.
The supremacy of steam power over that of the horse did not occasion resentment, in fact its advent and progress were applauded and appreciated as it supplied benefits hitherto unenjoyed, cheapened the cost of haulage, opened up fresh markets far afield, and in this way expanded industry.
Its institution and advancement was essential to promote prosperity and it can be claimed as the primary and principal factor associated with the welfare of this Dominion to-day.
The commencement of the present century saw the dawn of a new era in transport. Motor power had arrived and although as yet it was in its infancy a potential rival to steam had arisen. Its effect—naturally retarded through the adolescent period—was not apparent till two decades had passed, but from 1920 onwards its advancement as a transport unit was most pronounced. At this period the pride of place held by railway transport was in jeopardy, its right disputed, its value as a social service weakened
Commercial Manager And Staff.
(Rly. Publicity photos.) Mr. D. Rodie, Commercial Manager (centre), and members of the Commercial staff at Railway Headquarters, Wellington. Top (from left) : Messrs. F. K. McKav. F. G. Craig, and A. P. L. Andrew. Below (from left) : Messrs. H. A. Steers and D. S. Broughton.
With the coming of competitive forms of transport traders and travellers were provided with an alternative means of conveyance which caused them to weigh the relative values of the two, not only from the point of view of cost, but also of facility and convenience, to an extent never previously indulged in.
The position that arose was one calling for prompt and expert attention. On the one hand was the Railway Department, the largest organization in the Dominion, selling its commodity—transport—to all and sundry, and compelled by law to publish or notify all its charges; its tariff scale open to everyone's inspection, and (subject to one or two minor conditions) compelled, as common carriers, to cater for all classes of traffic. On the other hand was a new form of transport enjoying the advantage of free selection of its business and at liberty to adjust its prices to what it might consider the purchasing power of any individual trader, manufacturer or farmer.
On the passenger side was arising a form of travel which, in spite of obvious discomforts, possessed an attraction for travellers which could only be ascribed to its novelty.
This led to a new appreciation of travel values by the public and engendered an anxiety on their part to secure more and more transport value for their money.
Faced with such a position, the formation of a body of specialists to watch the interests of the Government Railways was a natural step, and in 1925 the Commercial Branch, comprising a Commercial Manager and a Business Agent (allotted to each section of the lines) was formed. The object of these officers is to maintain a liaison between the public and the Department, to ascertain the requirements of the communities, to place the facilities and conveniences of the Department before those desiring transport, and to keep closely in touch with farmers, traders, manufacturers, all local bodies and others with a view to affording them assistance in their dealings with the railways.
These members are experts in their business and their specialised knowledge of all branches of transport renders them invaluable to those requiring information.
These agents do not wait for the public to come to them, but maintain close contact with both actual and potential customers, and the non-static character of public requirements in the matter of conveyance renders the life of the Railway Business Agent an extremely busy and varied one.
The agent must be a man capable of making a rapid summation of the whole position when confronted with a problem, and able to place all essential facts before the management, so that a prompt decision may be given when required; the goods are, in many instances, ready to be despatched, and the keenest man secures the business.
The aspects of passenger and goods transport vary in many ways. In the case of the passenger, increased business can be induced by providing sufficient attractions, either in low fares or in added refinements in the accommodation provided. In this way bulk conveyance can often be secured and business induced at times and in localities where the rolling stock might otherwise be standing idle or, at any rate, not fully employed.
With goods business, the position is somewhat different, and increased traffic can, as a rule, be secured only by diversion from other means of hauling; and it is in dealing with the varying conditions of such that the knowledge of the Business Agent—a knowledge bred of long experience—safeguards the interests of the largest business organisation of the Dominion—The National Railways.
The co-ordination by the Department of rail, sea and road transport has brought about such a well-integrated service that the railway officer is in a position to provide the public with any means of transportation for which there is a real demand, and which can be rendered at a sound economic charge, whether by train, bus, ship, lorry, or service car.
In view of recently enacted legislation to co-ordinate and stabilise road haulage, it is
History shows that the most prosperous nation is that having the most efficient and economical transport organisation. New Zealand will soon have its stock-taking of transport costs completed, and this important industry placed on a sound footing. When this is done, the Railway Department, by reason of its specialised knowledge and organisation should occupy a still stronger position in the carrying business of the Dominion.
What benefit is the Dominion to receive from this unification of transport control? One short pronouncement by the Hon. the Minister for Transport affords an adequate reply:—
“One did not have to look back very far into the history of the Dominion,” said the Hon. Minister, “to find a point when there were no motor transport charges, but to-day motors were costing £32,000,000 per year, and if present conditions were allowed to continue the cost would increase rapidly and even to-day the cost was much greater than the country could afford.
The cold chaste Moon, the Queen of Heaven's bright isles, Who makes all beautiful on which she smiles.”—Shelley.
(Photo, J. McAllister.) A moonlight scene in Queen Charlotte Sound, South Island, New Zealand.
“There had been a great deal of public anxiety because the annual loss on the railways was £1,500,000, such a loss was a serious one, but the annual loss caused by road transport was infinitely greater.
“Furthermore, by lessening the volume of transport on the roads they would relieve the burden of rates and again the farmer would benefit. There was no doubt that many of the roads were carrying excessive traffic and the consequent wear and tear was a big item for the ratepayer.
“The condition of the Dominion at the present time justified every measure of economy.
“Between 1914 and 1929 the population of the Dominion had increased by 29 per cent.; production had increased by 102 per cent., but transport charges had increased by 147 per cent. In the same period the capital charges of transport had increased by 128 per cent.
“There was now one motor vehicle for every 6.8 persons. In 1914 the annual cost of land transport was £17,750,000, and in 1929 it had risen to £43,750,000.”
Throughout the recent flood period in parts of Hawke's Bay, the Department had no difficulty in maintaing an efficient road service between Napier and Hastings. Although the road at Waitangi and the Washout was under water for three days, not one trip of the service's ordinary time-table was missed. The only dislocation that was experienced was the result of one bus going off the road at Waitangi. It was immediately replaced by another bus, however, which took the passengers and brought them to Napier only a few minutes behind time.
