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The New Zealand Railways Magazine is on sale through the principal book-sellers, 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.
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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. 25/3/35.
In addition to its arduous duties in hauling 500-ton trains over the East Coast Route, the famous L.N.E. streamlined locomotive No. 2001 “Cock o’ the North” is finding time to “feature” in a new Butcher-Panther film now in course of production. This picture is being made under the joint direction of Mr. Oswald Mitchell and Mr. Challis Sanderson, who were responsible for the highly popular “Danny Boy” a year ago, and the film now in the making promises to capture the imagination of the public to an even higher degree than its predecessor. Its title will be that of the locomotive “Cock o’ the North,” and its story has been woven around the family life of an engine-driver and some of his work-mates, in whose destinies this famous greyhound of the steel track plays a dramatic part. Amongst the human film stars appearing in this production are Miss Marie Lohr, who will take the part of the engine-driver's wife, George Carney as the engine-driver himself, with Johnny Scholfield as his fireman. At present Mr. Carney is undergoing a strenuous course of instruction in his duties as an engine-driver, at the hands of Mr. Ben Glasgow, a retired L.N.E.R. engine-driver who for many years was responsible for working the Flying Scotsman between London and Edinburgh. Mr. Glasgow regards Mr. Carney as an apt pupil. Ronnie Hepworth who made a name for himself in the title role of the film “Danny Boy,” will appear as the engine-driver's son, and Frederick Peisley and the rising young actress Miss Eve Lister will have the parts of the young couple around whose infatuation for each other, so much of the plot revolves. Variety is to be added by the inclusion of parts to be played by Horace Kenney, Naughton and Gold, the crazy artists from the Palladium, and Leslie Hutchinson (Hutch.) who will figure in one of the smartest road-house sets ever shown on the screen. Mention must also be made of Mrs. Simone Rogers, the original Madameoiselle from Armentieres, who will take a prominent part in the final acts of the story.
It will thus be seen that the story of the film will cover a wide field and a popular one, and it will provide the public at the same time with some unusual views of the “Cock o’ the North” locomotive and its footplate.
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
The Railways Booking and Luggage Office on the wharf at Wellington—established for the convenience of inter-island and overseas passengers.
The striking improvement in the situation of the railways, which is reflected in a working profit of well over a million for the past year, redounds to the credit of all concerned in their administration.— Hawke's Bay Herald.
The annual report of the Railways Board is an entirely satisfactory account of its stewardship on behalf of this great national organisation. Enterprise and foresight have characterised the Board's operations since it took over control of the system, and the past year has seen the continuation of the steady rehabilitation of the largest single organisation in the Dominion. In brief, during the year every important section of the Railway Department's business showed an increase compared with the previous year. For the first time since 1931 the freight carried exceeded 6,000,000 tons, and the freight revenue was the highest since the same year. As 64 per cent. of the total revenue is derived from freight, the significance of these increases is clear. Substantial increases were also made in the passenger traffic, in the number of journeys, total revenue, passenger train miles and revenue per mile of line. These comparisons, however, are greatly enhanced when it is remembered that owing to the variation in the Easter holiday dates the previous year included two Easter periods and the year just concluded none at all. At the present rate of progress the passenger traffic should thus show a substantial increase for the coming year.— Taranaki Herald.
The year closed with a contribution of £1,087,191 by the Department towards its interest bill, a splendid result in view of the fact that an increase in salaries and wages was made with the partial restoration of the cuts effected when economies were instituted, and the reduction of rentals from workers’ dwellings had also to be borne. This was the second successive year that the Department was able to conclude its period with the net revenue more than one million pounds, and the report justly claims that the result has been achieved by the strictest supervision and direction over the diversified interests of the system, and by its constant and unremitting efforts to render prompt and efficient railway service to the public.— Manawatu Evening Standard.
Wellington's new station officially inspected.
(Rly. Publicity photos.)
On 19th September the members of the Government Railways Board made an inspection of the Tawa Flat Deviation works, and the new station building and yards at Wellington. The top (left) illustration shows the Board members and railway officers standing in front of the General Manager's rail-car which was used for the run to Tawa Flat. In the group (from left) are: Mr. G. H. Mackley (General Manager of Railways), Sir James Gunson, C.M.G., C.B.E., Mr. E. Newman, C.M.G., Mr. D. Reese, Mr. H. L. P. Smith (District Engineer), Mr. G. W. Reid, B.Com., F.P.A. (N.Z.), Mr. G. W. Wyles (Signal and Electrical Engineer), Mr. G. J. Bertinshaw (Chief Engineer), and Mr. W. Schierning, District Traffic Manager. The centre illustration shows the progress being made on the new station building.
We New Zealanders, when we travel, are a happy, hungry people. We like our snack and we like it often. A healthy climate, fresh bracing breezes and clear radiant sunshine, make for hearty appetites.
Even when staying at home and working, our “five-meal, meat-fed men” are no figment of the imagination. They are very real, solid fellows. And our women make tracks to the cupboard quite often too.
There is the surprise of visitors at the universality in hotels of the seven o'clock cup of tea and bread and butter or biscuits. The full rich breakfast. The forenoon tea and cakes. The hearty luncheon of lighter fare—cold meats or pies and salads and sweets and tea. The afternoon tea with its wide variety in cake and pastry. The real full-course dinner in the evening, and then the supper before retiring—the glass of milk and biscuit, or the complete regalement of sandwiches, frilled chicken legs and accessories and a little something to drink with it.
But when we travel, the excitement of motion and the companionship in the cars of trains seem to give still another fillip to our capacity for enjoying a few additional snacks. On the average, there is a refreshment room on the Railways of New Zealand for every 80 miles of track—and they all do well. Last year the 30 counter refreshment rooms and four dining-rooms run by the Railway Refreshment Service earned £16,022 for the Department, and the whole operation of this service showed a net profit of £2,132. There are also eleven of the smaller stations at which are located refreshment rooms that are held on lease. There is actually a total of 42 stations where refreshments are available to the traveller—and when the word “refreshment” is used in this context, it covers a multitude of possible passenger requirements. Fruits, aerated drinks of various kinds, smokers’ requisites, chocolates and other sweets, ice-cream (in season), and even headache cures—although there is not usually a headache in a trainload of carefree passengers—these are among the things which travellers may obtain at very reasonable rates at the refreshment counters. Even in sandwiches there is a range from the standard ham variety to the egg and lettuce kinds, whilst pies and sausage rolls, buttered buns, fruit cake, small cakes, and biscuits are among the range of eatables from which choice may be made.
The “snack bar” just recently opened at Paddington Station, London, appears to be modelled to some extent upon the practice here, and if it is to be fully tried out, should carry an equally wide range to meet the desires of travellers. In reference to it, “The Railway Gazette” speaks of the spacious, clean and attractive refreshment counters throughout Australia and New Zealand, and states that “the quick service of the white-robed waitresses is invariably excellent.” Some remarkable tributes to the high quality of these services in our own country have been paid by visitors to New Zealand; and the constant patronage of New Zealanders themselves proves that the system is in popular favour.
We cannot quite agree, however, with the “Gazette's” further statement that “at these stations most of the eating and drinking is done at the counters, where crowds of men, women, and children apparently endeavour to drink as much tea as possible in the usual seven minutes allowed.” Certainly people “line up” at the counters in great array, and large numbers like to have their “tea and …” on the spot; but those who have any fears as to whether they can finish in time usually stroll back to the train, taking their spoils in their hands, and proceed to enjoy the refreshments there, carrying on comfortably if they so wish, after the train is once more under way. At the next main station the crockery is collected from the train, and there is quite a business for the Refreshment Branch in balancing up supplies of crockery as between the various refreshment stations.
The happy travellers are those who can find something they want at every refreshment halt. It bucks them up for the full enjoyment of the ride between.
The Board has decided to introduce, as a trial, the issue of Travel Savings Stamps in the strong belief that there are many people with restricted incomes who are unable, under existing arrangements, to make a lengthy train journey or a visit to the more attractive scenic and tourist resorts, owing to the fact that they have, during the course of the year, possibly expended in inconsequential trifles sufficient money to provide them with the necessary fare. By means of these stamps the inconsequential trifles, might, it is thought, be well replaced by provision for a holiday.
