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A First Class Car on the North Island Main Trunk Line, New Zealand.
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.
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.
A Cheerful outlook in the individual is usually based on good health and courage. It is, of course, possible to be courageous when ill—but much easier when well! Hence the emphasis laid, in modern times, on a sound regimen of health is justified by the desire to improve the outlook of the individual, with happier results on those with whom he makes contact.
Fear is a constant factor fighting good health. But almost all fear is due to want of knowledge. Knowledge gives confidence, confidence drives out fear, good health follows confidence and from that a cheerful outlook is achieved.
“Courage,” said Emerson, “is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.” It is the aim of all wise laws to maintain this necessary constitutional freedom for the individual.
It has also been said that courage consists in equality to the problem before us. That equality can be gained by self-confidence. Much has been said and written about the importance of heredity, and many learned tomes have been prepared to trace back the ancestry of this or that family into some period of the dark ages. In America there have been people who have built up very lucrative incomes out of the business of providing lengthy family trees for people with more money than good sense. It is of course clear that the actual length of the family tree of every person must be about the same whether we believe in descent from Adam or in the development of human life from some fortunate condition of natural forces.
In any case everyone living to-day is descended from people who have survived through countless generations every kind of hard luck or good fortune, every climatic change, every political upheaval, and every chance or change of every other sort that may have occurred since the dawn of human time. With this common ancestry behind us all, we can at least believe that there is some powerful toughness in us that should fit us to carry on, and with this knowledge we should be ready to face whatever is ahead with courage and cheerfulness. To do otherwise is, in a sense, to let down your ancestors, who, whatever they may have been, had the courage to play their part in the battle of life, and to give you the opportunity to be alive in this, the most interesting time in the world's history.
A cheerful outlook in the individual tends to develop a cheerful outlook both in the family circle, and also amongst industrial associates—above, below or on the same level. When it infects a nation nothing can prevent that nation progressing. Experience of life and the deepest researches of psychologists, clearly indicate that there are mental and physical reserves in the individual that are seldom fully called upon, and particularly that the mental reserves are sufficient for any emergency if properly applied. Here again, knowledge of the facts gives confidence for the occasion, and from this confidence wells up the cheerful outlook so necessary for human well-being.
The Railways have good reason for a cheerful outlook at the present time. Traffic is plentiful, the service given is appreciated, the prospects for further improvement are good. The customers of the Railways have also good reason to be of good heart. They know that the Department is prepared to meet any reasonable demand for transport and to perform the work capably.
The country has every reason to have a cheerful outlook as all the trade returns show a useful upward tendency. And incidentally, this Magazine has no reason to be downhearted—for the financial year just ended the Magazine sales were threefold those of the previous year.
Some unwarranted criticism has recently appeared in certain papers regarding the speed and cleanliness of trains on the New Zealand Railways and the facilities provided for the comfort and convenience of passengers.
This criticism has evidently been made without adequate knowledge. Indeed, I am reliably informed that a visitor whose statement to the Press within the last fortnight was given much prominence, and who (unfortunately) left New Zealand the day his statement appeared, made only one journey on a New Zealand train, and that by a “mixed service” which conveyed him and his car from Springfield to Otira (50 miles)—thereby enabling him to avoid the trip by road over Arthur's Pass. Some further information on the matter should therefore be of public interest.
The subject of train speeds is, of course, one which no general statement can cover, if it is desired to make a comparison of any value between the achievements of one country and another. There are too many factors of dissimilarity.
The fact stands out, however, that when the youth of this country is considered, when the comparative smallness of its total population (about equal to that of one of the larger Australian cities) is taken into account, and when due allowance is made for the quite extraordinary engineering difficulties (due to the physical features of the country) which had to be surmounted in laying some of the lines, the record of achievement of the New Zealand Railways is one in which every New Zealander has just cause for pride.
We have the evidence of our own people who have travelled overseas, and of a host of visitors who have actually used our services, and particularly of those with knowledge who are in a position to make comparisons, that in the matter of speed, cleanliness and convenience the Railways here hold their own with those of other countries of similar standing. This must be said in justice to those who have made our Railways what they are, and those who work them now.
Needless to say, further improvements are being made as circumstances warrant, and any well-informed criticism is welcomed by the Department; but the people of New Zealand, who are showing their appreciation of the Railways by steadily increasing patronage, have every reason for confidence in the capacity of their own transportation system to meet adequately the transport needs both of themselves and of any visitors from overseas who are prepared to use them.
In this, the largest industrial enterprise in the Dominion, it is inevitable that occasions will arise when legitimate cause for complaint may occur, or where suggestions for improvement can be profitably made. I would therefore appreciate it very much if members of the public would come to the Department's assistance on such occasions, and I can assure them that such assistance will be accepted in the helpful spirit with which it is tendered.
General Manager.
New Zealand Authors’ Week was instituted for one express purpose. Its objective is to impress upon the people of New Zealand the wonderful volume and the high standard of work in the world of letters achieved by their fellow countrymen. It has accomplished its task to some extent, but this article is intended to show a little of the cultural value in the modern world of the writings of native New Zealanders. It is time that our attention was turned to this further manifestation of the richness of our British heritage, and of the steadfast manner in which we have held to its best traditions.
Thomas Bracken.
It is a real truth that a good poet who is a bad painter will be prouder of his canvases than of his poems. This strange feature of human nature is well exhibited when New Zealanders put in their claims for special achievement. We are prone to mention our “All-Blacks” as our first line of defence in this regard. The sober truth is that we should concentrate on our literary record. Our famous writers make a far more imposing world list than our famous five-eighths. Our libraries of literary treasures are of world parity. The Turnbull Library, the Grey Collection and the Hocken Collection, will, one of these days, be the cause of crowded pilgrimages from older lands. Even in tiny Whangarei is at least the second best collection of Dumas in the whole world and Mr. Reed, its owner, has been twice decorated by the French Government. Our per capita consumption of good literary weeklies and monthlies is the highest in the world. We have a unique proportion of good daily newspapers, well written and devoted to the serious news of the world. Greymouth, Palmerston North and Gisborne, to say nothing of the four chief centres, have bookshops equal to anything on the globe. We have the same proportion of Oxford and Cambridge graduates to our population as Old England herself, and a larger ratio still of graduates from local universities. The incidence of our interest in world affairs is the widest on earth, and we have the best showing among all countries in the comparative space given in our press to world affairs and the local murder or sensation. We are a highly cultivated, literary-book-loving country with a tremendous body of acknowledged achievement in letters. The false impressions abroad about our cultural standards are largely our own fault. When we have been for years proudly pressing our claim to be the “Empire's Dairy Farm,” stressing our enormous production of lamb and wool and cheese, and emphasizing our world precedence in the ownership of motor cars, bathrooms, telephones and radio sets, we must not be disappointed when the folk of older countries imagine us lacking in the love of the things of the mind.
They see us, on our statements, as pre-occupied with material comfort. This attitude assists and intensifies that acute provincialism which is the mark of the dwellers in large cities. I edited the first anthology of New Zealand short stories. The English critics hailed them as bright, skilfully written, full of humour and sophistication; but while admitting their admirable technical qualities, said in chorus that they all “lacked distinctive New Zealand atmosphere.” The first anthology of New Zealand poetry was reviewed thus: “This is a book of verses written by New Zealanders. On the other hand, it is fair to say that our cousins down under play wonderful Rugby.” This is simply Cockney arrogance derived from ignorance. This type of mind wants an Australian story to be full of dingoes and wallabies, a South African romance must take place on the Karroo or the veldt, a Canadian yarn must have moose and North West Mounted police wandering through its pages, and a New Zealand author must deal in Maoris, hot springs, and sheep mustering. The truth is that the New Zealand “scene” in the novelist's sense, is taking definitive shape very slowly. The reasons for this need explanation. In many parts of the young colony, the victory over the forces of Nature was prosaic and swiftly won. The Canterbury settlement was a pleasant land of
Katherine Mansfield.
James Cowan.