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An interesting sidelight on the present economic conditions was provided at the weekly fat stock market at Westfield (states an exchange). For some time the long lines of cars parked at the side of the road during sales have been growing shorter, and the number of carts, buggies, and traps has been growing larger. Many of the old vehicles brought out show signs of having been left in the weather by their owners, who probably did not anticipate ever using them again. At the same time, the popularity of hacks is also increasing.
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From information to hand it is established that in the first three months of its record-breaking run the world's fastest train, the “Cheltenham Flyer,” of the Great Western Railway, has covered 6,008 miles in 5,2331/2 minutes. This is only 71/2 minutes over the total booked schedule allowed for the 78 daily runs, and it is a remarkable tribute to the consistent running under difficult conditions due to signal checks and reduced speeds at points en route owing to alterations to the line. The booked time for the 771/2 miles Swindon to Paddington is 67 minutes. On the first three runs, on September 14, 15 and 16, the running time was reduced to just under the hour. On the Monday it was 59 mins. 38 secs.; on the Wednesday, 58 mins. 20 secs.; the latter establishing a world's speed start to stop record with steam as the motive power.
The train, by its speed, consistency, and extremely smooth running, has attracted world-wide attention and reflected to the credit of British railway prestige abroad. It has been filmed from the track, the air, and the train itself; photographed at nearly every bridge and mile of its route, and has been pictured in every part of the globe. Jig-saw puzzles and Christmas cards have been made of it, and, shortly, every passenger travelling on the train will have, if he so wishes, affixed to his baggage a label reproduction of the train itself. Famous speed aces, foreign railway representatives and representatives of nearly every nation, are numbered among the 8,000 passengers who can claim the distinction of travelling on this, the fastest train in the world, and many have made the journey to Swindon or Cheltenham for just this purpose. Throughout its route the train comes under the company's own system of automatic train control, which has played an important part in the timekeeping, especially during foggy weather.
In his present contribution, our Special London Correspondent makes interesting reference to the impending completion of the London-South Coast electrification scheme of the Southern Railway, and to the up-to-date rolling stock being acquired for service over the newly electrified tracks. Particulars are also given of recent developments on other British railways, notably in the provision of amenities enhancing the popularity of rail travel.
The present will be a red-letter year in the history of one of Britain's leading railways—the Southern system. In September, this go-ahead railway hopes to open its throughout electrified tracks between Victoria Station, London, and the South Coast resorts of Brighton and Worthing. Although Brighton is situated far outside the London suburban zone, the improvement of travel facilities in recent years has had the effect of making Brighton practically a suburb of the metropolis, and every day large numbers of businessmen travel to and fro between the South Coast resort and the city in the fast steam trains of the Southern Railway.
Electrification will materially reduce the journey-time on the London-Brighton route. With electrification, also, there will be introduced new passenger carriages of an exceptionally comfortable type. The new stock will take the form of Pullman cars and these will all be of the latest design.
By way of a start, the Southern system, in association with the Pullman Company, is acquiring thirty-eight new Pullman cars, fifteen of which will go into the world-famed “Southern Belle” London-Brighton service. The “Southern Belle” Pullmans will comprise six first-class cars, each equipped with kitchen; three third-class parlour cars; and six third-class Pullmans with motor-brake compartment. The cars will be marshalled in units of five, two of the units being in daily service, and one unit being held in reserve for use in case of emergency. Between Victoria Station, London, and Brighton, the “Southern Belle” (operated electrically) will make six trips daily, as compared with the existing four trips under steam operation.
The remaining twenty-three new Pullmans will be of composite design (first and third-class, with kitchen). They will be employed in various daily fast services in and out of London. The first-class kitchen-cars will each seat twenty passengers; the composite cars twelve first and sixteen third-class passengers; the third-class motor brake, forty-eight passengers; and the third-class parlour cars, fifty-six passengers. The cars will be of all-steel construction, and special
British steam-operated main-lines, like those operated electrically, are being
The Pride Of Britain's Southern Railway.
The “Southern Belle,” London-Brighton Express.
The carriage bodies are 60ft. long. Each carriage comprises one large and one small saloon, a coupé compartment, lavatory, vestibule, and enclosed accommodation for luggage. The coupé compartment has no windows on the corridor side, this with the idea of giving increased privacy. Outside panels on sides, ends and roof, are of steel, and there is fitted the latest type of suspension gangway. The carriages are luxuriously furnished inside. In the large saloon there are four chairs to each double table at one side of the gangway, and two chairs to a single table on the other side. The small saloon has two chairs to one table on either side of the gangway, and the coupé compartment has four chairs to one double table. This arrangement gives seating accommodation for seventeen persons in the large saloon, eight in the small saloon, and four in the coupé section. An additional fare of ten shillings, over the ordinary passenger fare, is levied for travel in these super-luxury vehicles between Plymouth and London.
In the provision of passenger travel amenities, the railways serving Northern England and Scotland are just as progressive as those of the south. In addition to putting into traffic many fine new passenger carriages, the L.M. and S. and L. and
On the L. and N.E. line, on several occasions recently, cinema shows have been given on excursion trains, one at least of these shows taking the form of a “talkie.” Radio entertainment is provided for passengers between London and Leeds. Another innovation has been the installation of fifty automatic chocolate issuing machines on various trains from
Off To The West Country.
London-Plymouth Express (Great Western Railway) outside London.
The King's Cross authorities rightly pride themselves on the possession of one of the finest permanent ways in the world. Smoothness of travel on the L. and N.E.R. is a feature upon which everyone comments, and in connection with the upkeep of the permanent-way it is interesting to note the L. and N.E.R. are now giving immense attention to the mechanising of work on the track.
