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I hereby certify that the publisher's lists and other records disclose that the circulation of the “New Zealand Railways Magazine” has not been less than 20,000 copies each issue since July, 1930.
Deputy-Controller and Auditor-General.
The New Zealand Railways Magazine is on sale through the principal booksellers, or may be obtained post-free for 6/- per annum.
Employees of the Railway Department are invited to forward news items or articles bearing on railway affairs. The aim of contributors should be to supply interesting topical material tending generally towards the betterment of the service.
In all cases where the Administration makes announcements through the medium of this journal, the fact will be clearly indicated.
The Department does not identify itself with any opinions which may be expressed in other portions of the publication, whether appearing over the author's name or under a nom de plume.
Short stories, poetry, pen-and-ink sketches, etc., are invited from the general public upon New Zealand subjects.
Payment for short paragraphs will be made at 2d. a line. Successful contributors will be expected to send in clippings from the Magazine for assessment of the payment due to them.
The Editor cannot undertake the return of Ms.
All communications should be addressed to The Editor, New Zealand Railways Magazine, Wellington.
F.A.S.—If poetry, it is too intricate to please; if prose, too hopeless. Your grip of words should be turned to better purpose. M.J.H.—Not for us, with or without pepper. T.F.—Fails through sectarian reference. P.K.—Sorry we cannot run it—life is fearsome enough already. M.L.G.—We like your sketches—will use for decoration. Thanks for appreciative criticism. A.C.G.—Sketch not quite suitable. W.H.C.—A good descriptive narrative. P.C.—Whether Sir Malcolm Campbell tries out the Ninety Mile Beach or not, your stuff will be run. C.G.—More nice lines, but your metre needs watchful feet. H.H.—Has been done too often before—and seeing that it has about as much local colour as a drifting cloud, why tie the rhapsody to Wellington? W.H.—Yes to both. Such a fine response from writers that some Ms submitted is held up temporarily on border line. P.L.—Great pioneering—using with pleasure. R.R.S.—Joke stale and not for us anyhow. Rail—You have the spirit of the pass, but have taken too much liberty with grammar, words and metre. R.P.—A truly New Zealand touch, will use later. F.A.S.—Your ship wins. L.M.B—It is about time that simple things had a chance again—hence your poetic appreciation is accepted.
The
competition conducted by this Magazine on the question “What is New Zealand's Best Scenic Feature” has produced a fine assortment of opinions upon this subject. An analysis of the very large number of entries for the competition shews that in the opinion of competitors there are only six scenic features of outstanding importance. These are, the Southern Alps (including Mount Cook and Franz Josef) which attracted 16 per cent. of entries; the West Coast of the South Island, 15 per cent.; the Southern Lakes, 14 per cent.; Taranaki (with, of course, Mount Egmont), 14 per cent.; Stewart Island, 6 per cent.; Arthur's Pass and the Otira Gorge, 6 per cent.; and Waikaremoana, 4 per cent. Places which also attracted entries were—Russell, Rangitoto, Wairakei, the Wanganui River, Tongariro, the Havelock Hills (Hawke's Bay), Port Nicholson, Marlborough Sounds, Bank's Peninsula, and Fiordland. Some competitors refused to be specific in regard to any geographic feature, and in preference chose such general subjects as the mountains, the lakes, the bush, and so on.
We had expected a more general spread of opinion in regard to places whose charms are perhaps more subtle, although possibly not so well known as those mentioned in the foregoing summary, and it was surprising indeed to find, for instance, that Northland, which has so much to attract the traveller, was largely neglected, Rotorua—the best known place to visitors from overseas—was hardly mentioned, and that places like Nelson, the overland run between Gisborne and the Bay of Plenty, the Wairarapa, and the Manawatu had passed observers by.
One contributor naively claimed “The Railways” to be the best scenic feature, and stoutly maintained his claim by stating that if any traveller stayed on the train he could not miss seeing the best of every worth-while feature which New Zealand has to offer. It is certainly true that the railways have served to open up the way to all those places that have gained most favour with our contributors, and have done much in the direction of giving publicity to these places.
The object of the competition was in line with the general purpose of this magazine in its national aspect, and the results shew that this has been well achieved in inducing New Zealanders to think about their own country. From sound knowledge comes the desire to travel, and further travel by New Zealanders through their own land cannot fail to increase appreciation of its grandeur and varied loveliness. Thus can be tapped those wells of sentiment from which loyalty and patriotism draw their purest draughts.
Further stimulation of the New Zealand spirit may be expected to follow from our next competition: “What has been the greatest feat in New Zealand?”
In the April issue of the magazine a competition upon the above subject was announced. It has drawn entries from all parts of New Zealand, and an examination of the 500-word articles received shews that the entrants, for the most part, knew their subjects thoroughly and had a genuine enthusiasm for their favourite scenic feature. The Editor called to his assistance a small committee in finalising the selection, and its members were unanimous in awarding the £5 cash prize for an article by Isobel M. Peacocke upon Wairakei. Miss Peacocke's article will be published in the July issue of the magazine, and we think readers will agree as to its outstanding merit. The names of other prize-winners will be announced next month.
A reminder is given that the next competition “What has been the greatest feat in New Zealand?” closes on the 10th June.
Evolution Of Small Farms In The North Island Of New Zealand.
(Rly. Publicity photos.)
(1) Typical new settler's cottage; (2) cutting out fencing posts; (3) Sustenance Officer calls on the job; (4) a going concern; (5) draining; (6) temporary quarters on a new farm.
The small-farms plan should bring the right type of unemployed man to the right type of unemployed land or to land that is not adequately employed. We have the right men—plenty of them; we have the right land—plenty of it; we have money, but not as much as we should like.
New zealand has to work along the line of least risk and greatest hope with a policy for a satisfactory placing of surplus population—and that line lies mainly on the land. Nature has given these islands very favourable factors for successful farming—and the task to-day is to arrange the best possible working alliance between Nature and man. This ideal can be achieved, in good time, for increasing numbers of families by small-farms settlement.
Before going into details of further settlement upon small farms, it is well to look backward on New Zealand's economic evolution. The welfare of the country is broadly based on grassland farming, which the refrigerator—facilitating the export of perishable produce to far-distant markets—has largely promoted. During a long period of years, particularly since the invention of the refrigerator, New Zealand has devoted increasing amounts of capital and energy to the development of farming.
Necessarily associated with that expansion of farming was the progressive policy of public works (State and Local)—railways, roads, harbours, electric power, and so on—which called for the raising of many millions of money, chiefly loans from London.
Simultaneously, with a large investment of public money, directly and indirectly, in connection with land settlement, private capital is also largely involved. Altogether, the whole financial and commercial life of the country has become intimately bound up with the farming industries.
How does New Zealand pay interest on the loans of the State and Local Bodies, raised overseas, and dividends on capital supplied from other countries? The payment is almost wholly made with farm produce, which constitutes about 95 per cent. of the Dominion's exports. At present New Zealand's farming industries are required to maintain a large volume of production, with a lower proportion of overhead costs.
In regard to the development of farming and public works, attention has to be given to the many thousands of men, employed year by year in the past, directly or indirectly, as the result of the big public works programmes of the State and Local Bodies. The provision of main highways, railways, and hydro-electric works is nearly complete. There will not be much fresh enterprise in harbour works, apart from the main ports. The City Councils and the prinicipal Borough Councils have mainly finished their schemes of tramways, water-supply, sewage and other municipal needs and amenities, on which many millions of loan money have been expended. The great majority of commercial and manufacturing firms have completed their building schemes. Accordingly, many avenues of employment—formerly very wide—are very narrow to-day, and a readjustment is necessary to absorb the surplus population.
Briefly, it has been shown that New Zealand has practically completed one cycle of development, and now faces a new era—the era which
Even if the average size of a farm—to maintain fully man and family—had to be fifty acres, the right use of only a portion of the land that could be made available for this purpose could accommodate 50,000 families. But in many cases a smaller area than fifty acres would be sufficient for a family.