However, certain distinctive, national characteristics are emerging. Our form of life has a certain freshness in the world's history. The freedom of social experiment, the case and ubiquity of open-air life, even for the people of our larger cities, the extraordinary cheapness of most forms of sport, the everchanging picture of the relative standing of families and the genuine ease with which commercial or professional success may be won, make a panorama of colonial colouring. It is less crude, however, than in many new countries. It is leavened with a respect for tradition, and permeated with a respect for commonsense, and a caution best described as “Scottish.” We definitely, too, are tinged with the Maori love of high imagery, his utilitarian ideas of life and death that still are instinct with earthly poetry, and his recognition of the mysterious beauty but wayward forces of Nature. A multitude of examples of Nature's strangest deeds is all about us. In spite, therefore, of the lacking of infusions of alien blood
Ngalo Marsh.
John Brodie.
Naturally enough, our first thousand books were largely written by folk who saw themselves as pioneers or exiles. They had transplanted their culture with them to a new home. The swift subjugation of the land, however, soon saw arising a host of New Zealand native born writers able to express themselves in the best tradition of fine English prose. In our own country already, scores of names are forgotten that are known the world over. I do not intend in this article to give a glossary or bibliography of our authors and the names mentioned are not meant to be anything more than random selections to illustrate points. If a New Zealander is asked to give in a hurry the names of figures from our land of international standing, he quotes Katherine Mansfield and Lord Rutherford and finishes there. Pember Reeves or Julius Vogel take their places with a score of others as writers that all England knew. Hereabouts I want to state a claim which I think is entirely valid. The one distinctive possession of New Zealand in the art of letters is this: we have produced a band of writers who have the gift of making a scientific work into an art object, a thing of beauty. Maeterlinck's “Life of the Bee” is strictly accurate in its basis of exact knowledge and authentic precision. Nevertheless, it is a prose poem. Fabre wrote on insects that enthralled readers who knew or cared nothing for entomology. You do not have to be a naturalist to
Sir John Salmond won the two great prizes for literary distinction given by universities in England and America for books on legal subjects, and one does not need to be a lawyer to be enthralled by his luminous and enjoyable work on the law of contracts. Our ethnologists are famous in the world arena of knowledge, of whom I may quickly enumerate Elsdon Best, Dr. Buck, Jenness and Beaglehole. They, too, employ literature in its highest sense in their expositions. Then there is that extraordinary, unique and fascinating production, Guthrie Smith's “Tutira.” Here is the complete biography of a sheep station, its soil contents, its geology, its bird life, its native fauna and flora, the history of its grasses, its experiments in stock raising and its development as a farm unit. It is romance of intrinsic merit and is a precious possession in the great world libraries. The list could be extended indefinitely, including such men as Mellor (the world's leading authority on refractories, and a chemist whose work was of such potent efficacy in the World War); Cotton, Morell, Gifford, and Tillyard.
Here, I like to think, is the flowering of one bloom explicitly and absolutely ours in the garden of letters. Good prose is founded upon clear thinking, but it can be enriched by the gift of imagery, and its meaning and inner beauty brought to living texture by the use of decorative language whose poetic structure enhances the clarity of the message. We may honestly and in all
Johannes C. Andersen.
Our verse, at first, suffered (in the writer's opinion) through excessive scholarship. It was loaded with classic allusion and metaphor alien to the heart of our life—the product of overmuch reading and too little living. More of our bush verse has been written in dinner jackets than in dungarees. In the last decade, however, there has been a spate of poetry which has the impress of original thinking and of distinctive beauty. Be reminded, too, that nearly every second New Zealander writes rhyme. The small verse volumes are innumerable. I am granting to our exceptional infusion of Celtic blood the credit for much of this new work, and I am hoping, too, that there is a little sign of Maori influence. The latter is not direct, but there is being borne in upon us something of understanding of our native brethren's splendid communal life and culture, and their mingling of poetry and common-sense in their ideas of death and natural forces.
In James Cowan we have a gifted writer whose wealth of stories of our early days and the conflicts between Maori and pakeha are woven from actual experience, actual first-hand knowledge; and a vast and sympathetic understanding of both races and the sources of their problems and misconceptions. A succession of skilled, studious and well equipped historians of the type of Lindsay Buick and Dr. Scholefield have furnished us with an extensive and picturesque panorama of our first days. Lately, too, New Zealand publishing houses have put out in numbers, books of memoirs of pioneer days. I am thankful to say that these are usually most successful; they are all well-written, and it is our duty to encourage this vital method of recording our history. Old men and women whose minds are storehouses of the treasure of “far off forgotten things” are dying all round us, and still more intensive effort is required so that no more of this precious legacy is lost to us.
The number of New Zealand writers who become successes abroad is growing apace. I want to sharply deprecate that saddest and silliest habit of New Zealanders when a fellow-townsman achieves fame in the great arena of the old world capitals. When Hector Bolitho leaps into London limelight as a writer of recognised standing, or when Merton Hodge writes a play “The Wind and the Rain,” which is a veritable triumph, we hear, “How did he do it? He was nothing very wonderful here.” This is comment of the small town mind, stupid and unforgiveable. We should say, “Of course, he succeeded—he is a New Zealander, and we have dozens of others who could do the same if only they had the steamer ticket.”
The New Zealand novel has taken new life lately, and “The Little Country” by Brodie, “A Poor Scholar” by C. R. Allen, and “The Greenstone Door” by Satchell, are works of art, and which is more important, they are wholly and inescapably of New Zealand origin, New Zealand atmosphere, and about New Zealand people. Moreover, there is not a kiwi or a geyser in any
(Continued on page 14)
C. R. Allen.
The disappearance of a species of bird-life from a country is a calamity, and if it is hastened by man's acts it becomes a crime. That is what has befallen the huia. Now the same fate will overtake the pukeko if the acclimatisation societies and a section of the farmers and so-called sportsmen have their way. Protection has been removed from the handsome and harmless swamp-turkey at the request of the societies, or some of them, and unless the Forest and Bird Protection Society succeeds in its efforts to save the bird, there will be a massacre of a helpless bird this coming season.
This agitation in some quarters for the destruction of the pukeko is based on ignorance of the bird's habits and its place in the economy of nature in New Zealand. The farmer who sees a pukeko pulling a few straws out of his stack of oats may conclude that the bird is a “menace” (favourite word of the acclimatisation people) to the agricultural interests, and he may demand its extermination. What he does not know about the pukeko is the real cause of his objection. He forgets also that the draining of the swamps and lagoons to provide cow-pasture necessarily drives the pukeko to the farm for some of its food.
The tui and the bellbird in some places frequent the plantations and orchards in towns, as at Akaroa, but no orchard-owner grudges them a few pears or other fruit. He has his reward in the presence of the birds and their confidence in him, and their songs. The farmer who really knows something of the pukeko recognises that the bird is worth encouraging about the place for its usefulness in feeding on the grass-grubs and other insect life that would otherwise damage his pastures and his crops. When I was a youngster on the farm I took a shot at a pukeko now and again for the fun of the thing, if the old fellow was investigating the new crops near his swamp, nevertheless I always had a friendly feeling for him, and the shot was meant to scare him off rather than to kill him. I often watched the pukeko communities in the swamps, and delighted to see them jauntily stalking the roadsides, reposing a perfect trust in man. I have seen them following the plough, feeding on the worms and grubs turned up in the furrows. They give the farmer useful service, if he only knew it, far outbalancing any toll they may levy on his crops.
Most New Zealanders I am sure regard the pukeko-shooting as bird-murder; it is not only unnecessary but is a grave offence against the salutary balance of nature in the land. The pukeko, like the weka, helps to keep the grass and flax-destroying insects in check. Insect plagues increase when bird-life decreases before the ravages of man and acclimatised animals. Even if the farmer is to be excused when, in his ignorance or his misplaced annoyance, he pots an occasional pukeko on his land, that liberty certainly should not be extended to the town “sport” who goes out gunning for anything and everything, preferably something big that is not quick on the wing.
More than one doctor in the country learned from the Maoris something of the treasury of healing which the bush contains. There is the breath of life and relief from pain in the grand old Maori forest.
Dr. O'Carroll, a military surgeon and later a most popular practitioner in Taranaki, more than fifty years ago collected much native lore on the subject and put it to practical use. These remedies, which he had proved of practical value, were made public by him, and Mr. W. H. Skinner, of New Plymouth, gives them in an appreciation of Dr. O'Carroll, in his book “Pioneer Medical Men in Taranaki”:
A useful styptic plant, for checking hemorrhage, is the aka vine or white rata creeper (Metrosideros scandens). The juice of the aka is applied; and the juice of the young shoots of the latter is blown from the shoots on to wounds. It stops arterial bleeding. The juice of the aka is very rich in tannin. Kohukohu moss is also used. The inner part of the bark of the rewarewa tree heals wounds quickly.