Extended use is being made of petrol-driven rail trollies for the conveyance of permanent-way gangs. The Morris track-layer, which lifts sections of old track off the ballast and replaces them with new, is being largely employed. A new rail-lifting and laying skid, used for guiding rails into chairs during relaying operations, has been introduced. On a recent test a squad of seven men guided into position by means of six skids forty-four 60ft. rails in seventy minutes, sufficient for a quarter of a mile of track. Another labour-saving appliance is a portable mechanical stone-ballast riddle, while a pneumatic sleeper tamper is proving useful in the consolidating of stone ballast under the sleepers. Yet another device is a portable machine for boring sleepers and fixing chair screws, capable of dealing with the re-sleepering of a quarter of a mile of track per day, only three men being required for its operation.
One of the most interesting developments in the telephone field, of which the Home railways are taking advantage, is the perfection of carrier wave transmission systems. The G.W. Railway has just completed the installation of a carrier wave telephone system between Reading and Swindon, on the main-line from London to the West. By means of this apparatus, known as the D-1 single-channel carrier telephone system, provided by Standard Telephones and Cables Ltd., it is possible for two conversations to be transmitted over one circuit at the same time. It is interesting to know that the carrier system for telephone communication is already extensively used by the New Zealand Post and Telegraph Department. To the use of this much of the recent improvement in toll service may be attributed. Mr. E. A. Shrimpton, of Standard Telephones and Cables Ltd., advises that his firm has supplied the P. & T. Department with twenty-two installations of the D.1 type referred to above. In addition it has in use three of the C.F.1 type (single channel for long distance) and one C.N.3 installation of three channels between Wellington and Auckland. The latter type permits of three conversations over one circuit in each direction at the same time. Simultaneously four outward and four inward telegrams are sent over this circuit by the machine printing telegraph.—Ed.
A different carrier frequency is utilised for transmitting at each end of the two terminal stations. In operation, the actual carrier frequency is suppressed at the sending station, and reintroduced locally at receiving point, where the original voice frequencies are reproduced. A clever arrangement of filters separates the “carrier” from the ordinary facilities. The carrier system terminates in the usual switching arrangements, thus rendering unnecessary any special tuition to switchboard operators. The whole of the apparatus at each terminal, excluding batteries, is erected on a 7ft. rack. It is, therefore, practicable for it to be moved without difficulty for use under emergency conditions, or to afford relief on temporarily congested telephone routes.
A Great European Gateway.
The Historic Mole at Zeebrugge, Belgian terminal of the Harwich-Zeebrugge Train Ferry.
A New Zealand Railwayman's Hobby.
Flashlight photographs of an interesting model railway constructed by Mr. A. W. E. Smith, a member of the shunting staff at Dunedin Goods, in a cellar under his residence at 151, Carrol Street, Dunedin. The model railway has been built upon a platform giving 150ft. of track, which, together with the rolling stock, is operated electrically—the power being derived from the electrical system of the house and by the aid of a transformer. With the exception of a few of the “Hornby Series” of models used by Mr. Smith, the equipment—signals, stations, bridges, tunnels, level crossings, and some goods wagons, are all home made. Mr. Smith's son shares with his father the interest and enjoyment found in operating this unique model railway.
Writing of the recently developed enthusiasm in Canterbury for mountaineering and tramping, A. Anderson, in the Christchurch Star, states:—
“Six years ago the writer endeavoured to purchase an ice-axe in Christchurch. Most of the larger sports firms had given up stocking them years ago. Nowadays every firm in Christchurch keeps a large stock of alpine equipment, and they all make lavish window displays.
What, then, is the reason for this revival of enthusiasm for this greatest of all sports? Various people have various reasons.
Chief among the reasons for the sudden development in climbing among the youth of Christchurch, the writer would place first, the opening of the Otira tunnel, and second, the work of Gerard Carrington and his followers. The Otira tunnel reason may seem surprising, but on closer inspection it seems obvious.
“The storm-wrapped peaks start out and fade again.”
(Rly. Publicity photo.) The world-famed Franz Josef Glacier, South Island, New Zealand. (By rail to Hokitika, thence by motor.)
“Blessed be the hand that prepares a pleasure for a child, for there is no saying when and where it may bloom forth.”—Douglas Jerrold.
Our Children's Gallery: (1) Gwen Wickham (Waitotara); (2) Ronald King (Taihape); (3) Leslie Mayle (Raetihi); (4) Irene and Maureen Mullaney; (5) Fay and Lindsay McGuinness; (6) Lionel Thorburn; (7) Irene and Gladys Beuick; (8) Lola Seager; (9) Jim Cunningham and Dick Seager; (10) Jennie Farquhar; (11) Lewis and Raymond Howden; (12) Lawrence Walker (all children of Taihape railwaymen.)
That “goodly land,” the beautiful and wealth-producing province of Hawke's Bay is the subject of this running survey of the great district and its chief town, whose people are making so heroic an effort to restore conditions to normal after the ravages of last year's earthquake. Hawke's Bay, so rich a land of farms and towns to-day, is the youngest of all of the provinces of New Zealand.
There is a Maori geographical term which happily describes the East Coast of New Zealand, and particularly that sector from the East Cape southward to the Wellington province. “Te Tai Rawhiti,” by which all this long shoreline is known, means “The Sunshine Sea,” or “The Sea Where the Sun Rises,” otherwise the coast of sunshine. Nowhere does one appreciate such a description more than in Hawke's Bay, where the sun seems to shine more consistently and ardently than in most other parts of the Island. The vast even spread of plains, tilted very gently seaward, with a far-extending lofty mountain wall as its rampart against the blustering west winds, seems to invite and gather the sunshine. The Hawke's Bay coast sees the sun from the moment he lifts above the “Orient wave.” The difference in climate is often marked as one travels into Hawke's Bay from the western coast. The Manawatu Gorge, by which dramatic entry is made, is an elbowed gateway admitting the traveller to a land suffused in the heat and colour of the strongly shining sun.