The placing of more men on the land can be achieved in three ways:—
(1) By farmers actually increasing the number of employees.
(2) By the establishment of families on large areas;
(3) By the establishment of families on small holdings from which they can at least earn their livelihood.
Actual records show that even in prosperous times farmers do not increase their employees materially. It therefore appears that the only way to raise effectively the rural population is by the establishment of families on land which they work themselves.
Where the State has to find the finance, individual settlement on an extensive scale on large areas cannot be considered at present. Settlement is therefore thrown back to the establishment of families on small areas.
One-family holdings may be classified in three groups:—
1. Small holdings potentially incapable of providing the whole of the livelihood of the family, and where the earnings from the land must be permanently supplemented by at least partial employment by individuals, or by assistance from the State, or by both in varying degree.
2. Small holdings potentially capable of providing the livelihood of families, but entailing expenditure by the State which may never be recoverable from the earnings of settlers from the holdings themselves.
3. Small holdings potentially capable of providing the livelihood of families and finally meeting all expenditure incurred by the State, provided the price level of primary products tends to rise.
Naturally, the self-supporting farm is the most desirable system, if adequate finance is available for the establishment of suitable settlers. It is well to bear in mind that the one-family farm is a feature of all agricultural countries that have been forced by circumstances into some measure of self-reliance.
The results of the ten-acre scheme—about 500 holdings, up to the present—indicate satisfactory prospects for its extension into the self-supporting farm where the size is not based on acreage but on the ability of the land to support the family on a reasonably good standard of living, immeasurably preferable to the conditions of unemployed men and their families in the towns.
Cost, of necessity, has to be a first consideration in any settlement policy. The self-supporting small farm can be financed at an expenditure of not more than £700, even where the whole of the land has to be developed from a virgin condition. Where suitable developed land can be obtained on a leasehold basis, the capital expenditure can be very much less.
If it is assumed, however, that £700 capitalisation is necessary to establish a one-family farm, this would mean about 1,400 families per million pounds of capital expenditure. Even if it happened that interest on such money would have to be found by the State for a few years—and there really should be no need for this—such expenditure would appear to be far preferable to the alternative—an enormous number of families remaining with no future, except, perhaps, complete dependence on the State.
The experience of the past nine months has shown that large numbers of unemployed men are eager to go on the land, with a fair and square opportunity to make homes for themselves and their families. Their purpose is not to become large farmers in the future, but to become independent of State aid. Their ideal is to win their way to the position of free settlers in the best sense of the word free—free from debt, free from fear, free from worry.
The sturdy men who are now anxious to find a place on the land are anxious to get holdings with a minimum of liabilities. They prefer to begin in a comparatively small way and grow gradually and safely, instead of starting in a large way and shrinking under a heavy pressure of overhead costs. They recognise that a living can be made from a small farm—and after all, it is the living that matters. Naturally, this conception enlarges enormously the number that can be accommodated on the land, to the advantage of themselves and the Dominion as a whole.
Of course, at this stage, however great may be the admirable spirit of self-reliance animating the intending settlers, they must be helped at the outset. The Government's plan is to supply the unemployed family with land; to provide a home and all necessary equipment, to make the land productive; and to give sustenance up to £1 a week until the returns from the land obviate the need of such assistance. Finally, when the holder has established himself successfully he will be required to pay a rent that will cover the capitalisation of his establishment. He will also have the opportunity to acquire the freehold of his farm when he is in a position to take this step.
One-family hand-milking dairy farms, carrying eighteen to twenty-four cows, using cows as a figure indicating adequate livelihood, can be provided for unemployed men and their families at a rental of not more than £1 a week—a rental which includes some provision for the holder to acquire the freehold of his section. It is well known that a farm of eighteen to twenty-four cows, hand-milked, can give as much net profit as a farm of from thirty to thirty-five cows machine-milked. It must be emphasised that the one-family dairy-farm must not be large enough to necessitate machine-milking. A hand-milked cow averages a 10 per cent. better yield than a machine-milked one. The hand also holds down that burden of “overhead”; the maintenance cost per cow is reduced to about £1 a year.
Naturally the man on a small dairy-farm will do his best to “live on the land” by growing vegetables and fruit, keeping poultry, raising a few pigs, and so on. On a large dairy-farm dairying is usually the only objective, but on a small farm, milking a few cows can become diversified. The economic eggs of the future must be put in a variety of baskets—a variety which will be the definite objective of the Small Farm Movement.
The selling-capacity of small farms is shown in the following list, to which additions can be made:—Labour to neighbourhood, butterfat, bobby calves, weaner calves, vealers, yearling heifers, weaners, porkers, baconers, eggs, young poultry, cull fowls, ducks and various specialised poultry, sheep and wool from cull lamb buying, angora wool, root and vegetable crops for human use, root crops for stock feeding to neighbourhood, small fruits capable of bearing within up to three years, maize, firewood, grass and clover seeds (hand-harvested), special certified seed, preserved fruit and pickles to neighbourhood, vegetable seeds, certain flower seeds, tobacco, and many other commodities from which at least a few pounds can be made, and which, in the aggregate, would easily provide a comfortable living.
Of course, in regard to immediate returns, butterfat appears to be the major line most easy of attainment, but the ultimate objective should be the development of farms where the yearly labour of the farmer is at least partly devoted to production of higher per acre return than milk. Such crops must, however, be producible without high capitalisation costs.
The Financial Year, 1932–1933, In Review.—The financial results of last year's working of the railways are now available and the figures that are published show that for the year 1932–33, £6,034,403 was earned with an expenditure of £5,183,859, leaving net earnings of £850,554. This last mentioned figure represents the dividend that will be available to the Treasury as representing the owners of the Railways and in these days when even old-established concerns are showing not only decreased dividends, but in all too many cases losses instead of dividends, this result can be regarded from that point of view with a large amount of satisfaction. Probably more satisfactory still is the fact that a gradual improvement in the financial results has been achieved in the last two years, despite the increasingly unfavourable general trading position. Briefly stated the improvement has been effected by strenuous effort to obtain as much as possible of all classes of traffic and at the same time to keep expenditure down to the lowest level consistent with safe, reasonable service.
Wherever the Department has under taken the running of road services, it has been done as either supplementary or alternative to the running of trains. The figures of rail and road passenger traffic must therefore be taken together in viewing the progress of this side of railway operations. When this is done it is seen that the Department carried a total of over 21 million passengers in both 1932 and 1933, the total decrease in the latter year being less than half a million. In view of the absence of Easter traffic from the 1933 year and the general backward state of business, this result must be regarded as satisfactory. A pleasing feature is that the number of standard fare train journeys made during the year was 5 per cent. higher than in 1932.
The tonnage of goods decreased by over 300,000 tons to 5,490,000 (the level of the year 1910) and the revenue by £274,000. Five-sixths of the tonnage decrease and more than half of the revenue decrease can be attributed to coal traffic which showed unusual variations—unduly high in 1932 owing to the special requirements of the Auckland Power Board through the Arapuni Hydro-electric Works being out of commission and unduly low in 1933 chiefly through industrial difficulties in the mining industry.
Other principal decreases in tonnage and revenue were in cement, road metal, and bulk benzine. All of these are in practically non-competitive lines and the decreases are here due entirely to trade conditions. When trade revives an immediate improvement in the railway position in freights such as these may be confidently anticipated.
Staff Training.—The value of the Railway Correspondence School established some years ago and of the examination tests (elementary, intermediate and senior) conducted in connection therewith—tests which must be passed before further progress can be made in the service—has been amply demonstrated in these recent years of keen competition for traffic. The system of staff training and examination aims, of course, at a higher standard of efficiency and there is no doubt that much of the satisfaction which the Department's clients now so frequently express regarding the good service they receive is evidence that this aim is being achieved.
General Manager.