Dr. O'Carroll said that he had seen cures of gunshot wounds by plugging the holes up with wet clay. Leaves of karaka, the shiny green upper surface, are applied to the wounds. Kawakawa and ramarama leaves—roasted, not boiled—and the bark of kahikatea, relieve severe bruises.
For skin diseases, the hot springs of the thermal regions are great healing agents. Elsewhere the Maoris use decoctions of hinau bark, towai bark, kahikatea chips, and kohekohe, infused in boiling water, are good tonic medicines. Towai or the flax-root principle if extracted, the Doctor noted, might provide a substitute for quinine.
(Continued from page 11).
of them. Then there is that remarkable revelation of the human heart, “The Children of the Poor” (by J. A. Lee, Parliamentary Under-Secretary), with its defined New Zealand setting and feeling. The popularity of the pleasant and easy stories of Nelle Scanlon and Rosemary Rees needs no mention here, but I would like to mention the brilliant work of Miss Ngaio Marsh whose polished, ingenious and engrossing crime stories place her definitely in the class of Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie.
In our press, recognised by all visitors to our shores as outstanding in its adherence to the best traditions of workmanship in writing, we have the forge for the making of authors. Our million and a half people are increasing in cultural stature. Do not be alarmed at the smallness of our population or treat it as a serious handicap. The teeming millions of Babylon must have often laughed at the literary ambitions of the handful of Greek sheep-herders and sea-going traders. Yet Greece made possible the whole modern world of culture and all civilisation is still in its debt. There is not a single reason why New Zealand should not do the same. All that is required is the stimulation of effort. We should increase the encouragement of writers and thinkers. The practical way to do this is to buy books. A poet still has to meet his food bills and pay his rent. So, in its final utilitarian aspect, that is the objective of “New Zealand Authors’ Week.”
However great is our past achievement, it can be bettered, and the name of our lovely land will stand for all that is best in human accomplishment.
Writing to the Editor of the New Zealand Railways Magazine, Mr. A. W. Weiland, a ticket agent employed by the Cleveland Union Terminals Co., Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A., expresses a desire to communicate with New Zealand Railwaymen, particularly those interested in collecting postage stamps. We have pleasure in reproducing his letter in the hope that it may catch the eyes of interested readers.
“Will you contact several persons whom you think might be interested in corresponding with me with a view to exchanging ideas and experiences, also to exchange postage stamps.
“I am employed as a ticket agent (you would term me a ‘stationmaster’) at the Cleveland. Union Terminal, one of the largest passenger stations in the United States. I have travelled considerably through the States, and therefore would like to correspond with someone in a similar capacity. Perhaps by so doing we can both be benefitted by exchanging veiws on methods of handling passenger business. If this person also collects stamps the correspondence can be made that much more beneficial.”
Radio history was made last month with the first broadcast from inside Parliament. The story of the great innovation is told for “The Railways Magazine” by Mr. Chas. E. Wheeler, a well-known parliamentary journalist who was officially selected to initiate the broadcasts with descriptive “eye-witness” accounts of the election of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the next day's opening of Parliament by His Excellency the Governor-General. He also gives information about the technical organisation, equipment and practical operation of “outside” radio broadcast.
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
The Main Entrance to New Zealand's Parliament Buildings, showing the Royal Arms sculptured in marble.
The opening of New Zealand's 25th Parliament on the 25th March, 1936, was notable for one remarkable innovation. This institution, so jealous of its privileges and so concerned about “strangers,” allowed the broadcasting microphone within its well-guarded precincts.
“Parliament is to be brought into the people's homes, to their own firesides,” declared the Prime Minister, and as a very experienced parliamentarian, the Hon. M. J. Savage knew, when he said it, that this meant a tremendous innovation and a breaking down of strong tradition.
Radio listeners in the Dominion will get so easily into the habit of tuning in to hear what Parliament is doing on big occasions that they may come to regard the privilege as a common-place. At present it certainly is not! The jealous way in which Parliament maintains an attitude of exclusiveness about its proceedings has an origin deep in the past, when Parliament fought with Kings for the right, expressed in the famous phrase, “No taxation without representation.”
Even last March it was the duty of the Speaker of New Zealand's House of Representatives to make a request on its behalf to the Governor-General, the representative of His Majesty, in these words:
“I have now, on behalf of the House of Representatives of New Zealand, to lay claim to all their privileges, and especially to freedom of debate, and to free access to Your Excellency whenever occasion may require it, and that the most favourable construction may be put on all their proceedings.”
And there are other outcroppings on the rock face of modern parliamentary procedure, reminding us of historic, almost forgotten controversies. For instance, His Excellency the Governor, as the direct representative of the King, receives the elected members of the House of Representatives in the Legislative Council chamber on the opening of Parliament, and in a Speech from the Throne directs them regarding the legislative programme which his advisers, the Ministry, require to be passed during the session. Members of the Lower House thereupon return to their own chamber “for the despatch of business” as their summons runs.
But do they proceed at once on the King's business? No. The Prime Minister at once moves the first reading of “The Expiring Laws Continuance Bill,” a measure not mentioned in the Speech from the Throne, but assertive of Parliament's privilege of legislating without direction. Only after this formal revival of a hard-won privilege does the House hear one of its members give notice that next sitting day he will move “That a respectful Address be presented to His Excellency, in reply to His Excellency's Speech.” Nothing more is heard of the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, the counterpart of which, in the British House of Commons, is “The Prevention of Outlawrys Bill.”
As an institution, Parliament's official attitude towards the newspapers is merely one of tolerance. Members of the Parliament Press Gallery are there on sufferance (though they are given every facility, and some comforts) and they are included among the “strangers” whom Mr. Speaker does not “see” —otherwise they can be removed. The Standing Orders of the House inferentially recognise the Press Gallery by including a penal clause under which any newspaper representative may be excluded from the Gallery for committing breach of privilege.
And it was in this exclusive atmosphere that the broadcasting microphone came into action on the afternoon of March 25th when, for the first time in history, the actual proceedings of a legislative assembly were allowed to be heard outside the walls. Having accepted this innovating “stranger,” Parliament did the thing handsomely by giving what it called “the official commentator” a seat on the floor of the House, close to backbench members on the “Noes” side. Here on a table was the relay apparatus and the announcer's microphone, while suspended above members’ heads down the centre of the chamber were three microphones, since increased to four. They are of the ribbon type evolved by the British Broadcasting Corporation's engineers, and represent the last word in efficiency for broadcasts outside a radio studio.
(Continued on page 49)
The political career of the late Sir Joseph Ward was distinguished by two features which have marked several other great lives in Colonial history: his rise from smallest beginnings to the highest position in the Dominion and his quick, vigorous, far-seeing share in the affairs of the British Empire. Like his chief, Seddon, he was one of those men who made their way upwards without any assistance, by inherent merit and force of character. Ambition was strong in him, but it was ambition with sound and brilliant capacity behind it. The spirit of initiative was his in an unusual degree; he was not afraid of criticism once he was convinced that his actions were in the country's best interests. He was for forty years a consistent champion of Liberal principles in Government, and he was responsible for necessary reforms and innovations in the country's administration. Like Ballance and Seddon, he was a victim of overwork; he remained in office too long, with that fatal clinging to administrative power which has shortened many a great man's life.
Right Hon. Sir Joseph G. Ward, Bart., P.C., K.C.M.G.
(Premier of New Zealand, 1906–1912; 1928–1930. Died 1930, aged 74).
Sir Joseph Ward was one of a pair of bright and promising young men who entered the New Zealand Parliament in the latter part of the ‘Eighties and who soon began to take a prominent share in the beginnings of the Liberal movement in politics. They came in at the parting of the ways; before long they were to travel together the fascinating highway of bold “experimental” legislation. The other young man of great gifts was W. P. Reeves. Ward came from Awarua, the Bluff, where he had begun his working career as a telegraph messenger boy. Ward owed nothing to the kindly fortune that smiled on Reeves’ young days. His education was the most elementary; the world of work and business was his college and university. He was generally described as a young man of push and enterprise who was afraid of nothing. Certainly he was not afraid of pushing in among his elders. He was a borough councillor in Campbelltown, the Bluff township, at the age of twenty-one; indeed he was not quite of age when he was elected.