Not that there is lack of warmth on the western side of the dividing range, so considerately slashed through by Nature, but there is a distinct feel of a more sheltered, genial countryside when one emerges on the wide-expanding Ruataniwha Plain and speeds smoothly northward through a land of rich grass and fat flocks and many orchards. The blue Ruahine Mountains, snow-tipped in winter, source of many a river, have the province in its keeping; and from their rolling foothills, where forest has given place to grass, there is a broad leisurely countryside revelling in the glorious sun, the perfection of quiet pastoral scenery, with many a comfortable-looking town and township and many a beautiful homestead half-hidden in the tree-groves.
Once wholly a land of sheep, this broad province is a land of a pleasing variety of industries. The dairy-farmer and the or-chardist find here a most favoured country.
It is becoming more closely settled as farmers discover that much of the land once devoted to mutton and wool can be used profitably in comparatively small areas for dairying. But it is still in large degree the domain of the sheep-man, and the existence of these stations and runs of generous size, with their mansion-like homes and their great woolsheds and village-like establishments, give the province a distinctive character, and one that is truly and typically colonial. It follows, too, that these broad acres are a land of good horses, and this is a characteristic of Hawke's Bay that particularly pleases the country-bred man and woman from other parts. The horse, fortunately, can never be displaced altogether by mechanical contrivances in New Zealand, and the Hunt Clubs help to foster the liking for an animal combining weight-carrying and endurance with speed.
The serene restful character of the landscapes on the Tai-Rawhiti side of the ranges that make the Island's backbone, the tall lines and avenues of English trees and other thriving exotics, the easy eye-satisfying lines of hill and valley, the numerous streams, sometimes low-banked, sometimes winding through steep little gorges; a long raupo-edged lagoon, famous eel-lake of the Maoris, giving a glint of bright water to the picture, a frequent flock of sheep, a mob of cattle on the move to the freezing works—all these give interest to the changing view from the railway carriage windows. Long ago the great scenic feature of the day's train run from Wellington was the forest-robed beauty of the Manawatu Gorge. That primeval loveliness was ruined by fire, but the bold contours of the range remain, the abrupt terminals of the Tararua and the Ruahine highlands, abutting on the rapid river that wore a rocky way from east to west through a fissure created by some violent earth-movement in remote ages. And to some extent the forest is being restored by natural regeneration; the devastated hills are clothing themselves again with many-tinted young bush and softly-fronded fern trees.
Forty miles further on, after passing through the historic Scandinavian-settled country that was once the Seventy-mile Bush, the physiography of the Takapau district attracts attention. The sleekly-grassed hills slant gently up on the one side and dip suddenly into valleys on the east, as if fractured by some ancient earthquake. Further on are the broad shallow rivers of the Wai-pukurau and Waipawa districts, crossed by long bridges. Waipukurau (“Place of Many Flood Waters”) is a particularly well-laid-out town, originally part of the estate of a pioneer station-owner, the Hon. H. R. Russell. The Ruahine Ranges mount into bold gorge-seamed heights on the west. The farm country becomes more closely settled as the large town of Hastings is approached. When we reach this town we can understand why many people consider it a finer place than its big sister Napier.
Here, around Hastings, we are in the land of the fruitgrowers. From the little hills of Havelock North to the pleasantly-named Greenmeadows it is a country of small holdings and of hundreds of good orchards. Hawke's Bay fruitgrowers declare that the crop per tree is heavier than anywhere else in New Zealand. There are about 3500 acres under cultivation as orchards in the district, and as most of the individual areas are small (though there are some very large ones as at Frimley) it is evident that the percentage of the population mainly depend on fruitgrowing for a living is very considerable. The peach, apple and pear orchards are a sight of delight in the spring of the year when the miles of trees are in blossom.
The growing of fruit is often rendered precarious in some parts of New Zealand by suddenly changing climatic conditions, but in well-sunned and mild Hawke's Bay the industry is carried on with generally fortunate results. Wellington City consumes much of the fruit produced in the province; the railway provides the necessary quick transit and careful handling; and Hawke's Bay apples divide with those from Nelson the popularity of New Zealand-grown fruit in the London market.
Quite unlike any other New Zealand town, Napier is sharply divided into business and residential areas by the natural configuration of the ground. Boldly defined by steep slants and perpendicular cliffs, the long mass of limestone known as Scinde Island rises high above the far-extending plain that is elevated only a few feet above the ocean. “Island” is almost literally correct.
From a few miles away, especially if one is looking from a vessel at sea, it looks as if it were entirely insulated from the mainland. A few hundred years ago, no doubt, it was islanded completely. Observations during the few generations we have been in New Zealand have shown that, speaking broadly, the tilting of the land has—sometimes in sharp spasmodic upheavals—slightly raised the east coast while the west coast has suffered erosion and depression. Certainly
Where the gorge, like a gateway, Opens a passage to the wheels of commerce.“
(Rly. Publicity Photo.) The famous Manawatu Gorge through which entry to Hawke's Bay is made from the west.
One terminal of Scinde Island goes down in steep slopes, furrowed with gullies, just above the business area of the town; the other abuts in lofty vertical cliffs on the north and north-east, looming like a huge bastion above the entrance to the inner harbour and the ocean break-water where the steamers lie. The high-land, green everywhere, stands out in high contrast to the crowded levels of the town. Covered with orchards and gardens, and fine old groves of trees, with hundreds of pretty homes all among them, flowers and foliage, it is under normal conditions the pleasantest of residential areas. As in many islands, an exploration reveals it as a much larger place than a first view from the town below would give one to believe; it is so cut up and varied in contour by little dells and all kinds of unexpected twists and turns in the valleys. Wind-swept on the high Bluff end—the Hukarere or “Flying Spray” cliff of the Maoris—it is sheltered and mild of air in the sunny hollows and the tree-palisaded gardens.
