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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.
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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 23,000 copies each issue since August, 1937.
Controller and Auditor-General. 2/12/37.
Hear you not the hum of mighty workings?”
—Keats.
Thermal wonders at Tikitere, near Rotorua, North Island, New Zealand.
(Rly. Publicity Photo)
There is magic in the motion of a locomotive and allure in the ring of metal upon metal as a train steers its course along the rail. Stephenson certainly “started something” when he showed the practicability of the steam locomotive for the efficient transport of passengers and goods. From that time, the genii of the rail have had a great time keeping a constant aura of enchantment over the operations of railways. It is their joy to suggest to engineers and architects, inventors and scientists, school-boys and plain business-men, lovely ladies and little children, ideas that could be put into effect for keeping the magic, the charm, and the romance of the rail up-to-date in every aspect; and railway authorities the world over are worked upon by the genii of the rail to make these ideas into warm and friendly realities.
These thoughts were suggested by finding at 5 o'clock on a recent wet, cold Sunday afternoon, that the only scene of animation to be found in the whole city of Wellington was the Railway Station.
Here may be seen at almost any hour, on almost any day, the following recipients of the blessings brought by the genii of the rail.
Hungry citizens, vying for pies at the highspeed cafeteria, or making a more leisurely meal in the regal Dining Hall.
Satisfied citizens, taking nicely-framed pictures of themselves at a shilling a shot.
Tired citizens, resting in comfortably-seated, pleasantly-warmed, and gracefully-furnished waiting rooms.
Active citizens, looking at illuminated scenes of favourite holiday haunts or obtaining news from “press the button” information machines.
Attentive citizens, listening to radio music or to dulcet-toned announcements of train arrivals and departures.
And last, there are the busy citizens, bustling about tickets, luggage, and the best ways to reach various destinations — for the Railway Station gives choice of train or bus, electric multiple-unit or rail-car, and you only have to step across the road to join a steamer express for the South Island or an ocean liner for the long sea lanes.
This is the real caravanserai that the genii of the rail have conjured up in the New Zealand days of this present time. Here is where you may bathe and shave and have your hair cut. Here you, the average traveller, may leave your children to be fed, and cared for, and amused, by highly trained nursing and kindergarten experts, while you make a care-free round of the city. Here is a resting room for mothers, where willing assistance is given by the attendants. Here you may buy what you desire in tobaccos, magazines, light drinks and sweets. And here the railway staff have the best of quarters for recreation and refreshment, which helps them to give you the best of service.
May the genii of the rail prove as tireless in the future as they have been in the past in happy ideas to add still further to the pleasures derived from the use of the rail.
July, 1938, will be memorable in the history of the New Zealand Railways as the month in which both electric multiple-unit trains, and the standard type of rail-car, were first introduced in New Zealand.
The official inauguration of the multiple unit service, arranged for July 2nd, followed by the commencement of regular schedules on July 4th with fifty-two trains each way daily on the Wellington-Johnsonville seven miles of suburban railway, are important stages in the general development of railway transport to and from the Capital City.
The progress of the Department had been held up for years through the inconvenience and disadvantages associated with the two old and unrelated stations at Wellington. It is just over a year since the new Wellington station was opened and regular traffic commenced via the Tawa Flat deviation. The benefit of that development has already been strongly felt. It has helped in a marked degree to increase the amenities at Wellington itself and to popularise the services on the Main Trunk and Wairarapa lines.
Electric traction for all traffic between Wellington and Paekakariki is the next stage in this movement towards completion of the plans for better railway facilities to and from Wellington, and for through transport between various portions of both Islands.
The new standard rail-cars, now fast approaching completion, will add further to the attractions of rail travel in the localities where they operate as well as in those to and from which they will afford better connections, while certain important duplications now in hand, and additional power units under construction or on order, together with the new and improved passenger and goods rolling-stock being built, will help to speed up general traffic and give greater satisfaction to all railway users.
The Johnsonville electrification is important, not merely for the remarkable improvement it makes possible in the comfort, frequency and speed of transport over this many-tunnelled, steeply graded, short section of suburban line, but as an indication of the improvement in the quality of the service the Department has provided in recent years.
The recent improvements and modernisation at the heart of the railway system is having favourable reactions on the outlying districts, as congestion is removed and the flow of traffic expedited by the improved facilities. The Johnsonville line, for instance, could never have been given the splendid suburban rail service it is now to receive while it was part of the Main Trunk Line; and the fact that, until the Tawa Flat deviation became available, the suburban traffic of the Johnsonville area had to be worked over the single Main Trunk Line, was a constant source of inconvenience to the passengers and difficulty to the Department in dealing with heavy suburban and long distance traffic over the same line.
Railwaymen appreciate the improvements made quite as much as do the public, as the more modern facilities enable the staff to render still better service to the people who look to the Railway Department to meet their transport needs.
General Manager.
Of all the British regiments that helped to make wartime history in New Zealand, none saw so much service as the 65th, known popularly as the Royal Bengal Tigers, because of their long association with India, and their valorous work there. A striped tiger was their badge. The old system of numbers has been abolished and the corps is now the 1st Battalion York and Lancaster Regiment. From first to last, it served for twenty years in this country; the first detachments came from Sydney in 1846 to take a hand in Wellington's little war. By the time the Taranaki and Waikato wars began the 65th was a well-seasoned regiment. The Maoris had a great respect and liking for the veterans of the “Hiketi-Pift,” and the soldiers, for their part, thought a great deal of their tattooed opponents, truly warriors worthy of their steel. The 65th ranks at the time of this story were more Irish than English; this preponderance of Irishmen was the condition in numerous British regiments. The Irishman, while hating the English heartily, hated still more to miss any fighting anywhere, and the easiest way to get into the devil's own row was to join the Army.
Among the Englishmen in this Anglo-Celtic regiment was a young officer named Henry Stretton Bates, of a wealthy South of England family. He came out with new drafts for the battalion in New Zealand in the middle fifties, and he immediately took a great liking to the Maori people, and addressed himself so well to the study of the language that by 1860-61 he could speak it well; presently he was appointed an interpreter on the General's staff. He married in Wellington a chieftainess of the Atiawa tribe.
In 1860 Lieutenant Bates was serving with his regiment in Taranaki. He made sketches of various events in the Waitara campaign, and among these were water colours of scenes in General Pratt's extraordinarily long sap towards Te Arei Pa. This slow and cautious approach, at the rate of a mile a month, and the construction of redoubts every few hundred yards along the Kairau-Huirangi plain towards the Maori stronghold, was regarded as a huge joke by many of the combatants on both sides. It was varied by some sharp fighting, and the most dramatic and fierce incident in the year's work was the Maori attack on No. 3 Redoubt, between Kairau and Huirangi.
A remarkable feature of all this Waitara campaign was the fact that the most vigorous and determined warriors were not the Atiawa, of Taranaki, for whose land the war was waged by the Government, but their allies of the Ngati-Maniapoto, Waikato and Ngati-Haua tribes, from the North. Amor patriae and the clan spirit were strong among the tribes; the Northern clans came to help Taranaki because they were all banded in the Kingite cause against the whites. The pakeha knows about Rewi Maniapoto chiefly because of his valiant leadership at Orakau in 1864. But Rewi (who had taken the name Manga when war began) won fame among the Maoris three years before that for his daring break-of-day attack on No. 3 Redoubt. With gun and long-handled tomahawk he, with two other chiefs (Epiha, of Kihikihi, and Hapurona, of Taranaki) led a storming party of the best fighting blood in New Zealand against that strong field work—three square earthworks placed close together en echelon—garrisoned by the 40th Regiment, with two howitzers.
Here I draw upon a manuscript narrative of this thrilling morning's work sent to me by the late Mr. H. D. Bates, of Wanganui, son of the young officer who became Colonel of the Regiment. Lieutenant “Te Peeti” had a gift of narrative that I have already referred to in the “Railways Magazine,” in describing his adventures on Secret Service work in a canoe on the Waikato River. The story of No. 3 Redoubt is best told in his own words; he was in the thick of it with his Royal Tigers. He begins with a general description of the campaign, on the Waitara and the slow advance towards the entrenched position at Te Arei, overlooking that most beautiful sweep of the river below the famous old fortress of Pukerangiora.