He was not New Zealand-born; Melbourne was his native town; but he came as a child to this country with his parents, and he grew up a thoroughgoing young New Zealander, developing a vigorous spirit of local patriotism. He was a greatly popular young citizen of the Bluff; he took a leading part in social and sport movements; he developed the spirit of discussion and debate on local affairs.
He did not long remain content with carrying other people's messages and working for the Government. At twenty he was on his own account in business in a small way, and soon to expand greatly.
Young J. G. Ward—they called him “Joe” or “Joey” then and all his life, which matched Seddon's “Dick,” “Good old Dick” —was speedily found to be a quick, keen, incisive speaker, with a particularly able grasp of financial matters. He made a good impression in Parliament, as elsewhere, by his pleasant manner, his brisk debonair ways, his agreeable voice that had not then taken on the rather high petulant note the wear and irritation of politics sometimes gave it in later life. He represented Awarua capably from 1887 onward, and, with intervals, he continued to be the elect of that southernmost constituency all his life.
In the election of 1890, following immediately on the settlement of the great maritime strike, the Atkinson party, the representatives of Conservative policy met an irretrievable defeat, and the Liberals entered into power. John Ballance became Premier, and he recognised the value of brisk young Joseph Ward by making him a member of his Cabinet, as Postmaster-General and Commissioner of Electric, Telegraphs. A high testimonial this to Awarua's member, after only three years of Parliamentary service. He held this position many times later, and displayed a thorough knowledge of the working and the needs of the service and its capacity for expansion. He was far and away the most successful of all the Ministers who controlled the Post and Telegraphs.
Ward's most noteworthy act as Minister was the introduction of penny postage for letters. From the very first he had realised its advantages, and, in 1891, he succeeded in obtaining Parliament's authority for the establishment of the penny postage in New Zealand and on reciprocal terms with any country which might be disposed to adopt it. But the initial difficulty, the losses that at first would follow reduction, delayed the actual establishment of the reform until January 1, 1901, when the people were for the first time enabled to send a letter for a penny.
In the meantime, Mr. Ward had been out of politics through business troubles, but on his return, in 1899, he took up the cause on which he had set his heart, and carried it through. Further concessions to the popular needs were made, such as the reduction of telegraph charges.
The honour of knighthood was conferred on the Minister soon afterwards; it was a fitting recognition of his untiring work in the cause of freer and cheaper communication. At the International Postal Conference in Rome, in 1906, he appealed for the universal adoption of penny postage— a great and bold reduction from the existing charge of twopence-halfpenny. The cautious Convention did not adopt the reform then, but the proposal set the nations thinking and moving, and penny postage came at last.
Another important step forward was the establishment of the Government Department of Tourist and Health Resorts. Sir Joseph was the leading advocate of the institution which had for its object the management of such places as the Rotorua spa and the world-wide advertisement of New Zealand's glories of scenery, its attractions in sport, and the healing virtues of its wonderful hot mineral springs. The first manager of the new Department, Mr. T. E. Donne, was exactly the kind of man required, and under Sir Joseph he built it up into a most useful branch of the public utilities service. The world soon began to hear all about the wonder and beauty of the country and its unusual qualities of landscape, its shooting and fishing, and its place as the holiday land of the southern world. All through his Ministerial career Sir Joseph fostered this live Department, as an agency greatly necessary in the advancement of the national interest.
In his youth Sir Joseph Ward had seen some service in the employ of the Railways Department, and throughout his political career he dealt with the affairs of the State lines with inside knowledge. Mr. R. A. Loughnan, in his excellent biography of Sir Joseph, wrote of him as Minister that, “he plunged into the intricacies of railway affairs with a brave heart and a clear head. So doing he kept both eyes open—fixing one on the travelling and trading public, without losing sight of the weight carried on the railway account by the taxpayers, and the other on the personnel he relied on for efficient and cheerful working of the railway system.” He did not want the railways to pay all charges, recognising that the development brought by railways required time for the return of profits. At the same time he held that the lines must pay something more than their expenses, some fair margin of profit. Roughly speaking, he arranged for a profit of about 3 per cent., leaving the balance of the overhead charges to be paid from the Consolidated Fund. He took up the burden of the system soon after the Railway Commissioners had laid it down, pursuant on the new policy of direct Ministerial control, a policy which, as Mr. Loughnan summed it up, gave good results. Certainly the Ward regime was greatly satisfactory both to users of the lines and to the staff of all classes. Sir Joseph introduced the legislation establishing the Railways Superannuation Fund in 1903; it is one of the numerous measures for the public betterment that stand to his credit.
In the process of the extinction of private companies’ rights over the country's railways, the final act was the purchase of the Manawatu Railway section from the company which had built and operated it. When the Purchase Bill went through Parliament in 1908, after long negotiations, many tributes were paid to Sir Joseph Ward's skilful handling of a difficult matter. The bargain was fair to the owners of the line, and satisfactory in the interests of the colony.
An historic gathering: Sir Joseph Ward (centre) on the occasion of driving the last spike of the North Island Main Trunk Railway, 1908.
In many another department of State enterprise Sir Joseph Ward took a vigorous hand. Pensions, trade tariffs, the public health, the country's defences, financial reforms, all were dealt with successfully. The Premier's consummately skilful handling of the nation's finance is a matter of history which is discussed with knowledge and approbation in Mr. Loughnan's biography. Indeed, Ward's complete command of all the mazes and intricacies of high finance has never been equalled in the story of the colony, not even by Sir Julius Vogel. Both men were described as “financial wizards,” both were execrated by critics and worshipped by those who admired bold and courageous tactics.
Ward, the War Finance Minister, had an infinitely more trying and responsible part than Vogel, the pioneer of development. To quote Mr. Loughnan again, in describing the financial operations in the great national emergency of war, the country pays tribute to the sagacity and courage of the Finance Minister who got the enormous sum of 55 millions from the New Zealand money markets. “As Finance Minister, Sir Joseph got his money and saved the honour of New Zealand as a dependable unit of the Empire.”
But in making mention of Sir Joseph Ward's wonderful achievement as Minister of Finance in the war-time National Cabinet, I have for the moment run in advance of his work in the building up of the spirit of Imperial solidarity which served us so well when the great tragedy of 1914–1918 befell the world. From the turmoil of local, often parochial, politics he entered early as Premier into the inspiring atmosphere of British Empire Councils. He attended the Imperial Conference of 1907, in London, and gave his views on the value of co-operation of all the units of Empire, and at the Conference of 1911 he enlarged upon that principle as the only effective method of holding the Empire together. He was the strongest advocate of a representative Council of an advisory character in touch with public opinion throughout the Empire. His views on Imperial development coincided with those of other progressive representatives at the Conference, and the sentiment of mutual co-operation on equal terms was developed with enthusiasm. Then in 1914 came the tremendous test of those principles of united action enunciated by the Imperial delegates, and we know how the British peoples the globe over put the co-operative theories into effective practice. One of the most discussed acts, several years before the war, the seemingly impulsive offer of a Dreadnought to the Empire, was a master-stroke justified by results. Therein Sir Joseph was a seer, a prophet; he had vision and imagination that were verified to the full.
When do you have your first smoke of the day? Lots of chaps start before breakfast and many save up the dottels from yesterday's pipes for their early morning smoke. Doctors don't recommend this plan, by the way. Immediately after breakfast is the time preferred by multitudes of smokers for a first “lighting up.” Others will smoke at any time, from daylight to dark. But some never exceed a certain number of smokes a day. Tastes differ a lot regarding tobacco. Here in New Zealand a pretty considerable proportion of smokers pin their faith to “toasted” owing to its alluring flavour and delightful aroma. It certainly excels in those respects—and in another—its harmlessness, due to toasting which rids it of its nicotine and leaves it pure, sweet and fragrant. “Once a smoker of ‘toasted,’ always a smoker of ‘toasted’.” All five of the genuine toasted brands, Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Cut Plug No. 10 (Bulls-head), Cavendish, Riverhead Gold and Desert Gold appeal irresistibly to smokers. But worthless imitations are on the market. Beware!*
In this brief sketch of one of our greatest of New Zealand public men, it is not needful to go into political history to any extent; that is dealt with competently and authoritatively in the biography already mentioned, the last work of that grand old journalistic comrade of ours, the greatly-beloved Robert Loughnan. He wrote with inside knowledge of the political machine of his time. No doubt I have omitted mention of some of Sir Joseph's important political acts. But it is rather the personal note that appeals to me.