Sweet old homes and modern bungalows peep out from the foliage. The older dwellings are often of the long low rambling character half-hidden among the grand trees that were planted sixty or seventy years ago. There are miles of beautiful leafy lane-like walks, inviting a stroll, and every here and there vistas of sparkling ocean or long vari-coloured plain and remote blue serrated ranges. The roads from the town are steep, winding through passes below cliffy places where houses are in some cases perched too precariously against the hillsides, but once the top of the island is gained there are quite long stretches of fairly level ground. Some of the earliest families of Hawke's Bay have their time-mellowed
The route up Milton Road and along the island-top to the Botanical Gardens and the hospital is about as inviting a path as any for the visitor. Even the cemetery seems as much of a park as the public gardens, which it adjoins, it is so adorned with trees and flowers; it looks out to the south over town
Slowly moves the harmless race, Spreading their treasures to the sunny ray.”—James Thomson.
(Rly. Publicity Photo.) A picturesque rural scene, Maraekakaho sheep station in sunny Hawke's Bay.
Gazing far out from one of these high and leafy places, the eye ranges along the curve of coast, with its white line of surf ever advancing and retreating, until the even crescent terminates in the distant pinnacled cliffs of Cape Kidnappers, which the Maoris call Te Matau-a-Maui, meaning “Maui's Fish-hook.” The whole bay in fact is the fish-hook of the heroic legend, with far away Mahia Peninsula in the other direction—another island-like cliff of limestone, as the barb of the hook. The earthquake of last year raised consternation in the famous sanctuary of the gannet tribe at the Matau, but the myriads of seabirds soon returned to their cliffy homes.
Here come in certain matters of nomenclature and tabloid history. It was Alfred Domett, poet and politician, who was responsible for the principal names hereabouts. Napier was named after the great General, and Scinde after his Indian campaign of victory, and the names of poets and other
The old Maori name of Scinde Island—a name which few of the Maoris themselves know to-day—was Mataruahou. The site of the town, on its shingly and pumice-stone flat—a most unpromising looking site for a town it must have seemed—was commonly called Ahuriri before Napier was adopted.
It was in 1851 that Donald Maclean—afterwards Sir Donald—acting under instructions from Sir George Grey, began the long series of native land purchases which secured for white settlement all this country of the Heretaunga plains and the land from Ruataniwha northward to the Wairoa. The purchase of Mataruahou, now Scinde Island, was completed in 1856, cost the Government only £50 and a reserve of two sections for the Chief Tareha and his family “when the land has a town.” The site of Napier and an area up to the ranges inland cost only £1000. Other purchases of great areas were made, and cheaply indeed did the Crown acquire a waste country that settlers' industry soon converted into a domain of great beauty and homes of comfort and wealth.
Now in Process of Reconstruction.
(Rly. Publicity Photo.) Napier, the principal town in the Hawke's Bay Province.
There is very much to interest the traveller anywhere in town and country; in Napier, where the people are making heroic efforts to restore their pretty town after the destruction and ruin of the earthquake; in the wide province of sheep stations and dairy-farms and orchards. Most of all the visitor should tour the back country and see something of life on the large stock-raising estates. Some of these stations, notably Maraekakaho—now sub-divided into numerous farms—were famous for the generous scale on which they were run and for the semi-patriarchal rule of the pioneer chiefs. The process of breaking-up into small or moderately-sized farms gives scope for more population; but there are many reasons to regret the passing of the old stations, with their expert management, their reputation for high-grade stock, and their liberal-handed treatment of the many workers they permanently employed as well as of the casual swagger who tramped the roads.
(Rly. Publicity photo.) A ballast-train crossing the Mangaweka Viaduct, North Island Main Trunk Line, New Zealand. The vialuct, which is 154 ft. high and 940 ft. long, is one of the many notable engineering features of the line.
From Commissioner J. Cunningham, the Commissioner's Office, Salvation Army, Wellington, to the Controller, Railways Refreshment Branch, Wellington:—
Now that the Dominion tour of General and Mrs. Higgins has ended and I have found a few minutes to settle down quietly to office business, I wish to thank you, and the members of your staff, most sincerely for the splendid service you rendered to us during that time, and for all the kindness shown in connection with the same. Really, we found everybody in your Department not only willing but eager to do all in their power to assist us, and I appreciate it all more than I can say.
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Messrs. M. G. Cummings and G. W. Hadfield, Papanui, Christchurch, write to the General Manager of Railways, Wellington, in the following appreciative terms:—
We should like to express our appreciation of the great service given us by your Stationmaster, Mr. Williams, at Ashburton.
We had been at Fairlie for holidays and were returning home to Christchurch on bicycles. No sooner had we left Washdyke than heavy rain commenced to fall, and continued until we arrived at Ashburton. We were then thoroughly drenched, and thought it best to complete our journey by train. The train was not due to leave Ashburton for an hour and a half, and we were feeling very miserable in our wet clothes. We asked the Stationmaster if there were any fires at the station by which we could dry ourselves. He urged us not to sit by a fire, as he said it might, in the circumstances, endanger our health. Instead, he took us to his home, offered us a hot bath, and gave us a complete change of clothing, and his wife gave us a hot drink and food. We then continued our journey by train to Christchurch. Through the kindness shewn to us in our predicament, Mr. Williams and his wife have earned our lasting gratitude.
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From Mr. Alex. Latham, F.C.A.A., Matamata, to the General Manager of Railways, Wellington:—
Whilst standing on the platform at Matamata station this morning the relieving stationmaster approached me and very courteously enquired if there was anything he could do for me.
There wasn't, as it happened, because I was merely taking a few minutes off from my office to see the train passing through to Rotorua, but the thoughtfulness of your officer was very much appreciated nevertheless.
I feel certain that if that kind of action is taken by all your stationmasters throughout the service, much lost business will be regained to the Railways.
Just a little thing in itself, perhaps, but your officer's manner was pleasing to me.
This descriptive article, and the photographs, taken by the writer, supply the answer to a question that thousands of New Zealanders will be pondering over during the months that lie between now and next summer. Spring, after all, is never very “far behind,” and summer dances in on swift feet. Make up your mind in time.