From a drawing by Lieut. Bates, 1861.) The attack on Te Arei Pa, showing British advanced positions.
* * *
“It was the greed of the white settlers for the broad lands of the natives,” Lieutenant Bates wrote, “that had brought on the Waitara war. The representative of Her Majesty's Government had been unable to withstand the pressure put upon him by his Colonial advisers, and the Maoris were making a brave but hopeless struggle. We respected and commiserated our antagonists, but duty had to be done. Night after night, as we lay in our tents in the rough field fortifications which protected us, we heard the calls of the natives on all sides of us, the braying of the tetere or war trumpet, and the monotonous cries from the fern around: ‘Kill the white men! Death to the soldiers!’ Morning after morning we stood to our arms ere break of day, the favourite time for Maori attack.
“Day by day the ‘butcher's bill’ slowly mounted up. It was beautiful midsummer weather, and that fair land was wearing its most charming aspect. The forest that bordered the plain on which we were encamped was dotted with the crimson glories of the rata blossom. The Maoris occupied a strong position. Their right rested on the Waitara River, and the pas of Huirangi and Mataitawa, screened by dense bush, were on the left.
“The intervening space of some fifteen hundred yards was a long line of Maori rifle pits, a mode of defence little known at that time to European soldiers,
“General Pratt's plan of attack, a plan conceived with the idea of saving as far as possible the lives of his men, was to drive a sap or trench towards the Maori position, securing his ground as he advanced by the erection of redoubts. That sap was three-quarters of a mile long by the time it closely approached the Maori positions.
“On the 23rd of January, 1861, the Royal Tigers and the two companies of the 12th Regiment which were with them in No. 1 Redoubt stood to their arms as usual an hour before daybreak. Some 300 yards in advance of us was a small earthwork, No. 2 Redoubt, garrisoned by one company, and some 300 yards more in advance again was a larger fort known as No. 3 Redoubt, which we had just finished under a continuous fire from the rifle pits. This advance work, consisting of three redoubts en echelon, was occupied by the 40th Regiment.
“We stood silent and shivering, for even at midsummer the hour before sunrise is chilly, and awaited the appearance of the sun and looked forward in another half-hour to turning in between the blankets for another hour's snooze.
“But see that flash of fire a hundred yards to the right of our redoubt, followed by the whizz of a bullet and the report of a musket. In a moment there is a semi-circle of fire on two sides of us. The fern is alive with Maoris, who have crept up unseen even by the sentries. Our men reply, and for a few moments there is a continuous roar of musketry, with apparently little result on either side, for the attackers are invisible. In a minute or two more the fire of the Maoris slackens and gradually ceases. A false attack to divert attention from more serious business.
“There are sparks of fire round No. 2 Redoubt and the crack of rifles reaches our ears, but that, too, appears to cease. But where No. 3 Redoubt stands the sky is now lurid and the roll of musketry incessant. The whole work is encircled with flame, and jets of fire dart forth and muskets crackle from the fern.
“Now and again there is a greater blaze followed by the loud dull report of a field-piece, and then again we distinguish the sound of hand-grenades exploding.
“'Hullo, Mac, There goes your old girl,’ one of us says, turning to Macnaghten of the Artillery, who had been standing there. We had two field-pieces with us in No. 1 while in No. 3 were two more guns, one of them a 24lb. howitzer, which Macnaghten loved as he never loved woman. The shyest, most silent, retiring of men, it was said of him that when he was in any civilized place he took his walks at night in order to avoid meeting women. Certain it was that if he did meet a lady he was as likely as not to jump a wall and so escape having to return her salutation. None of us, men or officers, wore uniform in its proper sense—blue serge smocks, corduroy trousers, and so forth, constituted our usual get-up, but shabbier than all the other rags was Macnaghten's pea-jacket. But that rusty jacket covered perhaps the most gallant heart of all. Poor lad, you have no length of days before you! Ere two months have passed a bullet is to pierce that brave heart.
From a photo, in Auckland, 1883.) Rewi Maniapoto (Manga), one of the leaders of the Storming Party against No. 3 Redoubt, 1861.
“But Macnaghten was now nowhere to be seen. It turned out that when he saw that the real attack was directed on No. 3 Redoubt his thoughts turned to his beloved 24lb. howitzer, and he longed to be with her. So, knowing that if he asked permission to go down by himself to the front, it would be refused, he quietly slipped out of our redoubt and stole away to the beleaguered fortifications, regardless of the risk of encountering Maoris in the darkness, or of being shot by the defenders of No. 2. He reached the rear of it, entered, and assured himself of the safety of the ‘old girl.'
“Now the firing around No. 3 became hotter than ever, and the 40th called for reinforcements. The regimental call of the 65th rang out.
“The great bearded fellows, looking more like bushrangers than soldiers, fell in without a moment's delay. Before the bugle had sounded a third appeal for help, the column of fours was out of the redoubt and, under command of the senior Captain, was off over the plain at a steady double.
“The remainder of the Tigers, leaning over the parapet, watched the drama which was being enacted in front. As the three companies passed No. 2 Redoubt, the occupants gave them a loud cheer, and in a few minutes more the advanced redoubt was reached.
“Day was now breaking, the fire was not so continuous as before, and what there was came from the front face principally.
“Loud cheers rose from the 40th as they saw the Tigers coming. They called out that the ditch in front of the redoubt was crammed with Maoris, but that the thickness of the parapet and want of flanking defence prevented their rifles being sufficiently depressed to reach the attackers.
“There was a hasty consultation, and then the Tigers descended into the wide ditch on the right of the work, and the company of the 12th Regiment into the ditch on the left, and both parties made their way towards the front of the redoubt, where hand-grenades had been hurled among the crowded warriors. Some of the Artillery, unable to depress their guns sufficiently, got shells, and having cut short the fuses, ignited them, rolled them over the parapet, so that falling they exploded, spreading havoc around them.
“In vain the doomed Maoris tried to pick up the sputtering hand-grenades and fling them back. They were packed too closely together, and the horrid things exploded amongst them with grim result. The warriors feared to quit the ditch and retire. This would have exposed them to the fires of the rifles which lined the parapet; besides, amongst them were many of the brave Ngati-Maniapoto and other Waikato tribes, whose motto was ‘Death before dishonour.'
“On came the Tigers along the side ditch. The firing slackened and ceased
From a drawing by Lieut. Bates, 1861.) The British positions on the Waitara Plains; No. 3 Redoubt in the middle distance; Maoris firing from the edge of the bush.
“Let me through, men!’ shouts Charlie Broadmayne, in command of the Light Company, as he struggles to make his way through the throng. ‘I'll give you a lead.'
“Private Thomas Bridges was in front, and alongside him Pat Ryan, a great hairy Irishman, one of the smartest soldiers in the field, but the greatest scamp in the regiment, the despair of the Adjutant and Sergeant-Major whenever liquor was procurable.
“'Lead be damned!’ shouts Pat, dashing on. ‘Yer sowls to glory, boys!’ Half a dozen muskets ring out. Down goes poor Pat with a bullet through the forehead. Tom Bridges was by his side, staggers against the counterscarp; a ball has struck him in the face and carried away part of his upper lip and some of his teeth. But on go the Tigers with a wild shout. The garrison deliver a volley, and then hold their hand to avoid hitting the Tigers and the 12th men, who have scrambled up the counterscarp of the ditch and are now scattered in pursuit of the flying foes. There is no time for the Tigers to reload their Enfields. The bayonet does its deadly work. The swifter-footed of the fugitives gain the shelter of the bush, and then the bugles sounding the recall check the pursuit. The repulse is complete.
“Back from the pursuit came a disreputable-looking figure. Young Brown of ‘ours'—Goodie Brown as he was called to distinguish him from another Brown, who was supposed to be not so good.
