Mitre Peak, Milford Sound, South Island, New Zealand.
Hoteles
A Reliable Travellers Guide
Contents
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Controller and Auditor-General
10/11/38.
“… the gleam—the shadow and the peace supreme!”
—Wordsworth.
Pool of Tapu: the lakelet on an island in Waikare-iti.
See article, “Little Walkare,” page 9.
(Photo. E. D. Burt.)
Railways
Magazine
Magazine
Registered at the G.P.O.
Wellington,New Zealandfor transmission by post as a Newspaper“”
For Better Service.Published by the
New Zealand Government Railways Department
Vol. XIII. No. 11.
Wellington, New Zealand
January1, 1939
A Visit to one of New Zealand's four big railway workshops is a source of inspiration to any New Zealander who is interested in the development of his own country. Here he may see one, at least, of the country's resources developed to a stage of manufacturing capacity that challenges comparison with the best railway manufacturing plants of other countries, and that can face with equanimity, and assured knowledge of ability to handle the job, any demands that the future may make through corresponding development of the other resources of this Dominion.
Never before has there been evidence of such intense concentration upon scientific and industrial research into the productive capacities of the country, followed by co-ordinated effort to make our own people more appreciative of the work of their fellow New Zealanders to a point where, other things being equal, they would at least prefer to have the products of their own lands and hands to those of peoples and places which are somewhat unknown to them, and whose interests and standards of life differ materially from ours.
This research and propaganda, devoted to the greater development of New Zealand, is of importance to the whole population. It tends towards the organisation of the country on principles applied to the best-managed businesses. These all use research regarding markets, apply modern publicity methods to popularise their products or services, and make the best use of their own resources to meet the internal requirements of the business itself.
The Railways Department, as the biggest industrial organisation in the country, does all these things: and it stands to gain additions to its traffic as these principles are applied nationally.
If educational trips are organised to let young New Zealand see what is being done in factory and on farm to increase the country's wealth, the Railways are there to carry them. If New Zealand holiday-makers, through increased interest in their own homeland, want to see the best of their country's charm of lake and river, mountain and forest, and the many natural phenomena with which these Islands are so richly endowed, the Railways will carry them by rail or road, safely and cheaply to their desired haven. If more land is developed and farmed, the Railways are ready to carry both the instruments of development and the products thereof.
It is with a view to giving readers further insight regarding the present state of New Zealand's development in the many branches of activity that engage the industrial attention of New Zealanders that, with this issue, we commence a series of articles on the various groups of manufactures and products that go to build up the New Zealand of to-day.
In this way it is hoped to perform a service, not only for our own people, but in other countries as well; for we have the word of Mr. J. W. Collins, the just-returned N.Z. Trade Commissioner in Canada, that the Magazine is depended upon by overseas representatives as a constant source of information regarding New Zealand's scenic resources, its historical associations, and its industrial, social, artistic, and educational developments.
Railway Progress In New Zealand
General Manager's Message.
A Successful Holiday Period
In this, my first Message after the Christmas and New Year holiday period, I wish to say how much I appreciate the response to my appeal for care in the handling of trains and attention to the requirements of the travelling public, a response that resulted in a record of good time-keeping for trains and freedom from accident during what was probably the busiest Christmas and New Year period the Department has ever experienced.
It will, I hope, afford some measure of satisfaction to all concerned to learn that I have received a number of letters and other communications from travellers acknowledging the good service given them by members of the staff. Typical of these is one from an Australian visitor who travelled on Christmas Eve (the busiest day of our year) and who included in his letter of thanks the following: “The members of your staff travelling on the train were all most helpful and informative in answering the many questions, and seemed most anxious to assist passengers.”
Another writer, in indicating the true spirit of helpfulness as shown by one member of the staff in connection with the transport of a passenger who was ill, said: “Nothing was too small or trivial for his personal attention and we are deeply grateful to him.” The same writer also acknowledged the consideration shown by all other members of the Department who had to deal with this case.
As members of the Service and the public alike know, the railway facilities available to the travelling public have been much improved in recent years, but it still rests with the individual members of the Service to ensure, by their courtesy and attention, that passengers obtain on the occasion of their journeys with us as much enjoyment and pleasure as may be possible. For this reason it must be particularly pleasing to all concerned to find that, in the busiest period of the year, the time-keeping performance of our trains and attention to the wants of passengers were such as to give general satisfaction to those who availed themselves of our services.
I desire, accordingly, to express to each and every member of the staff on behalf of the Minister, myself and my Executive Officers our grateful thanks for a job so well done under circumstances that called for the exercise of greater care than usual in the handling of trains, promptness at stations, and careful attention to the many requirements of our Christmas and New Year patrons.
General Manager.
By)
James Cowan
[All Rights Reserved.] (Illustrated by E. D. Burt
)
Silent coast and gleaming water—Lake Waikare-iti.
When I first set eyes on that lake of the woods, Waikare-iti, sleeping there among its ancient forests in a silent basin of the Urewera Ranges, it seemed to me that it might well be christened anew Lake Solitude. In those days, more than thirty years ago, few people saw Little Waikare. There was a rough bush track to it from the eastern bay of Waikare-moana, and a dinghy had lately been sledged up there from the larger lake so that the islands that rose like tree groves from its glimmering waters could be explored. Most travellers who found their way to Waikare-moana contented themselves with boating around its bays and exploring that enchanting western arm Wairau-moana. But Little Waikare lay little disturbed, among its bird-teeming forests and its fold after fold of hills clothed everywhere in a soft garment of unfading green.
There was no human habitation on its shores, not a Maori whare, not a tent even. No camp-fire gleamed in its bays. It was as quiet as could be, unspoiled, untouched; it seemed to have slumbered there, with its little parks of islands, for a thousand years, and more. Moss-bearded ancient trees leaned over the dew-clear water. The islands duplicated themselves in the lake—the green of the nearer hills merged into blue; wisps of mist lay on the more distant ranges that rose into grey-blue jumbles of limestone mountains, the sacred mystery-land of Maunga-pohatu. The night fogs lifted before the sun was high; but all day long a gauzy veil of summer haze, tenderly blue, suffused the landscape—Little Waikare lay there a maiden lake unconquered.
Like a tree grove on the waters: an Islet in Waikare-iti.
The bush track, where the rata and rimu and tawa trees mingled their branches overhead, was alive with birds. Most of all the tui (it is called the koko in these parts) and the kaka parrot. The one gurgled and coughed and rang its three dropping notes, like a flute. The other screamed and screeched raucously; we brought a noisy flock of kaka about us by imitating its cry.
We would not have been able to explore the green Pleiades of islands
A Maori-land Gibraltar: Panekiri Bluff, Waikare-moana.
One of our party was just the right kind of companion for a Waikare-iti cruise. Hurae Puketapu, from Waimako kainga, near the outlet of Waikare-moana, was an elderly man of the Ngati-Ruapani tribe, the original lords of all these parts. He had lived all his life on the lake shores. His memories were of the primitive life and the Hauhau war days. He was an expert in canoe-making and canoe-sailing. It was he who in the Nineties, when Mr. Seddon visited Waikare-moana, steered the canoe “Hinewaho” safely across the lake with the Premier on board, one squally evening when nearly all the passengers and crew expected it to capsize. Black-bearded Hurae was full of stories of the earlier times than that; legends and songs, and tales of war and wizardry.
We pulled out across the shining lake and Hurae pointed to this island and that and gave the names of the six we saw—Te Rahui (which is the largest); Motu-ngarara, or Lizard Island; Motu-torotoro; Te Kaha-o-Tuwai (“Tuwai's Snare for Waterfowl”); Te One-a-Tahu (“Tahu's Beach”); and Motu-Taiko (“Petrel Island”).
Long ago, he said, all these islands were refuge places of the Maori. When war-parties invaded Waikare-moana and Ngati-Ruapani were defeated by Tuhoe, or by some other invading tribe—a surprise attack, which presently was reversed—the lake people retreated to the sanctuary of Waikare-iti. Paddling out to these isles of calm and shelter they hauled their wakas up among the trees and camped securely in the all-concealing bush. No enemy could reach them there except by the slow process of felling trees and hewing out canoes. Even in the days of Te Kooti's war, when Government war-parties of Ngati-Porou and Arawa carried rifle and tomahawk into the depths of the Urewera forests—Hurae was an active Hauhau youngster then—Waikare-iti's islets remained inviolate, untrodden by an invader's foot.
Shadows and solitude: the lakelet on an island in Waikare-iti.
Hurae steered for a mound of an island smothered in green to the water's edge. This was Te Kaha-o-Tuwai; he wanted to show us a curious place; a lake in the heart of the island. We startled some meditative wild duck as we rowed round an outjutting point where an ancient rata tree bent its boughs downward until the red blossoms almost touched the water.
“This was a very fine safe place to hide,” he said. We made fast to the big tree, and climbed up a steep bank by a mossy notched log. The island rose about twenty-five to thirty feet above the lake level; it was matted everywhere with bush and ferns.