Gold has been found, and in 1864, there were a number of “rushes” to various parts of the Marlborough and Nelson Districts. In particular, there had been one in the Wakamarina Diggings in the centre of which were the hamlets of Canvastown and Deep Creek. Then, in 1866, the fields were practically abandoned. There was only one settlement left and that was at Deep Creek, where some old miners were earning fairly good money. However, the news had come through that great reefs of gold had been struck in the Grey country, and from all parts of the Colony trooped the hopeful miners to the West Coast. Many succeeded and many did not.
On the 12th June, 1866, John Kempthorne, a storekeeper, Felix Mathieu, an hotelkeeper, James Dudley, a storekeeper, and James De Pontius, a miner, all set out from Deep Creek for Nelson, whence they intended to trek South to the West Coast, hoping there to find their fortune. As they walked along slowly (having to accommodate their pace to that of a slow moving pack horse that was bearing their impedimenta), they reached Canvastown before noon. Their joint wealth in gold and dust approximated £300. They left again in the afternoon and made their way along the track through the forest and on the sides of precipices and into the depths of the black valleys. They halted at an accommodation house six and a half miles further on and early next morning, on Wednesday, the 13th June, 1866, started on their final stretch for Nelson.
Mathieu, who owned the pack horse, had arranged for one Moller to follow from Deep Creek so that he could take the horse back from Nelson.
On the morning the party left the accommodation house, Moller set out from Deep Creek. He was a good walker and he had nothing to impede his progress. Rapidly he was catching up and whenever he met anyone coming from the opposite direction in which he was going, he would learn that his party was ahead. At Canvastown he learnt that his party was only a little ahead and Moller hurried on to join them. Halfway between Canvastown and Nelson there was a hamlet known as Franklyn's Flat and again he got news of the party slowly making their way ahead. On the road he met a Mr. Livingston who, with a woman called Fulton, were going towards Canvastown. They told him the party were only a mile or so along the way. Then a little later when he had expected he would have, by then, caught the party he met a man, by name, Bown. He had been travelling from Nelson and had seen nothing of the party. Moller was astounded. There was only one road and Bown ought to have seen his party. He hurried on but saw nothing of his friends. At Nelson there was no news of the men, and Canvastown on the 16th June. There he told Jervis, the storekeeper, who at once jumped to the conclusion that the men had been murdered. It seemed the only conclusion to come to,
The police were not entirely unaware of the four men who were now under suspicion and they had been traced along the road. It was known that they were practically penniless. On the Monday following Moller's return to Canvastown the police started their search for the men, though there was, by no means, a general impression that a crime had been committed. Levy was seen at the Wakatu Hotel and was held on suspicion, though there really was little justification for arresting him at that time. After Levy's arrest his mates were found to be in town. Levy and one of them had slept overnight at Porcelli's Oyster Saloon in Bridge Street, Nelson. The three men were rounded up and gave their names as Richard Henry Mullin, Thomas Noon, and Thomas Joseph M'Gee. They were ultimately identified as Richard Burgess, Thomas Kelly and Joseph Thomas Sullivan respectively.
As soon as the men were lodged in gaol the excitement in Nelson was intense. A public meeting was called in the open square and about 300 men attended from whom a committee was formed to organise a search for the missing men. Some of the local Maoris were included in the party on account of their knowledge of bush-craft; £50 was raised at once to finance the search and about fifty men started off in a short space of time to search the precipices and the bush along the roadside. The day the expedition started Hemi Martine found the pack horse, covered with branches, lying dead fifty feet below the road down the side of the mountain. The men's swags were still attached to the horse and some other articles were found alongside the dead animal.
Almost at once the Government offered a reward of £400 for the recovery of the bodies, and a Mr. Kempthorne offered another £200 for the finding of his brother's body. At the same time the Government offered a further reward of £200 and a free pardon to any accomplice provided he was not the actual murderer.
For the next eight days the search continued in the bush below the road for five or six miles on the Nelson side of Franklyn's Flat. On the eighth day when the party was about to search above the road, news came through that Sullivan had confessed to having been an accomplice, but not an actual murderer, and he gave the police information where the bodies would be found. Sullivan's confession was a very full one and implicated his three mates completely, not only for the murder of the party of four, but also of another old man whom they had murdered on the road the day before they had murdered the party. On the 30th June the bugles rang out to the search parties to assemble on the road, and the information that Sullivan had given was verified. It requires no emphasis to portray the feelings of those searchers when they viewed the murdered bodies of those four men. Two of the men had been shot, one had been strangled and Mathieu had been shot first but not instantly killed and he was stabbed as he struggled against his foul murderers. A final shot into the knife wound put an end to his suffering. Horror and anger possessed these searchers and that feeling was soon sweeping over the whole township of Nelson. The wonder is that an attempt was not made to break into the prison and lynch the fiends who lay therein. Three days later James Battle's body was recovered. All Nelson turned out to the funeral and three thousand took part in the solemn procession. The search party refused to accept Mr. Kempthorne's reward.
The manner in which Sullivan came to confess was that a notice of the reward was placed in front of the cells occupied by the four men and after a few days Sullivan, to save his own skin, and well aware that sooner or later the bodies would be found (he knew that, with the others, he would be charged), took advantage of the offer to save himself by incriminating his fellow conspirators. He said he was not an actual murderer as his rôle in the crime was to watch the road for passers by while the others disposed of the unfortunate men.
At the hearing in the Magistrate's Court, Sullivan was placed in the witness box while his mates occupied the dock. His evidence was enough to hang the others and later, after a remand, when the evidence was reduced to writing, Burgess created a complete surprise by confessing his part of the crime, but tried to clear the other two prisoners while inculpating Sullivan. It was a desperate move to revenge himself on Sullivan. While here it is impossible to give much detail of what Burgess said in his confession, which he headed “The Confession of Burgess the Murderer,” the beginning is, I think, worth while repeating. It was in these words:—
“Written in my dungeon drear, this 7th day of August, in the year of Grace, 1866. To God, be ascribed all power and glory in subduing the rebellious spirit of a most guilty wretch,
The trial of Burgess, Kelly and Levy began on the 12th September. The Grand Jury returned true bills on the four charges of murder and then also on the fifth charge of murder in respect of the death of Battle. The charge touching the death of Mathieu alone was proceeded with. The evidence touching the other deaths was, of course, relevant to the inquiry. The trial was presided over by Mr. Justice Johnston and the jury was a special one. Mr. Robert Hart, of Wellington, then a well-known barrister, went over to Nelson and conducted the prosecution, with the aid of the local Crown Solicitor, Mr. H. Adams. Levy had secured counsel in Mr. Pitt, of the Nelson bar, but the other two men conducted their own defences. Burgess's defence, as may be imagined from the confession he had made, was mainly directed to throwing doubt on Sullivan's word so as to implicate him as an actual murderer. When the evidence began the question as to which of the three should begin cross-examining the witnesses brought from Burgess the statement: “I merely stand here as an expert in this awful tragedy. I do not expect any advantage for myself, but I on consideration, should wish to cross-examine Sullivan before Mr. Pitt.”
After formal witnesses had proved plans that had been taken of the locality of the crimes, evidence was given of the finding of the bodies of the victims. It was shewn that they had all been treated much in the same way. The arms had been pinioned together and then the victims had been led up the hill into the bush and there in their helpless state foully done to death. Then followed medical evidence, which was little more than formal, for there could hardly be any doubt how death had been encountered. The first witness on the second day of the trial was Sullivan, and Mr. Pitt tried to have him excluded as incompetent to give evidence.
He told how the victims approached and were duly stuck up and robbed and then were led up the mountain on the promise that they would be freed. Sullivan said that his part of the crime consisted in staying on the road watching out while the other three led the victims away to their doom. Sullivan admitted that he also killed the pack horse. Burgess cross-examined Sullivan as to his previous history, and elicited that he was an escaped criminal from Australia and that he had been deported from England after a conviction for robbery. He said that he had been stuck up in Australia by bushrangers and had told the police. Burgess suggested that he was one of them himself and had turned approver on that occasion as he was doing now. Sullivan, naturally, denied this. A little later Burgess asked Sullivan “Why did you murder that poor unfortunate man, Battle?” But the Judge told the witness he need not answer that question.