I write of Ward as it was my good fortune to know him—a pleasant, clever, brisk, active man, with a wide range of interests. It was probably his Irish ancestry that gave him his sunny nature, his traits of generosity and quick sympathy. His kindly nature was not repressed by political antagonism. I like to dwell on his generous genuine nature. It is natural for a man in power to smile on his friends; it is not so easy to be generous to fierce opponents. Hot speeches once over, Ward was the most genial of companions. Honours came to him, but he was never puffed up. He was a firm and steadfast friend, therein he was closely akin to his great chief, Seddon. If he made some enemies, as every strong and prominent politician does, he had an army of life-long friends. Thousands of New Zealanders have warm and kindly memories of Joseph Ward; he lives in the hearts of his friends, his fellow-country people, and that is the best monument any man or woman can have.
Could we all but recover the soul of Saturday the world might wag instead of wobble.
But man, in the main, gropes in irksome excavations of Expediency, dug with his own fingernails—wells of necessity, badly bored and boresome. He sacrifices colour for collar, wisdom for whiskers, freedom for fret, comfort for cash, ingenuousness for ingeniousness and simplicity for complicity. He is hopelessly grown-up, an incorrigible adult, a moribund machinator with miserly Molloch, and a pitiful plaintiff in the courts of Common Sense, suing for the things he has tossed to the tumbrels and wondering why he loses the case and bears the costs. Because he has sacrificed the soul of Saturday and exchanged Simplicity for Duplicity he is of the lost legion. For the soul of Saturday is the soul of Youth and the charge to be answered by us mendacious meddlers in the schemes and schisms of the Wider Wisdom follows the fact that Youth never dies unless it is murdered.
So, we who moan and mumble that gone is the light from life, the gilt from Glamour, the “rococo” from Romance, and the soul from Saturday, are mental gangsters who have taken Youth “for a ride” and put it “on the spot.”
If, in spite of the exigencies of the interior and exterior, we can keep our souls up while we keep our noses down, there is hope while we grope, and we may regain that subtle something which, in our youth, was the soul of Saturday and the epitomisation of elation.
For this soul of Saturday is but a symbol for sentient salubrity.
Unless we have become atrophied in the “attic” and petrified in the perceptions, we surely can resurrect the emotions which, when life was young and our future was before us instead of behind us, lifted us from the moraine of mathematics and the antics of Algebra and transported us to the bonny braes of Saturday, where the sweet fresh breeze of Freedom blew the dry dust of durance out of the chinks in our brain.
Don't you remember Saturday? Why, even Friday was warmed by the anticipatory efflatus of Saturday. Even dull Duty, with pen poised over facts and figures in the Book of Scholastic Skill and Nutrient Knowledge, smiled wanly on youth, toiling to acquire they knew not what, for what they knew not.
Friday was almost as admirable as Saturday because, “if Friday comes ‘twill soon be Saturday.”
Some of us adulterated adults must still be capable of capturing a faint reflection of those fibulous Fridays. Even yet—
But Saturday always remains—just Saturday.
When we were young the early air was different on Saturday. The gooseberry bushes, the cat, the back fence and the wood-pile somehow looked different. It seemed that, although our eyes were unchanged, the mind behind had been burnished bright overnight. Perhaps that sixth sense of Freedom produced a clearness of vision unblurred by chalk, chanting and chewing-gum. For on Saturday there was no clanging summons to the altar of Erudition; no cheerless champing over the Kings of England, no Battle of Hastings—ten-sixty-six, no recitations to mumble, no dates to jumble, no vulgar fractions and frictions, no stink of ink, no mental mumbo-jumbo to justify the idiot actions of hypothetical merchants who bought and sold in a frenzy of fallacious finance.
Instead, there loomed ahead a fine unfettered fillet of freedom, from daylight to dark, to be lived and loved and squeezed dry of the juice of joy; an unalloyed, untramelled, unchallenged slice of Time's terrain.
Our bare toes fondled the warm asphalt, or the wet grass caressed our ankles; the wind whipped us, the sun blistered us, and even the rain failed to quench the light that burned within us, on Saturday. Flying footballs, supplementary sodfights, action, reaction, but never inaction—such was Saturday. Grime and glow and, above all, release from the dour dictates of “hire civilisation.” That was Saturday. Saturday is the only day with a soul. Other days have characteristics.
Monday is mourn-day, a durational requiem for dead joys—a time of pondering on the “white man's burden.” Not a cheery day!
Tuesday confirms the sentiments of Monday but offers a little consolation in the fact that Monday is over until next Monday.
Wednesday sees us poised between the
Thursday produces mixed emotions. Thought for the day “Will the weekend be fine?” Watchword, “Hope.”
Friday (see alleged verse above).
Saturday: Ask yourself!
Sunday is all things to all men: a day of meditation or mending, rest or zest. Valued mainly by some for beakfast in bed. Slogan: “Think not of the morrow.”
Such horrors of civilisation will disappear when we exchange whizz-dom for wisdom and can conceive that man's tale is not told in toil alone; that leisure and pleasure can be as profitable to Progress as pressure.
An army moves on its stomach, but mankind moves on its mind. The Chinese philosopher knew more than his laundry who advised “Tread softly and go far.”
One day men will be so enlightened that leisure will be deemed as valuable to human progress as the panting pursuit of pelf, and then the soul of Saturday will be the soul of everyday. Until then let's pretend—
“Wild Oats,” the attractive title of a book by Eric Muspratt, is good reading. Among his adventures was a trip round the Horn, before the mast, in one of the old “windjammers.” Half way Home the ship ran out of tobacco —and consternation reigned in the fo'-castle. One day the bosun, rummaging in his old sea chest, found a long-forgotten packet of cigarettes and offered them to his shipmates at six-pence each! They were snapped up before you could say “wink!” Another time (when ashore) Eric had to go without tobacco for several weeks. Picture his joy when he had his first smoke after that! Stay-at-homes who have never had to go without tobacco for a single day don't realise their luck! Here in N.Z. you can get the finest tobacco manufactured—Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead), Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Cavendish, Riverhead Gold and Desert Gold, at the nearest tobacconist's shop, and they're not only famed for flavour and aroma, but practically free from nicotine because they're toasted. There's enjoyment in every whiff!*
Holing Out In One.”
(By Hori Makaire.)
Gold, they maintain, is where you find it; and history has proved the saying true.
There is a story by Jack London of two hardened prospectors who spent the whole of a nerve-trying Yukon winter in an unsuccessful search in virgin country that showed stray “traces” only. Completely worn out with the hardships of the trail, they had made their last camp ere commencing the long trip back to Dawson. One of them happened to kick away a clod of frozen earth, and a small shower of nuggets fell from the withered grass roots. It was the beginning of a record strike—the basis of a good story in the author's inimitable style. The real Bonanza was, of course, discovered in much the same fashion—by sheer accident, under an old moose pasture that thousands of diggers had passed by in their journeyings to the rich creeks above.
“Someone'll find it—some day.” That was the stock phrase of the late Benjamin Biddle, veteran Maori fighter, and hero of many a skirmish in the dense bush and along the wild fern ridges of the Urewera country. It was of the Urewera, little known and little explored that Ben spoke, for he knew it more intimately than most pakehas of the day. The reference concerned the rumours of gold, “somewhere” back in those remote mountain fastnesses, that occasionally reached Whakatane. It will be shown that there was something more than mere rumour to be considered. Incidentally, I have always cherished a suspicion that Ben knew a great deal more about the reports than he cared to say. At the time—1910—of which I write, several of Te Kooti's followers, actual participants in the Poverty Bay massacre were still alive, and—well, I can best shorten things by saying that the old feeling of enmity seemed to have died hard. These ancient men lived twelve miles inland, at Ruatoki, and, with other members of the Tuhoe tribe were far from friendly to the pakeha. Permission to go over their ground as the only access to the wild country beyond was given grudgingly, and very often refused in no uncertain manner; and in other ways they showed an aggressive dislike to excursions of the white man, whatever the object of his quest. But, Ben held their wholesome respect, and if this particular section of the tribe did know anything of the gold business, he was the one most likely to share the confidence. Ben was not one to break the confidence of anyone, white or brown.