“Why not the Marlborough Sounds?” said the attractive little pamphlet they gave me at the Tourist Bureau. It said a lot more, although I did not read it. But I looked at the pictures, which are always so much more important than the letterpress—hence the vogue of the illustrated article. And looking at the pictures, I echoed, “Why not?” After all, it is not everybody's luck to do the Milford Sound trip, and I have always steadfastly refused to believe there is but one wonderful walk in the world. All I knew of Marlborough was what I had seen from the dust-blurred windows of a car in the Royal tour, dashing down the Blenheim-Nelson road at fifty miles an hour. One should never be in such a hurry as all that to get away from a place!
So we boarded the Tamahine at Wellington, and ploughed out into foaming grey seas in the teeth of a tearing southerly. Three hours later we caught the gleam of sunshine on the South Island, and pretty little Picton stretching out along the waterfront at the foot of high, dark hills. We bundled ourselves and luggage into the Torea launch, and for nearly three-quarters of an hour chug-chugged placidly up the steel-grey waters of Queen Charlotte Sound. At sunset we tumbled out again, scrambled into a lorry, and dashed off up the hair-pin bends to the high ridge of the hills that divide Queen Charlotte and Kenepuru Sounds. At the top we caught fleeting glimpse of a handsome monument “Where the Sounds Meet,” to the memory of all the men of the Sounds who fought and died in the War. An instant later we were hurtling down another series of zig-zags to the Portage, on Kenepuru Sound, where we boarded another launch. Out into the dark we chug-chugged once more. Evidently St. Omer, our destination, was one of these rather exclusive spots a little bit off the beaten track. The impression was strengthened when we finally came to a stop somewhere out in a bay, and found we had to tumble out once more, this time into a dinghy.
“Well, thank goodness, this is the last lap,” I muttered, as the oars splashed down into the dark waters. But it wasn't. St. Omer is really exclusive. We crawled carefully out of the dinghy in the darkness on to a trolly, disposed of our legs very carefully, and trusted that all was indeed going to turn out for the best in this best of all possible worlds. Next instant we were being drawn,
But these, of course, were merely sidelines in the way of holiday attractions at the Sounds. First of all came the lure of the blue, winding waterways, the swimming, rowing and launching, with picnic lunches on
I have a great confidence in the joy and stimuius which holidays bring forth.”—Beaconsfield.
A launch picnic at St. Omer, Marlborough Sounds, South Island, N.Z.
Our two weeks holiday sped swiftly, bringing a sense of renewed well-being, and wider appreciation of a little-known and delightful holiday resort.
There is a pleasing absence of stiffness and ceremony about the country social gathering. Here is a little story which comes to me from the King Country concerning a welcome gathering arranged for the purpose of greeting the new minister in one of the townships along the Main Trunk line.
He was a shy young man, the new pastor, report said, so the ladies of the church were asked particularly to do what they could to put him at his ease and make him feel at home. It is rather difficult, perhaps, to believe that any parson can be shy, considering the fact that he is courageous enough to enter the pulpit and address a critical flock; still, I believe this youthful clergyman really was nervous.
Two girls who had a lively turn of wit resolved to do their little bit towards making the stranger feel at home. They borrowed a perambulator from next door, and enlisted the co-operation of their auntie, a plump and dimpled dame who was as ready for a lark as any of the young ones. They dressed her as a baby, inserted her into the pram—it was a tight fit—and wheeled her along to the afternoon gathering at the church.
The young parson was doing his nervous best to make himself agreeable. He came to the pram, and as in duty bound expressed his admiration of the bouncing infant therein.
“What a wonderful child,” he said, “and so fat and lovely!” He chucked the wonderful child under its well-plumped chin. “You are the mother, I presume?” he said to the smiling maiden who wheeled it. “Yes,” she replied, “and this is my sister.”
“And who is the father?” the reverend one inquired. “I really must get acquainted with all my congregation, you know.”
With a coo of delight the wonderful infant stretched out her arms to the parson and piped out, “Daddy, daddy!”
The late Sir Douglas Maclean, of Napier, told me this story of the policy of patience embodied in the little word “taihoa” which wore down the “purchase resistance” of a Maori chief in the old days. His father, the great Sir Donald Maclean, was anxious to complete the purchase of a block of land for the Government in Hawke's Bay, and the principal chief concerned was disinclined to sell. He rode out to the chief's place, where he was received with the usual greetings and hospitality, and he was given the customary place of honour in the large
wharepuni. He talked with his friend the chief, and repeated his offer to buy the land. He talked with the other folk of the kainga; he discussed with them all the subjects under the sun, and listened to their songs and legends, day after day.
The subject of the land was not discussed after the first day. The chief was politeness itself, as became a Maori rangatira. At last one morning Maclean called for his horse, rolled up his big tartan plaid and prepared to depart. Just as he was about to mount his horse he apparently thought of something he had forgotten. Reins in hand, he turned to the chief and said: “Oh, I suppose it is all right about that land. You'll sell it, won't you?”
“Yes, yes,” said the Maori eagerly; “take it! Take the land; it is yours.”
And so it was settled. The pakeha this time had out-taihoa'd the Maori.
Another Donald Maclean story, told me by an old settler of the Wairoa, Hawke's Bay. After the purchase of the Wairoa block of land, Maclean told one of the leading chiefs of the sellers that he intended to make him a present of a horse. “In those days,” said the narrator of the story, “a Maori would give a kingdom for a horse.” But in doing so he forgot his friend Kopu, the principal man at Te Kapu, where the town of Wairoa now stands. When he was leaving the meeting he enquired where Kopu was, and he was told that he was not well, and was in his tent.
Maclean went to the tent, and as he was entering it Kopu caught him by the leg. Next moment he released his hold, saying in apparent surprise: “Oh, Makarini, I thought it was the leg of my horse!” The hint had the desired effect. “Makarini,” on his return to Napier, sent Kopu a horse, and all was well in Te Kapu kainga.