“An amusing youngster was our Brown. He had lately joined, and was a general favourite, with a fund of dry humour and an enthusiastic way with him.
“'Oh, I say,’ cries the boy, ‘I wish you would come back with me and look at my Maori. Such a lark! I was charging those fellows across there, when I caught my foot and tumbled head foremost into a rifle-pit, and landed in the arms of a noble savage. There we were hugging one another. He could not get away from me and I could not get away from him. My revolver was empty. But I had my trusty sword, ‘Excalibur,’ and luckily the noble savage had not got a tomahawk. So we held on to one another like grim death, I all the while cutting him across his bare head with my sword. I was so close to him that I could only use the part of the blade near the hilt, but I slashed and slashed, calling to mind all that I have read about ‘pleaving the Paynim to the chin.’ I should think that we were five minutes at this game, and I was getting devilish tired, for cleaving skulls for five minutes is hard work, especially when the owner is trying to throttle you. So I was not sorry when Corporal Kearney of Ours rushed up, and with a yell drove his bayonet into him.
Rly. Publicity photo.) A scene in the Wairakei thermal valley, North Island, New Zealand.
“Ugh! see what a beastly mess I am in!’ However, when he was dead I examined his head, to see the result of my hammering him for five minutes with my sword. I give you my honour, that after looking very carefully I could distinctly see a slight red mark on his forehead! An abrasion of the skin. Oh, yes! the skin was distinctly broken! I was never so delighted in my life. And yet they talk of a regimental sword being an unreliable weapon. Well, all I can say is I have not found it so!'
* * *
That touch of comedy was a trifle of relief from the terrible scenes of the defeated forlorn hope. The Maoris lost nearly half their number killed. Fifty men and youths lay dead. Rewi marvellously escaped, though he was foremost in the attack and tried to chop steps in the parapet with his long-handled tomahawk. Of the British five were killed and eleven wounded.
It was another Mahoetahi for the Maoris—that was a disastrous defeat of Ngati-Haua in the previous year. Waikato was a land of grief. “The land is swept and desolate,” the weeping people chanted. “Mournfully roll the waters of Puniu; the waters sob as they flow.”
We are getting through the winter nicely, thank you; and soon spring will be with us prinking and preening in its new green overcoat. What joy to contemplate the annual rebirth of the earth, the ubiquitous upreaching of verdant fingers fumbling the wayward sunbeams—or words to that effect. How good to see life yawning and stretching beneath its lush coverlet, the hills swelling, the streams yelling “it ain't gonna rain no mo',” and birds, beasts and little lepidoptera leaping to Pan's ragtime. Oh, tantivvy and hey-nonny! Also, attaboy!
But how completely the seasons prove the platitude that one man's fortune is another's bad break! For, while we of the south go to Pan those of the north go to pot. In Sascatchewan and Michigan, in Hampshire and Hamburg the frosts of winter tingle the toes and tint the nose of the nomadic northerner.
But this is the time for the annual migration of the wise birds of the north who have the wherewithal to flap their wings. This is the time when Silas E. Scape and Colonel Grouse-Moor consider pegging a claim for a place in the sun. This is the time when we say, “Come to New Zealand!”
We do not command, we do not boast; we offer a plea. We've got the goods; therefore we plea. All the best people do it. In England they plea, “Come to Oogle on the Ooze,” “Come to Catchup cum Mush!” “Come to Woop-Slushing!” Why should we be too high-hat to do it?
There may be no reason why the British public should come to Woop-Slushing; the reasons why they should not may be overwhelming; but they like to be invited. They feel insulted if they are not asked to Little Poshing-in-the-puddle or Bounding-on-the-Lea. They feel neglected if they are not confronted with posters urging them to come somewhere for the summer.
And so we repeat “Come to New Zealand!” and for the benefit of those who are not sure where it is, we explain that it is in the lower right-hand corner of the atlas and can be detected with the naked eye. It's the bit that looks like a fish-hook with the bait half nibbled off.
Some of the more captious may complain that whoever prepared the atlas might have painted us a little closer to the Motherland. Whilst admitting the romantic advantages of being a far-flung outpost, they might submit that New Zealand has been hit to leg for a boundary. But we explain that our apparent surfeit of latitude is the result of our native astuteness and is a tribute to the old pioneers who were more Scotch than scotched against. Well did these exiled scions of Scotia know the advantages of advertising. Well did they wot the truth that “Distance lends enchantment to the view” and “The longer the road the more desirable the destination.”
Being kind of skidded off the earth's bulge allows us to claim the last lamp-post in the world and affords us direct communication with the Bay of Whales, which even the most prejudiced must concede are valuable publicity points. A leaning to lamp-posts is a good old British custom. Many a traveller would feel the journey justified if he could boast in the bar of the Pickled Beagle that he had held up the last post on earth while he waited three hours for a girl from Bluff who personified the old adage, “When in Bluff, bluff as Bluff bluffs.”
Comparative consanguinity to the Bay of Whales is good sales talk too. There's something about a whale that lingers in the imagination, especially when it has been separated from its bath-water for a long time. The word “whale” reminds one of Moby Dick, and also of Jonah (who possessed inside information about whales), and his wife (who possessed inside information about Jonah). There's something romantic about the cry, “Thar she blows!” provided it's not the caliphont. We believe that a stuffed whale hung over the High Commissioner's door would go big and add considerably to our prestige as a fisherman's paradise.
Not that we need it; we have everything else. We are air-conditioned, steam-heated, ice-cooled, sea-soaked, up-ended, rolled out, washed down and copiously clad in Nature's greeneries. We can catch trout in the rivers, shark in the sea and cold on the mountains. We can pluck bananas in the north, oysters in the south and roosters all over. We can get sunstroke at one end and frost-bite at the other. There is more air than we can use, and there are so many mountains that, if they were ironed out, they'd have to shift Australia to give us room.
Not that we want to go flat out. We have to think of our sheep; it's only fair, seeing that we have twenty times as many sheep as human beings. A sheep would rather nibble three blades of grass at an altitude of fifteen hundred feet than a field of turnips at sea level. It may be uphill work, but it saves wear and tear on the neck; and the sheep gets it in the neck soon enough. You have only to try eating asparagus off the carpet to sympathise with the sheep's point of view.
But, to return to our muttons, no visitor need ever feel lonely in our variegated vicinities. We are a vest-pocket edition of the world. We have the steppes of Russia, the streams of Scotland, the cliffs of Cornwall, the jungles of Java, the waterways of Venice, volcanoes as vigorous as Vesuvius, the forests of Sweden, the mountains of Switzerland, the cheese-consciousness of Holland, and the hot-spots of Hades.
Who said “see Naples and die?” We say “see New Zealand and get an eyeful of the earth.” Amongst our mountains the most uppish Swiss can toss a yodel and swallow it again on the rebound. An Austrian may view the trapezic tempestuousness of his native thar—so near and yet so thar! To the canal-conscious Italian our Wanganui river is no Venetian blind. What it lacks in gondolas and bridges and dogs’ palaces it makes up in water—which wanders in pellucid placidity all in the one direction, and, unlike Venice, there is no danger of a bottle being dropped on you out of a top window.
No American need feel homesick with Egmont's sky-scraping proclivities to contemplate. Certainly there is no lift yet, but we believe that it won't be long before the progressive Taranakians bore a hole up the centre of Egmont and put one in to uplift our visitors from the land of Speedom. An American gets dizzy on street level and is liable to topple upwards. For the tourist who is not absolutely tied to Friday night there are the baths at Rotorua in colours to suit all skins, except Hottentots; but even they can get inked at the local hostelries if they crave a black-out.
The far south is replete with curling (which has no connection with the prevailing waves), oysters (both in shells and in offices), threepenny bits, four-penny beers, cold lakes, warm welcomes and skirling (done by forcing a lot of air through small holes until it shrieks with agony).
For further particulars, “Come to New Zealand!” We can't bring it to you because it's in constant use. Anyway, what would the little godwits do if they arrived and found it gone?