Some almost forgotten history takes us back to the early ‘eighties, when a party of surveyors had camped on the river-bed near Taneatua. So far as can be gathered, their visit had to do with the Dividing Line, the course of which can still be traced along the flats beyond the township mentioned. The camp cook had been on the Australian fields. It was his custom— the camp appears to have been run on rather free and easy lines—to make periodical trips into the interior. On one such occasion he was away for several days. Returning, he produced sundry pieces of quartz, stating that he had found signs of gold in one of the creeks, and had traced them to the reef itself—a rich reef, too. Shortly afterwards, the head surveyor was visited by a party of Maoris, who were openly hostile. The text of the conversation which followed can only be surmised. As a result, the cook was sternly ordered to stick to his pots and pans, and to leave gold-seeking severely alone. For a time he did so. Eventually, the fever apparently got the better of him. One day he disappeared and was never seen again. I have heard the story many times, with all the many colourful variations this sort of story is bound to gather, but these appear to be the main facts. Possibly the musty Departmental files of the period confirm them, and offer some good solution of this fifty-year-old mystery; probably the wise old men of the Tuhoe know of a better one.
In the latter part of 1909, when Rua was at the height of his power, he frequently visited Whakatane with a small army of followers. Then money would indeed flow like the proverbial water. “They'd buy up all in sight, useful and useless, too,” said an old resident in describing one of these purchasing orgies. “Where did they get the money? Well, that question has been asked many times, and we're all just as wise as ever. It couldn't have come from the Land Court. Money they just had—‘tons of it,’
It was shortly after the sly-grog incident that rumours were freely passed to the effect that gold from some inland quarter was being shipped secretly to one of the Auckland banks. The story gained much support as the outcome of a nocturnal disturbance outside one of the hotels. An obliging barman was helping away a quarrelsome visitor—a Maori from the Waimana country. There was a struggle, from which the barman emerged more than slightly knocked about. His hurts included an ugly bruise above the eye which he declared had been caused by a stone. He maintained he had seen the departing guest take the missile out of his pocket and “let fly.” The “stone” was picked up next morning. Certain colours noticed on the surface resulted in the specimen being sent to Auckland. It was quartz—rich in both gold and silver. Bret Harte might have set his imagination working overtime to run the story on into twenty chapters or more. So far as my knowledge goes— and with others I wasted much time and ingenuity in attempting to follow the trail—it ends right there.
Coming to some facts which are beyond dispute, there was the find made in 1911 at Otara, Wairere Bay, an inlet to the south of Whakatane. A small piece of quartz, but slightly water worn, was picked up on the beach. Through it ran a distinct vein of colour, nearly half an inch in thickness. The outer crust of stone was similar in appearance to that of the cliff face which overhung the Bay. To even the most inexperienced, the discovery suggested all the elements of a rich strike, and an assay made at Auckland confirmed the most optimistic views. Several members of the syndicate that was formed are still in business at Whakatane. The find was necessarily kept a close secret. There followed much digging and sinking of trial shafts. Over a period of weeks practically the whole cliff face was blown away in an endeavour to unearth the supposed reef. It is recorded that on one occasion the small coastal steamer that then plied between Opotiki and Auckland was nearly wrecked while moving over-close to the shore line in order that the skipper might discover what the explosions were all about. Nothing was ever found, and where that singularly rich piece of quartz came from remains a mystery to this day. Obviously, it was portion of a larger deposit somewhere in the locality.
It is quite natural that the reader should inquire whether the Urewera has ever been prospected on any methodical basis. I can only say that there is no official record of it having been done, and, in any case, in view of the hostility of the Maoris I have previously referred to, such an expedition could only have been possible in comparatively recent times. When the Otago diggings were at their best, the Urewera was forbidden territory to the pakeha. It has been stated that in 1890 or thereabouts, a party financed by the late Sir James Carroll made a hurried trip through. It is difficult to find any verification of this report. Probably, various attempts of the kind have been made, for the incidents related were more or less common property, and would provide an irresistible temptation for the average fossiker. Be this as it may, the fact remains that the possibility of gold being there in payable quantities is really no more unlikely than the Bell-Kilgour and similar finds in the South would have been considered a few years ago; and there is the practical evidence to be faced, commencing with the disappearance of the surveyor, and ending with the Otara-Wairere Bay venture. It all goes to create a somewhat romantic mystery. Reflectively, I again examine a tattered Miner's Right, for which I paid a hard-earned ten shillings in the Whakatane Courthouse twenty-four years ago….
What do the wise old men of the Tuhoe know?
We had some difficulty in finding a suitable mount for Captain Maurice Overton when he came to stay at Ngamahoe, for he stood six feet three and weighed over fifteen stone. Eventually, however, the boss borrowed for him a Tribulation mare of seventeen hands which could be more or less depended upon not to get her feet crossed on our precipitous hillsides, and thereafter he spent most of his time helping one or other of us to ride round the ewes. And great company he was with his rolling laugh, his occasional bursts of song, which had to be discouraged in the lambing paddocks, and the keen interest he took in everything about him.
Although he had never before visited New Zealand, he had apparently spent the greater part of his life knocking about the world in a state of perpetual insolvency, and it was at such less enjoyable moments as during one of the sudden hailstorms, for which our uplands were famous, or the plucking of a very dead sheep, that he would come to light with one of his colourful stories. “It's nothing,” he would say, “to what I once experienced in the Balkan mountains, when I walked from Copenhagen to the Piraeus and sang for my supper in the wayside inns,” or, “I remember one time returning after an irrigating dam had burst and finding the compound of my house full of corpses!” —and present unpleasantness would be forgotten in the ensuing flight of fact or fancy, we could never be quite sure which it was!
One evening he and I were returning along the Kereru track, which skirts the hillside by the Main Trunk railway line, and there, shooting a vast plume of smoke into the sunset, came the north-bound express toiling up the long grade to the tunnel beneath the Forty Acre. It was a grand sight, and we halted our horses while the brightly lit cars were clicking by and vanished one by one beneath the hill. For some minutes the Captain remained staring after them in silence, then he turned and critically surveyed the valley and the rails that, like two slender shining ribbons, went winding down it.
“What a place for a hold up!” he ejaculated, and ignoring my satirical laugh, “how fast do you suppose that train was moving; fifteen, twenty miles an hour? An active man could have boarded it down there by those—whats-itsname trees?”
“Karaka—”
“Quite, —he would have taken the first car, climbed over the tender to the engine cab and ordered the engineman at the point of a gun to stop the train. On such a gradient that would be accomplished in quite a short distance, say opposite those manuka bushes, where the remainder of the gang would be lying in wait. The rest would be simple.”
“Simple enough except for the fact that your train-robbers would be outlawed within the confines of two very small islands 1,200 miles from anywhere; they could never get away with it!”
“Yes,” agreed the Captain, “therein lies your safeguard from such unpleasant happenings! I was once in a holdup in country so similar to this that the sight of the train there brought the incident to mind.”
And this, as we urged our horses forward once more, was the story he told.
Four members of a disbanded Opera Company were trying to get to Mexico City from Ahuehuete in the State of Morelos. Their reason for so doing, apart from the fact that their manager was locked up in the calabozo and their costumes in the Teatro Alamo for debt, was that a fellow called Zapata was making things very uncomfortable for foreigners in the South. They had very little money, but a train was leaving that afternoon for the capital, and by pooling their resources they managed to secure tickets as far as Maguey—a town that was supposed to be beyond the range of the revolutionary Zapatista's activities.