The cross-examination of this fiend occupied many hours and firmly established that both Burgess and Sullivan were criminals of the worst possible type. Sullivan was in the witness box for fifteen hours in all.
Burgess, in his final address to the jury, attempted to reveal himself as a most vile person then repentant, who desired not to save himself from the end that justice would demand, but to save two unfortunate men, Kelly and Levy, who were quite innocent of the crime. He Explained that they had gone ahead of Sullivan and himself and they really knew nothing of the crime which he and Sullivan perpetrated. Burgess gave horrible details of how he and Sullivan actually murdered the four men. He finished a long speech invoking God in the interest of justice. Kelly's speech was a long rambling one and his final words shew the confusion that fell from his lips. These were his last words: “Gentlemen, I am not able to make remarks on my evidence, and I wish you would do it for me. I throw my life into your hands; do your duty, and give me a verdict of acquittal. There were four or five men being killed; now this was not done by four men. It is not done by a lot of men. Don't think that four or five men would do this, and one of them a Jew. Two men might be found who would do all this; but not four, and one of these four a Jew. Gentlemen, I again declare my innocence, and although I am a marked man, I have not killed any of these men.”
Mr. Pitt did what could be done for Levy. He denied that Levy's clothing bore any marks of the crime. He warned them against accepting the word of such a vile creature as Sullivan. Mr. Hart traversed the evidence at great length and on the morning of the sixth day the Judge began his summing up to the jury. It was inevitable that his summing up should be deadly. It would not have been judicial had it been otherwise. He properly warned them against believing Sullivan without corroboration. But what could a jurv do when Burgess confessed the crime and neither of the other prisoners went into the box. The jury retired at 4.23 p.m. and came back in 55 minutes.
In answer to the customary questions the foreman announced that all three were found guilty. Burgess said little, but Kelly became panic-stricken and began a rambling and irrelevant speech shewing himself to be the cur that he was. Levy said he was innocent. The Judge addressed the prisoners in sentencing them to death and was interrupted several times by Kelly. As the Judge was about to pronounce sentence on Levy, the prisoner said: “I am happy to inform you that in my own mind, and from the very bottom of my heart, by the God I worship, I leave this bar an innocent man.” The Judge at once replied “Then I must inform you that there is no apparent warrant for your saying so, and that this statement of yours has no effect on me, and should not have the slightest effect on the jury or the public.”
On the following Wednesday, Sullivan was tried for the murder of James Battle and was duly found guilty, and sentenced to death.
On Wednesday, the 3rd October, Burgess, Kelly, and Levy were duly executed. The excitement in the town was so great that the military forces had been called out in case of trouble. None arose in point of fact. The execution was conducted within the prison walls and while Burgess and Levy met their end with the stoicism commonly found in hardened criminals, Kelly shewed himself to be a cowardly our throughout the proceedings. He held up the proceedings for half an hour with his interruptions and in reading a long speech he had composed. He became hysterical and his conduct must have had a harrowing effect on all who were present.
Burgess possessed a terrible character. At the age of fifteen he was sentenced to 15 years transportation for burglary, and in Australia he was sentenced to 10 years for highway robbery. He was also tried for murder, but was acquitted. In an autobiography he wrote in prison he admitted having taken part in the murder of nine persons. Kelly's past included 7 years transportation for thefts, and in Australia he was the associate of a notorious bushranger, named Gardiner. He was tried along with three other desperadoes, for the murder of a Mr. Marcus. He was acquitted, but one of the others convicted and hanged was his brother. He came to New Zealand and in an affray at Gabriel's Gully he fired on the police and received a term of four years hard labour. Levy's past was not known till he came to New Zealand. He was known to the police as a receiver of stolen goods and used to suggest the commission of crimes to others while keeping out of trouble himself.
Sullivan received the benefit of his confession and was not hanged though his past was a bad one. He had been deported from England as a youth and thereafter dabbled in crime though he was not sentenced to any long term of imprisonment so far as can be ascertained.
The appointment of Mr. G. H. Mackley as General Manager of the New Zealand Railways in succession to the late Mr. P. G. Roussell, was announced recently by the Prime Minister, Rt. Hon. G. W. Forbes. Since the death of Mr. Roussell some months ago, Mr. Mackley has been Acting-General Manager, and prior to that, from December, 1931, he occupied the position of Assistant General Manager.
Born at Port Chalmers in 1883, and educated at the Invercargill Grammar School, Mr. Mackley joined the Railways as a cadet in the traffic branch at Otautau, Southland, in 1900. He worked at various stations in the Southland and Otago districts until 1907, when he was appointed as a clerk in the Chrischurch goods department.
After being transferred on promotion to Petone station, and later to Invercargill goods department, he was appointed Assistant Relieving Officer and later (1913) stationmaster at Heriot. Subsequent to this he had five years as stationmaster at Kaikohe and Onerahi, and served as Assistant Relieving Officer in the Wellington district, being later promoted to the position of Divisional Clerk in the District Traffic Manager's Office at Wellington, where he then qualified as a Train-running Officer (1920–24), being later transferred to Ohakune. During part of this period he represented the Department before the Railway Appeal Board. He was Chief Clerk at Ohakune from 1925 to 1928, and was selected in September, 1928, to be Chief Clerk in the Head Office, Wellington.
Mr. Mackley has had a remarkably wide range of experience in his thirty-three years with the Department. He has worked in practically every position in the traffic branch, and has had actual service in the majority of the larger districts, from Invercargill to Whangarei. The types of work have included goods, parcels and passenger traffic, shipping work of all types associated with the railways, train-running and transport experience (for he is a certified train-running officer), and executive responsibility as a District Chief Clerk and relieving District Manager.
As Chief Clerk at Head Office, Mr. Mackley had very comprehensive responsibilities. His office was the medium through which correspondence between the General Manager and the branch heads, as well as the public, was conducted. It was the central clearing-house of the service, and gave opportunities for knowledge of the inter-relation of the various branches of the Department not otherwise obtainable.
A keen student and collector of railway literature, Mr. Mackley has also taken a personal interest in several organisations outside the Department upon matters of public weal. For many years he was actively engaged in some of the more strenuous sports—football, rowing, and running, and he is an enthusiastic angler.
An indication of his public spirit was shown when he took up the cudgels on behalf of the Dalmatians, of Kaikohe, who were threatened with internment during the Great War. He successfully defended them, and his action was approved by the Royal commission which subsequently dealt with the question. Mr. Mackley still prizes a watch given him by the grateful Dalmatians in recognition of his disinterested efforts on their behalf.
As a member of the Railway Officers’ Institute, Mr. Mackley took an active interest in the affairs of his fellow railwaymen, and was on two occasions chosen as delegate to the Institute's annual conference.
Throughout his career he has invariably gained the highest regard of the various officers with whom he has worked, and the reports of these officers bear striking testimony of the high regard in which he was held throughout the service. Among the general public also Mr. Mackley is held in the highest esteem, because of the helpful attitude he adopts toward all those with whom the Department has to deal, and the very thorough way in which all representations made to him are considered.
“Good evening, everybody.” This is the chorus of a popular marching song on the Tararua Ranges, as relayed to Ruru by the wekas of Mt. Hector.
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Waiohine, by the way, is a map misspelling of the real name of the mountain river which gave a tramping party such trouble. It should be Waiohina. The name has a poetic origin. The mists and the snows resting on the Tararua Ranges were figuratively spoken of by the Maoris on the eastern plains as the “hina” or “white hair” of the mountains. Hence the river which flowed from those wintry heights came to be called Wai-o-hina, or “Water of White Hair.”