A few paces from the top of the little cliff took us to a lakelet which filled the heart of the island. It was a silent amber pool—about a hundred yards across, or perhaps less. Mystic, haunted by the presence of all ancient things. Cumbered on its edges with snags and tree-stumps, slippery with the moss and water-weed of ages. Not a sound on its shores but the voices of our four pakehas and the Maori.
Not a bird sang in the trees here. The tawai trees—the beech, popularly miscalled birch—were ancient beyond all reckoning. Their boughs were twisted and contorted into strange shapes; many were white and dead, and everywhere from their branches trailed beards and weepers of grey moss. A ghostly place; it recalled a
These dead trees, Hurae said, lay under the stroke of tapu and makutu. They had been bewitched by a tohunga of old. They looked it. But we did our best to dispel the ghostly atmosphere of Tuwai's Snare Island and the enchanted pool of shadows. We found a clear spot to boil the billy, under a big tree that stood midway between the island's lakelet and the lake below. The blue smoke curling up through the branches humanised the place; nothing like a billy-fire for a home-like and comfortable touch in the wilds. Hurae, after the tea and tucker, told more of the past, full of names of old-time warriors and olden camps, and marches, and bush battles. And another of the party told of the later days of war, for he, like Hurae, had had his part in the era of tupara and rifle and tomahawk.
At other times and on other journeys through the Urewera country with old campaigners, I came to know more of the often dramatic and thrilling past of these lakes high-set in the woody mountains.
It was Captain George Preece, N.Z.C., who told me of the first white man that set eyes on Little Waikare. This was Sergeant H. P. Bluett, who was one of the only three Europeans besides the two officers of the Arawa Armed Constabulary, in the last campaigns against Te Kooti. Preece's fellow-officer was Captain Gilbert Mair, N.Z.C. Bluett was their trusty senior non-com. in the joint contingent of a hundred Maoris. On August 6th, 1871, the contingent moved across Waikare-moana in canoes from One-poto, at the outlet, and leaving ten men to guard the canoes at the Whanganui-a-Parua, set off on a march into the wildest part of the interior. The long single file of warriors entered the great forest, making north-eastward.
On the afternoon of that day Sergeant Bluett climbed a tree to get the bearings, and he called down to Mair and Preece that he could see a lake with several islands. This, as it was found on exploration later, was Waikare-iti. The officers of the force had heard of it from the Urewera Maoris, but until that day no pakeha had seen it. It was a few days after that discovery that the expedition was successful in finding Te Kooti's well-hidden retreat on the Waipaoa River, a tributary of the Ruakituri. In the sharp fight that followed, several Hauhaus were killed and some captured, but Te Kooti escaped, with rifles cracking all round him.
Aniwaniwa (Rainbow) Falls, Waikare-moana.
These were the days when the Arawa under their vigorous young New Zealand Cross heroes, and the Ngati-Porou from the East Coast under Major Ropata, N.Z.C., and Captain Porter, tramped for weeks and months through these vast and trackless forests in chase of Te Kooti and Kereopa. Sometimes they struck faint trails and followed them up like Red Indians or Australian trackers; they met ambuscade with ambuscade, and rushed camps and stockades.
Silent camps; cautious bivouacs; often fireless. No fires were ever lit by day, because the smoke rising above the trees would betray their position to the Hauhaus. It was an incautious fire in the Waipaoa camp, rising among a hundred almost similar mists, that gave away Te Kooti's refuge to his keen-eyed pursuers. Up to the middle of 1872 the contingents followed up their enemies implacably.
More than once after the first discovery they had glimpses of Waikare-iti, and even such seasoned bushmen as Mair and Preece were impressed by the vast loneliness, the primeval solitude, that brooded over this blue jewel of a lake.
Waikare-iti is but a tiny size in water sheets—two miles and a quarter in length by a bare two miles in width. But it seems larger, with its many-bayed shore, meandering among the woody hills, and its isles of calm that seem part of the mainland from some points of view until you come to boat in and around them. A true mountain lake, for it lies 2,600 feet above sea-level, and is fed by the clear cold streams that come swiftly down from the central ranges of Maunga-pohatu and Manuaha, snow-clad in winter.
From Little Waikare a stream goes bounding down through the bush to Waikare-moana, 500 feet below. On this little river there are several waterfalls. Two of them, the Papa-o-Korito and the lower Aniwaniwa (Rainbow), otherwise Te Tangi-a-Te Hinerau, are cascades of great beauty, tumbling over ledges of red-mossed rock. Below there are pools holding rainbow trout.
* * *
Waikare-iti is a natural sanctuary. I hope it will never be robbed of that hallowed air of peace and seclusion. Oars and sails and the canoe paddle are the fitting motive power there for exploration and pleasure-cruising. There are some places in our land that should be guarded with loving care against the disturbing touch of modern inventions, and the queen of these sanctuaries is Little Waikare.
By)
Geo. G. Stewart
The Old Diggers and the New.
The Kanieri dredge, that great land cruiser recently anchored in its little lake a few miles from Hokitika, is now turning over the earth's surface at a speed equivalent to that of ten thousand gold diggers—skilled diggers of those palmy days when the West Coast was in its first golden flush, the 60's and 70's of last century.
There is a Scriptural saying: “The stone that the builders refused is become the head stone… .” So the gravel the early miners rejected is become the backbone of the modern gold dredging industry. The Kanieri dredge is actually working over the same surface as that in which pioneers of the pick, the shovel and the pan have already toiled and moiled—but how different are its methods! Forty men man this ship, which is manipulated entirely by a few levers on the control deck—the captain's bridge, if the nautical idea is to be maintained.
These levers raise or lower the two 65 ton “spuds” or anchors, swing the dredge on its moorings as it eats its way around the half-moon of the bight upon which it is working, elevate or lower the ladder, the elevator and the chain of 2 1/2-ton buckets, and turn on or off the electric power and light on the various decks of the vessel. They also control the pumps and sluicing as the raised gravel is worked and washed down through the grids and over the riffles.
The action here resembles a great obstacle race in which only “light-weights” can make the distance. The “heavy-weights” are all trapped somewhere on the journey—if they get past the swings they are caught on the round-abouts—and they are later given “the woiks” that rob them of the very gold that gave them weight.
The virtue of the big dredge is that it can both dig much lower than the old-time miners could, and also raise the spoil much higher, so that on its tortuous downward journey through the dredge so many are the traps set for it that the gold gets no chance of final escape.
The dredge is licensed to work in any direction over the company's territory, the only navigating endorsement on the ship's papers being that it must not travel more than a hundred miles from its present anchorage!
The surface of the pond in which the pontoon floats is 25-ft. below the general surface of the flat where the dredge is working, and the buckets dig below water level to a depth of 85 feet, turning this gravelly land into lake as they do so.
But with dredging, as with most other matters subject to the law of gravity, “what goes up must come down,” so the boulders, gravel and earth lifted at one end of the dredge are dropped with resounding thunder at the other, only the residual gold being kept as a souvenir to mark their passage. Thus the pond in which the dredge plays gets no bigger for all the digging, but it keeps on moving along in the desired direction.
The Kanieri, the largest dredge in the Southern Hemisphere, was built by the Railway Workshops at Addington and erected by the Railway staff at the site where the dredge is now operating.
This was a great achievement, not only for the Railways but for New Zealand, as the dredge would not have been built here had the Railways not made their great resources in men and machinery and mechanical skill available for the purpose. So the Railways, as when the Otira Tunnel was built, are again associated with the romance of West Coast development.
New Zealanders are by nature and historical background essentially adventurous. No job looks too big for them, and no potential danger daunts them. “Give it a go” is the average New Zealander's attitude to anything that is new and looks hard to do. The early gold diggers, the early settlers and home-seekers, are responsible for this present adventurous spirit, this confidence in capacity to achieve. So the busy Railways took on the job of building the biggest dredge, and they made so good a job of it that it has worked without a hitch from the day of opening.
And what a typically West Coast opening that was! Crowds and speeches, and cheers and inspection in the morning, and then a “Luncheon” that lasted from noon to dewy eve. And then a West Coast ball that saw the sun rise on the following morning. Never was such a launching!
But science and invention have almost eliminated the risks associated with gold winning in these days, compared with the older times of the West Coast diggings. The only “gamble” is in regard to the price of gold. How much can be got from a given area is worked out very accurately before the first rough draft of a specification for the dredge is drawn. When the plans are completed it is then known how much gold can be obtained in a given time, in just the same way as a flour-miller knows what the output capacity of his new mill will be.
These modern gold adventurers—of whom such men as J. M. Newman, Geo. Watson and J. W. Ellis, of Kanieri Gold Dredging Ltd., are outstanding examples—have as much confidence in the general gold content of the land they are working as a man cutting into a loaf of bread has in its general food content. And just as it is known that every loaf of bread will have so much vitamin B (or whatever the analyst calls it), so careful prospecting has shown that there are so many pennyweights of gold in every ton the dredge will turn over. That assurance is, of course, necessary before the huge capital expenditure required for a modern dredge can even be contemplated.