All our principal stations will carry stocks of the travel saving stamps, and these may be purchased to any required amount. As it is desired to afford every person an opportunity to commence saving for travel, the stamps have been prepared in the comparatively low denominations of 1/-, 2/-, 2/6d, and 5/-. It is intended to provide other denominations as the demand develops.
I feel that, in affording this opportunity for laying by savings for the purpose of making a train journey at some suitable time, the Board is doing something which should appeal to the public and result in increased business for the Railways.
It is realised that much of the success of the new savings system will depend upon the manner in which the staff submit it to intending patrons, and I would request every member to make the path of the prospective purchaser of travel savings stamps, young or old, as clear and comfortable as possible. This can be done by directing the applicant correctly regarding the place of purchase, taking a courteous interest in the buyer's object in obtaining the stamps, and giving helpful advice as to the places which would be worth visiting when the time comes for converting the saved stamps into railway tickets.
The staff can help, too, by personally recommending the purchase of stamps amongst their friends and associates as a simple way of effecting savings that will ensure to the purchaser a healthful holiday by rail.
General Manager.
successful afforestation in new zealand.
(Rly. Publicity photos.)
The above illustrations show typical portions of the plantations of Commercial Pine Forests, on the shores of Kaipara Harbour, North Island, New Zealand. (1) Some vigorous young trees; (2) and (3) marvels of forest regeneration; (4) plantations as seen from approach road; (5) pines routing the ti-tree; (6) an arm of Kaipara Harbour. (See article on page 12.)
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
The Railway approach to the Plantations of Commercial Pine Forests on Kaipara Harbour, North Island, New Zealand.
“I Don't see why men don't grow to be eight feet high in this country,” an American visitor said to me one day. He was looking at some ewes grazing in the shade of a shelter belt of trees which he had learned was only five years old. He was an engineering graduate of Princeton, born on a Southern farm, and knew something about both sheep and timber. He was mildly amazed at the size of the woolly animals, but was in a state of complete stupefaction at the miracle of growth wrought by trees in our country. He said they shot up like the fabled Dragon's Teeth, and asked “What were we doing about it?”
And so I came to write this article. I have described many wonderful features in New Zealand in this last few months, but in the potentialities of afforestation as an industry, and as a “life-saver” in wealth production, there are, I find, stories so exciting, tales of the future so glowing, panoramas of such golden opulence, that Hans Andersen, at his best, created nothing so brilliantly unbelievable. Yet they are all unimpeachable truth. It is on record that, at an experts’ conference, a New Zealand forestry man's plain statement of the rate of tree growth in this country was received in shocked silence—the perfect quiet of disbelief and disappointment at a good man going wrong. One Scotch authority was particularly vehement. Only after the New Zealander had gone outside, and brought to the table the cross section of a trunk with the annual rings that proved his statement, was the latter convinced. Then, handsomely, in true Gaelic manner, he apologised.
This is the stubborn, inescapable fact for friends and sceptics. A pine tree in our country grows in ten years to the size it would reach in any part of the Northern Hemisphere in twenty-five to forty years, and mostly the latter. Our illustration shows a good example.
Everyone has heard of our vast afforestation schemes. Everyone has heard cheap criticism of them of the same type that laughed at the freezing processes of meat and the use of chemical manures. The size of the ventures was so impressive, the claims made for them seemed, at first sight, to be so extravagant, that our steady-minded, highly critical and conservative folk were inclined to sniff. I like to think that all the wonders of our land, the richness of our soil, and the heady magic of our sunny skies have never altered, in one iota, the essential saneness of our national outlook. If ever a country in the world is “safe” in the best sense, it is New Zealand, inhabited as one great London writer once said when here, “by a race more British than the British.”
Being one of them, I accepted no reports, but in company with my friend of the camera, went out to see for myself.
There are, of course, many great afforestation companies in the Dominion, well founded and stable. We, however, went to one within easy striking distance and that, according to an authority, “while being truly typical has many good points of its own.” This man also said a thing which I was to remember later. “They are all past the experimental stage,” he remarked drily. “All the possible mistakes were made and put right years ago.”
In the early morning we were on our way from the Bayswater wharf, heading North. The road was perfect, the day was fine, and we were soon through that area that lies across the water from the city of Auckland. We
Rly. Publicity photo.)
The winding road through the Plantations.
The asphalt road wound in and out, past dreamy little Warkworth, through the Dome Valley, and we reached the rolling down country that lies between the Kaipara Harbour and the Pacific Ocean. Then we sighted, in the distance, long undulations smothered with dull green. From where we alighted the tree masses appeared so thick as to look like enormous ribbed blankets thrown at random from ridge top to river bank. Then we passed Topuni Station, where the railway crosses one of those deep winding tidal creeks which intersect the whole of this country.
Here I stopped the party for a while to watch a half dozen pukeko dancing a measure in a marshy paddock. Their ballet dress consists of black skirt, blue blouse and collar, with scarlet beak and legs and two white dominoes behind.
We left them to enter the plantation proper, and saw first, the two year old trees. Apart from their extraordinary height, the astonishing feature was the uniformity of their growth. I asked just why each tree was the exact full brother of his neighbour. However, as we later went through millions of trees of various ages, we found this was a constant phenomenon. Then our guide, hitherto patient, amiable, but far from chatty, broke loose with the answer. The soil was the same in its constituents everywhere, the configuration of the country similar everywhere, and only an occasional swampy hollow, usually unplanted, differed from the general expanse of gentle slopes and smooth curves. On all this great property of the Commercial Pine Forests Company there are less than three hundred acres that are not ploughable.
As we progressed, mile after mile, through trees that steadily increased in height, we got the forest feeling. There was eerie silence, broken only by the occasional twitter of fantails, or the soft sough of the gentle wind. Then we stopped the car and started a hike. The ploughed firebreak, wet and soggy, made a most unlikely motor road. Here, Sir Malcolm Campbell would not have got more than a mile an hour out of the Bluebird. Thus we reached the ten year old trees. The seven year olds looked monsters, and we had, as you will see in the pictures, passed countless incredible examples of growth.
Rly. Publicity photo.)
Pines (four years old) defeating the native bush.
We photographed them in a hurry, for this climate is better for trees than for men with cameras and note books. When I asked about the risk of fire, looking at the endless broad, bare ribbon of firebreak, our mentor said, looking to the sky, “There is our best fire extinguisher.” Nevertheless the patrol is systematic and never ceasing, and indeed, there has been so far no serious outbreak of fire.
Then we came to the sections which abut fairly and squarely on the waterfront. They are on the long finger end of a peninsula projecting into the inland sea known as the Kaipara Harbour, a place of great beauty and notable utility. From it radiate in every direction narrow deep tidal creeks, making a web of useful waterways which intersect and surround the plantations. Hardly is there a tree which is not within easy distance of a water channel. Through Kaipara Heads, has passed by scow and steamer New Zealand's greatest output of the mighty kauri. A five thousand ton steamer
can berth twelve miles farther up the harbour than the Tinopai plantation, and this direct water access solves in a most satisfactory manner, the whole problem of transportation. Then for good measure, the excellent road highway, and the railway pass through and round the property.
We made the return journey through the apparently endless drop-curtains of lacy foliage, until we took the picture you see of the pines on the hill slope among the native trees, with a typical New Zealand waterfall in the foreground. There is a monotony about the pine, but he is a relentless invader. Everything blenches before his resistless march. Like the Norwegian rat, he is the conqueror of the indigenous article. Here in this Northland, particularly, where there are no frosts, where the air is mild, and the days are compounded of sunshine and shower, this exotic immigrant revels in his new-found strength. I noticed a tightly-massed row of trees resembling a hedge eight feet high. It proved to be a forgotten trench of odds and ends of seedlings which had been heeled in and left. Similarly I saw in dozens of places where trees had been felled, self-sown youngsters jauntily growing. The moment the sun gets in when the shadowing branches have gone, innumerable little ambitious beginners spring up everywhere. This involves the interesting fact that a planted acre will grow trees to the end of time, and that little trouble or cost is incurred in re-establishment. This natural regeneration is far and away best in the Dominion, and is a comforting factor in the money value of a forestry investment.