New Zealand is approaching its hundredth birthday, and shortly we shall be proclaiming to the world that we have had a century of nationhood. It would almost seem that fortune is with us in demonstrating that in one important respect, we are justifying our claim to have reached the status of a fully-fledged unit of British citizenship. In the last year or two literary development in New Zealand has proceeded with amazing speed.
The sure test of the standard of culture in any country is its development of the creative imagination. One of the final tests of art capacity is the production of sound literature. I claim that New Zealand now is doing rather better in this regard than any other million and a half of British folk. It seems to me to be perfectly natural that this should be so. Added to our heritage of British cultural tradition, we have a standard of economic ease, and an ownership of scenic loveliness which are matchless in the world of men.
Earle Andrew, photo.) Eileen Duggan. Her book of poems has a world-wide reputation.
When we find a critic who loftily and summarily dismisses some literary work from New Zealand as negligible, we also find that he is helped by a grand old superstition. It is best summed up by the saying that “culture is the product of leisure.” The same idea has also been put this way: “the wall before the picture, the shelf before the book.” We in New Zealand are regarded as still being engaged in the stern task of turning a primeval wild into the “Empire's Dairy Farm.” The facts are, of course, that the average shophand or factory worker in New Zealand has an amplitude of leisure which would delight and astonish William Cobbett or old Francis Bacon if we could bring them back here to see it.
In any case the theory is a false one. Robert Burns could not be said in any sense to be the possessor of spacious leisure, nor the overworked journalist, Charles Dickens, nor the industrious civil servant, Samuel Pepys, and so on through the panorama of the great ones of English letters. It would be good, of course, if we could relieve any writer of genius from the task of winning his livelihood, to enable him to have all his time for the nurture of his brain children.
It is very obvious that before good work can be done in any art, familiarity with the tools to be used, is essential. Burns is a good example of this fact. He sprang from a community of poets. In his small county, books of verse were being produced and printed almost daily, and every inglenook heard the declamation by some earnest Scot of the latest poetry. The standard of general education in Scotland in his time was the highest in Europe, and the pupil at a small Scottish village school had educational opportunities that were hardly possible at Eton or Harrow.
Now, here to-day in New Zealand, illiteracy is for all practical purposes, non-existent. We have the largest ratio of secondary school pupils, and the highest proportion of university students in the world.
However, there is one final factor which is of the essential stuff of history. “Genius comes unbidden,” said Emerson. It cannot be created, or even fostered to growth by Governments or the action of authority. It springs “between the feet of men,” in times and places which are quite unheralded.
I remember the Dominion's editor of the London “Times” saying to me, “You can rest on your laurels in New Zealand now for a long time. One Katherine Mansfield is enough for you to produce every hundred years.”
I think, though, that there are abundant signs that we are on the eve of a Golden Age in New Zealand literature, and that the achievement of the one year just past has been more than an indication that we are on the way to take our place in the sun, high up on the Parnassian slopes.
First of all, I shall deal with the year's work in poetry. Without being didactic, I would like to say that New Zealand poetry is little more than ten years old. It has been said that one in ten of our population has been the standard ration of New Zealand verse writers. Criticism of poetry must necessarily be mostly personal and a matter of sheer individual taste. In my case, for instance, I dislike the use of classic myth and allusion, I appraise verse more from its thought content than its slickness of rhyme or rhythm. I like the music of the lines to be distinctive and easy on the ear. To me, thinness of meaning and poverty of fancy outweigh smoothness and technical perfection. Until very lately we had a vast output of work that was deft, smooth, uninspired and flawless
Earic Andrew, photo.) Iris Wilkinson (“Robin Hyde”) poetess, novelist and journalist of world fame.
Refreshing in the last year or two has been the work of the vigorous younger men such as R. A. K. Mason, Denis Glover, A. R. D. Fairburn, D'arcy Cresswell and others. Alan Mulgan has a poem in his slim volume “Aldebaran,” which amounts to an event in New Zealand literature, Gloria Rawlinson is growing up fast, and has the magic touch, and Marris's “Art in New Zealand” annual of verse shows that there are other workers in this field whose achievement is of value.
But, two women now stand alone as creators of poetry in New Zealand, and they have both earned for themselves deserved appreciation in the European and American centres of culture.
These are Eileen Duggan and Iris Wilkinson. Eileen Duggan is doing for us in verse what Katherine Mansfield did in the arena of the short story. Her fame is now world-wide. When, recently, a great prelate, Bishop Kelly, was leaving America for New Zealand, he was taking leave of his friend H. L. Mencken, one of the coruscating literary figures of modern times, a critic of dazzling ability and ruthless independence. Mencken's one thought was that Bishop Kelly should enquire in New Zealand about Eileen Duggan. Walter Delamare says this: “here is the revelation in its own kind and degree of a personal energy and vision, of a unique feeling expressed in a renewed language.” Later he says: “however much she may have nourished her mind on what other poets have written, she tells always of the direct experience of her own body, mind and spirit.”
It is impossible in the space of this article to quote so as to give an indication of the strength and beauty, the boldness and the rapture of her poems. But here are a few lines:
* * *
This is the magic of pure poetry, and we are right to be proud of our own Eileen Duggan.
The pen-name of Iris Wilkinson is “Robin Hyde,” and she has had two collections of verse published in London in the past year. They are of astonishing quality, loaded with rich fancy, and pulsing with feeling. Her emotions are distinctively her own and her facility of self-expression is prodigious. Both as a journalist and novelist she remains a poetess, and her novels both gain and lose for that very reason. However, Iris Wilkinson has made her place in London, and we shall hear more of her when she settles down in her new environment. I am giving two short excerpts of her quality.
And this:
Clifford, photo.) Ngaio Marsh, New Zealand's Agatha Chrisite.
(S. P. Andrew, photo.) James Cowan, the doyen of New Zealand writers.
I think we can safely say that the art of poetry has reached its highest expression in New Zealand this year, and that our workers in this field have taken a place of proud distinction.
However, in nearly all reviews of a country's literary work, critics of the older lands, concentrate on the output only of imaginative fiction. I say with confidence that New Zealand has added this year a substantial shelf of major works of fiction to the library of British works.
“The Story of a New Zealand River” has just been re-issued. It is pre-war, originally, and must still rank as the most important work of fiction written in this country. Its reception, on its first appearance in London, was extraordinary. It captured the fancy of the English reading public at once, as well as earning encomiums from the London critics on a scale hitherto denied to any New Zealand novelist. Its re-publication is welcome. Time has not dimmed its brilliance, nor the authenticity of its New Zealand scenes. It is romance of a high order, it is daring, and, best of all, it could only have been made in New Zealand by a New Zealander. It will remain a minor classic. Another re-issue of almost equal importance was that of “The Greenstone Door,” another work written long years ago, possessing the sturdy qualities of a Waverley novel. The complete understanding of the Maori race, the sheer speed of the story itself, and the grave beauty of the prose, make this a work that will endure. These two revivals unfortunately do call attention to the comparative poverty of this branch of New Zealand letters for a long period. But the 1937-38 period in New Zealand has been one of riches of production.
There is the boldly original work of J. A. Lee. Here is a new voice altogether, prose with a pulse in it, and a creative imagination borne of a new vision. One type of Homeland critic was entirely puzzled to find a writer from the Antipodes preoccupied with the psychological reactions deriving from slum life and social injustice. The books were endowed with such power of expression and tenderness of sympathy, that they were acclaimed at once as the work of a notable artist. Mr. Lee also had, for good measure, the unique possession of an amazing visual memory of the things of childhood and the happenings of early youth. “The Hunted” was the successor to “Children of the Poor,” but both of them were exceeded in craftsmanship values by the astonishing “Civilian Into Soldier.”
During the year also, Iris Wilkinson published two novels in England, “Check to Your King” and the fantasy, “Wednesday's Children.” They aroused great interest in England and have all her qualities of opulent imagination and riot of fancy. “Music in the Listening Place” is an extraordinary effort, and Gloria Rawlinson in its treasures of epithet and wandering beauty, furnishes another example of a novelist remaining a poetess.