(Continued on page 15.)
New Zealand'S Gold Coast—
(Continued from page 13
)
How different from the old “hit or miss” methods of the early alluvial diggings, or from the world's first gold dredge—the invention of a Chinaman working on the Otago goldfields sixty years ago!
How various people view this great enterprise—the re-working of the great alluvial flats of the West Coast with modern dredges—is as interesting as the actual operations.
To the Minister of Railways (the Hon. D. G. Sullivan) the enterprise is a further sign of faith in New Zealand, its accomplishments and resources, and the faithful building of the dredge is just an additional opportunity taken by the men of the Railways to do the best they could for the people of New Zealand.
To the General Manager of Railways, Mr. G. H. Mackley, there is satisfaction in the fact that the great Railway organisation could with equal facility turn from the manufacture of rolling-stock to the manufacture of dredges that would bear favourable comparison with the best in the gold-dredging industry.
To Mr. J. M. Newman, a Director of the Company, it is just one among a number of gold dredging enterprises with which he is connected in various countries, now brought satisfactorily to the production stage.
To the Minister of Mines (the Hon. P. C. Webb) it is a further step in the development of the mining industry, a source of revenue, and a chance to turn some rough and ugly country on his beloved Coast into level, well-forested land.
The famous Kanieri Dredge which was constructed in the New Zealand Railway Workshops and officially opened on 9th December, 1938.
The dredge has a total weight, in working trim, of 3,443 tons.
But to the average person it is an impressive and exciting spectacle of tremendous power devoted to a purposeful exploitation of the West Coast's potential riches. Here one thrills to the sight of the majesty of machinery in action, where boulders are the playthings of an octopus which reaches down with one huge arm to pluck out the bowels of the earth for its own consumption, and then after shaking them and sifting them and sluicing them and nibbling them—searching ceaselessly for the gold among the dross—throws the whole lot into the air with another monstrous arm and drops them crashing and barren back to the earth from which they were reft. And all the while it mutters menacingly, to the gold that glitters and the gold that hides—the Spanish “No Pasaran”—it shall not pass.
And to the eye of the man of vision, of whom Mr. James A. Murdoch (Chairman of the District's County Council) is an eloquent example, it is the dream ship of M'Andrews’ Hymn come to life:
Production from modern dredges, like those at Kanieri, or Rimu Flat, or Barrytown are bringing a second spring to the West Coast; but unlike the earlier unorganised wild rush of the gold fever days, this promises a steadier industry, with years of work ahead. And in place of the desolation left from the former workings—the abandoned townships and waste areas of boulder dumps—there will grow levelled and smiling areas of forest and farm land.
By)
O. N. Gillespie
The modern version of “Keep the Home Fires Burning” is “Keep the Factory Furnace Going.” The countries of the world are exploring all the methods by which their own people can supply their own needs.
Superstitions about some “outlander's” ability to make better articles cheaper, are almost daily being blown to tatters. Human ingenuity has no limits; the resources of man are without end; distance has been annihilated; longitude and latitude in the matter of making things has disappeared; all the handicaps of environment, scanty populations, and the well worn “distance from markets,” have been overtaken.
New Zealand should be in the first rank of this army of progress. Our proper position will be taken as soon as we realise the actual and exciting magnitude of our achievement in industrial production, and the almost infinite possibilities of the future. We not only Now make a vast range of articles of world parity in quality. We can still do better.
Did you know this? We make in New Zealand in our own factories, omnibuses and tennis racquets, bricks and picnic ware, oils and paints and artificial limbs, drugs, and soap, and cigarettes, hats and bathing gowns, “K” engines, and exquisite underwear, books and radios, and matches, boots and shoes, and toothbrushes, and golf clubs and balls, and a thousand and one other things which would use up, in a list, all the space allowed for this article.
I crossed on the trans-Tasman steamer once with two world travellers who were observers of more than ordinary capacity. They were Heifetz, the great violinist, and Petersen, then Dominion's Editor of the London “Times.” In the course of many hours of talk which ranged from Brahms to the All Blacks, and Carbine to geysers, I steadily excavated to get from these two brilliant folk some sort of joint verdict on New Zealand and New Zealanders. An hour or two from Sydney Heads, Heifetz produced his conclusion. “You New Zealanders are proud of quite the wrong things in your history.” The newspaper man said it differently. “Why not shut up,” he said, “about being the Empire Dairy Farm, and talk about your marvellous woollen rugs and your excellent walking shoes.”
Heifetz was a book collector; his mind was on our astonishing literary achievement; he respected a country which had produced Katherine Mansfield and Peter Buck, Guthrie Smith, and Pember Reeves in less than a century. The “Times” world traveller was more impressed with our good breakfast foods, our modern transport systems, and our hydro-electric development. He regarded Lord Rutherford and Mellor as the true New Zealand type.
The New Zealand Railways play their part in the “Buy New Zealand Goods” campaign.
For some years now I have been paying calls on country towns in New Zealand for the purpose of writing about them. One astonishing feature, common to all of them, is industrial activity. Regularly and consistently, a pleasant, tree-planted, green-gardened, ordered centre, would have one or more flourishing factories.
Added to these are the huge establishments in our cities; with modern equipment and up-to-date plants they are pouring out articles of all possible types every day.
Yet, if a score of people were asked at random to say what constituted the most important factor in New Zealand's prosperity, it would be safe to assume that most of them would say at once, “Our Primary Production.”
Without actually visualising it, most of us have in our minds a shadowy image of a cow, fat bullock, woolly ewe and chubby lamb, as the sole wealth spinners of our country. Now and again someone mentions gold, kauri gum or apples, but they only pass for casual notice.
Yet, of our New Zealand men who work, three-quarters are not engaged in any form of farming whatever, and only one-twentieth of our women workers are listed as following “agricultural or pastoral pursuits.”
Typical show card for national display.
Over one hundred thousand of our New Zealand working population are engaged in the special occupation of making things in factories, and the number is steadily growing.
I do not want to minimize the importance of the direct output of our lands. Our pastures are known all over the world for their richness and permanence. I helped for a day or two in the task of taking pedigree rye-grass seed from a farm in the Manawatu district. The expert said that nowhere in the whole world of grass cultivation could such volume and quality of seed be taken from a similar area. The machine, by the way, was a revelation, for it gathered the seed, graded it, threshed it, bagged it, and did everything but sell it. It was made in Australia, but could easily be turned out in one of our Railway Workshops. I wonder if many readers know that a perfectly efficient machine gun was turned out at the Petone Railway Workshops during the middle year of the Great War, made without samples from very inconclusive blue print drawings. That was before the installation of the modern, superb plants at Otahuhu, Woburn, Addington and Hillside, which “at one leap brought New Zealand within the ‘heavy industries’ area.”
Our prodigal gifts of soil and climate make it possible for almost every growing thing to do well here. We can ripen oranges at one end of New Zealand and sea-kale at the other. Our animals can live in the open throughout the year, and every animal from the rabbit to the red deer, and every plant from the radish to the pinus insignis grow “bigger and better.” They also mature more swiftly.
All this applies to our manufacturing industries.
In our short history, there has developed in our midst a multiplicity of factories and industrial plants making a bewildering complexity of articles for human needs.
This is only a preliminary article, and I simply have not the space for a detailed catalogue. However, here are some figures; last year the value of our factory production was £105,941,722. The wages paid out were in the neighbourhood of £20,000,000. The added value to our country's production was £35,000,000. The value of the premises exceeds £70,000,000.
Another Railways Reminder.
Now this wealth did not exist before. It was brought into being by the brains and hands of New Zealanders. It is the fruit of New Zealand endeavour, enterprise, and skill. This added value of £35,000,000 is new wealth created by our fellow countrymen.
There are several traditional observations about manufacturing things in New Zealand which call for answers.
Firstly, there is this one: “The population of New Zealand is so small that no large plants can justify themselves, and large scale production is not worth while.”
This fine old crusted story overlooks the purchasing power of each New Zealander. It is not over-stating the comparison that as a market, New Zealand's people quite equal an average of six millions in most older lands. Bruce Lockhart in his last book uses motor car ownership as an index of purchasing power. We have in New Zealand round about two hundred times as many motor cars on a population basis as Bulgaria or Roumania, and, which is of real significance, we have between five and six times as many as England herself.
The next tribal lay of the critics sounds more convincing still, at first saying: “New Zealand is so far from the world markets that things cannot be sold abroad at competitive prices.”
The truth about this is best put this way: the distance from Wellington to San Francisco is no farther than from San Francisco to Wellington. I remember once paying a visit to a fruit cannery at Hastings. This institution
The next standard objection is that “New Zealand cannot afford to instal the modern plants necessary for modern production methods.” The first answer to this one is that we have done it. And, we keep on doing it. There is a New Zealand factor here which can never be emphasized enough. An industry being newly established has all the advantages. Its founders can search the whole world and make a selection which is eclectic.