In the older lands, tree culture is a State duty, and is regarded as such. Here in New Zealand it is a proposition of commercial safety and attractiveness. It is the speed of growth that makes this true. Compound interest has a habit of waxing-fat at the expense of investment, but as a spectator said to me, “These monsters can race any interest bill.” In ten years, pines on this property become marketable pulpwood, and in a further ten years, are forest giants fit for the sawmill. This is the whole basis of the confidence of the folk who are commercially interested.
As to the marketing future, the reference can only be to these old and familiar twins, “Supply and Demand.” It is indisputable that the world is racing towards a timber famine. The Encyclopaedia Britannica, never notable for light or humorous statements, makes the cold and final summing up after a world survey, that the world growth is eighty per cent. of the world cutting and the rate of the latter is increasing.
The newspaper world is wholly dependent on soft woods. Lord Rother-mere predicted a year or two ago, “A serious shortage of pulpwood within the lifetime of many of us.”
Rly. Publicity photo.)
The long spine in the centre represents one year's growth of a pine in New Zealand.
Our Director of Forests said six years ago, “New Zealand must establish plantations of exotic softwoods to the fullest extent of her financial ability. The market will probably be limitless.”
We must remember that it is only forty years since newsprint manufacturing was commenced from pulpwood. In that short period, the consumption has been so enormous and at such an accelerating rate, that even the last great natural reservoir, Canada, is in actual danger of exhaustion in thirty years. The various uses of these timbers have expanded since the War from 400, to 4,000 and included in the new consumers is the amazing artificial silk industry.
Timber still forms the basis of modern civilisation. We New Zealanders, under the stress of urgent demand, and like the rest of the world, have squandered our forest wealth, but we own a private and exclusive miracle-working quality. we alone in the world have the capacity of swift re-creation of forest capital. Our North Island is a tree paradise, a timber
(Continued on page 49.)
Electrification of important suburban tracks in the London area—notably on Liverpool Street and King's Cross routes of the London and North Eastern line, and the Great Western North Acton-Ruislip section—is likely to be undertaken in the near future. These new works follow the decision of the Government to assist in the improvement of transport facilities in the London district by a guarantee of the necessary loans. The programme involves the electrification of approximately 44 miles of suburban railway, the doubling and electrification of about 12 1/2 miles of further suburban lines, and the building of about 12 miles of new tube railways. The total cost of the works is in the region of £35,000,000, and it is estimated that the improvements will be completed within a period of five years from their commencement.
Electrification of the Liverpool Street and King's Cross suburban routes will come as an immense boon to the traveller. It is proposed to electrify throughout, the Great Eastern suburban line from Liverpool Street to Shenfield, and the Loughton Branch and Fairlop loop. The Central London tube line will be extended from Liverpool Street eastwards to connect with the Loughton Branch and Fairlop loop lines, and through trains will be operated. On the Great Northern section of the L. and N.E. Railway, out of King's Cross Station, it is proposed to electrify the Edgware, High Barnet and Alexandra Palace lines, to extend the Highgate tube to make a connection with these electrified suburban lines at East Finchley; and to extend the Northern City tube line, which now terminates at Finsbury Park, to make a connection with the electrified suburban lines near Finsbury Park. Through train services will be operated from all branches to the City, and from the Edgware and High Barnet lines to the Central Area. An interchange station will be provided at Highgate for passengers from the Alexandra Palace Branch to the Central Area. Outside Paddington, the proposal is to construct and electrify two additional tracks from North Acton to Ruislip, on the Great Western Railway. The Central London tube trains, now terminating at Wood Lane, will be extended to operate over this line so as to provide direct services to the Central Area and the City in place of Paddington.
Broadly speaking, railway experts in Britain are convinced of the immense utility of electrification for City and suburban movement, but for main-line haulage steam locomotives promise to hold pride of place for many years. The steam-operated main-line services of Britain are second to none in all-round reliability, speed and comfort, and during the summer season an enormous number of fast steam-drawn passenger trains are operated by the four group lines linking up every corner of the country. The summer service of the Great Western system, for example, represented a daily passenger train mileage of 123,877 miles. Summer additions included the running from July to September of new 60 m.p.h. expresses, streamlined railcars, business trains between big cities and
The most interesting Great Western innovation during the summer was the re-arrangement of the London-Cornwall services. In place of the “Cornish Riviera Express,” two trains were introduced, named respectively the “Cornish Riviera Limited” and “The Cornishman.” The “Cornish Riviera Limited” carried reserved seat passengers only. On Mondays to Fridays it ran non-stop in each direction between London (Paddington) and Truro (279 1/4 miles), while on Saturdays the train ran non-stop from London to St. Erth (299 1/2 miles). The new train “The Cornishman” catered for intermediate traffic not served by the “Limited.” It ran daily and virtually took the place of the old “Cornish Riviera Express.” Cornwall and Devon are among Britain's most beautiful counties, and holiday traffic thereto reaches, annually, tremendous proportions.
The named trains of the Home railways include some of the most renowned of passenger services. To mention but a few of these giants of the “Iron Way,” we have the “Flying Scotsman,” the “Royal Scot,” the
One hundred years ago, the horse-drawn mail - coaches used to run between London and Holyhead, with the Irish mail aboard, the journey to Holyhead occupying twenty - seven hours. Add to this a sea crossing to Dublin of about ten hours, and you get a total journey time from London to Dublin of about thirty-seven hours. To-day, just 9 hours 10 minutes are taken on the combined rail and steamer journey to Ireland, thanks to the fast mail service of the L. M. & S. Company.
It was on August 1, 1848, that the first “Irish Mail” train drew out of Euston Station, London. She left at 8.45 p.m. To-day, the “Irish Mail” still leaves London at 8.45 p.m. daily, but the service has been accelerated beyond belief. This famous named train conveys passengers, in addition to mails, and included in its composition are luxurious sleeping and restaurant cars.
It was the dictum of Napoleon that “an army marches upon its stomach.” To-day, this maxim might very well be changed to read: “A railway passenger travels upon his stomach,” for no surer way exists of attracting passenger business than to make suitable provision for the needs of the inner man along the system lines.
In Europe, the business of railway catering is conducted upon various principles, some of the railways operating their own refreshment departments, and others letting this work out on contract. Most of the railway catering in Britain is cared for by the group lines themselves. The London, Midland and Scottish Company is actually the largest hotel-owner in Europe. Across the Channel, two big establishments are responsible, in the main, for providing the railway traveller with refreshment. These are respectively the International Sleeping Car Company, and the Mitropa Company. The first-named has its headquarters at Brussels, while the Mitropa undertaking is centred on Berlin. Most of the French, Belgian, Spanish, Swiss and Italian restaurant cars are staffed and managed by the International Company, by arrangement with the railway authorities concerned. The Mitropa Company operate restaurant cars on most of the German long-distance trains,
Continental travel reached tremendous proportions this summer, and a striking feature was the increase in the volume of vacation travel between Britain and Austria. A wonderfully attractive land for the holiday-maker, Austria is served from end to end by an efficient State-owned railway network, having a total length of 3,600 miles. Although State-owned, the Austrian railways are worked on business lines, with their finances entirely separate from those of the State. In consequence of this change of policy, effected in 1923, the name “Austrian State Railways” was altered to the present nomenclature “Austrian Federal Railways.”
Heavy gradients and severe curves abound in Austria. Steam locomotives total 2,041; electric locomotives 215; electric railcars 27; and internal combustion engined railcars 55. Passenger carriages total about 7,850; and goods wagons about 33,600. An outstanding work of recent years has been the electrification of many of the mainlines in Western Austria. To-day, some 571 miles of track are electrified, and further conversion plans are under review.