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A New Zealand man who sojourned on Pitcairn Island, has expressed the opinion that the simple-life islanders wanted shaking up a bit in the way of industrial development and more contact with the big outside world. This aroused a retort from a Pitcairn resident in Auckland that the island folk are quite contented and happy as they are. They had all they wanted for a carefree life. Still, that will not satisfy our modern progressivists. I can picture a hustling captain of industry, or an efficiency expert let loose on inefficient Pitcairn to work it up to the requisite pitch of sophisticated advancement. There are so many things we could introduce there by way of persuading it to get a move on.
There are, to begin with, our gas bills, electric light bills, radio licenses, telephone accounts, tight boots, tight husbands, Alsatian dogs, motor cycles, thirty-seven different kinds of inspectors, “Pro Bono Publico” and “Indignant Ratepayer,” midnight jazz parties, policemen, opossums in the orchard, fishing licenses, fourteen thousand and eighteen regulations, Rotary Club speeches, Hollywood cuties, and the rent. When the carefree Pitcairn has begun to assimilate that little lot of concomitants of civilisation we can send him some more to help him onward and upward.
* * *
It is natural that the Maoris of the North should be taking a close and particular interest in the
whare-whakairo. The artists to decorate the buildings can be provided there too, instead of sending to the Arawa country for carvers and carvings, as has too often been the practice in other parts of the Island.
The talent for working shapeless wood into a thing of beauty is inherent in the race; many Maoris have a natural gift for using the carving chisel. The Ngapuhi people of the North have been in danger losing olden customs; and indirectly the Governor-General has set in motion a general movement for their revival. And it has been remarked that the people will make none the worse farmers for a reconstruction in some measure of the stimulating past.
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The case for the establishment of a Wild Life Control Council is strengthened by the frequent reports of the destrucition of the native bird life by the many pests. Various interests and activities could be co-ordinated with benefit to New Zealand's bush and its feathered inhabitants if one strong body were in a position to deal with all the problems concerned. Friends of the birds are also friends of the forest, and no doubt a Council could do much by its influence to save the bush along the main routes of travel, where the indigenous woodland is so much more attractive to the eye than any plantations of foreign pines and firs.
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Sportsmen sometimes complain that game for their rifles and shotguns is becoming scarcer in New Zealand. As far as concerns the gunners, it is scarcely to be wondered at that wildfowl are decreasing, considering the havoc that has been made in the past among the native duck and other birds, and the decrease of the
Those who look for strenuous sport with the rifle might be invited to try their stalking and marksmanship on the hordes of wild goats that infest the Mt. Egmont State Forest Reserve. It is quite a sporting proposition. The goats will give the riflemen a merry enough run for it, and the sports will have the satisfaction of knowing that every billy and nanny laid out will help to save that glorious bush.
Kapiti Island was an example of a half devastated bush area, all the undergrowth and young plants and ferns eaten, until the Lands Department took it in hand, sent a custodian and riflemen there, and had the hundreds of goats shot out.
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“Ruru's” province does not embrace international politics, any more than it does domestic party korero. But all this angry talk about the Japanification of China, which really does not matter to us, suggests the timeliness of a reminder that Japan has always been our very good friend, that she was our stout and useful ally in the War—remember those Jap. cruisers off Wellington Heads waiting to escort our troopships over the dangerous seas—and that our interest in the Pacific will best be served by remaining the best of friends. Also, and by the way, we never read of Jap. pirates capturing steamers and holding prisoners for ransom—a thriving Chinese industry.
* * *
Pukeroa Park, that beautiful hill above Rotorua town, is about to revert to its former use as a recreation ground, now that it is no longer needed for the big war period hospital. It is a place of history as well as green loveliness. The great palisaded fortress of the Arawa once stood there. It should never be forgotten that the Rotorua citizens and the Government owe Pukeroa to the generosity of the Maoris. Fifty odd years ago the Arawa exhibited a spirit of chieftainlike generosity that some commercial-minded pakehas could not understand. The Government policy in establishing a State Spa at Rotorua was welcomed warmly, and apart from the sale of thermal areas to the Crown at very low prices, many absolute gifts were made. One of these was Pukeroa Hill, which was to be used as a recreation reserve by both Maoris and Europeans.
Now we may hope to see the removal of the structures which cumber the old citadel of the Arawa, and the spacious ground become once again the gathering place of Rotorua's two races for sports and holiday-making. It is really a wonderful public possession, capable of being made more beautiful and interesting still, by the planting of native trees—much neglected in Rotorua town so far—and, I suggest, by using native art-craft in wood-carving for the entrance gates, as in the days of old.
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New Zealand's principal fault just now appears to be that it is producing too much that is too good. Alongside the newspaper heading “Higher Production—Big Butterfat Increase,” the other day, was the announcement, “Low Butter Prices Continue — Cheese Market Weaker.” All previous records in dairy produce yield have been broken by the grading figures for the 1932–33 season. So bad times simply seem to stimulate better quality. Very fine indeed—if we could only get the cash for it. Now it seems also that Nelson grows such wonderful apples that they are often too big to export, the graders say they are over the odds; smaller ones are more acceptable. Our honey is produced in such quantities that it is not easy to market it all; our eggs are better than any other eggs ever known to the henneries of the world. The land literally overflows with milk and honey. Even our fighting fish are the very best in the sporting market, and our geysers are hotter stuff than any other spouters known. All we want, as I said before, is for the world to come running this way with its money-bags.
Sir George Grey, K.C.B., soldier, explorer, governor, politician, orator, scholar and philanthropist, New Zealand's most commanding historical figure, is the subject of this sketch by a writer who knew him in his later days. No personality in the story of these islands was stronger or more enigmatical than Grey, who made many friends and many enemies, and none made more lasting impression on the country, for he framed its Constitution and in great measure shaped its future.
(From a miniature in the N.Z. General Assembly Library.)
On a leading Auckland daily newspaper, in the days when Sir George Grey lived in retirement after his life of activity and turmoil, the practice held of sending a member of the staff to obtain the veteran's opinion on current political events of moment. It was tradition there that Sir George's sage views were of considerably greater value than those of most men, and certainly the journalistic practice usually was justified by results, for the old man seldom failed to say something interesting from a point of view that perhaps could not be expected from other public men of the day. His was the long sight; always he peered into the misty future. He drew from his great experience of the past lessons and warnings that he applied to the coming days. He could have said, with the poet, “The sunset of life gives me mystical lore.” More than once on newspaper duty, I had the opportunity of meeting the grand old man, and one occasion in particular is still vivid in memory. It was not long before Grey's final departure for England, and some development in New Zealand politics called for a talk with him and a request for his opinion on the situation. So this then youthful interviewer was despatched by the editor, who was a great friend of Grey and a supporter of his liberal principles in politics. Whatever the subject was, it was of lesser importance than that to which Sir George straight-away switched the conversation when I called on him at his home in Parnell. White of hair and of closely-cut crisp beard, stooped of shoulders (not so much the stoop of infirmity, as what is called the scholar's stoop, that always marked Grey), the great man sat there in his study looking out on the green lawns and the trees and through the trees, the sparkling Waitemata, the scene he loved more, I suppose, than any other on earth. When the first question was put, an expression of mild amusement gave a quite whimsical quirk to his lips and a gleam to his eyes. The sage was not to be drawn so easily. With perfect courtesy he put the subject aside for the moment and took up a new book he had just been reading and gave it to me for a glance. It was the Rev. Dr. Paton's book on the New Hebrides.
With that subject as a text he entered upon a fascinating exposition of his long ago scheme for a confederation of the islands of the South Pacific. He went back to the days of the first
The grey old statesman, his usually low, rather quavering voice strengthening and steadying as he discussed the subject that had always been of great concern to him, spoke of his ideal, of those long-ago days of his first governorship in New Zealand—an all-British expanse of island-dotted ocean, all British except for the French who had already got a footing in the Eastern Pacific; a federated constellation of tropic states in which civilised government should replace political chaos and intertribal bloodshed, in which trade should be stimulated by a fleet of vessels trading from Auckland to every group, and in which the approaches to New Zealand and Australia should be guarded by these chains of coral outposts.