For a variety of reasons, the great manufacturing countries of the world, over a long period of development, tend to attain special skill in certain distinctive lines. Owing sometimes to the work of some genius in design, one country will run ahead of another in the form of production plant in some particular branch of manufacturing. The other side of the question, too, is that when industrial concerns attain size and age, alterations and improvements become a matter of huge cost and enormous difficulty. Then there are the considerations of weight of tradition, dislike of change, and the complex fabric of financial alliances and vast property ownership.
The New Zealand manufacturer, starting afresh, is free of all this, and has the opportunity of making a world selection, based on his local needs and conditions. I can point out our own four great Railway Workshops as brilliant examples of this phenomenon. Many countries are represented in their array of mechanical Titans, and I have heard a British expert of high standing say quietly of the Woburn workshops, “There are larger works in the world, but none any better or more up-to-date.”
The actual fact is that to-day we are making a mass of goods which are equal to the world's best in design, construction, durability, and efficiency, simply because we have modern plants having the same qualities.
I shall, in later articles in this magazine, give more particulars of some of these, “giving reasons” as an examination paper asks.
I shall just touch on the last general objection to the further development of New Zealand industries. This is expressed in the well-worn phrase “high cost of production.”
Now in our dairy industry we have high wages, high price farm lands and dairy cows, and a twelve thousand mile sea haul; and yet our butter manages to compete very easily with the countries of the world in their own home markets. English farmers complain of being “under sold.”
When I was an executive in the amusement business, I was besieged every year for collections of our New Zealand woollen rugs. They were much prized by the film stars, and dozens of these rugs were transformed into winter coats. No such fabric, my American friends said, could be procured in the Northern Hemisphere, whatever the cost. But, above all, they were amazed, delighted and puzzled in turn at the “ridiculously low price” of these articles, which as we know are made here every day.
We can take it as amply proven that there is no vestige of a valid reason why we should not only make a larger proportion of all the material things we need, but also that we can enter the world's competitive markets for many types of goods, with every reason for optimism.
The raw materials produced in this country are, in most cases, the best in the world; our tradesmen and craftsmen, being what they are by race,
A sample of the hoarding displays designed by New Zealand Railways Studios.
There is a further element in our national make-up which needs mention. I have it on the authority of a leading designing engineer that New Zealanders lead the world on a per capita basis in patent applications. We are mechanically minded, ingenious, adaptable and resourceful.
These qualities are the heritage of a pioneering history. In the old days when a “gadget” was not procurable for shop or farm, the man of the place had to contrive one. I am continually in a state of being slightly dazed, at my age, at the uncanny ability of the average New Zealand schoolboy to mend a radio, fix up a choking carburettor, make a substitute bolt for a tractor, and play about with volts and ohms as if they were both tame and intelligible. I mentioned that I have just had the experience of watching complicated harvesting and hay-making machinery at work. A dozen or more men attended these many-armed, many-wheeled steel mammoths, everyone of them seemed to understand the operation of every part, the reasons for each
My general conclusions are that we have so many advantages in New Zealand that there are countless lines of manufactured goods in which we already lead the world for quality. The costs difficulty can be overcome, and all other difficulties have no more obstructive strength than tissue paper.
Now when we hear the slogan “Buy New Zealand Goods,” we are often asked to remember many patriotic reasons for doing so. It is obvious that if we are to maintain and improve our standard of living, we must have a more balanced economy.
New Zealand could easily support ten millions of people, but this would entail the wide expansion of our secondary industries. Obviously, too, as our population grows, the internal market for our farming produce increases in scope and absorption power. Our young folk leaving school at the rate of more than twelve thousand every year, must find employment to suit the natural trends of their abilities. Secondary industries are necessary to satisfy this demand, and make a fuller life available for more and more of our people. All these truisms have been stated a hundred times and in a hundred different ways. If we are not going to depend for our material prosperity on the vagaries of a necessarily restricted market for a narrow range of primary products, we must provide ourselves with a better balanced and better ordered utilisation of our total resources of men and materials—of Nature's largesse. These are good reasons, and they have a background of practical commonsense.
But there is a better reason still for buying New Zealand made goods. I believe it can be proved up to the hilt; I believe it is the plain and sober truth; I believe it will continue to be true in an increasing degree as the years go on; I believe that the world will come to recognise this truth about many lines of New Zealand goods, and buy them from us as readily as they do our pedigree sheep and thoroughbred horses, our butter and our lamb. It is this: “Buy New Zealand Goods Because They Are The Best.”
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Rly. Publicity photos.)
A Sample of New Zealand Railways Craftsmanship
A feature of the new standard railcar “Aotea” (one of a number built in the Railway Department's Workshops at Woburn), is the drawing-room comfort of the seating accommodation provided for passengers. These illustrations show the first and second-class compartments respectively.
Interior Of Sleeping Compartment on the “Simplon Orient” Express.
Interior of sleeping compartment on the “Simplon Orient” Express.
London'S Passenger Stations
London'S main-line passenger termini, set in a ring around the City, have been immensely improved in recent years. Notwithstanding these betterments, however, there are times, notably at the height of the summer holiday season, when it is only with the greatest ingenuity that it is possible to handle the enormous traffic offering. It is, of course, impracticable to enlarge and rebuild all the metropolitan stations, but whenever opportunity offers an endeavour is made to extend the accommodation available, and to remodel the existing facilities to meet changing conditions. At the moment, good progress is being made with the modernisation of the Euston terminus of the L.M. & S. Company, while important electrification works are being carried out in the neighbourhood of the throbbing Liverpool Street terminus of the L. & N.E. line.
The honour of handling more trains than any other London station falls to Waterloo, on the Southern system, with a total of 1,424 passenger trains in and out daily. Liverpool Street, however, actually deals with the heaviest passenger traffic, some 209,000 people passing through each day. A recent official census of passengers and trains arriving at fourteen of the principal London termini on an ordinary weekday shows that 1,294,000 passengers use these gateways daily, and 4,217 trains arrive at their platforms every twenty-four hours. The problem of the morning and evening rush hour remains acute. At Waterloo, 24,300 people arrive in a single hour during the morning, and in the evening 22,800 passengers leave in the same period of time. At Liverpool Street, where the suburban traffic is exceptionally heavy, 32,900 passengers step out on to the platforms between 8.30 and 9.28 a.m., while between six and seven o'clock in the evening some 31,675 people depart.
The remodelling of city passenger stations, and the electrification of the tracks in and out, affords an opportunity for introducing signalling betterments of the greatest value. The Southern electrification works were accompanied by elaborate resignalling schemes, involving new signal boxes at Waterloo (309 levers), London Bridge (311 levers), Charing Cross (107 levers), and Cannon Street (143 levers). On the L. & N.E. system, two interesting resignalling schemes just completed are those between Shenfield and Chelmsford, on the former Great Eastern section; and between Shenfield and Southend—the nearest seaside resort to the capital. In both cases modern colour-light signals have been installed, with three and four-aspect signals of the searchlight type, controlled by d.c. track circuits. The same company has also recently completed new power signalling at the east end of Waverley Station, Edinburgh. The former mechanical signal-box at this point comprised 260 levers. This, and a second signal-cabin some 1,056 yards distant, have been replaced by a new box with 207 miniature levers.
“Somersault” signals outside King's Cross Station, London.
North-going “Coronation Scot” passing over water troughs at Bushey, near London.
One of the outstanding attractions of the Railway Pavilion at the Empire Exhibition at Glasgow last year was a model railway over which operated miniatures of our more famous expresses. A few weeks ago the happy thought occurred to bring this alluring show to London, and so for the Christmas and New Year holidays this fine railway exhibit was open to public inspection free of charge at Charing Cross Underground Station. The main exhibit consisted of scale models of the “Cornish Riviera,” “Coronation Scot,” “Coronation,” “Southern Belle” and other renowned trains, threading their way through a picturesque panorama representing attractive types of coastal and inland scenery. The trains were operated from a single control panel, and the display, among other features, showed automatic colour-light signalling. Also included in the exhibition were some of the newest pictorial railway posters and enlarged photographs of railway activities. Rumour has it that this outstanding exhibit is to go for display at the New York World's Fair, where the L.M. & S. Railway will feature a complete “Coronation Scot” train for the edification of our American friends.
A typical L. and N.E.R. sleeping car.
Preparations for the summer holiday season are being steadily made by the Home railways. A feature of the holiday programme will be the placing at public disposal of a greatly increased number of camping coaches, this facility introduced in 1933, having grown in popularity by leaps and bounds. Some 385 camping coaches will this summer be available in different holiday districts, the weekly rent of a coach for a party of six varying from £2/10/- to £5/-/-, this including all equipment, bed linen, lights, etc. For the 1938 season, more than 3,800 weekly tenancies were booked in England, 875 in Scotland, and 200 in Northern Ireland, and already the whole of the available stock of camping coaches has been booked up for next August Bank Holiday week. The coaches are placed in particularly picturesque seaside and inland centres, enabling holiday-makers to choose a district where their particular desires or hobbies can be well satisfied. The areas covered include many places where opportunities abound for such pursuits as riding, golfing, fishing, swimming, and mountaineering. Holiday-makers renting the coaches must travel to and from their vacation point by rail, and the scheme has been the means of attracting much valuable business.