G. B. Lancaster, after the success of “Pageant,” a large canvas of the Tasmanian historical scene, has produced a splendid large-scale novel of New Zealand's beginnings and called it “Promenade.”
I regard as just as important, in its own metier, the novel of New Zealand life, “The Hedge Sparrow,” written by C. R. Allen. It has notable naturalness and ease of writing, and is a faithful picturing of New Zealand's own distinctive method of life and outlook.
In another vein altogether, the year has been adorned by the steady successes of two Christchurch writers, Miss Ngaio Marsh and Mr. Norman Berrow. Norman Berrow is a maker of adventure stories of the type first perfected by John Buchan, and he has a steady sale and good reception in England for everything he writes. The rise of Miss Ngaio Marsh has been remarkable. Her crime stories are regarded as standard work in England, and she is rapidly joining the little favoured band among whom are Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers. She has an extraordinary gift of humour, and a facility for making plots. Inspector Alleyne is taking his place along with Lord Peter Wimsey, Inspector French, and Hercule Poirot.
There is another most encouraging feature of this renaissance in New Zealand. The stream of books published locally is steadily increasing in volume. Messrs. A. H. and A. W. Reed, for instance, handled this year a number of books of memoirs and recollections which would do credit to a major English publishing house. I have read thirty or more, and they are even in craftsmanship and well produced. Their value as recorded history goes without saying. The reproach that we know more about the actual ways of living of the Sumerians and early Egyptians than the Englishmen of the time of Samuel Pepys can never be levelled at New Zealand.
Other local houses such as Whitcombe & Tombs Ltd., Thomas Avery & Son, the Caxton Press and others have also helped in the good work. The doyen of our literary world, James Cowan, had “Suwarrow Gold” published in England, and it has proved a brilliant success. He and others of our noble band of delvers into our soil of history have left for us a library of records of imperishable lustre.
In the realm of pure scholarship, I doubt whether any country has produced in one year the equal of J. C. Beaglehole's “New Zealand—a short History” and his “History of the New Zealand University,” Eric Ramsden s “Marsden and the Missions,” and the epoch-making “Littledene” by H. C. D. Somerset. There is also news of the re-issue of that magnificent work, “Tutira.”
It is not over-patriotic to claim that New Zealand has just concluded a golden year of achievement in literature.
(S. P. Andrew, photo.) C. R. Allen, a poet and novelist of rare gifts and understanding.
(Concluded.)
(W. W. Stewart, photo.). A modern passenger train on the New Zealand Railways, hauled by an “A.B.” locomotive.
Not all the recommendations of the Royal Commission of 1880 were adopted. The Board system, however, which was recommended, did have a trial for a few years, from 1888. Despite the shortage of loan funds, the Government continued to construct the Otago Central Railway, and indeed the Public Works Statement of 1888 regarded this, and the Palmerston North—Woodville Railway (through the Manawatu Gorge), as exceeding in importance the Auckland—Wellington North Island Main Trunk.
The Manawatu Gorge line was actually opened for traffic in 1891. The Palmerston North—New Plymouth link was completed in 1885, the Napier—Woodville link in 1887, but the Woodville — Wairarapa link not till 1897. In the Auckland District the line to Cambridge was completed in 1884, to Rotorua in 1894, and to Thames in 1898 (though the Hamilton—Te Aroha connection dated from 1886 and the Hamilton—Paeroa connection from 1895).
With the recovery in the world prices of New Zealand's staple exports that commenced in the middle ‘nineties, loan funds became more readily available. There was a revival in railway construction about the turn of the century, the most notable achievement of this period being the completion, in 1908, of the North Island Main Trunk Railway.
The reasons for the slow progress in the North were several, of which the following are the most important:—
(1) The distance from Wellington to Auckland was 426 miles, from Lyttelton to Bluff only 392 miles.
(2) In the North Island there were numerous gorges to be spanned and other engineering difficulties to be surmounted, including at one point the construction of a lengthy spiral section (with, tunnels) in order to gain height. In the 152 miles from Christchurch to Oamaru there is hardly a cutting, and the only engineering problems of any moment were the crossing of the Rakaia, Rangitata, and Waitaki Rivers.
(3) The North Island Main Trunk Railway could be constructed only from either end; while the South Island Main Trunk tapped five main ports (Lyttelton, Timaru, Oamaru, Dunedin and Bluff)—from each of which construction was commenced and carried on simultaneously.
(4) The South Island contained the balance of population in New Zealand from the gold rushes of the ‘sixties right up till 1900. In consequence it could exercise more political influence to expedite construction, a further point being that its main railway passed through more productive country.
(5) The South Island was only sparsely populated by Maoris; while railway construction in the North Island (and in the South Auckland district in particular) was long retarded by the hostility of the natives through whose lands the lines required to pass.
(6) There was little room for differences of opinion as to routes in the South; while rival claims of the central and western routes caused considerable delay in commencement of vigorous construction in the North.
Auckland was not connected by rail with Whangarei and the Bay of Islands till 1925, Auckland was not linked with the Bay of Plenty till 1928, and New Plymouth and Auckland were joined up via Ohura as late as 1933.
The Otago Central line was completed to Cromwell in 1921, and the Christchurch—Greymouth line was completed in 1924.
High capital costs per mile relatively to those of other railways of 3 ft. 6 in. gauge might be expected to exist in New Zealand on account of the difficult nature of the country. The longest bridge on the South African Railways (with four times New Zealand's mileage) measures 2,974 feet, as against two in New Zealand of the order of a mile on the Canterbury Plains alone. The longest South African tunnel measures 1,001 yards; the longest in New Zealand 51/4 miles.
It is nevertheless rather staggering to find that the capital cost per mile of the New Zealand Railways to-day is about £16,500, as against £5,000 contemplated
Even on the early constructed lines the capital costs have risen because of the increased density of traffic. This has called for a greater amount of rolling stock per mile, larger buildings, heavier rolling stock, stronger bridges, track duplications, installation of elaborate signalling devices to secure safety in working, and provision of additional equipment on rolling stock to ensure safety and comfort, e.g., Westinghouse brake (installed about 1900), steam-heating on main line cars (installed progressively over the last 25 years), and so forth.
Many of these improvements such as the installation of the Westinghouse brake were not effected before their time; and to judge from some of the official reports of the late ‘nineties locomotive engineers and train crews went in daily fear of a serious runaway.
The early railways in New Zealand—as in most young countries—were designed primarily with a view to rapid opening up of the country at a minimum of capital cost. The rolling stock and the bridges were therefore light in construction and the tracks represented the nearest possible approach to “surface” lines. It follows that they were characterised by heavy gradients and sharp curvature. In Natal practically no heavy earth works or tunnels were needed under this policy, but the result was 1 in 30 grades and curves as sharp as 300 ft. radius. These characteristics served well enough when the main object was cheap and rapid opening up of the country; but they are not good characteristics of a railway carrying a heavy volume of traffic such as the New Zealand main lines during the past 40 years, because they do not make for speed and economy in operation. Sharp curves, for instance, necessitate a reduction of speed in the interests of safety, while, by increasing friction, they also of themselves tend to reduce the speed of trains. Whether the track is single, double, or multiple, also affects operating efficiency and is an important consideration when traffic grows beyond a certain point. If a single track only is provided, frequency of crossing places, the length of loops, and the existence of safety devices such as electric train tablet or automatic signalling (the latter both saves staff and gives a closer headway than tablet between succeeding trains) all have a bearing on rapidity of transport and economy of operation.
Up till well into the present century the only duplicated line in New Zealand was a length of some seven miles in the vicinity of Christchurch; and as recently as 1936 there were only 77 1/2 miles of double track out of a total route mileage of 3,317. Duplication works are, however, in progress on the Main Trunk line north from Wellington, and south from Auckland, which are likely at least to double this figure within the next few years.