No colonist of New Zealand lived a more useful pioneer life than Stephenson Percy Smith, who began his career as a surveyor in bush-clad Taranaki and ended his long public service as Surveyor-General. He came out from England with his parents when a child; he was an explorer of the interior of the North Island before he reached his twenties; he was acting for the Government in diplomatic Maori negotiations while still a very young man; he served in that pioneer battle-corps of the Empire's volunteers, the Taranaki Rifles, and he carried out survey duty under fire in the Hauhau War in South Taranaki. A survey party in his day was often a kind of military outpost. Mr. Smith was often entrusted by the Government with special State duties for which his Maori knowledge, his cool, judicial mind and his scientific tastes qualified him. He was our great pioneer Maori-Polynesian historian and ethnologist, blazing the way of knowledge as he has so often blazed the trail in the Maori forest. He was a man greatly beloved for his spirit of kindly helpfulness, and honoured for his great labours in the cause of a fuller knowledge of our Maori race and its origins.
S. Percy Smith, F.R.G.S. (Born in Norfolk, England, 1840; died in New Plymouth, 1922).
Some of New Zealand's pioneer surveyors and explorers began their hard self-reliant life at an age when very many modern youths are still at college. Scientific education is so severe and complex in its requirements in these days that the period of instruction is necessarily prolonged.
But the professional man of our early settlement era had to set to at his practical work early and pick up his theory and his book science in his spare time. The surveyor and engineer, who played so important a part in the making of the nation, was early tested in the hard school of exploration and camp life in a perfectly wild land. The late Sir Arthur Dudley Dobson, the discoverer of Arthur's Pass, was barely twenty-two when he undertook the truly herculean task of surveying a great area of the Westland Coast and interior.
Stephenson Percy Smith was carrying out Government surveys in the all but unknown lands of the Northern Wairoa and Kaipara—unknown to all but the Kauri timber getters and traders—and parleying with Maori tribes when he was only twenty. Charles Wilson Hursthouse was about the same age when he began the Government survey of the Waitara block that led to the first Taranaki War. Such sturdy youthful pioneers developed very early the qualities of independence and the command of men.
A year before the great geologist-explorers Hochstetler and von Haast travelled through the heart of the North Island as far as Taupo and the thermal regions, young Percy Smith and a party of four other Taranaki lads made an even more arduous and adventurous journey. His companions were Charles Wilson Hursthouse, his fellow-cadet in the Survey Office in New Plymouth (who became, forty years afterwards, Chief Engineer of Roads and Bridges for the Dominion), F. Murray, J. McKellar, and H. Standish—all family names of note in Taranaki's history. They set out from New Plymouth at the beginning of 1858 on a trip of pleasure and exploration through the interior, a tour that lasted two months, and in the course of which they walked 500 miles, canoed fifty and rode on horseback 60 miles. The distances do not seem great in this easy motoring age, but it was a solid test of fitness and endurance of body and spirit in the early times. They carried their swags of food and blankets (weighing forty pounds each when they set out); they took a gun for shooting birds for food, but no other arms or munitions except that staple article of currency among the Maoris, tobacco.
They left New Plymouth on January 4, 1858, beginning a hard but glorious excursion by walking up the Coast to Mokau Heads, and paddling and poling up that rapid-whitened forest waterway in a canoe hired from the Maoris. They tramped from Motu-Karamu, nearly fifty miles up the river, through the ranges and valleys and swamps to the south end of Lake Taupo. There, at Mr. Grace's mission at Pukawa, and at the chief Iwikau Te Heuheu's pa close by, the young trampers were hospitably welcomed. “A good old man” was Smith's description of the chief in his narrative of the journey. From the Taupo country the party walked to Rotomahana and Tarawera; a memory of that wonder-region pilgrimage is a sketch from Percy Smith's pencil—one of many historic little drawings—of Rotomahana lake with its two pretty islets; places of primitive Maori life that vanished in the thunder of a bursting world in 1886. Returning to Taupo, the hard-faring tourists trudged through the Tongariro-Ruapehu country and down to the Rangitikei and Wanganui, and so on up the Coast—the last stage on horseback, to their vast satisfaction —to their homes.
You Tararua trampers and young fellow foot-slogging holiday cruisers, can you beat that record? Bear in mind there was not a wheel in all the land,
The period 1858–59 was one of Maori warfare in the district between the Bell Block (Hua) and the Waitara. The land-selling faction and the Land League, which was opposed to sales, fought each other bitterly and the Government professed itself powerless to stop the fray. Europeans were safe; the Maoris were careful not to interfere with the settlers. Fortifications were built by both sides. Young Percy Smith saw a good deal of the guerilla warfare. On March 10, 1858, he and Mr. Parris, Civil Commissioner in charge of Native Affairs, rode from New Plymouth to the Waitara to watch the combat. Smith, in his capacity of surveyor and topographer, made sketches under fire of the stockades occupied by Ihaia te Kiri-Kumara (the supporter of the Governor and land-selling), and Wiremu Kingi te Rangitaake, the leader of Maori nationality. “Plenty of bullets flying over my head while sketching,” Mr. Smith wrote in his diary.
Mr. Smith very early in life was called upon to exercise his qualities of wisdom, command and tact in dealing with Maori affairs. He was for most of his official life a kind of Native Commissioner as well as surveyor. He was not yet twenty-one years old when he was despatched by the Government to the Kaipara district in order to enlist the assistance of the Ngati-Whatua tribe against the Waikato tribes, who were reported to be preparing for an attack on the town of Auckland. He had been engaged in surveying newly purchased Government land in the Kaipara and Northern Wairoa, and after several months’ work there he had returned to Auckland, when he received instructions to go back to the district with all possible speed and bring down the Ngati-Whatua (the kindred of the Orakei residents) to come to the defence of the city, as most of the British troops were in Taranaki.
“As I knew the people well by this time,” Mr. Smith wrote in his diary narrative of the mission, “it was thought I was the best messenger to fetch them. On the 4th April, 1860, an hour after receiving my instructions, I was away up the Waitemata with three Maoris on this business. We travelled on over the portage through the night, arriving at Kapoai, a native village on the Upper Kaipara, at 3 a.m., and as soon as the tide served, started down the river for the Wairoa. The natives had all gone to Te Kopuru, where I found them all encamped. In addition to about four hundred Ngati-Whatua, there were some two hundred Ngapuhi (the two tribes were engaged in peace-making). They had built a square of temporary huts and tents with a large open space in the centre for speeches and war-dances.
“As soon as I arrived I was seated on a stool in the centre of this square (the marae), where the letter from the Government was read, and I had to explain the necessity for the Auckland [Orakei] tribes returning at once to assist in the defence of the city. But they did not appear in any hurry, and declared that they could not leave until they had concluded the peace with Ngapuhi all of which was very annoying to me, as I had to impress them to make all haste back. Otherwise, this great meeting was very interesting to me, for it was held with all the formality of ancient times — long speeches, war-dances, and all kinds of old ceremonies, not the least interesting of which was the hari-tuku-kai, or songs and dances of the young women
“It was not until the 11th that peace was made and we all left, the Ngapuhi going up the river and the rest of us down stream to Tauhara; and a very fine sight it was to see our flotilla of about thirty boats and several fine war-canoes under sail. We were detained there by bad weather until the 18th, for the crossing inside Kaipara Heads is only to be undertaken in fine weather; it is so dangerous a place owing to the heavy seas which get up. It was not until the 20th that we arrived in town, and then most of my relieving force had melted away. Luckily the Waikato tribes had changed their minds and gone home, and so ended my urgent trip to fetch help to Auckland.
“Had the necessity arisen there is no doubt the Ngati-Whatua tribe would willingly have fought against their old enemies the Waikato. And, moreover, this tribe felt a kind of responsibility for the safety of the pakeha, for after a great meeting at Okahu (Orakei), on Auckland Harbour, they had sent an emissary to the Bay of Islands, to Governor Hobson, inviting him to occupy their country on the isthmus of Auckland and form his seat of Government there. It was not entirely an unselfish offer on their part, for the Tamaki Isthmus had been the constant highway of hostile war-parties both from north and south for ages past, and they thought that if they could get the white man to settle there these hostile incursions would cease, which in fact they did, for ever. In these raids Ngati - Whatua always suffered.”