Home railway sleeping cars are the envy of the world. These luxurious coaches are really comfortable bedrooms on wheels, assuring the traveller of a splendid night's rest, and all sorts of little luxuries from a hot and cold shower to a “nice cup of tea” on awakening. Third-class sleepers, introduced a few years ago, have proved an unqualified success, and by thus popularising night travel relief has been obtained on some of the more crowded day expresses. In Italy, an interesting experiment is being conducted by the State Railways, taking the form of the provision of patent hammock berths in certain of the night trains operating between Rome and the northern winter-sports resorts. Each compartment is equipped with four hammocks, providing, with the ordinary seats, sleeping quarters for six passengers. On the mainland of Europe, the majority of the sleeping cars are operated by those two well-known organisations, the International Sleeping Car Company, and the German Mitropa Company. Wherever one journeys in Europe to-day, one has striking evidence of the growing popularity of night travel. This is all to the good, alike from the viewpoint of the railways and the public.
Unfair road competition, which is hitting the Home railways so hard, has also seriously affected railway revenues in many continental lands. Because of changed conditions, railway managements are reorganising their operating sides, and in Holland and Belgium this move has been most striking. Electrification is one way in which the Dutch authorities are seeking to keep passenger traffic to rails. Another advance is the introduction of diesel railcars in place of the conventional heavy steam trains, while further economies are being secured by the closing down of many roadside stations.
By) (
Chas. E. Wheeler Illustrated by)
T. Martin
This is the story of a journalist who went to sea, but had to use the New Zealand railways to get home. It gives an insight into the workings of the light-house service of the Dominion, a great sea-signalling system maintained at high point of efficiency through the work of the Government light-house tender, the Matai.
Four times a year this trim little steamer makes the regular round of our three thousand miles of coast, going into waters which the average seamen likes to shun, but this is the job of the Matai's commander, Captain Burgess, to get as near to the light-houses and automatic beacons as possible, for on the Matai everything depends. With her white hull delicately picked out in blue, her cruiser stern and an ample supply of smart-looking boats and a launch on the top deck, one might take the Matai to be a particularly well equipped yacht, until one finds out how business-like is the whole equipment, built for the roughest of conditions. Look down into the forehold and see the piles of Westport coal, which the crew will bag up for precarious handling out of surf-boats so that the light-keepers’ families shall not go short of fuel. As for the rest of the cargo which I saw there before we left Auckland, it resembled an auction-room for miscellaneous variety, including even a consignment of live poultry and a sewing machine.
The run up the East coast from Auckland was certainly a yachting experience, with the sunlight, calm seas, and the lovely islands dotted around the Gulf. It gave one time to reflect on the value of the light-house service, its contribution to the safety of travel by sea, just as the signalling system ashore makes possible the combination of speed with safety which has to be provided nowadays. Fast passenger schedules now have to be maintained on the sea routes, but it is not very satisfactory to speed across the Tasman at twenty knots, and save more than a day on the old schedules, if visibility has been bad and much time spent in making a safe landfall.
Dead reckoning enables the captain to realise that the coast of New Zealand is ahead, but exactly what part of it? He is looking for the distinctive flashes of the light-house to fix his position beyond doubt, and once these are seen, the course is set with confidence on the next “leg” which brings the boat nearer port. But bad visibility may persist, and here the radio directional signalling system provided at the most important light-houses gives a bearing, and the land-fall can be made just the same. A couple of these radio bearings from the land, and the ship's exact position can be fixed almost to a few cable-lengths.
Twenty-six important light-houses carry staffs of keepers, but there are 170 lights around the coast, most of them automatic.
Landing a passenger from the Government light-house steamer “Matai,” at Cape Brett light-house.
Matai did its first job, replenishing the gas supply for a light on the Hen and Chickens group. The light is nearly 500 feet above sea level and it was the job of the Matai's crew to load a surf-boat with cylinders filled with gas dissolved in acetone, and reduced by immense pressure to liquid state. There is a porous material in the cylinders which eliminates the danger of explosion, a highly essential precaution seeing how these 200 lbs. weights have to be man-handled up a track more fit for goats than sailors. Empty cylinders had to be taken away, the lenses of the light polished, and the delicate mechanism carefully overhauled, so that it could go on doing its duty quite infallibly for four months, if necessary.
These automatic lights depend for their operation on the well-known physical law that light is heat. The governing valve is called a sun-valve, but it is not dependent on what we feel of the warm rays of the sun. What we see is a central rod coated with lamp-black, which absorbs light. Surrounding it are three highly polished rods, light-reflecting. These readily expand in the light, and a lever connects them with the black rod,
Landing stores for Cape Brett light-keepers. The scene ashore.
We came to a different type of lighthouse at Cape Brett, where there are three families living. This is one of the old-time light-houses, with its immense lenses making the most of the light from incandescent mantles fed with kerosene gas. The occulting of the light is done by a revolving screen, operated by weights and pulleys. It is the job of the light-keeper on duty to wind up this immense grandfather's clock mechanism at intervals, and one was interested to see that it was made in Scotland. The visitors’ book suggested that although Cape Brett is fairly handy to the mainland, visitors are rare, for we could go back twenty years by turning over a few pages.
The light-house keeper's life in many stations is a lonely one, though the men and their families get so used to it that they never ask for sympathy. Children are brought up in these isolated places, and receive a thoroughly sound education through the medium of the Education Department's correspondence school, ably assisted by radio broadcasting. Some have even been successful in secondary school courses. There comes a time, however, when it is highly desirable to introduce these healthy well-educated youngsters to a wider civilisation, and these first contacts with the outside world are vivid experiences. One light-keeper's wife found the experience highly embarrassing when she took her two young sons to the mainland and they went to church for the first time in their lives.
It was all very strange to the youngsters, and when a gentleman of benevolent appearance came around with a plate, well filled with coppers and silver, one little boy took twopence, and shyly said “Thank you.” His brother selected a bright sixpence with gratitude, and also politely said “Thank you.” I am not going to spoil this very human story by detailing what the horrified mother said afterwards!
Overhauling the automatic light on North Cape.
The pleasant green undulations of the coast were disappearing as the Matai steamed further north. Long stretches of sand took their place, broken here and there by bold cliffs. Soon we were to be round the northernmost corner of New Zealand, and a deep depression which, according to the weather prophet appears to be always crossing the Tasman, was rapidly approaching. Cape Maria Van Diemen was fringed with heavy surf, rolling in immense volume under the impetus of a south-westerly swell. The light is on an island, so small that a big sea makes itself felt even at the comparatively sheltered landing place on the side facing the mainland. To work surf-boats just then was out of the question, so the Matai anchored, patiently awaiting an opportunity. Next morning she was rolling heavily, and the cliffs to leeward resembled a long-extended Niagara, with the cascades running up, instead of down.
“Not much chance of working the light-house,” I remarked to Captain Burgess.
“We'll go round and have a look,” was his attitude, so up came the anchor, and cautiously feeling the way by the use of the lead, the Matai got within sight of the landing, a heavy concrete pier standing out into the
The anchorage at Cape Maria Van Dieman, scene of much thrilling surf-boat work.
Ranging up and down alongside the Matai, the surf-boats provided a problem in smart winch work. A sling of cargo went up, and was slung overside. Then upwards and inwards surged the boat, and at the exact moment down came the load with a rush, to be instantly stowed by a couple of sailors who could do the double job of cargo handling and keeping their balance.
Having been towed to a point beneath the crane jib, the loaded surf-boat was anchored, and the launch cruised in circles, its crew closely watching for any dangerous drift of the surf-boat. Landing the cargo called for the same quick action as its loading. Down into the rolling sea came a looped wire from the crane, and when boat and wire approximately coincided—which would happen for a split second—the load was hitched on, and light-keepers at the winch lifted it clear of the rising sea. Passengers had to land in the same way, and it was no job for the nervous—grab the wire, foot into loop, and hold on, while the boat surged from beneath.
This job finished, the Matai steamed into the open to resume acquaintance with the “Deep depression” and the heavy south-west swell. We were bound for Kaipara, an all-night run under stormy conditions, so the skipper kept well away from the lee shore. The journalistic voyager, fortunately well enough to be observant, got interested in the great sea hollows into which the little steamer plunged, to rise buoyantly over a crest, and into the next one, to the accompaniment of rolling, the like of which ordinary passengers surely never experience.
Hauling up gas cylinders for North Cape light. The West Coast is seen on the right, and the East Coast on the left.
A surveyor's level was borrowed for an experiment, and the scale set so that when the Matai rolled to 45 degrees—half way between vertical and horizontal—the bulb would show “level.” But the little ship rolled the bulb completely out of sight, and it was set nearer to the horizontal, at 30 degrees, before we managed to measure the exact degree of the roll.