They were a badly-used quartette, hungry, dishevelled and spat-upon as they took their seats in the rear coach of the train, and prayed that it might speedily carry them away from the vicious tatterdemalion crowd that paraded the dusty platform. Lorado Tait, who played Geronte de Levoir, Miss Veree, a somewhat over-ripe Manon, and two younger people who, by reason of their humble roles as “persons in a market place,” and such like, had hitherto been ignored. But life runs swiftly on the red tide of revolution, common values are apt to be smashed along with the plateglass windows, and it was Herrick who had assumed the leadership of this little band of fugitives, and in so doing had kindled a flame of more than passing interest in
After three hours of irksome travelling they arrived at Maguey, and finding the place a silent smoking ruin, they decided, tickets or no tickets, to remain in the train. It was when the train had started again, and they were discussing how best to square matters with the conductor, that that official made his appearance. A nasty temper he was in, too. “Yanquis” of any kind he declared were nauseous, those without money—pah! They were nothing more than “piojos” and “gachis,” and he, a good servant of the railroad, was going to stop the train and put them off in the scrub. They would walk. Where? Back to Maguey, perhaps, or the devil, it was all the same. One did not ride on his train “de baldo”—or as we should say, “buckshee.”
The train was climbing the steep grade out of the Arroyo Maguey. The coal was poor, oil-fuel was not then in general use on the Mexican lines, and Herrick, looking from the window as they rounded a curve could see the engine making very heavy weather of it; the speed could not have been above six miles an hour. He realised that if they stopped the train there, they would never get it started again, and said so.
“Then,” shouted the conductor, “you shall dismount now,” and he made a threatening movement towards them. For a moment Herrick hesitated what to do. Undoubtedly the best thing would be to “dismount” the conductor
“Look,” cried Herrick, “bandits!”
The conductor stuck his head out of the window and swore bitterly, then he turned and charged down the car; they could hear him bellowing three cars away. Heads came poking out of the windows, but were hastily withdrawn as the bandit reappeared and firing a random shot into the air, ran back once more into the scrub. He was answered by a fusillade from the express car next the engine that could only mean one thing—the train was carrying bullion and the usual shot-gun messenger had been supplemented by an armed guard. Miss Veree began to weep dramatically and Barbara Craven drew close to Herrick's side. “What's the next thing, partner?” she asked.
Herrick smiled and squeezed her arm reassuringly, “More chit-chat with the conductor I expect,” he replied, and he was right, for the man returned just as the train gained the top of the rise, and began the steep descent.
“You see,” he cried, flourishing a nickel-plated revolver, “even bandits do not ride my train ‘de baldo’.”
“You are a brave man,” Herrick told him, “and when we arrive in Mexico City, I shall see that you—” he did not finish his sentence, for at that moment there sounded three short blasts from the engine's whistle. The conductor frowned and turned towards the door, the signal was repeated, and he disappeared at the run.
“What's the matter?” asked Barbara.
“Brakes,” replied Herrick shortly, “the engineer can't apply the train brakes.” He leaned far out of the window. “By Heaven!” he cried excitedly, “that bandit knew his business—he must have pulled up the brake cock behind the combination car. We're running away! Quick,” he turned to the others, “get out on to the rear platform.”
Staggering down the now violently swaying car, they gained the rear platform as the train rounded a wide curve. Their speed was increasing every moment. At the rear of the combination car they could see the conductor crouched upon the step as he vainly tried to reach the brake cock. Ahead was a vicious reverse curve, the engine snapped out of sight round it, howling like a lost soul. The express car followed and the combination, careening violently, catapulted the conductor from his precarious hold. His body was still tumbling amongst the rocks and scrub as the rear car flashed by.
Miss Veree began screaming and Lorado Tait was forced to slap her. Once more the front end of the train came into view. Suddenly a great cloud of dust, streaked with fire, shot into the air, and the cars, with a terrible crashing and rending, began piling themselves one on top of the other. The rear car pitched and swayed, began to mount the one ahead of it, and then, as though changing its mind rolled half over, spilling its occupants rudely, but without much hurt, into the right of way.
Herrick must have been partly knocked out, for his next impression was that of a vast sombrero blotting out the stars, which by now were beginning to appear, one by one, in the evening sky. Beneath it stooped a peon who prodded him in the stomach with the butt of an antiquated rifle. Lorado Tait and the girls were standing close by and when Herrick got upon his feet the four of them were herded to a point further up the line. The train had smashed up in a cutting, and here, huddled against the rock-wall, guarded by more armed peons, were such passengers as had survived injury; what was happening to those less fortunate was only too horribly apparent from the shots and cries of anguish which marked the progress of ghoulish figures amongst the wreckage. Mounted men were arriving every minute, cut-throat “indios” and half-breeds in every kind of looted garment from knee-boots to opera cloaks; they could be seen by the light of the flames that were beginning to lick the splintered woodwork, dragging the heavy bullion cases from the express car. These they carried up the line to a small adobe building, and breaking them open loaded their contents on to the backs of pack-mules.
Until this important work was finished no notice was taken of the prisoners, and then there bore down upon them a score of well-armed men. In the centre of this bodyguard swaggered a squat, hairy figure, barbarically splendid as far as his waist; new felt sombrero decorated with silver ornaments, orange silk shirt crossed with two well-filled bandoliers, and striped serape artistically draped over one shoulder, but his trousers, cotton— “calzones,” were dirty and ragged, and he wore sandals on his feet. He puffed at a long thin cigar,
“You know me?” —he said in Spanish argot—“I am General Zapata who will one day be President of all Mexico, but like all great generals and presidents I need money. Your willingness to oblige me will be proof of your goodwill toward the high ideals of Zapatismo!”
“I am afraid,” whispered Lorado Tait, “that there will be some misunderstanding in regard to the members of the Miraflores Opera Company.”
“But for the fact that this man is not Zapata,” Herrick answered.
“Who is he then?”
“Some dirty half-breed who is doing a little private raiding. We must try and play for time.”
The other passengers were disgorging such valuables as they possessed, and presently it was Miss Veree's turn; she screamed as the guards laid their dirty paws upon her, and Herrick stepped for-ward.
“General,” he said, “we are the four chief singers of the Royal Opera. We play to-morrow night at the ‘Mexi-capa’ in Mexico City. I,” he struck an attitude, “am Alvarez.”
The “General” swept his sombrero from his head in an ironical bow, “I am indeed in luck, senor,” he said, “you have undoubtedly much ‘duro’.”
“Undoubtedly General, but not here, famous players do not need ‘duro,’ they travel ‘de baldo’.”
“How? the General puckered his little monkey eyes suspiciously.
Herrick made a disdainful gesture;
“Juggling with coins is beneath us, when we arrive in Mexico City there will be bands and flowers, the patron of the ‘Mexicana’ theatre himself will present the President of the railroad with money and gifts in gratitude for our safe arrival.”
The “General” looked puzzled. “How do I know you speak the truth?” he demanded.
“It would be an honour for us to enact a little play, a play which thousands in the city would pay millions of pesos to see. You will then be convinced that I speak the truth and give us safe transportation to Mexico City. Arrived there we should not only be able to provide you with much ‘duro,’ but also to make things easy for you with those in high places who are in sympathy with Zapatismo. Quien sabe, General? You may be President in a fortnight.”
The “General” looked dubious, he drew one of his lieutenants aside and conferred with him in an undertone. Then Herrick was invited to the conclave, and there was much expansive gesturing with the hands. Presently Herrick returned to his companions.
“It's all right,” he said in English, “we are to give a performance.”
“Never, cried Miss Veree, “you are taking too much upon yourself Mr. Her-rick; you seem to have forgotten your position. Anyone would think we were buskers that we should entertain these ragamuffins in the middle of the desert.”
“Better to be a live busker than a dead opera singer, however bad,” Herrick retorted.
“But how is the performance to help us,” asked Lorado Tait?
“Listen,” Herrrick spoke rapidly, “this so-called General is just one of the local
Lorado Tait looked round at the desolate hillsides. “Who are you expecting?” he asked with an effort at satire, “the marines.”
“Down by that adobe shack,” Herrick ignored the interruption, “is a passing loop. The shack itself is connected with the telegraph wires. That means it contains an emergency key for the use of train crews. We will arrange the ‘General’ and his bravos on the tracks, and the space immediately in front of the shack will be our stage. We will make our entrances from behind the shack, and while you three hold the stage I'll try and get into it and call up the nearest division point.”
“What do you propose we shall play?” asked Lorado Tait. “We can't do much with only four of us and no costumes or music.”
“That's up to you,” replied Herrick, “we need something with plenty of time off stage for me, and plenty of noise from Miss Veree to drown the sound of the telegraph key, and it will have to be good, because the Lord knows how long it will be before help arrives.”