During the Sixties Mr. Smith was chiefly employed as a district surveyor in Taranaki. The surveyors engaged in subdivision work for settlement and laying out roads and townships carried out their duties under adventurous and often very perilous conditions. In 1866–67 he and several other surveyors were busy cutting up country for settlement between the Waingongoro and Waito-tara Rivers, including the land where the towns of Hawera and Patea and Waverley now stand. This country had recently been confiscated from the Maoris in punishment for what was called by the pakeha rebellion, and by the Maori, fighting for their rights and nationality. As a state of war existed at the time and the land was held only by virtue of the rifle, survey work had to be carried out under military service conditions. Mr. Smith and his fellow surveyors and their men were given covering parties of Military Settlers and Constabulary for their protection.
There were some narrow escapes. Once Mr. Smith and two companions, Major McDonnell and Lieut. Wirihana (Native Contingent) were nearly cut off by a party of Hauhaus in ambush, when they were out on horseback selecting sites for redoubts and townships. At the Waihi stream—not far from the present site of Hawera town—Smith was riding about forty yards ahead of the rest, when he was fired on heavily by Maoris who were concealed in the fern and flax. He got his horse turned with difficulty, and rode back to his comrades, and they all galloped off with bullets flying about their ears. The Hauhaus kept up a hot fire on them for a long time. Mr. Smith in his diary account of the incident wrote that he could see and hear the bullets striking the flax bushes as he rode along.
“We recrossed the Waihi and reached Waingongoro in safety, very thankful for our miraculous escape. None of us was hit, though there were more than forty Hauhaus firing at us as hard as they could.”
On other occasions the surveyors carried on their day's work under fire. Diary entry, 1st September, 1866: “Traversing the Tawhiti near Keteonetea, the Hauhaus came down and fired at us at 500 yards and kept it up for some time. The Native Contingent doubled out to our relief, when the covering party mistook them for
Occasionally some of Smith's men, by way of variety when survey work was delayed by the Hauhaus, joined the Military expeditions as volunteers for night attacks; two of them were killed.
In 1868 Mr. Smith was sent to Chatham Island to carry out some Government survey work and he was there when Te Kooti and his people to the number of nearly 300—men, women and children—escaped from their island of exile. The escape was most cleverly planned and skilfully carried out by Te Kooti, who had a just grievance against the Government, which had sent him there without trial two years before, and kept him there, with his companions, on a kind of indeterminate sentence. Mr. Smith happened to be some miles away, in the interior of the island, and knew nothing of the occurrence for several days. He made a number of sketches of the place, as was his way on survey duty, and one of these is reproduced with this article. It shows Waitangi Bay and settlement, the official and business headquarters of the Chathams, with the military redoubt on the low cliff above the beach terrace. This redoubt, a square earthwork with flanking bastions at diagonally opposite corners, was easily captured by Te Kooti from its unsuspecting small garrison under Captain Thomas, R.M. The magazine, armoury and Government safe were looted, and Te Kooti with his armed men and their families, put to sea in the three-masted schooner Rifleman, which had just ar-
(Continued on page 46.)
Some years ago I had occasion to spend several weeks in travelling up and down the North Island, and made the discovery that our trains are extremely cosmopolitan affairs. One expects to find such an atmosphere in big hotels or on board ship, for cities and the sea are themselves more of the world than of the country that claims them; but, somehow, the same idea does not immediately attach itself to travel by rail—not, at any rate, in New Zealand.
Everything beyond the windows is so familiar. We have grown up with the farms, the mountains, bush, and the rolling hills dotted with the forms of cattle and sheep, and the train has become, like them, a homely thing. It is easy enough in the circumstances to lose sight of the fact that the cars which thunder over the bridge by the old swimming-hole, carry more passengers than coast-wise steamers and accommodate every night twice as many travellers as the largest hotel. Passengers and travellers who have, in many instances, come from the ends of the earth, who are eager to learn all they can of the country they are passing through, and in exchange for such amenity, can often tell stories of romance and adventure in other lands.
Having made this discovery, I was able to extract much entertainment from it, by the simple expedient of drawing into conversation anybody who would be drawn, with the result that those journeys have become a sort of book of memories to which one may turn at idle moments and find many pages of interesting experience.
Here is a story which was told by a man who read a month-old copy of “Figaro” while the north-bound Limited rolled down the grade from Pukerua Bay to Paekakariki. It was midsummer, and across the sea, spread motionless as a sheet of glass below us, Kapiti brooded, violet-shadowed in the waning afterglow.
Kapiti and “Figaro,” the swinging rhythm of wheels and the heady rush of speed: what better setting for a fantastic Limited night entertainment!
* * *
“As Raymond descended the cliff of San Sebastian, his foot slipped and projected him into the gulf below. It was a treacherous enough place, a narrow crumbling ledge with the Mediterranean creaming over sunken rocks a hundred feet down, and as his feet flew from their hold and his hands caught vainly at roots and frail grasses he realised that he must fall directly upon the vast floor of Pietro Negro—the Black Rock—a place of evil repute among the fisher folk.
“After the first shock, however, it seemed that his fall was not severe—the sky and cliff face spun but slowly before his eyes, and he had no sense of fear, for it was almost as though he floated downwards; moreover, as he neared the broad back of Pietro Negro, he saw that it was covered with a vast crowd of people.
“In an instant he was among them, unhurt and being carried irresistibly forward by their eagerness—an eagerness which was focussed upon a sinister shape, grimly black against the sparkling water—a guillotine. The guillotine worked by electricity, and made a not unmusical humming noise. Raymond was vastly interested in its mechanism, but could approach no closer for the press of people, and the broad blue-coated back of a lieutenant who stood immediately before him. Even from the distance, however, it was apparent that it was the last word in refinement of engines of its kind, and the executioner—who wore no mask, but was a sinister enough figure in a long black silken robe—was testing the machinery.
“As he moved the insulated handle to the first little copper disc of the switch, there began the musical humming of the motor—and very slowly the shining edge of the blade disintregated itself from the sheathing of the beam—stealthily it would seem—like some keen bright serpent advancing with cold unhurried menace upon its fascinated victim. Its momentum did not increase, but continued its downward course, steadily, remorselessly. Only the whine of the motor increased in pitch, as though watching, it screwed itself up to an intense fever of excitement. The sun flashed on the paper-thinness of the blade—the blue sea behind danced and glittered unheeding. Almost three-fourths of the way down now and a bare two feet to the block.
“Raymond started slightly — for the blade had vanished. The motor hummed a contented, self-satisfied song, and the executioner was putting back the switches. The lieutenant shrugged his shoulders and grunted in satisfaction; the blade was returning to its sheath with a swift soaring flight. Raymond pursed his lips and whistled silently.
“‘Electro magnetic principle,’ he muttered to himself, ‘what a machine!’
“The crowd were growing impatient, they tired of the executioner's practising upon an empty block. This was a holiday-fiesta — afterwards there would be much dancing and drinking of wine, reckless love-making when the full moon rose that night and made inky shadows crawl like jungle beasts beneath the cypresses. There would be fires flashing like jewels upon the hillsides. Mad revelry to regale the gods of bounty who had brought home the harvest of grapes. But first, Nailda and Rondo must die. It was high noon—the execution of
“Raymond looked about him and back up at the town—white and terracotta, nestling on the hillside amongst olive groves—and the tall black cypresses beyond. It was generous of colour that town, basking there in the sunlight, its narrow streets blue splashed with shadow. One could almost sense its hushed silence of desertion—for all the people were here upon the rock that supported the guillotine, impatient with the lust for blood. Red blood must flow that noon—that red wine might flow that night. Raymond shuddered; he felt the desire to go—to run madly from this place. He cursed the misfortune which had made him one of the crowd. He turned about, but behind him was a solid mass of people—dark, eager faces, white teeth flashing in smiles that were vulpine snarls. Earrings of gold glinted beneath bright silken handkerchiefs. The air was heavy with musk and sweat, and the cloying sticky smell of ambrosia.