Considerable expenditure has, during the past 25 years, been incurred in New Zealand in order to eliminate steep grades where traffic is heavy. This is a proceeding that pays whenever the saving in operating costs is sufficient to meet the interest bill involved, e.g., Mosgiel—Dunedin, Mercer—Auckland, Wellington—Tawa Flat. Between Dunedin and Palmerston South the ruling grade is 1 in 50. This last is rather steeper than is consistent with satisfactory modern working conditions, and in practice in New Zealand anything steeper than 1 in 70 has in recent years been avoided wherever possible. In England it is not deemed good practice to construct railways with steeper gradients than 1 in 100, and the standards of future main line construction are now 1 in 70 in Tasmania, 1 in 80 in South Australia and West Australia, and 1 in 75 in Queensland.
The effects of gradients on the efficiency of railway operation may be readily appreciated if it is pointed out that an engine capable of hauling 686 tons over a grade of 1 in 150, will haul only 494 tons over a grade of 1 in 100, and 249 tons over a grade of 1 in 50. Speeds are affected in about the same ratio; thus a train weighing 220 tons and attaining a speed of 15 miles per hour on a grade of 1 in 50 would attain a speed of 30 miles per hour on a grade of 1 in 100 and 40 miles per hour on a grade of 1 in 150. When the ruling grades between Penrose and Mercer were altered a quarter of a century ago from 1 in 40 to 1 in 100 (at a cost of about £1/4m.), the locomotive that could previously haul only 162 tons over this route could take 494 tons.
(Rly. Publicity photo.) Departure from Wellington of the Wellington—Napler Express.
There has been a considerable improvement in the equipment of New Zealand passenger carriages, which has somewhat increased the dead-weight in relation to the tractive force of locomotives. The more recent increases have been effected largely in the interests of providing a greater standard of comfort in the face of motor competition. With the opening of the North Island Main Trunk line in 1908, the North Island adhered for many years to standard car types, viz., 50 ft. Main Trunk (8 3/4 ft. wide) and 50 ft. Main Line (7-5/6 ft. wide); but the tares of such rolling stock have progressively increased as a result of (a) fitting electric lighting (run from batteries), (b) provision of steel plates, and angle iron anti-collision ends, and (c) providing separate ladies’ and gentlemen's lavatory accommodation in Main Trunk cars. Later built cars for the Auckland —Rotorua service, the North Island “de Luxe” sleeping cars, and the new North Island Main Trunk ordinary cars show an appreciable increase in tare due to heavier bodies, disc wheels, more substantial design in underframe and car bodies, larger lighting generators (to cover fans, tea and coffee urns, etc.). larger water tanks, and heavier draw-gear.
Thus during the past 20 to 25 years the weight of North Island Main Trunk express carriages has increased almost 20 per cent.; while the increase in the South Island is nearer 40 per cent., as against increases of 15 per cent. in South Africa, 8 per cent. in Queensland, 3 per cent. in Tasmania, and almost stationary tares in West Australia.
Improvements in the design and construction of steam locomotives have been stimulated by the increasing congestion
During the past 20 years the average tractive force of locomotives in New Zealand has gone up 35 per cent., and in South Africa 40 per cent., while the average weights of locomotives have increased by 50 per cent. in New Zealand and 66 per cent. in South Africa. Subsequent to the Boer War a good deal of British capital went into the restoration of Railways, with the result that road-bed standards in South Africa were brought up to those then ruling as British practice. Road-bed and bridges, therefore, have-not hindered locomotive development to the same extent in South Africa as in New Zealand; where bridges, weights of rails, etc., were, at the time they were installed, considered adequate for locomotives then running, but have since considerably restricted locomotive design and have necessitated reboilering. This, in turn, has perpetuated a number of types of locomotive built between 1898 and 1901 (e.g., “B,” “U,” 1901 “Ub,” “Uc”), while numbers of the “F” type built in the ‘seventies have had to be retained to work certain South Island wharves, the Kaihu Valley Railway, etc.
When in 1901 the “Q,” or first “Pacific” (4-6-2) type of locomotive was designed in New Zealand and built in Philadelphia, there were only about 350 miles of line on which the 13 engines of this type could safely run, and then their speed on numerous bridges had to be restricted.
For some years following 1916 New Zealand was practically restricted to building the “Ab” type of locomotive and its variants, “Ws,” and “Wab,” for train operation. The strengthening of bridges between Wellington and Auckland was completed at the same time as the first of the new “K” locomotives was ready to run. (These locomotives have a tractive force of 30,815 lbs., or just over 1 1/2 times that of the “Ab”). On the South African railways (which have the same gauge as New Zealand) just half the locomotives have a tractive force greater than the New Zealand “K” and only one-quarter have a lower tractive effort than our “Ab.”
(Rly. Publicity photo.) One of the new electric locomotives (E.D. 101) for the Wellington—Paekakariki suburban service.
The building of the new “K” engines was part of a policy to replace in the North Island locomotives that have become obsolete (e.g., “J,” “Wb,” “Wd”), and to release North Island “A” and “Q” class locomotives for South Island use. This rendered unnecessary the reboilering of the older flat valve classes in the South Island (such as 1899 “Ub” and “Wd”) and postponed heavy track work that has not been considered to be justified by present traffic—although even so it has been found necessary to strengthen many of the bridges on the Otago Central Railway to accommodate even the “A” and “Q” engines. These are now considered of insufficient tractive force for the heavy Main Line passenger trains of the North Island Main Line and Branches.
“Yes,” said the wholesaler to the pressman, “new brands are always cropping up, and quite often a heap of money is expended in trying to poularise them. They don't always catch on though, despite lavish advertising. No amount of pushing will push a poor line into favour. As Abe Lincoln used to say ‘you can fool some of the people some of the time but you can't fool all the people all of the time.’ But when a line is really tip-top everybody wants it. Look at our toasted tobaccos—selling like hot cakes everywhere! Why? Because they offer about the best value in tobacco money can buy.” The wholesaler was right. “Toasted” is good. The leaf from which the five renowned blends Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead), Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Cavendish, Riverhead Gold and Desert Gold are made is of the choicest, while toasting frees them very considerably of nicotine. The triumph of toasted may fairly be considered the reward of merit.*
As the height of the summer holiday season approaches in Britain, increasing demands are being made upon the railways in coping with the annual rush to the seaside. Because of the granting of holidays with pay to workers in many industries which hitherto did not offer this privilege, the summer passenger business of the four group railways promises to exceed all previous records. On the publicity side, an enormous amount of telling advertising matter has been put out, relating to train services and the varied attractions of the different resorts, and this year's official holiday handbooks have enjoyed record sales.
These holiday handbooks form, as it were, the backbone of Home railway passenger publicity. They are issued annually by the four main-line systems, and are priced at sixpence per copy. The current London, Midland and Scottish holiday guide consists of 976 pages. It describes more or less fully no fewer than six hundred resorts of all types scattered throughout the system, and includes over 7,000 addresses of hotels, boarding and apartment houses. The London and North Eastern Handbook, with its beautiful coloured cover from a design by Frank Newbold, is an equally comprehensive publication, covering all the East Coast resorts. It contains a complete list of hotels and other accommodation, with tariffs, and its value is greatly enhanced by the inclusion of twenty-one maps of different holiday districts, as well as many fine new pictures in photogravure. Pleasing holiday handbooks also are distributed by the Great Western and Southern lines. The former company's guide is divided into seven geographical sections. It contains about three hundred illustrations in sepia photogravure, seven hundred descriptions of Great Western resorts, and 8,000 holiday addresses.
Even in these enlightened days, not every worker is able to indulge in a week or a fortnight at the seaside. For the benefit of these unlucky folk, the Home railways run an enormous number of week-end, day and half-day excursions to the more popular beach resorts, and excursion travel forms a most valuable source of revenue. It is not generally known, but the pioneer of the railway excursion was Thomas Cook, founder of the travel house which bears his name, and which to-day has ramifications throughout the world. Away back in 1841, Thomas Cook conceived the idea of running a cheap excursion from Leicester to Loughborough, on what is now part of the L. M. & S. system. This was the first public railway excursion organised by a private individual and personally conducted by the organiser. The total distance was 24 miles, and 570 passengers were conveyed, at a fare of one shilling for the double journey. In 1845, Mr. Cook determined to conduct the business on a regular commercial basis, and with this end in view, he applied to the railway authorities to place trains at his disposal, he to find the passengers. The first pleasure excursion under this arrangement left Leicester on 4th August, 1845, for Liverpool, with visits to North Wales, the Isle of Man, and Dublin. Mr. Cook compiled, printed and issued a small guide describing the places of interest to be visited, and this guide was the forerunner of the mass of passenger advertising literature circulated nowadays by the railways of the world.