Walking without holding on to something substantial was quite impossible, and we spent a social evening in the cabin of “Sparks” stowed comfortably on the floor, from which we could not fall off. The calm voice of the radio announcer and the other indications of normal life ashore sounded strange amid the roar of the storm and the lurching of the ship.
“Blackie,” the ship's cat, having double the leg supply of humans, managed better in getting about, but became annoyed over sliding around when it curled up for sleep, and eventually found a snug spot between the steps of a small ladder, stowed on the floor in the engine-room. “Blackie” during an adventurous life, must have exhausted all his nine lives, for he is, alas, only a memory, though a vivid one. Adopting the Matai as his home for many years, he sometimes sought change of scene, or possibly a change of rat diet, by walking across from the Matai's Wellington berth to the southern express steamer for a trip to Lyttelton. After a few days there “Blackie” would walk into the fo'castle of another express
(Continued on page 41
).
By)
J. Watt
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Rly. Publicity photo.)
A recent view of the Wellington-Auckland “Daylight Limited” crossing the Makohine Viaduct. The viaduct, which is on the Main Trunk Line, is 238 ft. high and 750 ft. long.
Every schoolboy knows why this country is named “New Zealand,” but perhaps the fact has been forgotten that about a hundred years ago it was seriously proposed that the name should be changed. One reason advanced was that Tasman did not land in New Zealand, and therefore could not have taken possession of it in the name of his country.
It was also argued that the Dutch did not follow up the discovery, and that in any case it was doubtful whether Tasman was the first white explorer to discover New Zealand. Though the evidence to support the claim is far from conclusive, it is possible that Portuguese navigators knew of the existence of this country long before the time of Tasman.
However, the crowning reason was that a British colony ought to have a British name. Various names were suggested, including New Britain, but no official notice was taken of the proposal, and in time it was forgotten.
The names, North, Middle, and South Islands persisted for a long time. As J. A. Bathgate says in his book, “Colonial Experiences,” “The individual who first gave the names … must have possessed a mind somewhat resembling that of the worthy minister of the Cumbraes (two small islands in the Firth of Clyde) who used to pray for a blessing on the Great Cumbrae, and the Little Cumbrae, and the adjacent islands of Great Britain and Ireland.”
Dunedin has been Dunedin ever since the first settlers arrived there from Scotland, but the name of the town when it was only a plan on paper was New Edinburgh. This was chosen after such names as New Reekie, Edina, Ossian, Bruce, Burns, Duncan-town, Napiertown, Holyroodtown, and Wallacetown had been rejected.
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W. W. Stewart Collection.)
An excursion train leaving Auckland.
In 1843 William Chambers, one of the editors of the well-known “Chambers Journal,” wrote to the “New Zealand Journal” (a paper published in London for the purpose of promoting interest in emigration to New Zealand) and suggested that the old Celtic name, Dunedin, was infinitely superior to New Edinburgh. This happy suggestion was adopted, but it was not until 1846 that the projected settlement became known officially as Dunedin. The same idea was used when the river Clutha was named. Clutha is the ancient name of the Clyde.
In his letter suggesting the name, Dunedin, Chambers wrote: “I would at all events hope that names of places with the prefix ‘new’ should be sparingly had recourse to. The ‘news’ in North America are an utter abomination, which it has been lately proposed to sweep out of the country. It will be a matter for regret if the New Zealand Company help to carry the nuisance
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Rly. Publicity photo.)
Picton—the ever popular holiday resort in the Marlborough Sounds.
A year or two before this the country had been officially saddled with three “news.” The charter for erecting “The Colony of New Zealand,” signed by Queen Victoria on November 16th, 1840, declared that the three principal islands should be known respectively as New Ulster, New Munster, and New Leinster. Governor Hobson, who was an Irishman, is said to have been responsible for these names. Happily they were soon discarded.
Port Chalmers was to have been called either New Leith or New Musselburgh. Perhaps Chambers’ hint led the Scottish Free Church founders of the settlement in Otago to name the port after Thomas Chalmers, one of the leaders of the Free Church at the time of the Great Disruption in 1843.
Invercargill was named after Captain Cargill, one of the leaders of the Otago pioneers. The name was suggested by Colonel Thomas Gore Browne, Governor of New Zealand from 1855 to 1861. He also suggested the name Southland, neither a happy nor a brilliant idea, considering that the beautiful Maori name, Murihiku, might have been used.
When Southland separated from Otago in 1861 some of the southern settlers who had no great love for Cargill, suggested that the name of their principal town should be changed to Clinton, the family name of the Duke of Newcastle, who had taken a great interest in the welfare of New Zealand. However, the suggestion was vetoed on the ground that Invercargill was a very suitable name for a Scottish settlement.
The name of Wellington before the town was moved from Petone to its present site was Britannia.
In view of this enthusiasm for the name Wellington, it is rather amusing to find that the same journal only a few months previously had highly commended Britannia as “a good name because till now unappropriated by any town and therefore distinctive in its character.”
Wanganui was first named Petre, after Lord Petre, one of the directors of the New Zealand Company. The name was officially proclaimed in November, 1842, but it did not appeal, and in 1854 it was changed to the more melodious Maori name.
Written and Illustrated by)
W.E.B.What a wealth of pleasure New Zealand offers to those who love the outdoors! There are literally thousands of places within easy reach of rail communication, so many indeed that in the annual leaves of a lifetime they would remain unexhausted, and their appeal varies so that at any season of the year they delight. A little prospecting round the Waikato River in the neighbourhood of Wairakei opens up scenic and characteristic spots that inevitably lure the holiday maker back. Too many people, intent on covering ground rather than in fully absorbing the atmosphere of each spot, pass swiftly through this region. They know the Wairakei geysers and the Karapeti blowhole, but as they vanish northwards amongst the pines, shrouding the sunlit distance with a veil of dust, or skim south over the good roads to Taupo, they pass up a treasurehouse of memories if they have not seen the Aratiatia Rapids or the latest thermal offering in Orakei Korako, apart from which there is a wonderland of sun and distance in the Atiamuri region, where the trout are large and the river obligingly creates just the “fishing water” that anglers love.
So different is this entire district from the rest of New Zealand that those who have travelled overseas wonder sometimes if they are not in the Karoo or the drought-parched plains of Patagonia, yet the New Zealand rainfall provides, even on banks in the driest of tea-tree flats, luxurious lycopodium that brings the traveller back to the realisation that he is seeing something new.
When the “Lofty Rock,” a former Maori fastness still cicatriced with the crude fortifications of hand-to-hand fighting in the tribal wars, is sighted, the do-New-Zealand-in-a-week specialist should get out, light his pipe or cigarette, and do a little saunter about on foot, making inquiries what there is to see and do. This pine-clad area offers something exotic in New Zealand scenery. It is almost like a glimpse of the pine-covered buttes of the States, and the dry desert air completes the illusion. Though the pines have their own appeal, and provide the something different which is the spice of life, one cannot forget that they will seed themselves and mean the doom of the unsuspiciously sheltering manuka. Along the main road dark phalanxes of pines provide striking contrasts to the sun-splashed white road in long, tunnel-like vistas, but it is with relief that one emerges again to the dry desert atmosphere and the straggly native growths.
Anglers do not worry much about scenery, though it is a subconscious joy to them. For them the prevailing wind, the fresh air, and the sunlight that turns the skin a golden brown are sufficient, if there is enough moving water of the speed that just keeps the rainbows’ tails busy to maintain their lazy place in the feeding places. Every river is beautiful, but none more so than the Waikato in these higher reaches, where its frothing rapids or slow flow form a contrast to the dry shimmering manuka and the cricket's chirp. The days of giant fish in New Zealand rivers may be over, but there are plenty of rainbow from three or four pounds upwards, and they are less wily than the brown trout of more southern waters.
A glimpse of the Waikato River, near Atiamuri.
Motorists will see the Aratiatia Rapids sign. Few people alighting on the circular turnway at the close of a short run from the Rotorua road are prepared for them. They have followed the slow glide of the Waikato, where fishing tracks cut through the bracken and tea-tree give glimpses of tied up row boats, and they emerge on a welter of waters that would not disgrace the Rockies, but which has a distinct and arresting charm, say people who have come from overseas more than once to see them. Moving sleepily along above the rapids, the colour of the Waikato is as hard to describe as an eel's back, but once it begins to tear through the narrow chasm in the rocks, it has all the vividness of a glacier's blue, with
The famous White Silica Terrace at Orakei-Korako.
Three streams meet at the head of the rapids, and the contrast of glide and cataract strikes the eye. Thence, by following a well-worn trail downstream, one comes out on rocky points of vantage below which the whole of the Waikato River roars through the gorge. One has to yell to be heard, and the further down one goes, the steeper are the rapids. The black splashed rock and the egret feathers-and-washing-blue-coloured torrent hold a fascination not excelled in any other sight in New Zealand. Bold rounded promontories succeed one another until there is a look-out reached by a bridge. Still further down is a whirlpool where battered timbers gyrate imprisoned as in a Poe nightmare. In its last leap before reaching this the rapids are confined in a width of fifteen feet, and it is easy, in the tumult of smothered wrath, to imagine that the solid rock underfoot is trembling.