“But there came a stir—soldiers were forcing an entrance on the far side of the crowd, cries and curses greeted them as they used the butts of their rifles ruthlessly. Behind them on a white mule rode a high churchman—the governor of the town—and behind him again came the gaoler, an imposing figure with a red sash tied beneath his frock coat.
“More soldiers, and in their midst, the objects of much vituperation, catlike snarlings and spittings—the prisoners. Raymond cried out in dismay for they were a boy and a girl—no more — and fair-haired. As they marched to the scaffold above the dark yelling crowd they seemed like radiant beings from another world. Unafraid, too, thought Raymond, they held hands—and the boy smiled. The girl was grave, but the wind whipping at her short blue frock, made it dance like an echo of the brightness of the sea.
“Perhaps, afterwards, thought Raymond, her soul will indeed be one with the spirit of the sea and the wind and the bright flashing spray. He turned again, unable to face what must follow, but the crowd was hemming him in closer than ever.
“There were speeches now. First the gaoler, who was also prosecuting attorney, defamed them like a red-bellied buzzard. What infamies such innocents had committed! Was it possible these children could have jeopardised the State to such an extent? Raymond had difficulty in following the speech. It seemed they were leaders of a band of youngsters rebelling against the harsh traditions of Church and State—wayward children behaving as children have always done—and they were to die to appease the grape harvest madness of their countrymen. Die beneath that terrible crawling knife, flashing with incredible swiftness through its final stroke. Another man spoke, a man who wore the white bib of a lawyer; apparently he merely corroborated the words of the gaoler, speaking in a quick, jerky manner. The boy turned and smiled at the girl. Raymond sensed that the pressure of his hand grew tighter. Madness seized him—to destroy the mob—to tear down the guillotine—to stamp out this brutal festival—enthrone these children as the progenitors of a new race. Clear skinned and heroic as ancient Greeks. He could not even move his hands—he became faint—the sun swung in an inky sky. He rallied himself with the sweat pouring from his forehead.
“The little lawyer had retired, and another took his place. A big man, swarthy, and with crisp curling of hair, but his limbs were clean and straight and his shoulders broad. Beneath the olive of his complexion was a ruddy tinge. He towered above the executioner.
“As he spoke, and his voice was ringing and defiant, a change shook the crowd; something was wrong. He invoked an ancient law. The Fiesta was an ancient tradition, he argued. Had they forgotten that on that day not less than three persons could be executed! It was law—it had never been repealed. He urged the high churchman, who shifted uneasily in his scarlet saddle. The crowd began to murmur and then cry out. They were being cheated. The lieutenant scowled and looked about him, his heavy black brows meeting in a thunderous arch above his nose. Clamour arose on every side. Who was this upstart lawyer—was what he said the truth? A conclave formed around the guillotine—the tall ruddy lawyer could be seen dominating them. Soldiers closed in about the girl and boy. Raymond turned. The press was easier now and he felt sick and faint; he must get off the rock—out upon the hills where the cool winds might drive the fever from his brain.
“The lieutenant's voice spoke behind him in dialect. What was it he said? ‘Importunate foreigner’ — Raymond turned his head. A tall man wearing a homburg hat stood at the lieutenant's side. He fingered a tightly curled moustache. They both looked at him. Panic seized Raymond—he shouldered his way through the crowd. At the outskirts a soldier barred his way—long French pattern bayonet pointed at his breast. He turned about. He could not create a disturbance—the crowd was in a mood for anything. A foreigner was conspicuous—it would be easy to explain that he had caused a political uproar. From his new angle he could see the boy and girl—ringed about with soldiers, the crowd was howling like a pack of jackals.
“At this moment the soldier prodded him roughly between the shoulders, with the butt of his rifle. There was annoyance more than pain as he stumbled. His hat fell off, and while it flashed through his brain that it was
“He was standing by the boy and girl now, high above the crowd. There was peace all about and the sun shone brightly upon the dancing waves. Below him, expectant faces gazed upwards—the churchman droned in an interminable speech. He turned to look at the boy, and smiled faintly, the pain of his arm made him very sick. The youngster gave him a radiant smile—the girl smiled too. They were fellow voyagers now. The dancing blue frock filled him with a grave happiness.
“Presently the churchman would finish, and the whining motor would take up the strain. How cool the breeze was after the stench of the crowd! They would have their fiesta to-night, with the fires and the wild music, and the dancing.
“And now the moment had arrived—he lay upon his back gazing up at the crossbar of the guillotine—his neck snugged into the curve of the block. The executioner bent over him, his face filled the whole sky—blotting from his sight the boy and girl and the bright sunshine. But his eyes were anxious and a gentle sympathy softened the lines about his mouth.
“‘Senor,’ he called softly, ‘Senor,’ then turning his head, ‘See,’ he cried in excited patois, ‘he is not dead—he has had a terrible fall—but he lives!’
“Other faces drew near, faces that he knew, Mario, the padronne, Luigi Thejda, Alessandro Mulas—but the boy and girl were gone—also the guillotine and the savage crowd.
“He tried to rise, but the pain in his arm was excruciating and a dead weight seemed to press down his chest and shoulders.
“Mario gently restrained him. ‘Everything is splendid now,’ he said smiling, ‘soon we shall take you down to the village and Don Federico will set this broken arm and all the other bones which may be broken. Only you must lie still—one does not fall from the clouds every day.’
“‘But I don't understand,’ Raymond said, ‘the crowd,’ he added, and then painfully, with many halts and pauses
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
Waiouru Station, on the Main Trunk Line, North Island, New Zealand, on the verge of the National Park. (Waiouru is the highest station on the Main Trunk, being 2,660 feet above sea level.)
“‘The Senor has had a terrible fall,’ he muttered, and then as an afterthought portentously, ‘upon Pietro Negro’!”
Just as he emerged from the tobacconist's shop, with a fine new briar in his hand he bumped up against an old chum who greeted him cheerily with: “What ho!—another new pipe? Must cost you something for pipes, old sport!” “Oh, I don't know,” he said with a grin, “fact is my doctor has limited me to two smokes a day, so I've been buying a pipe with a decent sized bowl.” Both laughed heartily. “I know a trick worth two of that,” said his friend — “smoke ‘toasted.’ Next to no nicotine in it. The toasting works the oracle! No need to limit yourself with ‘toasted.’ You can smoke as many pipes of it a day as you like. And you simply can't match it for quality.” Thus he solved the riddle of how to smoke all he wanted, doctor's orders to the contrary, notwithstanding! Substitutes are sometimes offered for “toasted.” But there are no substitutes for Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead), Cavendish, Riverhead Gold and Desert Gold. They are unique!*
* * *
* * *
“Speeding along a radio beam in the stratosphere at 1,000 miles an hour, it will take the busy man a little more than an hour to fly from Australia to New Zealand in A.D. 2,000.” —Sir Charles Kingsford Smith.
The express steamer service between the North and South Islands is excellent. There are two lovely steamers, the Rangatira and the Wahine. Both are excellent ships in either of which it is pleasant to travel. Of course, some people are never well in a ship. Colonel Falla (who is the official head) of the Union Steam Ship Company, dearly loves to tell of an elderly female relative of his who went aboard the inter-island express steamer and within an hour was most dreadfully ill, and continued being woefully sick all night. What added to the horror of it all was the fact that no matter how hard she rang for the stewardess, nobody came until six the next morning when a steward put his head in the door.
“Steward, why does nobody answer my bell?” she asked pathetically. “I have been so ill.”
“But, madam,” he said incredulously, “as we did not sail last night, the stewardess has been ashore.”
The steamer had never left the wharf!
After my South Island tour I was very weary and decided I must have a holiday. I unfolded this idea to Hamish.
“But I thought that was a holiday we had in the South Island,” he protested.
“It may have been a holiday for you; but it was not a holiday for me. Now I want to go to some quiet place and …”
“And give a lecture every other night and write about what you see all day.”