Continental holidays are increasing in favour, and this trend is bringing valuable business to the Southern Railway. This line, in association with the Northern Railway of France, provides the shortest and quickest route between London and Paris. Altogether, the Southern owns 48 ocean-going steamships, and last year these vessels conveyed 4,500,000 passengers, 310,000 tons of cargo, and 57,200 motor-cars, between Britain and France and the Channel Isles. One service, increasing in popularity, is the train-ferry linking Dover with the French port of Dunkirk. This ferry in 1937 conveyed no fewer than 74,000 passengers, 57,000 tons of cargo, and 1,600 motor-cars. Dunkirk, is a convenient point of departure for all corners of Europe.
Home railway revenues are considerably swelled through the subsidiary activities of the four groups. Train and
For general utility purposes, the G.W. Company has recently commenced the construction in its Swindon shops of twenty 4-6-0 locomotives of a new type, known as the “Manor” class. The engines have driving wheels of 5 ft. 8 in. diameter, a tractive effort of 27,340 lb., and weigh in complete working order with tender 109 tons. The tapered boiler has a barrel 12 ft. 6 in. long. Cylinders are 18 in. by 30 in.; boiler pressure 225 lb. per square inch; total heating surface, 1,615 sq. ft.; grate area 22.1 sq. ft.; total engine wheelbase, 27 ft. 1 in.; tender water capacity, 3,500 gallons; and coal capacity, 6 tons. On the neighbouring Southern Railway, the latest locomotive contribution takes the form of ten new 0-6-0 goods engines, built in the Eastleigh shops, and having a tractive effort of 26,157 lb. The locomotives are fitted with Belpaire type boilers, pressed to 200 lb. per sq. in., grate area being 21.9 sq. ft. A “Sinuflo” superheater is fitted, with an area of 185 sq. ft. The 19 in. by 26 in. inside cylinders have pistons operated by Stephenson valve gear through rocking levers. Total heating surface is 1,432 sq. ft.; total weight of engine and tender in working order, 90 tons; water capacity of tender, 3,500 gallons; and coal capacity, 5 tons.
According to recent official statements, electrification is proving an immense success on the Southern Railway. The Southern, of course, is fortunate in serving territory lending itself admirably to electrification, and the authorities have never sanctioned any conversion without first having assured themselves that the cost and working expenses of electric traction, less the working expenses of the steam service to be withdrawn, would be greatly exceeded by the value of the increased traffic which would result. So far, the results of electrification have greatly exceeded the estimates. The increase in receipts resulting from the London-Brighton conversion, for example, has amounted to a return of 22.6 per cent. upon the outlay. In the London suburban area, the total cost of electrification has resulted in a return of approximately 27 per cent. on capital expenditure, and 16 per cent. on the total expenditure. While on the subject of electrification, it is interesting to note that, with a view to forming an opinion as to the potentialities of main-line conversions, the Great Western Railway has arranged for expert advice to be given concerning the suitabliity or otherwise of electric traction over its trunk routes between Taunton and Penzance.
Very great changes have been witnessed in Germany in recent times, but the railways centred on Berlin have not been affected to any degree. Rumours were current some time ago that Germany proposed to withdraw from traffic the high-speed “Flying Hamburger” and similar express trains which aroused such immense interest when first introduced. Actually, some of these streamliners were withdrawn for a brief period, and their place taken by steam trains. The reason for this, however, was to allow of adjustments and renewals, and quickly the flyers were restored to regular schedule, providing some of the world's fastest passenger runs.
Photos By The Author
Between the last ramparts of the Mackenzie Country in the south-west corner of Canterbury and the Waihao basin of fertile downlands south-eastwards, lies the broad valley of the Hakataramea, 25 miles in length. Today this is practically a closed valley. But when the other 20 miles of road across the Hakataramea Pass is made, it will link not only the lovely country of the Waihao with the great sheep district of the Mackenzie basin, but it will also be a direct route for tourist traffic between Lake Tekapo and the scenic area round the new Lake Waitaki which feeds the hydro-electric station.
The Waimate and Mackenzie Counties have recently joined hands across this pass to draw the attention of the Government to the ease with which the new route could be opened up. The gradient is easy and there are few streams to be bridged. Even now, in the unroaded condition of the pass, given dry weather, it is possible to take a car across the saddle, and the feeling of high adventure of the journey is inspired more by the beauty and altitude of the country than by the risks of travel.
As one stands on the saddle between the Dalgety Range and the Grampian Mountains one can dip down on either side into bleached sheep country where the beauty of the rugged hills and mountains changes with every hour, as the lights of the day of nor'west breezes—travelling past a clear meridian—fill the ranges with black clefts and then wash out their harshness in opal haze.
In writing of this district one's pennaturally trembles a little towards the western side of the pass, with its grandeurs in all that tourist country from Lake Tekapo to Mount Cook, and towards that old tale of Mackenzie, the sheep stealer, whose hideaway was in the great inland plain which took his name and his story forever into its geography and history.
But that story has often been told: how Mackenzie and his dog drove thousands of stolen sheep over the Mackenzie Pass into his great basin and out again across the Waitaki River and through the Lindis Pass into Otago, and how he was captured, dramatically enough, in the Mackenzie Pass, tried at Lyttelton, broke gaol repeatedly, and was eventually shipped out of the country.
His accomplice at the Otago end was supposed to have staged a suicide beside a stream. His clothes were found, but not his body. “Yet,” said Mr. L. Lang-lands in a letter in the “Otago Witness” about 40 years ago, “Had they thrown the grapnel in Princess Street, Dunedin, they might have been more successful, as that is where he serenely bobbed up, very wealthy, after that memorable dive, having divested himself of his name and heavy liabilities, as well as his clothes in the process.”
It is a good story when fully told, and it brushes very close to this saddle, for the Mackenzie Pass is only about a dozen miles from the Hakataramea Pass. But it has recently been written again by Mrs. Woodhouse in her book on the Rhodes family. And the country of this article lies to the eastwards of Mackenzie's dishonest journeys. The Grampian Mountains and the Kirkliston Range divide them.
It lies also to the eastward of the present tourist road which crosses the lake-fed tributaries of the Waitaki, and goes via Omarama into Otago.
At present travellers on the trip from Mount Cook or Tekapo to Queenstown do not see the fierce majesty of the Waitaki metamorphosed into that vast artificially created lake which breaks over the great spillway of its dam in awesome release. The Waitaki hydroelectric power station is one of the notable engineering achievements of New Zealand. And yet the distance from Lake Tekapo to Lake Waitaki is only about 60 miles by the suggested new route.
The country in the region of the dam is full of interest. Downstream on the south side, just beyond a picturesque glimpse of Duntroon—white houses and a church tower uplifted on a green hill—the fringe of the Otago goldfields juts
The sheep stations about here are famous. Robert Campbell and Sons, Ltd., was a spacious name at the beginning of the century. They owned the Otekaike station which stretched from the top of Mount Domett to Duntroon and east to the Maerewhenua river. On the north bank of the Waitaki, another holding of theirs, Station Peak, extended for ten miles up the river to its junction with the Hakataramea and then for 30 miles along the tributary. The old limestone shearing sheds are still to be seen from the Waitaki road, mellowed and over-shadowed by aged trees beside the modern homestead.
In summer green this stretch of the Waitaki is beautiful with willows which soften the harsh edge of the landscape. In autumn there is a glory of leafy colour. But in the bleak places above the lake, about Otematata, the scene may become terrifyingly dramatic merely with the movement of the sun among the stark hills.