That was the outline of his dream: a dream that had it then won the approval of the British Government, at the beginning of the Fifties, would have saved these colonies, and Britain too, a vast amount of anxiety and international complications and would have improved the condition of all the Island peoples.
This interviewer returned to the office with very vague ideas of Sir George's views on the political situation of the hour—naturally so, for the diplomatic veteran had said not a word that would give a handle to either faction; “a plague o’ both your houses” was no doubt his private opinion. But a far more spacious subject had been opened before him; he had had the rare opportunity of hearing the Pacific Confederation ideal expounded by its originator; a scheme that has been elaborated, in theory at least, by many a later publicist, and that some of our last generation of politicians liked to have the world imagine was quite a clever notion of their own. Grey's fine conception of the oceanic empire has to some extent been given effect to, for New Zealand's mana and flag now cover many Pacific islands; but there would have been a wide-extending homogeneity of government and corresponding peaceful progress among most of the groups south of the Equator had such a man as Grey been enabled to devote his personal influence and statecraft to the execution of such a plan of empire.
However, Grey's work in New Zealand is the known and visible measure of his greatness. His career here is a matter of familiar history at any rate the main features, and so need not be detailed in this brief sketch. What impresses one most, in a mental review of the man's capacity and achievements, successes—and failures—is his many-sidedness, his multiplicity of interests and accomplishments. He was a well-skilled soldier before he came out to “the Colonies,” he was an explorer of proved courage and enterprise, a scientist, and a writer, and a successful governor in South Australia before he saw New Zealand shores. He reduced administrative chaos to order at Auckland, and he carried through the North Auckland military campaign with success within a few weeks of his arrival. He was then only thirty-three years of age. He had two other little wars on his hands in the Islands, following on Heke's; these he disposed of; and then began the uninterrupted progress of the country. He found it distracted with war, he left it in peace at the end of his first governorship. It was in that first governorship that he established his character for statesmanship; it is the period by which we like best to remember him.
It was in those rough but golden days that he won the hearts of the Maoris by his interest in their customs and beliefs, legends and poetry, by his sympathy with their wishes to acquire civilised habits, and his practical assistance to the native farming communities. It is pleasant to recall the stories of Grey in camp on his long inland journeys, long before there were roads or bridges in the land, making light of all the little discomforts which annoyed his pakeha staff, and finding keen enjoyment in learning Maori and in listening to the endless folk-tales of the old chiefs, and with his faithful interpreter Piri-Kawau taking them down for future record. That was Grey's delight; he loved to recall with mingled pleasure and regret those days on the bush trail and in primitive Kaingas.
Never was any ruler of a land with a native race so greeted and so lamented as Sir George Grey was when he was leaving New Zealand in 1853 on the completion of his first term of governorship. Deputations of chiefs and addresses of farewell from all over the island expressed the grief of the people at his departure. I would like to quote many of these poetic mihis of sorrow, but those from a Waikato district in which he had taken particular interest will indicate the sincerity and depth of the Maori esteem and gratitude. The place was Rangiaowhia, which under missionary and official guidance and help became a garden of cultivation and fruitfulness in the days before the war. Here came Grey in 1848 and 1849 visiting his loyal wheat-farmers and giving them practical encouragement in the arts of civilisation. An Englishman, Tom Power, was sent to instruct the people in ploughing and other farm work.
Hoani Papita Kahawai and other chiefs of Rangiaowhia, in their address of farewell to Kawana Kerei, recalled the great kindness which he had manifested towards the people of the place and the gifts of ploughs, horses, carts and other property, which had enabled the Maoris to assimilate some of the usages of the pakeha.
“You have made our lands important,” they wrote. “Our love to you and our remembrance of you will not cease; no, never. Go hence, O friend, go to the Queen and carry with you our love to her in return for the gifts which we have in our possession. If the Queen should send another governor, let his love for the Maoris be like yours, and we will repay him with our love.”
Another farmer chief, Hori te Waru, wrote: “Our love for you is great because you have shown us much kindness. You have elevated us and provided teachers to instruct our children and implant good principles in their hearts.”
And ten years later the Governor was launching an army against those once so loyal folk of Rangiaowhia, and presently Hoani Papita and his people were flying for their lives to the swamps and the ranges, leaving their beautiful village a ravaged and bloodstained ruin, and never again were they to worship in their pretty churches (that old Selwyn church of Rangiaowhia still stands there) or gather the fruits of the good soil. Land and cultivations, churches and all passed to the pakeha. For in Kawana Kerei's absence in South Africa, Rangiaowhia had become the centre of Maori Kingite politics; and gun and tomahawk displaced the peaceful age symbolised by Tom Power's plough.
The scene had changed indeed when Grey returned for his second governorship. Profound distrust had succeeded the olden confidence. Governor Grey was no longer the gladly hailed benefactor. Some of the Maori descriptions of him and his officials in the critical period just before the Waikato War were excellently apt and terse and to the point. The chief Patene told young John Gorst, the Government Commissioner at Te Awamutu, that the officers of the Government were worms, bait that Governor Grey was fishing with, and if they were suffered to remain some tribes of Waikato would inevitably be caught. It was a common saying that Governor Browne was a hawk who came swooping down on the Maoris from a clear sky, whereas Kawana Kerei was like a kiore, a rat; he would burrow underground and come out when and where least expected. A Ngati-Haua chief said that the usual way of catching a ruru (owl) was for one man to shake some object before it to attract its attention, while his companion slipped a noose over its head from behind; so Governor Grey had sent his companion (Gorst) to dazzle them with laws and regulations while he was waiting a chance to entangle them in the meshes of the Queen's sovereignity.
Perhaps the happiest time of Grey's life was when he was playing the squire on his beautiful island home the Kawau. That natural park of the Hauraki Gulf he made a kind of botanical museum; he had a staff of gardeners for the grounds of his mansion-house (it cost him £5,000), and from the island he sent many plants to stock the Albert Park in Auckland. He grew trees and flowers from all parts of the world; he even had coconut palms, under glass; they grew but there were no “milky-nuts.” There with his books and all manner of treasures about him, he lived a leisured cultured life and often played the hospitable host to famous men from abroad. It was from this quiet retreat, among the great pohutukawa groves and the products of many a foreign land, that he was called forth to lead a party and shake up the dry bones of politics in Wellington. He was an inspiration to reform; his presence, his eloquence, and his magnetic mana carried all before them—for a time. But that great burst of popularity, which followed on the successful appeal of a deputation which waited on him at the Kawau, was chiefly confined to Auckland, where Grey always was a hero. He was Premier of the Colony for two years, 1877–79. There is no space here to narrate the ex-Governor's career as a fighting politician; but it may be summed up as a
But the sidelights on Grey as humanist; his literary and artistic interests, his splendid bequests to Auckland City, his friendship with scholars and scientists, are the most pleasant things in retrospect. One remembers how he and Robert Louis Stevenson met in Auckland; two men with a great deal in common, particularly in their regard for the native races of the Pacific. Stevenson passed through Auckland in February, 1893, on his way to and from Sydney; it was his last voyage, for he died in Samoa the following year. Those two eloquent greathearts, how they delighted in each other's company for the brief time R. L. S. had to spare while the mail-ship was in port. I have a treasured memory of that last passing through of Stevenson, for I met him there, on board the Mariposa, and he talked of his books (he told me he was busy on “The Schooner Farallone,” a title which later he changed to “The Ebb Tide”) and of Vailima, but most of all of Samoa's troubled politics. Presently Sir George Grey came down in his carriage, and took Stevenson off to his Parnell home, Stevenson recorded that visit in “Vailima Letters.” He wrote that he had seen a good deal of Sir George Grey:
“What a wonderful old historic figure to be walking on your arm and recalling ancient events and instances!