My old friend Captain G. A. Preece, N.Z.C., who in his day was Magistrate's Court clerk, then soldier and leader of friendly Maori contingents in the Hauhau War, later Magistrate, and lastly land agent at Palmerston North, was a gallant gentleman, who many times earned his New Zealand Cross. He was full of odd stories of life in the bush and on the warpath. Concerning his career on the Bench—he was R.M. on the East Coast for many years—he told me that he always had a kindly feeling towards youthful offenders, because he was a boy himself once.
“You know,” he said, “I robbed a Bishop once, and I was only sorry because I was found out.” This was the story told in his quiet dryly humorous way:
Back in the old bush days, the Rev. James Preece, Captain Preece's father, was a missionary to the Maoris. He established the first mission station in the Urewera Mountains; that was over eighty years ago. The station was at Ahikereru, close to the present little township of the Maoris at Te Whaiti. There, in the heart of the ranges, little George Augustus Preece was reared. The great Bishop Selwyn was his godfather, and it was after the Bishop that he was named. When George was about four years old Selwyn came tramping in to Ahikereru on one of his arduous visitations, and stayed with the Preeces a few days. The Bishop's camp-gear swag included a small copper kettle for boiling his tea-water; it was always kept brightly polished.
When the time came for the Bishop to pack up and take his departure, the little kettle could not be found. The Preeces searched everywhere in vain. At last the infant George was questioned. He confessed, but quite impenitently, that he had taken a fancy to the beautiful shining kettle and wanted to keep it, so he had hidden it down by the creek until the Bishop went away. It was with great reluctance that he led the family to the place and restored the treasure to the right reverend owner.
There were many things, said Captain Preece, that he had badly wanted in his long life, but none of them so badly as that episcopal tea-kettle that he unsuccessfully looted in his bush infancy from the illustrious head of the Church.
The old Maori law of tapu still operates, but the pakeha usually does not hear of it
pakeha is about his food and the respect to the dead.
When the steamer Wairarapa was wrecked at the Great Barrier Island in 1894, with the loss of 126 lives, the small Maori tribe living on the island, a few miles from the scene of the wreck, tapu'd the fish in their waters for a long period. This, of course, was a serious deprivation of food for a coast-living community, but it was regarded by the people as necessary.
Relaying Operations On The N.Z.R.
(Photos. A. R. Sayer.) Permanent way men in action on the tracks at Pokeno and Ngongotaha, North Island.
In the course of an interview with a representative of the “Evening Post,” Wellington, Captain Ballantine, the well-known sports writer who visited the Dominion recently gave his impressions of our railways as follows:—
“The railway travelling, and I calculate that I have travelled close on 7,000 miles, was, generally speaking, very comfortable, the main line travelling equalling the best. A great deal could be said of the exceptional variety of scenery viewed from the carriage windows. At times on one side there were great stretches of the ocean, and at other times there were great, high mountains in the distance, their slopes covered with dense bush or an extraordinary variety of ferns.”
One of the first motor jiggers introduced on the N.Z.R. The snap was taken at Mercer, about 1902, and shews (at back) Mr. C. Holm Biss, District Engineer, and front (left) Mr. H. Buxton, District Traffic Manager, and Mr. H. J. Jones, Stationmaster.
In anticipation of the early completion of the contracts, an amended working agreement was made with the contractors. This agreement began on the 1st September, 1867, and was originally for six months, terminating on 31st March, 1868. As the Lyttelton tunnel was not then ready to be handed over, the agreement was extended to the end of July, when the Provincial Government took charge of the Railways. The traffic during the period of eleven months was as under:—
The passenger traffic for the month of January, 1868, was 16,466 passengers, value £1,183. (This included the bookings to the first Lyttelton Regatta.) The traffic from 9th to 31st December (inclusive) was 12,061 passengers, value £866 4s. 10d. These were the two busiest months of the period under review.
The tonnage included 17,325 tons of merchandise, 9,862 coal, 5,810 timber, 2,047 wool and 10,598 grain.
Parcels and luggage are included in the passenger revenue, and storage and other sundries in the goods revenue.
(During the month of January a race meeting at Riccarton race-course was held, when about 5,000 extra passengers were carried.)
The tonnage included in the above table was largely made up of wool and grain from country stations.
The total railway revenue for the eleven months was therefore £28,469 18s. 7d.
In addition to the main lines of railway various subsidiary lines were proposed. In October, 1862, permission was given to Mr. William White, an enterprising hotel keeper at Kaiapoi, to construct a railway, or tramway, from Little River Bush to Christchurch. Mr. White had previously constructed a toll bridge over the Waimakariri River at Kaiapoi. Conditions as to the construction of the Little River tramway, and rates of tolls and charges on it were gazetted, but little progress was made in commencing the work. Subsequently a contract was made with Mr. White to construct a tramway from Christchurch to the Halswell quarries, this forming part of the Little River
Other tramways projected were: From Little River to Weedons, Selwyn, and Rakaia, and from Rolleston to the coal measures at the Malvern Hills. On 10th January, 1867, the Provincial Council passed a resolution, that having in view the advisability of promoting the construction of tramways in different parts of the Province, this Council authorises His Honour the Superintendent to guarantee 8 per cent, on the outlay on any such work as may be constructed on conditions to be fixed by His Honour and the Executive Council. The liability not to exceed £5,000 per annum. His Honour stated in reply that steps would be taken for carrying out the resolution of the Council.