Not far away, on the main highway from the north, are the Orakei Korako thermal wonders. This is the latest opened tourist sight, and it is still much as the Maoris knew it in old tribal warfare days, when the springs were put to cuisine uses strange to-day. Thermal regions are much alike in their features, but Orakei Korako has the distinction of having the only existing white terrace, a reminder of what was lost in the Tarawera eruption. There are also the “Dragon's Throat,” a rumbling imprisoned geyser whose discharge is caught internally, other terraces in process of formation, and a wealth of springs, pools, and fumaroles each with its appeal, and with a strange trickle of colourings as the hot chemicals meet the air. Except for a path defined for safety, this spot is unspoilt as yet. To many the crowning wonder is Aladdin's Cave, an almost vertical abyss which ends in a clear green alum impregnated pool 170 ft. from the entrance on the summit of a conical hill. It is a huge sound shell.
The Aratiatia Rapids, Waikato River.
Fine rapids are seen on the way to Orakei Korako, but, though the Waikato has its own scenery just here, the wish persists to visit this place again in the shooting season. It is a proved anglers’ spot, but what pleasure could be had behind a good dog out on the surrounding plains, where more quail were seen than anywhere else in a three weeks’ run. Pigs and deer are found in the hills and amongst the bracken. It is rough going, but the sport would make it worth while, and there are few places left where one would be so utterly alone as out on the plains here in winter.
“The first pipe of the day! Can you beat it?” asks “Old Smoker,” in a South Island paper. “I rise at 5 a.m., winter and summer, and the first thing I do is to light up! I smoke all day long, but that first pipe is easily the best! Sometimes I am asked if I never suffer from burnt tongue. I never do! But then you see, I am particular in my choice of tobacco. Were I to be continually puffing some of those foreign brands we wot of, I certainly couldn't indulge so freely as I do. But my tobacco is ‘New Zealand toasted'—the pick of the basket for flavour and ‘allure.’ It contains so little nicotine that it is hardly worth mentioning! This tobacco undergoes special treatment at the factory which destroys most of the nicotine in it.” Another feather in the cap of “toasted.” Five brands only remember: Riverhead Gold, Desert Gold, Navy Cut No. 3, Cavendish, and Cut Plug No. 10. But ‘ware of imitations.*
New Zealand Verse
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By)
Catherine Keddell
The visitor who approaches Saint Mary's Church in New Plymouth for the first time, is filled with delightful surprise at finding in our young country a church breathing an atmosphere so truly saturated with reverence and tradition. The massive grey stone walls speak of strength and security, the green, oh! so green, grass covers tenderly the sleeping dead, the lich-gate speaks of old churches far away, whose Sabbath bells have tolled “Come and Worship, Come and Pray” to countless generations of English lords and villagers.
St. Mary's is a very old church, as we New Zealanders count years, for New Plymouth was one of the earliest settlements in New Zealand, being now nearly one hundred years old. The Church was built—a tiny church the first one was—in 1845, and almost every one of the seven hundred settlers gave his mite towards the work, whether in money, labour, or material, gave it lovingly and freely. Some carted stones—rough, large, grey ones, from the beach, stones that had probably been carried from the beds and banks of the lovely mountain streams which tumble rapidly down the gently sloping Mount Egmont. Some shaped the stones, others made cement, others did the carpentry, and thus, because of this loving labour, the Church opened free of debt.
A tiny church it was and, from time to time, additions have been made—the western wall, the southern, the eastern, have been removed and new portions added, but always grey stone has been used, and every one of the original stones brought from the beach has been retained, and thus each still gives its gift of beauty and strength to the whole. With so much alteration one might, not unreasonably, expect a most unharmonious result, but this is not so. The building is a true unity.
If the grey stones of St. Mary's could speak how much they could tell! In the tiny original church many settlers found refuge during the fierce and turbulent years of the Maori War, and in the church-yard where soldier-dead have lain for over seventy years, the stock of the settlers grazed in those days of very bitter fighting.
The interior of St. Mary's is interesting, apart from the beauty of stone and carved wood and stained glass. Many brass tablets tell, in dignified letters of crimson and black, of the faithful service of past parishioners. To the reader with imagination and the gift of understanding, the whole history of the district might be revealed in these shining memorial tablets. Here is one, partly in English, partly in Maori, and, reading this, one rejoices that the noble man of whom it speaks was an Englishman, doing his duty, “in that state of life to which it pleased God to call him.”
“To the memory of Robert Parris, who so conducted himself throughout a long and eventful life as to earn the respect and love of his fellow colonists and of the Maori people, in whose hearts the memory of ‘Ropata Parete'—in war their most generous enemy, in peace their truest friend—will ever be green.”
The Maori words, translated, are as follows:—
(
Rly. Publicity photo.)
Looking down on the station yards and platforms at Wellington before the departure of the Wellington-New Plymouth express.
Pendant from the solid wooden pillars supporting the arches on either side of the aisle hang flags and hatchments of the regiments which took part in the Taranaki Maori War. The hatchments were designed and painted by Archdeacon Walshe, a much loved Vicar of the Church. One is to commemorate the first volunteer regiment of the British Empire to see active service, but that of probably the greatest interest to overseas visitors is the one inscribed “To the Friendly Maoris,” those who remained loyal to the pakeha in the troublous times. This shows two Maori weapons—a patupatu and a taiaha,—long powerful wooden weapons, carved, in the case of the taiaha, in the traditional manner of the Maori, and, in the case of the patupatu, ornamented with tufts of hair from the Maori dog.
Those who fought in the bitter Maori War are not the only soldiers held in remembrance at St. Mary's. A marble memorial to those who fought in the South African War rises above the green turf surrounding the grey church, and, inside, near the choir, is a Roll of Honour to those who fell in the Great War.
Laurence Binyon spoke truly when he said: “At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we shall remember them.” Here, in a far-flung outpost of
Shafts of light, in mediaeval purples, wines, and blues, come from the stained glass window, and are repeated in the flags and hatchments. Elsewhere, all is grey or brown—grey of stone and brown of polished wood. Scarcely a sound from the outside world reaches through the walls. One is alone, but not solitary; sombre, but not sad. Who could be truly sad in the midst of so much that speaks of self-sacrifice and heroism, and the trinity of Faith, Hope, Charity.
Passing out of the church by the main door, one reads these moving words: “Whosoever thou art that enterest this church leave it not without one prayer to God for thyself, for those who minister, and those who worship here.” This request with its humility of spirit, and its faith in the power of prayer, is surely answered by all who enter this building where every stone and pillar tells a story.
The churchyard surrounding Saint Mary's is truly a God's Acre, such as the devotional writers of earlier generations have written of in many a tender vein. Here sleep a little band of very early settlers, and soldiers killed in the Maori War. The gentle mounds of the grass are covered by closely-cut green grass, which gives place to moss under the magnificently spreading deciduous English trees, alongside which grow some natives—a silvery-leaved crimson-flowering pohutukawa or Christmas tree, a noble puriri, a graceful rimu with its lovely pendant branches, a young totara—a tree beloved by the old-time Maori because its wood was used for making canoes—and a “tree” fern and flax bushes, in which a tui sings his lovely songs.
In this old world plot in a new world, we see and feel the links which bind together the young Dominion and her Motherland, and we read the whole history of Taranaki.
In the early days privation, lack of proper sanitation and of proper medical facilities made it a difficult task to rear very young familes. Typhoid and diphtheria were frequent. Here we notice several graves where many children of one family lie; in one case, three within a year—one of thirteen years, one of eight, and a baby of only a year.
Here lies a boy of fifteen—“Killed in action, 1860, son of Rev. Henry Bradley and Sophia Wilhelmina Brown.”
Here lie Lieut. MacNaughton, son of Sir E. MacNaughton, Bart., C. Antrim; Capt. Henry King, R.N., who in 1871 died at the ripe age of 92 years. Henry Hant and Thos. Millard (killed 1860) of H.M.S. Pelorus; ten men—each little mound with its tiny cross—killed in “the Maori trouble” (how Irish an expression!). Sapper Geo. Chubb—(alas, only 21 when killed), and an Asst. Surgeon of 68, murdered by rebel Maoris in 1863.
These and many others bore the heat
New Zealand'S Lighthouse Service.
(Continued from page 27
) steamer, bound north, and rejoin his ship in due course. He “deserted” many times, once at Westport, when he was away several weeks, but he found the Matai at last, looking so sleek that he had obviously suffered no hardship in his travels.
An Auckland adventure of this remarkable cat still puzzles the water-front.
“Blackie,” the “Matai's” adventurous travelling cat.