Stevenson hotly championed the cause of the Samoan people and assailed with all the indignation of his chivalrous soul the mismanagement of affairs there by the Powers. Grey understood all that, and he had a keenly sympathetic listener when he sketched his early-days dream, the federation of the South Pacific Islands which would have prevented the more than half-a-century of raruraru, to use an expressive Maori word—turmoil, botheration, distraction—in Samoa, for had he had his way the group would have been under a British protectorate in the Fifties.
Of the flickering out of a great spirit, much that would be moving could be written—his prophet-like last speeches in Auckland, his pact with his old political antagonist Rewi Maniapoto to be buried both in the same grave at Rewi's old home, a pathetic covenant that was never fulfilled; his voyage to England and his reconciliation to the wife of his youth. Hori Kerei's bones lie in St. Paul's Cathedral, not in a township on the Old Frontier of Waikato. But the story of New Zealand is his real monument; his work as a nation-builder, a lawgiver; his benefactions to the citizens of Auckland, his salving of Maori legends and poetry. His “Polynesian Mythology” alone assures him lasting fame.
New and luxurious passenger stock is constantly being put into traffic on the Home railways. In these days of keen competition, attractive and comfortable passenger carriages play a big part in retaining business to the rail, and on the four group railways of Britain there is found to-day some of the finest passenger rolling-stock in the whole world.
The London, Midland and Scottish line—the largest of the four British consolidations—has just introduced into the fast Anglo-Scottish services a batch of new composite (first and third-class) passenger carriages of exceptionally interesting design. The carriages are 60 ft. 1 in. long over body, and 8 ft. 11¼ in. wide. Distance between centres of bogies is 43 ft. 6 in., and bogie wheel base 9 ft. The underframe is of rolled steel channels, and the body framing is of teak with steel panelling arranged to give a flush finish. Two first-class and four third-class compartments are reached from a side corridor running the full length of the coach, and entrance to the vehicle is gained by two doors on each side, one door being placed at either end of the car.
Because of the luxurious nature of the interior fittings, each first-class compartment seats four passengers only. Upholstery is in blue and gold moquette, and arm-rests give the seats an arm-chair character. The floor is covered with a hand-woven carpet, and the windows are fitted with curtains and blinds of blue and gold silk. The interior woodwork is of walnut. In the third-class section, six passengers are accommodated in each compartment. Grey velvet upholstery is here employed. A tasteful rubber mat covers the floor, and mahogany is the interior woodwork favoured. The lavatory at the end of the carriage has walls of duck-eggshell blue Rexine, and the floor is laid with terrazzo. Heating, ventilation and lighting, have been given special attention, and all things considered it would be hard to find a more comfortable and attractive passenger carriage than this, excluding, of course, the special Pullman and similar vehicles for the use of which an additional fare has to be paid.
The view has more than once been expressed that the British railways are inclined to unduly pamper the modern traveller in the matter of luxurious rolling-stock. Whatever truth there may be in this, it is certainly striking how the railways have put themselves out in recent years to add to the pleasure and comfort of passenger travel. Luxurious interior fittings to carriages have been
Recently, the Southern Railway has commenced the construction of a special station cinema at the Victoria terminal, in London, the designing of which has been entrusted to Mr. Alister MacDonald, the architect son of the Prime Minister. News films chiefly, will be shewn, interspersed with films depicting travel scenes at home and abroad. Passengers waiting for trains will be admitted free of charge, and timely warning of the approaching departure of each train will be flashed on the screen during the programme.
Just what the railwaymen of the nineteenth century would think of innovations of this character is a bit of a problem. Stephenson and Brunel, for example, never dreamt of the railway industry embracing such activities as part of its daily routine. This year, it may be recalled, the Great Western Railway is celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of the appointment of Isambard Brunel as its chief engineer.
Brunel practically made the Great Western Railway. He was the pioneer of broad-gauge railways, and among the famous engineering works that stand to his credit are the Clifton Suspension Bridge over the Menai Straits, and the even more remarkable Royal Albert Bridge, conveying the Great Western line over the River Tamar, at Saltash, near Plymouth. Another activity of the gifted engineer was the construction of the atmospheric railway which linked Exeter with Newton Abbot, in South Devon. It was the good fortune of the writer to travel over Brunel's Saltash Bridge a short time ago, and to inspect this unique monument to engineering genius, which is to-day in as sound a condition as it was when opened for traffic more than sixty years ago.
In the successful combating of road competition, the Great Western Railway is an acknowledged leader. This line was one of the first to realise how rapidly road transport was destined to expand, and in addition to being the pioneer of railwayowned road motor vehicles, the Great Western has probably advanced more than any other system in the direction of acquiring financial and working interests in the leading road transport undertakings.
Apart from the ordinary town collection and delivery services by road motor, the Great Western operates a most successful “railhead distribution” service, to which previous reference has been made in these pages; and an elaborate interlinked “country lorry” service, under which remote villages are given daily road connection with the railway. “Country lorry” services are now established at 115 centres, while a number of special
The recent opening of the throughout electrified main-line of the Southern Railway of England, between London and Brighton, is not apparently to be allowed to pass unchallenged. Several of the continental railway systems have big electrification plans in prospect, the most noteworthy of these being in Italy and Sweden.
In Italy proposals have been approved for the conversion from steam to electric operation, of about 2,500 miles of railway track, at a total cost of something like £45,000,000. The scheme is divided into three sections, each section embracing four years’ work. The principal routes concerned are those connecting Italy with Switzerland and Austria, and the north-south main-line between Milan and Reggio, on the Straits of Messina, as well as the Turin-Trieste main-line.
To the world-famed giants among passenger trains, like the “Flying Scotsman,” the “Royal Scot.” the Wellington-Auckland Limited, the “Twentieth Century Limited,” and the Chicago-Los Angeles “Chief,” there is now to be added another name. This is the “Flying Hamburger” of the German National Railways, operating between Berlin and the port of Hamburg.
The “Flying Hamburger” covers the 178 miles between the German capital and Hamburg in about 140 minutes, a throughout average speed of 75 m.p.h. It is not a conventional heavy passenger train, this remarkable “Flying Hamburger,” but a two-car articulated train, accommodating 102 passengers, and driven by two 410 h.p. Maybach-Diesel engines. The train is the result of lengthy experiments conducted by the German authorities with Diesel-electric units, and in the near future it is likely that many new services of this character will be introduced. In general, Germany is not a land of high passenger train speeds. The main-line services are not particularly speedy, although they are exceptionally punctual. Forty miles an hour is considered quite a good average express speed in Germany, and for all practical purposes this speed appears to meet adequately the needs of German travellers.
Napier Old And New
Pioneer Stories Of Hawkes Bay.
(From a drawing by Lieut. H. S. Bates.)
Camp of the 65th Regiment at Onepoto Valley, Napier, 1859.
Much has been written during the last few weeks of what is practically the rebirth of Napier, the splendidly successful effort of reconstruction after the double disaster of earth-quake and fire, and of the resolution and courage displayed by the people of Hawke's Bay in their endeavours to overcome the trouble with which the powers of Nature afflicted them. Headed by His Excellency the Governor, the citizens of New Zealand have united to do honour to the plucky men and women of the devastated districts who have risen superior to evil Fate and have made their town a better place in some respects than it was before the great misfortune fell upon them. The daily newspapers have told us much of that. Hawke's Bay is at work again more busily than before; time is effacing its scars; skilled scientific building is making its provincial capital safer than before.
Authentic pictures of the past of a country are particularly interesting in such a land as New Zealand, with its adventurous history, a many-coloured story of pioneer life and hazard. Hawke's Bay settlement was not endangered, except on one memorable occasion, by such wars and raids as Taranaki suffered in the Sixties. Nevertheless there was much of the rough end of life in the infancy of the province. The endeavours of the early settlers to turn the wild land to account were necessarily strenuous, and often visited by misfortune. Travel was difficult in that unroaded, unbridged country, where even the Maori population was sparse, except near the coast.