The heat pulses on the steep slopes in heavy waves. Nothing breaks the monotony of the sparse tussock except the gullies of the shingle slides. Cutting the yellow flat, yellow with Maori onion, the bend of the river is blue, and cold as glacial springs.
It is late afternoon, and soon the solitary clump of poplar trees around a lonely house is like the shadow of swords in the dusk. The declining sun makes the hills a screen of flat jagged partitions, two dimentional against the pale green arch of the nor'west sky. A silver light hangs between each serried ridge. But where the mountain tops lie towards the westering sun the colours blaze and change in terrible harmonies, through deepest ochre dyed with red madder, then cooling to a cobalt blue.
I have dipped south-eastwards and north-westwards after the Hakataramea joins the Waitaki. Now come back with me into the wide, but much less frequented valley of the Taramea, or rather the high, enclosed harbour of the Taramea, as the Maoris thought of it. Haka in the south is the same as the aka of Akaroa, the hill enclosed harbour of Banks Peninsula, and the same as the whanga of the North Island.
It has been erroneously supposed in the district that Hakataramea meant “the dance of the prickly grass.” And that is a pretty enough fancy. But the taramea is the stiff, bold wild Spaniard with leaves like a sheaf of bayonets falling out from the centre. There is, however, in this region still more of the snow grass, which dances, indeed, in the wind when light with flower. Beside the gully streams the plumes of the toe-toe wave more stately, and where these two grow the slopes have a gay motion.
The stiff taramea was prized of the Maoris. It gives up a gum which they valued for its scent. Maidens only could collect it, and their time of gathering was the early dawn after the tohunga, the priest, had said certain prayers and charms.
Urutane, near Waimate, on the far side of the Hunters Hills, which enclose the eastward side of the Hakataramea valley, got its name because on one occasion the men did the gathering.
For a joke one morning, they rose secretly, earlier than the maidens, and gathered all the taramea gum. When the girls came they were afraid. They thought it had been spirited away, and talked of witchcraft.
But the men had undertaken what was properly women's work, and after that those slopes were called Uru-tane—“gathered by men.”
Laing and Blackwell, quoting Colenso and his translation, give a fragrant little Maori lullaby, which ascends in beauty of expression towards a tender conception of the taramea.
To-day, however, the valley is a great grazing harbour divided into flourishing sheep stations.
Past the Government fish hatcheries it opens out in wide, clean, gentle slopes to the sharp upthrust of the Kirkliston Range. On the Hakataramea Downs Station, a block once more extensive than the present holding, owned by the New Zealand and Australian Land Company, as much as 3,000 acres, were at one time sown in oats for winter feed for the sheep, and to-day one can still see what is probably the largest consecutive acreage of oats anywhere in Canterbury.
The sun falling brilliantly in this air across the range, and flood-lighting the twenty or more stacks in one paddock, makes a fine, keenly sharp and prosperous picture that fixes itself for all time photographically upon the mind.
And one carries away another very clear impression. The floor of the valley has so gentle a slope towards the river, and it is here so interspersed with trickling streams whose water goes unutilized that it appears, and is, an ideal place for irrigation. Round an occasional homestead where the water has been coaxed across a paddock or a garden, the luxuriant and vivid green is like a banner proclaiming fertility.
Perhaps I have betrayed the beauty of this valley, in that in the midst of panoramic landscapes broken along the road by near views of picturesque ruggedness, as suggested in such names as “Rocky Point” or “Cattle Creek,” I have descended into the utilitarian.
The fact is I do not wish to drown the ears in rhapsody—though the grand strains are here—nor to take any sort of gasping exclaiming traveller over the next turn, which leads off
Thelma R. Kent, photo.) The Hollyford River near Falls Creek. South Island, New Zealand.
This pass is an interlude. It is neither in the expansive mood of Hakataramea nor the tender richness of the Waihao, although here, still, the steep hillsides dance with the snowgrass, and the gully streams are glad with toe-toe. Along the road the thin groves of cabbage trees are the last relics of the cabbage tree forests of the Waihao, which, 40 years ago, contractors earned 3d. on each tree, uprooted. And only in lightness of spirit does one soar across the pass. The interlude is delayed by eight gates across the wide, well-built road.
On the lip of the bowl of the downs one overlooks Waihaorunga and then slips down into the Waihao. The downs flow about one, rippling out in wide circumferences, not cramping, but flowing from downs to hills and from hills to mountains. And the colour of it cannot be caught by the pen, nor its hospitable loveliness embraced by a sentence. One holds it only fleetingly and, inadequately —the curve of a ploughed down, plumcoloured as winter soil is in gentle light, and beside it the bright green of the autumn sown wheat, then all the tawny velvet shadows of arable gullies cleanly fenced. The dotted trees and warm plantations are melodious with the songs of the birds that come out of the bush.
The earth moves not only with the movement of the seasons, but with the rhythm of its own forms. But at Waihao Forks, the junction of the north and south branches of the Waihao River, these forms are cleft. The river flows out of the Waihao between ragged limestone cliffs which are like white scars in the green.
This river gets its name from the small, clear eel which the Maoris call the hao, and the story of its naming is a pretty tale. That authority on the South Island Maori, Mr. H. Beattie, when he told me, half dismissed it from sheer familiarity, though he enjoyed it again as he went back into genealogies which I omit. Yet I doubt if too many have heard even the following bare thread of the story.
A great many centuries before the Maori had settled permanently in New Zealand the people of the tribe of Waitaha came to the South Island.
“Now,” said Rakaihautu to his son Rakihouia, “I will take half of the tribe with me down through the centre of the land and you sail straight round the coast. We shall surely meet again sometime.”
This they did. Rakaihautu went down through the centre, discovering the big lakes and exploring Otago. He found the country very difficult and mountainous and saw many moas. Tradition does not specify that Rakihouia went right round the island, but he is connected with Kaikoura, Banks Peninsula, and the Canterbury Plains. After exploring these places he fished in the rivers till he came to the river that flows out of the hills onto the southernmost edge of the plain.
Here Rakihouia found the small clear eel, the hao, and his wife, the little Tapu, Tapu-iti, liked to eat this eel very much. They stayed beside the river for some time, and called it Waihao, “eel stream.”
Here, indeed, Rakaihautu found them. They had a great re-union and a great feast. Afterwards they went down to the shore and hung seaweed about their bodies, and pawa shell and any other decoration they could find. They thought very well of themselves.
Rakaihautu had had a hard time travelling, but Rakihouia told him of the easy going on the plains and the good eel rivers. So re-united all of the tribe thrust out their chests, stamped their feet, and turning northward, marched singing for two days up to Timaru.
They gave to the Canterbury Plains a fine name. They called it Ka pakihi whaka tekateka a Waitaha—“The plains where pride was shown by the tribe.”
There are two ways to the plains from the Waihao basin. One is along the river valley, and the other is the way the railway takes through the Gorge to Waimate. But if one is travelling to go south, one ascends the Deviation Road from Waihao Downs and comes out near the lower reaches of the Waitaki River, thus to Oamaru.
Photo., L. G. Giles, Greymouth.) The new 70 ft. turntable recently installed at Arthur's Pass. The weight of the turntable is 27 tons (approx.) and it was placed in position, by means of Norton jacks, in ten hours—a creditable job of work on the part of the men concerned.
Nowadays every hotel and nearly every large private residence boasts its smoke-room, and many seem to think this is a comparatively modern idea. As a matter of fact the provision of a special apartment for the use of lovers of the weed dates back for centuries. All the spacious and beautiful English Manor houses of Elizabeth's time had their smoke-room. What kind of tobacco they smoked then is not particularly recorded, but it is said to have been “coarse and strong” for the most part. Comparatively little was known in that day about tobacco culture. Modern methods of manufacture were unheard of and brands like our famous toasted Cut Plug No. 10 (Bulls-head), Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Cavendish, Riverhead Gold and Desert Gold were unheard of. Toasting is a very complex process. It not only effectually purifies the leaf but helps to give it its exceptionally fine flavour and wonderful aroma. The blends named have now been for many years before the public and each year has seen an increased output to meet increased demand.*
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