And so, under the purple canopy of the night, with the ruddy glare from the burning cars as their footlights, this fragment of the Miraflores Opera Company produced a remarkable hotchpotch, a revue almost, of operatic talent, which at moments bore a faint resemblance to the great Carmen. If a performance may be judged from the point of view of heroism then it was the finest they had ever given; the appreciation of their audience was considerably enhanced by the looted wines of Maguey which, squatting about on the railroad tracks, they washed down with native tequila. The forceful Herrick dominated the situation. He combined a caricature of a toreador with the role of impresario. He made impromptu speeches and dubious jokes, and begged a couple of quarts of champagne from one of the guards on which he fed his little troupe and all the time he worked feverishly under cover for their salvation.
In his exits he examined the back of the adobe shack and found that by swinging himself upon the projecting ends of rafters he could reach the thatch which was rotten enough to be torn away. When he had made a hole large enough to squeeze through, he found as he had hoped, that the building did indeed contain a telegraph key. He returned to the stage and launched Miss Veree into her duet with Lorado Tait then, while her top notes were rousing answering howls from the coyotes on the surrounding hills, he entered the shack by the hole he had made and feverishly tapped his SOS. Hurrying back to the stage to allay any suspicion a lengthy exit might have aroused, he strained his ears to catch the chittering of the key in reply.
“Mio madre io la rivedo,” sang Miss Veree, and “Louder, dammit!” whispered Herrick as the key suddenly began to click.
“You'll have to improvise a bit now. Remember the reward for failure is…” he drew a finger expressively across his throat. Miss Veree paled and redoubled her vocal efforts while Herrick backed off the stage with pantomimic gestures to cloak his desperate purpose.
(Continued on P. 37.)
Going South was ever an adventure, long before that English poet started chanting about the palms and temples of southern isles. The South Islanders of New Zealand are fortunate people. But they must not be surprised to learn that in the North, their Greenstone Island is surrounded with a faint aureola of the new and strange. What, the same as ourselves? Don't they have bald-headed alps, glaciers, unfathomable blue lakes, the “Finest Walk in the World” (from which the weaker brethren of the North return with their boots in pieces, their waistlines reduced by inches and such conceit that there is no holding them for months afterwards), not to mention the Otira Gorge, and memories of the bush-rangers? Besides, Cook's Strait lies between us: a lesser sleeve makes England one world, and the Continent quite another. Putting out to sea in a south-bound ship is at least the beginnings of adventure in itself. The English Channel has not half the force and volubility of our own strip of water: and yet around it, Rupert Brooke wrote his famous poem, beginning, “The damned ship lurched and shivered…”
Well, she didn't. Not the little Tamahine, which is the ship that takes you to the Marlborough Sounds. The Tamahine is a good girl of a ship, though I must say this about her. Having undressed (it's a night trip, starting with a Wellington sunset, ending with the piercing moonlight of the Sounds), you supply yourself with a magazine and a bun, and retire to your attic.
Nevertheless, and despite many of the laws of nature, you fall asleep.
And in the twinkling of an eye, your little stewardess assaults you, shaking your shoulder, saying firmly, “French Pass in five minutes, madam.” A word of warning. Take rugs, and if you are not averse to one of those hot, biting drinks, take brandy as well. The morning air (you get into French Pass at about 3 a.m.) is as cold and clean as a silver scimitar. Even in this darkness, there is an almost incredible beauty about the shadowed Pass. Purple-headed mountains, as in the hymn, stare solemnly at their reflections in the sleeping water, which is sheltered just here from all noisy sea-outgoings, and rocks black and silver under a crescent moon. At French Pass, there is what the French Passians call a wharf. It is a sort of jetty, and its only lighting is a tin lantern containing a candle. When you descend from the Tamahine, the wharfinger, who is also the hotelkeeper, guide and general conscience of the place, picks up the lantern and trudges away, with you at his heels. No blazonry of hotel lights awaits you. Everyone has gone to bed. You are shown a room, containing a water-jug and a candle in an enamel stick. Then you go to bed…
“More-pork, more-pork,” says an owl outside your window. You might be terse with him, but what's the use? I recommend the brandy.
Morning means a shrill squealing of scores of little pink and black china plate pigs, and also of children. Near the hotel there is a sort of green, the one flat space beneath those overweening, lofty mountains. It is the nearest thing to a village common that I have seen in New Zealand. On the far side is a Post Office, and in between, pigs, dogs, cattle and children make themselves utterly at home. Your breakfast is bacon-and-eggs, siz-zling: you pump your bath-water.
One day, French Pass, through which Dumont D'Urville sailed on the Astrolobe more than a hundred years ago, will be famous as a tourist resort. It has scenery, it has a wonderful lifegiving air, it has fish. At present it is a sort of roadhouse on the way to anywhere. In my case, on the way to D'Urville Island, which is about twenty-five miles of rock and bush and queerness. It has no hostel, only a few island families who sometimes put up a tourist, and sometimes do not. There isn't a road on the length and breadth of the island, and when one family wants to call on another, they use a launch, if the sea is not too stormy for launches.
There are sweet-smelling English-flowered little patches of garden around each house, sheep more nimble than mountain goats spring from crag to crag against the morning sunshine, and under overhanging native trees, drone and dance bees in white hives. Up and down the sands mince the pied oyster-catchers, and birds with heron legs and crested heads. Gannets fall
The light will be either candle or lamp, an enormous kerosene lamp that fizzles and spits like a hornet's nest, and the fires, in cold weather, the gorgeous roaring of huge piled-up driftwood logs, whose flames are salty green and blue. These driftwood fires are a Sounds specialty, not only on the Island but all the way along to Picton and Blenheim. There is, by the way, very little literature save agricultural journals containing the portraits of enormous, curly, conservative sheep and bulls: and when you go abroad in the land, you will find yourself obliged to leap from rock to rock, and curse the frequency with which high tides seem to occur. On the other hand, I cannot imagine a more peaceful place, nor one with grander pictures of sunset, bush and sea.
French Pass, where nobody goes swimming on account of the whirlpools, can turn creamy and opaque like muttonfat jade, or like the South Island's own beautiful inanga greenstone. I have seen there a sea that was absolutely purple, little bloomy grape-coloured waves floating away into the sunset. If you don't collect purple waves, you don't, but there they are, just as Dumont D'Urville and his Frenchmen in their red caps saw them so many years ago. Most of the Pass and Island gardens have that impression of age. Great tawny masses of honeysuckle, white clouds of jessamine, tangle with the falling stars of the native clematis. No plant bothers to do up its hair in curl-papers. And there are the onions, the beautiful onions. The Island grows them, by the cartload, I should think, and red-skinned stacks and strings of them make one imagine “Italy!” But really there's no need to brood on foreign lands afar. I should think that for sheer beauty, this part of New Zealand would be incomparable the world over.
Passing by launch to Pic-ton … a day's heavenly journey… one sees little topknots of island, some bare, some darkly wooded. The bare ones are Maori burial grounds, both ancient and modern. So many Maori rangatira have been buried here, and the soil over the naked rocks is so shallow, that now the Maori dead are laid grave over grave. But the tangis are still held on these tiny islands often enough.
Waters of greenstone, waters of transparent jade. The ocean around New Zealand is perhaps of a more varied magnificence than any other, changing from the grand sweep of breakers at Piha and Matata to the misty sounds at Milford, the gay blue glitter on Auckland's surfing beaches and Kawau Island. But the Marlbor-ough Sounds, old and haunted in New Zealand history, have their own colcouring… this perfect green, so pellucid that one can see on the ocean-floor the movements of great pink and orange star-fish, the queer fat saus-age-shaped sea-slugs, and the palpitating sapphire of a rock-cod, lying there in plain sight of the covetous fishermen. The bush, for mile after mile, is practically untouched. One passes little Endeavour Inlet, where a stone anchor commemorates Captain Cook's landing. Before the afternoon sunlight has faded, another wharf, this time of very respectable proportions, looms overhead. And there is Picton, with a sort of golden smile on its sleepy face, which turns out to be composed in equal parts of sunshine and overflowing laburnum.
A man I know, who roamed the world and sailed in many seas, once told me that he wept, on a J