In view of the goldmining activities on the West Coast of the Province, the Superintendent (Mr. Samuel Bealey) in addressing the Provincial Council on 21st November, 1865, stated that in anticipation of the extension of the Railway system to the West Coast, he has temporarily reserved land for lines in that direction. In January, 1867, the Council approved a resolution that in order to provide a more rapid and easy mode of communication between the East and West Coasts, the Superintendent offers a moderate rate of interest to induce contractors and others to undertake the construction and due working of a railway from Christchurch to Hokitika. The Council undertook to indemnify the Superintendent to not exceeding £5,000 in furtherance of this resolution. When opening the next session of the 7th June. 1867, the Superintendent (Mr. Sefton Moorhouse) stated that in accordance with the resolution passed last session, he had caused to be made a reconnaissance survey of the country through which the line to the West Coast should be carried, and had the gratification of informing the Council that he was advised that a perfectly practicable line could be made commencing at Horsley Down. The distance to Hokitika was about 100 miles and the estimated cost of the line, exclusive of rolling stock, would be at the rate of about £6,000 per mile. He added that though at present the undertaking may be far beyond the means at their disposal, yet the information and knowledge of the country obtained during the survey would not only have an important present value, but would be of the greatest utility in the future when the natural development of the resources of the Province warranted procedure with the work.
This terminated the project for the time, and the Council rescinded its resolution regarding the guarantee of interest on construction.
On the West Coast some small sections of tramway were constructed in connection with the development of the gold fields, such as Hokitika to Kanieri, Hokitika to Stafford, and Greymouth towards the Teremakau River, later extended to Kurnara.) These were private or company ventures and served these districts well in the absence of roads which would have been very costly to make and maintain.
Another work which was held up by the difficulty of raising capital was the Great North Railway. The Act authorising
“Black as the pit from pole to pole.”
(Rly. Publicity photo.) A flashlight photograph of a night scene at Taihape engine shed (North Island Main Trunk Line), New Zealand.
On the assembling of the Provincial Council on 7th June, 1867, it was stated that a sum of money would be placed on the estimates for the purpose of proceeding with the Northern Railway. It was considered the settlers to the North had fair and just claims to the execution of this project, which should be carried out immediately on the negotiation of the loan debentures.
On 26th March, 1868, the following resolution was before the Council: “That in the opinion of this Council, with a view to carrying out the frequent promises of the Government to the residents of the northern districts with reference to railway communication with the metropolis and the seaport of the Province, as also to contribute materially to the productiveness of the very large expenditure on the Lyttelton to Christchurch railway, be it resolved that capitalists be invited to undertake the construction of a railway from Christchurch to the south bank of the Kowai and to furnish the necessary rolling stock and buildings and to work the same under the supervision of Commissioners appointed by the Government and the contractors under a contract of 5 per cent, interest per annum on the expenditure not exceeding £150,000; and that the sum of £40,000 of the unexpended balance of the loan be vested in three or more trustees with power to loan the same at not exceeding 8 per cent, per annum on freehold security, and, as required, apply the principal and accrued interest in liquidating the guarantee to the contractors for a period of ten years from the date of contract, and that it be a special request to the Government to give effect to these resolutions without delay.”
After considerable discussion, during which the question was raised whether such a sum as was proposed would be available out of the balance of the loan, the original resolution was modified, and the Council reported: “That in the opinion of this Council it is expedient that a railway be constructed from Christchurch to the south bank of the Kowai.”
The Superintendent did, by advertisement, solicit offers by capitalists for the construction of the railway, but without satisfactory response.
When the Provincial Government took over the Railways from the contractors it did not insist upon the alteration of the then grade in the Lyttelton Tunnel to accord with the grade specified in the contract. The construction levels did not correspond at the point of junction in the tunnel where the workings met and some adjustment had to be made to obtain a suitable grade. The contract provided for a grade of 1 in 287 through the tunnel, but when adjusted by the contractors the grade remained in places as steep as 1 in 140. The Railway Engineer advised that this did not affect materially the working in the meantime and that improvement could be made gradually in the course of maintenance without interruption of the traffic. Rather than cause further delay in settlement the Government accepted the position.
An Ever Popular Sport.
Members of the Drivers' and Garage Staffs' cricket teams (N.Z.R. Hutt Valley Road Motor Services) at Hutt Park, Wellington, 27th March, 1932.
It was agreed to take over from the the contractors such of the operating staff, including the mining gang working in the tunnel, as wished to accept service under the Government. Among those who did not remain was Mr. G. Fitzmorris, Stationmaster at Lyttelton, who resigned and returned to Victoria. He was succeeded at Lyttelton by Mr. William Packard from Christchurch Goods. Before joining the Railway service Mr. Packard had been in the shipping and forwarding business at Lyttelton and Heathcote. Some of the earliest members of the staff at stations on the South Line were: Geo. Cronin, Addington, also in charge of Lincoln Road gate; Mrs. Knight, Middleton (at first called Riccarton) in charge of Riccarton Road gate; B. Sword, Racecourse, South Road gate; A. Blackburn, stationmaster, Templeton. previously in Christchurch Goods; P. Gilmore, stationmaster, Rolleston. When the line was opened to Rolleston, Mr. Gilmore, then clerk at Ferrymead, was made stationmaster, and on extension of the line was transferred to the charge of Selwyn. Mr. W. Bourke, who succeeded Mr. Gilmore as clerk at Ferrymead, again succeeded him as station-master at Rolleston.
Members of the Greymouth Railway staff snapped during the severe snow-storm last year.
Steam locomotive operation has thus been explained in a pamphlet for the guidance of Indian engineers (as reprinted in the “Railway Gazette”) :—
“To look at locomotive is pretty from locomotive came the locomotive shed. It is fitted with many parts. First will start from the front portion. (1) Fitted. with Chimney, the same is set on smoke box. The smoke box is set on the frame and the frame is set on wheels. Smoke box is extended which is called a boiler. And there is a boiler face plate which is fitted with whistle to avoid accidents and instruct public that train to start. Injection to inject water from tender to boiler fitted with vacuum brakes to stop a train running, & fitted with gauge column to show how much water in the boiler & fitted with hand brake to use when engine has no steam and fitted with a tender which carries the water. Top of the tender is the cool food for the Engine. The Engine is fitted with certain number of wheels & rods are fitted by the sides which are called side rods, other rods are connected from one end to the other. The biggest part on is called the big end. The small end is called the little ends. The little end is connected to the portion which is held by the motion bars & extend to a cylinder contains a head & a rod fitted with steam chest contains valves & inlets & chest connected to the portion which is held i