“No, Hamish. For once you are wrong. I am going to lie on my back on the beach and contemplate the universe. I am going to invite my soul.”
“Then I gather we are going to a seaside place?”
“Yes.”
“May I ask the name of this place?”
“That is just what I was going to ask you.”
Hamish grinned a schoolboyish grin. “Then it's Otaki!”
So to Otaki we went. And how we loved it! Sometimes we lay on the beach and thought, and sometimes we just lay on the beach. We dug for toheroas and our landlady made them into fritters for us. Oh, toheroa fritters … I could write a poem about them! And as for toheroa soup, rich, green, creamy … Ah!
Otaki beach is just beach and nothing else. An expanse of sand pounded by breakers, it is ideal for surfing and sun-bathing. A mile or so out at sea lies Kapiti Island, now a bird sanctuary, but once the stronghold of Te Rauparaha who used to raid the coast of both North and South Islands. Te Rauparaha was a Maori chieftain who, with 400 of his tribe, settled at Otaki in 1819. Small and ferocious, never was there a more daring, impudent, and savage warrior. For hundreds of miles around he was feared; no one knew when he might not appear in a pa (village), carry off the women, slay and cook the men, leave not a rooftree unburned to tell the tale. Heavily tattooed as to countenance, his furious cruelty was the terror of his neighbours and his face was a thing to make children scream with nightmare. Te Rauparaha! The very name was a whiplash.
But, in 1839, a missionary settlement was established at Otaki, and the warrior chief was the first to be converted. He was, it appears, an extremist in all things. With characteristic impetuosity he threw himself into the faith and works of his new creed. A church must be built for the salvation of souls? Te Rauparaha built it in 1846. It still stands, a unique example of ancient Maori art. The pillars which uphold the roof are totara logs fifty feet high and sunk twelve feet into the ground. How these logs were conveyed to the site is not known. Were they floated down the sea-coast or were they (horrible thought!) brought by captured slaves? (Te Rauparaha was a slave holder in those days.) Be that as it may, there they stand, as sound and straight as on the day they were erected. The walls are lined with rough-hewn planking interspersed with flax weaving. The altar rails are ornate with carving, done in the days when all carving was done with fishbone or stone chisel. No one who is interested in early Polynesian art should miss seeing Otaki Church.
Te Rauparaha was buried at Otaki in 1849, and his turbulent career is commemorated by a chaste white marble statue of him which looks wistfully out to sea to his ancient stronghold, Kapiti Island. Yes, Te Rauparaha is gone. Descendants of his brave bandits now go decorously to Church or to the Maori College close by. Hundreds of them still live at Otaki, but they live in more or less European style. The women wear hats and high heels—except when they get outside the town, when they throw off shoes and stockings and run happy and barefoot where no one may see.
At Otaki there is nothing to do, and we did it with enthusiasm. In vain did Hamish remind me that I had a Twelve-Month Plan for seeing New Zealand.
“All God's chillun got plans,” I replied lazily. “There is the Roosevelt Plan, and the Five-Year Plan, and the Lloyd George Plan, and many others I will not name. But there is a Five-Million-Year Plan, too. Coral islands are slowly being built up out of the sea. Nebulae are forming into worlds.”
But after a fortnight we were anxious to move on again. And so we came to Palmerston North.
Palmerston is a miniature Christ-church—flat, yet beautiful. Here I met all sorts of interesting people. First there was Mr. Fleck, who makes hand-wrought jewels in exactly the same way that Benvenuto Cellini made them six hundred years ago. His silver and gold wire are drawn by hand; his enamels are baked in a tiny furnace; his precious stones are set in designs of flowers and leaves. He is a true artist, the second of his kind that I have met in New Zealand. The other jewel-craftsman is Reuben Watt, of Auckland.
“Cellini himself,” says Mr. Fleck reverently, “never did more exquisite work than Reuben Watt has done.”
How I respect and love artists who praise each other so wholeheartedly, so unselfishly! It is the mark of the true artist; I have learned to recognise it.
Then there is Linda Bennett. Linda Bennett is a producer for the Little Theatre Society of Palmertston. Petit, auburn-haired, and brown-eyed, she keeps the place alive by administering a series of shocks to the conservative townsfolk. She is a capable little actress and a radical thinker, a charming hostess and a storm-centre of intellectual activity. If Palmerston is convinced that Bernard Shaw is revolutionary and improper, then Linda insists on putting on a Shaw play.
“At heart, my Linda, you are a hooligan,” I told her one day.
She opened her eyes very wide.
“A hooligan? But, Margaret, surely not a hooligan? Why, that is the sort of person who goes around breaking windows …”
“True. And that's what you do. Not glass windows, but mental windows. I approve of it. You let a lot of air and light into stuffy minds. Go on doing it. It is good work.”
Palmerston North is the largest inland city in the North Island. It has a population of 23,000, but one would guess more because the place is so spacious. The roads are wide, the gardens are big and well-kept, and bang in the middle of the town is an eight-acre square, with gardens, fountains, rivulets, statues, band-stand and what-not. This is the centre of commerce; all the shops stand around it, and right through the middle of it there runs, very surprisingly—no, Not a river—a railway! I heard Lord Galway, the Governor-General, make a speech from the bandstand. Suddenly everything had to stop till a train ran along under his nose!
Some of the prettiest homes I have seen in New Zealand are at Palmerston North, and no two houses are alike. Some are heavily gabled in the old English style. Some are flat-roofed and verandah'd a l'Americaine. Others are Moorish, with round-arched doorways and circular windows. And the gardens are beautiful. One sees golden kowhai, purple and white lilac, roses and flowering cherries all set decoratively to give the maximum effect of colour and perfume to garland the charming homes.
It is a self-sufficing little town. It has its own racecourse, opera house (municipally owned), municipal baths, public library, sports stadium, and one of the loveliest parks in New Zealand, which they seem to call The Esplanade. In fact, they do.
“Esplanade suggests a concrete seaside walk,” I protested, humbly.
“Well, what about our river?” It is beside the Manawatu River and has an area of 361 acres of beautiful native bush and gardens. Here one may walk for hours along wooded paths shaded by rata, kawakawa, ngaio, titoki, kowhai, rimu, matipo and dozens of other stately native trees I cannot name. “Esplanade!” Three hundred and sixty-one acres! I ask you …!
In addition to this, Palmerston has Municipal Bowling and Croquet Greens. Apart from the Esplanade, there is Takaro Park, Papaeoia Park, Wahikoa Park, Hokowhitu Park and Milverton Park. I tell you, they're the most treesome people on earth; gardens everywhere!
Oh, and I forget to mention Anzac Park. Can you beat it? It is too much. Let us go. But wait a minute … there is the Tiritea Reserve, too, another park! They'll never stop till they have a park each, one sees that.
Before we leave this district we must pop up to look at Flock House, which is eight miles from the town of Bulls. After the close of the Great War the sheep-farmers of New Zealand established a fund for the purpose of helping the sons and daughters of British seamen who lost their lives in war service, and for rendering assistance to men who were disabled. The amount contributed was over £160,000, and was known as the “New Zealand Sheepowner's Acknowledgment of Debt to British Seamen Fund.”
About 9,000 acres of land, with buildings on it, were acquired for the purpose of training the boys who were brought out from the Old Country. Another 30 acres were acquired at Awapuni for training English girls in farm and domestic work. These are the Flock House settlements, built on tragedy of the past and hope for the future.
We must not pass Bulls without looking at Ormond Wilson, that scion of an old New Zealand family. Ormond has an Oxford accent, a Hitler lock, and an air of expensive carelessness. He is tremendously aristocratic and exclusive and wealthy.
Bulls did not get its name from the Cow's Husband, although it is the centre of a thriving dairying district. No, it was named after a pioneer settler, Mr. James Bulls, who owned the land which afterwards became the township. In this district a good deal of flax is grown, and flax-milling is a staple industry of the place.