Napier was not without its military life and stir, both before and during the Hauhau wars on the East Coast. As early as 1857 there was a garrison of British troops in the young town. This was a detachment of some 200 of the 65th Regiment, that hard-fighting corps of Indian fame which had for its proud nickname
pakeha population was never at any time in danger, at any rate not until the early Sixties, when the 65th were busy elsewhere.
The Maori trouble was a kind of family squabble, arising out of what was regarded
Napier To-day
pakeha. “As he has sold the forest,” he said, “he must now cook his food with the bones of his ancestors.”
This speech was a most serious kanga, or curse, to the Maori mind, and “The Great Fish of the Ocean” raised a war-party of his clan and attacked Te Moananui. In vindication of his war-making he said: “A blow is soon forgotten, but insulting words live for ever.”
Te Moananui, in his turn, besieged Te Hapuku in his palisaded pa. As the scene of the trouble was within a few miles of Napier the white population became alarmed and the Governor of the day was appealed to to send soldiers to protect the settlement. Now came into action the founder of Napier, the great Donald Maclean (afterwards Sir Donald), who was the Government agent in Hawke's Bay. He arranged a peaceful settlement. Te Hapuku, who seemed to be getting the worst of it, agreed to evacuate his pa and remove to a more secure spot, his ancestral lands at Poukawa. He burned his village, and with all his people marched off with the honours of war.
Meanwhile, the 65th detachment, commanded by Colonel Wyatt, arrived and established a camp at Onepoto, a valley and beach on the side of Scinde Island facing the inner harbour. One-poto means a short strip of sandy beach. Some facetious members of the Royal Tigers christened the camp “One-potato Gully.”
One of the 65th officers stationed at Napier at this period was a young lieutenant named H. S. Bates. He liked the Maoris and learned their language, and he married a young chieftainess, daughter of Manihera, of the Atiawa tribe (of Taranaki), in Wellington. In 1863 he was made interpreter and A.D.C. to the
“It was a hot summer morning, at the end of 1859,” he wrote. “I had started from my little hut in the One-poto Valley, a narrow gorge on Scinde Island, surrounded by fern-clad hills, a spot in which fate and the service of my country compelled me to while away two and a half years of life. It was pleasant to climb up the steep roadway which led from the confined valley, and inhale the cool sea breeze which was borne to the plateau where the recently erected wooden barracks stood, surrounded by an earth parapet. Descending a steep and newly-cut bridle track, we left the fern-clad hills of Scinde Island and came on to a flat, or wide sterile expanse of pumice stone, the debris of some far-off volcano. This was the site of the future town of Napier, and though there were at present only two or three small weather-boarded and shingled shanties on it, the map which hung in the Provincial Survey Office showed it parcelled out into streets, squares, and corner lots, with here and there a church or school house reserve. Vain dreams they seemed then; but the performance has been greater than the anticipation. Years afterwards I sold the quarter of an acre which I owned in the pumice-stone desert for £300, or at the rate of £1200 per acre.
“Passing over this scene of desolation, we came to a long strip of hard shingle, over which we made good progress. On our left were low sandhills, which separated us from the sea beach, on which the little waves were breaking in melodious rhythm. Oyster-catchers and other sea-birds stood here and there, perched on stones, gazing seaward, or now and again picking up some mussel or other shellfish, bearing the bivalve aloft and letting it drop on some hard piece of rock below, a process which was repeated again and again till the shell cracked and gave up its contents. On our right were mudflats and swamps fringed with raupo reeds.
“About seven miles from Napier the track turned abruptly to the right, and a deep river bars the way. On the other side of the river, which is about a hundred yards wide, smoke rises from the turf chimney of a small hut built of sods. Two or three vigorous ‘coo-ees’ bring the ferryman out of his whare, and he proceeds to work a crazy ramshackle sort of ferry boat over to our side, by hauling at a chain. A rough-looking German is Nat Tieck, commonly known as ‘the colonel,’ a man of few words. We quickly dismount, and lead our horses on to the cranky raft. I help the ferryman to haul on the chain, and we are soon landed on the other side. The ‘colonel's’ wife, a red-headed Irishwoman, is digging potatoes in a fenced-in patch. Her I politely address with ‘Güten Morgen, Frau Tieck, wie geht's ihnen?’ To which the red-headed one replies with some asperity, ‘Ah, go along wid yez and yer blarney!’
“We climb on to our horses’ backs and jog along another mile to the village of Clive, a new settlement, which consists of a Maori pa fenced on the river's bank, a few huts, a weather-boarded publichouse, and last, a well-built house, the home of Mr. Ferguson, an elderly North of Ireland man, who is king of the place. He is a magistrate and keeps the general store, where you can buy anything from a ‘goashore’ iron pot or a spade to a tin of sardines or a bottle of hair-oil. As we enter the public room of the little wooden
“Our horses were quite fresh after their feed and two hours rest, and we were soon loping along at a bush canter, the usual colonial pace. We passed Pakowhai, with its stockaded enclosure and thatched huts overhung by luxuriant peach trees. Shortly before sunset we descended some low hills and came to a river, on the far side of which was a wooden house with reed-thatched roof, backed by a stable built of rough hewn slabs. Two or three native huts stood near. This was Ngawhakatatara, our resting place for the night. Next day we got on to Ruataniwha Plains, on the extremity of which was the sheep station for which we were bound. On our left rose low hills, while the plain, covered with coarse native grass, with here and there a palm-like cabbage-tree, stretched for some twenty miles up to the edge of the Seventy-mile Bush. On our right the margin of the plain was marked by the sombre range of the Ruahine Mountains. By sundown we reached Te Kereru, the sheep station of our friends. A neat weather-board house with a verandah encircling it, stood on a gentle eminence, backed by the bush, with a wide prospect over the great yellow plain. The forest near the house had been roughly cleared and burnt, leaving some of the larger trees still standing; their blackened stumps and scorched branches pointing in indignant remonstrance to the unheeding sky. Near at hand was the woolshed, a long wooden erection, and beyond this again were various huts and stockyards. We were warmly welcomed by the two partners. The gang of sheep-shearers had arrived, and for the next few days from early dawn to late in the evening, every soul would be hard at work.”
Then the return to Onepoto camp: “Hark to that bugle call resounding in the still morning air! I am within two miles of home. As I recognise the reveillé, which is sounding at the barracks on the top of the hill, I kick Robin into a canter. There is just time for me to get to my house, a gorgeous structure made apparently of sardine-boxes and biscuit-tins, there to jump into my tub, hurry on my uniform and get up to barracks in time as officer of the day, to inspect the issue of bread and meat.”
Famous for many years for its table and wines, the Masonic created for itself an atmosphere quite unique in the annals of colonial hotels.
To-day on its old key position, a new Masonic has been built, of which Napier may well be proud. Constructed on the most approved shock-proof system, and exemplifying the finest type of that individualistic architecture which is making Napier unique amongst Colonial cities, the building is designed to give sheltered sunshine in two main courts and with a “loggia” and sun porches taking full value of the incomparable sea view over the new Parade.
The Lounge and Dining-room are unequalled in the Dominion for design and beauty of furnishing and bed-rooms embody every modern convenience.
Very attractive terms are being offered by the Management, to those desirous of making a prolonged stay during the winter months.
Railwayman: “Wonderful smoke this National Tobacco. I believe it is the healthiest tobacco on the market.“
Man behind the Counter: “Yes, I smoke it myself. Apart from the fact that the tobacco is one hundred per cent. in quality, it is produced by a company that is one hundred per cent. New Zealand. I believe that company pays hundreds of thousands to the Government in freight and taxes and employs over a thousand workers. Why, dash it all, the more we smoke the better for the country; and the loyal way the company sticks to the Railways in fares and freight, helps to keep the railwaymen in their jobs.”