For the sake of my overseas readers I had better explain that New Zealand flax, or phormium tenax, is nothing like the European flaxes with their little star-like blossoms. In fact, it is as unlike as if it had just, from malice prepense, set out to be different. Ours is a regular viking of flaxes, tall and arrogant, with coarse, dark-green leaves eight or ten feet long, and a flower-stem of fifteen feet or more, crowned with honey-filled blossoms of smoky flame colour—a hardy and tenacious flax flourishing at its best when near to water. The New Zealander is never at a loss for a bit of twine with a flax bush growing near. He has merely to take one of the long leaves and tear a strip from it, and he possesses a piece of string that it is almost impossible to break.
Long before English settlement the flax was used by the Maoris. In “Nicholas's Voyage” (1814) we read that “the natives, after having cut it down and brought it home, green in bundles, scrape it with a large mussel shell, and take the heart out of it, splitting it with their thumb-nails. The outside they throw away, and spread out the rest to dry, which makes it as white as snow. They spin it in a double thread, with the hand on the thigh, and then work it into mats, also by the hand. Three women may work on one mat at a time.”
The making of flax mats is a dying art, and I am sorry to say that it is almost an unappreciated art as far as the pakeha is concerned. Personally, I use and like native mats on the polished floors in my home, and very unusual and distinctive they look with their mosaics of shining green and white fibre. They are cool and clean and aesthetic, but for the most part the Maori weavers get little encouragement outside the pa to pursue this delightful craft.
In the old days, however, flax was the mainstay of the Maori modiste. Before we ruined their eye for beauty in dress, the Maoris wore but two garments, alike for both sexes—a sort of kilt and a cape. The natives were hardy and healthy then—no sleeves, no furs, no phthisis, no pakeha to set them a bad example. Many tribes keep their beautiful flax cloaks, which were dyed and woven into all sorts of intricate designs, as heirlooms.
The history of flax is very romantic, and somewhat humorous. And by a very great pioneer in this country, Samuel Marsden, the missionary, this plant was once described as the “instrument of God in paving the way for Christianity.”
This was the way of it:
When penal colonies were first established in the Dominions it was thought that the flax-manufacturing industry might be introduced as a suitable employment for the convicts of Norfolk Island, where the plant flourished. Governor King was anxious to establish the industry there, but the methods of treatment used by the Maoris were not known. In his report on Norfolk Island, in 1791, he stated: “The flax plant of New Zealand grows spontaneously in many parts of the island. Every method has been tried to work it, but I much fear that until a native of New Zealand can be carried to Norfolk Island the method of dressing the valuable commodity will not be known, and could that be obtained I have no doubt but Norfolk Island would very soon clothe the inhabitants of New South Wales.”
There is a touch of humour in the story of how this gentleman's difficulty was overcome. In 1792, Lieutenant Hanson, in command of the storeship Daedalus, was instructed to proceed to New Zealand and take away, by force, if necessary, two natives. This project, which was worthy of the old buccaneering days of Elizabeth,
Photo., W. G. Weigel.)
Scene at the Arthur's Pass Station, South Island, New Zealand, before the departure of a recent excursion train.
King, who was evidently a wily old bird, not without experience of the native temperament, did not give up hope, but treated them with deference as became their rank. However, although they were royally entertained in his own residence, they would not reveal the coveted secret until King had promised to return them to their homes. When they had obtained this promise they demonstrated the process, which proved to be quite simple.
King personally escorted the two chiefs back to New Zealand and established the friendship of a lifetime with them. The Maoris were impressed with the generous behaviour of their captors. They never forgot it. “Kingi” became a tribal name amongst them in honour of their pakeha friend, and when the first missionaries arrived, in 1814, they found that the memory of this kindness still endured and Governor King's interest in flax had smoothed the way for Christianity. In this way phormium tenax had proved to be “an instrument of God.”
The natives still make all sorts of “old wives’ remedies” from the flax root—cough cures, corn cures and what-not. They make a splendid waterproof tent of the leaves; indeed, its uses are too numerous to mention. With its tough leaves, which are hard enough to stop a bullet, and its dense foliage, which is high enough to conceal a fugitive, it has been closely associated with the history of the native race, and it appears in many delightful legends.
In less sophisticated days the Maori gallant made his love token of a flax strip. A double slip-knot was formed, which, if tightly pulled, ran into one large single knot. The double knot was presented by the bashful lover to his sweetheart, who signified her consent to this shy, silent proposal, by drawing the two knots into one.
However, as a colonial poet puts it, “Them days 'as gone for ever.” This is the age of commerce, not romance. Thousands of tons of flax are now exported yearly from New Zealand, and the milling, bleaching and preparation of this fibre is done by elaborate mechanical processes.
Flax is grown “commercially,” too, but it has its own idiosyncrasies and has to be humoured. Placed singly and in rows the plants do not thrive too well. A highly educated Maori of my acquaintance told me that the plants don't like this. “They should be placed in groups, not lines,” he said. “They're greg—what-d'you-call-um.”
The man with the bit of blue ribbon on his coat had been telling the bus driver what a terrible thing smoking was. “Take my advice,” he urged, “and give it up my friend!” “Bless yer,” replied the bus driver, “if I was to foller all the advice I get from passengers when I'm driving this here old bus, I'd never live to see another birfday! And now you comes along and wants me to chuck me pipe! Well, I listens affable like to everybody—and then I jolly well pleases meself, see? As for smoking, I smoke Cut Plug No. 10, and like all them reel toasted brands it couldn't 'urt a cat! Likewise if there's better bacca to be 'ad I wan to know where I kin get it.” The man wearing the blue ribbon groaned—and gave it best! There are five brands of “the reel toasted”—Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead), Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Cavendish, Riverhead Gold and Desert Gold. And they're all as harmless as taking a walk! They're toasted!*
Gregarious! But what does commerce care for the gregariousness of plants? I see that an expert of scientific and industrial research is now growing phormium in large-scale nurseries for comparison and selection. It will be sown by motors and reaped by tractors, and another of the glories of New Zealand will have succumbed to the march of commercial civilisation.
As for me, I shall still use flax mats on my floor so long as I can find some old-timer of a native woman to make them, and I shall grow three flax plants in my garden; three—one for history, two for romance, and three for “greg—what-d'you-call-um.”
In a letter to Mr. G. H. Mackley, General Manager of Railways, the Rt. Hon. Lord Strathspey writes, inter alia, as under:— “Hylton House, 7th July, 1935. Rottingdean, Sussex.
“Your magnificent Magazine … not only gives much useful information, and is well published, but it is a source of great publicity for New Zealand; and, after all, to-day publicity is one of the greatest factors in our modern life.
“New Zealand is on the other side of the world, therefore she must advertise in order to keep the country amongst the foremost in the world.
“Your valuable Magazine is always read with interest by us all, and then I pass it on to The Royal Empire Society, I being Chairman of the Sussex Branch…. Yours sincerely, Strathspey.”
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
The winter is a slack period in most enterprises, but this is not the case in the new railway yard, where provision is being made to have this huge network of lines and sidings ready for the opening of the new railway station in April, 1937. There is usually a falling-off in both goods and passenger traffic during the non-productive period of the year, and advantage is being taken of this to make alterations in the layout from old to new which would prove more embarrassing to the working of the unfinished yard during the busier summer months. By the courtesy of Mr. G. H. Mackley, General Manager of Railways, a Wellington “Post” representative was given an opportunity to view all the work in progress, the following account being taken from a recent issue of that paper:
“The reconstruction of the yard which will serve the new railway station and freight traffic needs of this important terminus is being proceeded with as rapidly as the circumstances permit. Many of the new shunting and car sidings and connections are permanent as far as they can be laid, but until all the old yard has been lifted there are limits to the possible extensions of the new work done. Nevertheless there is much to interest the prospective passenger and the commercial man in the present position, as it shows what will eventually form the goods and passenger yards.
“Not the least attractive of the new arrangements are those being made for the convenience of passengers. At the back of the station will be a large concourse, roofed by an arch springing from buttresses on the main building. This will serve as a well-lit sheltered promenade for those awaiting trains or friends. Beyond t