They were swapping “mean man” stories aboard the Rotorua express the other day. Presently the man in the corner said: “I was travelling from Lyttelton to Wellington awhile ago. In the smoke-room after dinner a well-dressed stranger asked me for a ‘fill.’ I handed him my brand new pouch. Later, feeling inclined for a whiff myself, I ventured to remind this chap that he had not returned my pouch. He had the nerve to tell me he had given it back ‘long ago.’ A barefaced lie, of course. But I couldn't prove it. The pouch was full of New Zealand toasted tobacco. I smoke nothing else. There's no tobacco like Cut Plug No. 10. And as I couldn't get any on the boat, I had perforce to wait for my next smoke till I got ashore. Doesn't always pay to be too obliging does it?” The tobacco mentioned by this passenger is one of the five famous toasted brands, the other four being Riverhead Gold, Desert Gold, Cavendish, and Navy Cut No. 3.*
A variation in the Matai's corkscrew wallowing during the early hours of her trip down the West Coast to Kaipara indicated that we were at last making for a sheltered harbour. The sand dunes were still a hazy blur on the horizon when the Matai commenced to do a couple of extra knots, running for the coast on the long rollers of a following sea. It resembled hurdle jumping on the large scale, and when I remarked that this seemed like crossing the bar, the surprising answer came that we were actually on the Kaipara Bar, nearly seven miles out to sea. The explanation is that a great sand drift works up the West Coast from the South making its mark for many miles in the dunes ashore, but that the strong flow of water through Kaipara Heads keeps the sand well out to sea.
Racing in on these great rollers, the Matai found quiet anchorage just around the northern headland, at the Maori village of Poutu, and work commenced at once on buoys and beacons, so essential in this area of sand-banks and strong currents. It had been a quick run into harbour, helped by the following sea, but getting out again would be a problem unless the southerly died down. So, as the journalistic jobs ashore began to call, and there were coming appointments to consider, the journalist somewhat reluctantly forsook the uncertainties of sea travel for the train, an all-night run on the river steamer enabling an early morning connection to be made with the rail for Auckland at Helensville, and so to join the fast and comfortable Limited to Wellington, with the assurance that deep depressions crossing the Tasman would introduce no uncertainties about arriving at 9.30 a.m.
“Farthest North” in New Zealand—Cape Maria Van Diemen.
Almost Paralysed With Rheumatism
Had All His Teeth Out
But Did Not Improve Until He Tried Kruschen
There has just come to our notice a very remarkable recovery from severe rheumatism. The seriousness of the man's condition and the step that led to his ultimate recovery, are described in the following letter:—
“For several years I have suffered from rheumatism. I had all my teeth out, and still got no relief. A year ago I lay in hospital for fourteen weeks, almost paralysed. When I got home I continued to take medicine, but began to go down again. A friend of mine asked me to try Kruschen Salts, and I am very pleased to be able to say I have been on the mend ever since.”—H.P.
No remedy can bring permanent relief from rheumatism unless it performs three separate functions. These are (a) dissolution of the needle-pointed uric acid crystals which cause the pain, (b) the expulsion of these crystals from the system, (c) prevention of a further accumulation of uric acid.
Two of the ingredients of Kruschen Salts are the most effectual solvents of uric acid known to medical science. They swiftly dull the sharp edges of the painful crystals, then convert them into a harmless solution. Other ingredients of these salts have a stimulating effect upon the kidneys, and assist them to expel the dissolved uratic needles through the natural channel.
Combined with these solvents and eliminants of uric acid, are still other salts which prevent food fermentation taking place in the intestine, and thereby check the further formation of mischievous uric acid.
Kruschen Salts is obtainable at all Chemists and Stores at 2/3 per bottle.
By)
R. K. McFarlane
Legend and tradition have enriched the North Island of New Zealand with a wealth of knowledge concerning the history of the Maori before the advent of the white man. On the other hand there is perhaps not so much tradition connected with the southern Maori which enables us to follows his doings before the pakeha came. This is due chiefly to the fact that the Maoris colonised the southern part of New Zealand a long time after their first arrival, and then only very sparsely on account of the more rigorous climate. Then again, it is on record that the southern Maori was several times almost exterminated by his overpowering northern brother.
Although little Maori history about Dunedin is known, tradition has recorded for us two outstanding episodes. Both are tragic—one, a tragic romance on the coast near the Taieri, the other a tragic massacre, also on the coast about fifteen miles north of Dunedin.
It is the latter which I propose to relate.
From two sources only could I get information about this intensely interesting history. The first was a brief account in a small hand-book entitled “Dunedin and its Neighbourhood,” published in 1904—the other a newspaper article of 1929 regarding research carried out among the Maoris concerning Mapoutahi Pa. The latter sums up very well the difficulties of acquiring information, as the old Maori is passing on:—
“There is much which remains to be told concerning the history of the Maori Race in Otago and with the passing of the years traditions as they relate to historic incidents are becoming more and more extinct … however it is possible to trace the history of Mapoutahi Pa from the tradition handed down from generation to generation.”
Soon after leaving Purakanui station the traveller by train northwards from Dunedin sees from his window as the train winds its way round the precipitous cliff face a green and picturesque little island almost completely surrounded by steep cliffs, and lying close to the long stretch of white sand washed by rows of creamy breakers which is Purakanui Beach. As the panorama unfolds it can be seen that this so-called island is really a small peninsula connected to the high cliff of the mainland by a small isthmus three or four feet wide and a few yards long. On one side of this neck of land is a little golden half-moon beach, while on the other side the sea rushes in with a turbulent swell threatening to undermine the narrow pathway. On the slopes of the “island” itself long green grass sways in the sea breeze, while the leaves of the numerous cabbage trees rustle continually as if mournfully trying to tell the story that exists beneath their roots.
“There is nothing to suggest the tragedy of which it was once the scene, yet these green slopes once ran red with blood and the yells of the victors and the vanquished could have been heard above the noise of the surf that laves its rocky base.”
Goat Island it is called, no doubt because its outline bears some resemblance to the head of a goat. There in the 18th century stood a fortified pa—Mapoutahi Pa.
Some six or seven generations ago a chief named Taoka or Taonga lived with his people in a kaika near Timaru. As was customary at times he set out with a small party to visit his cousin, Te Wera, of Ngatimamoe, who had a large pa at Karitane Peninsula, or Huriawa. After enjoying Te Wera's hospitality for three days
Goat Island—now a popular seaside resort near Dunedin.
Unable to sack the Karitane Pa, whose massive entrenchments remain to-day, Taoka went home but came back again the following winter and this time made to attack the Mapoutahi Pa whose chief, Pakihaukea, was a close ally of Te Wera. After besieging the pa for ten days, since both the invaders and defenders were wary, Taoka, thirsting for the blood of his foeman and seeing a snow storm approaching, decided that the hour for revenge had come. Snow fell for many hours. That night, with the snow eighteen inches deep and all the hillside quiet he sent out a scout to ascertain if the palisade were defended. The scout returned to say that it was fully guarded. Not satisfied, Taoka himself crept silently to the palisade and discovered that the supposed guards were merely dummies hanging from the palisade and moving occasionally as the wind caught them. The
Taoka and his men silently scaled the palisade and cautiously arranged themselves among the whares. Suddenly the blood-curdling war-cry of the invaders roused the sleeping natives and, dazed by sleep, as they stumbled from their whares, they fell victims to the weapons of the enemy. Altogether, 250 were mercilessly slaughtered, and only one or two escaped by rushing to the cliff edge and throwing themselves 60 feet or 70 feet into the sea.
As day dawned the rising sun revealed a ghastly sight. The dusky bodies of the victims had been piled in a huge heap and covered in places with a mantle of snow they resembled a huge pile of wood. So they named the place Purakanui, meaning “a large pile of wood.” That was about the year 1750 and to-day, nearly 200 years later, little evidence remains of that terrible massacre save the name of the district and the line of the trenches beneath the palisade in which human bones have been found.
Goat Island is now a scenic and historic reserve under the administration of the Otago University Museum, where there is a model of the “island” and the pa.
To-day as the holiday maker wanders over its sunny slopes or fishes from its craggy rocks or shouts as he plays in the surf, he does not think much of its tragic history—it would seem absurd. But as night falls and the rising moon casts long dim shadows of the rustling cabbage trees across the grass it almost seems that one can hear sad cries above the moan of the surf.
By “)
Shibli Bagarag
One of the finest features that have appeared in the pages of this Magazine was James Cowan's “Famous New Zealandsers.” Included in that grand portrait gallery of the elect was Dr. Peter Buck, D.S.O., whose latest book “Vikings of the Sunrise,” is the subject of this notice. My reference, however, must be tinged with a note of regret that the author of this noteworthy book should now be lost to this country. He was appointed a few years ago to the faculty of Yale University as Professor of Anthropology, and detached for service as Director of the Bishop Museum, at Honolulu. Over three years ago James Cowan expressed the hope that “New Zealanders would see this great, scholarly and gallant figure at the head of Pacific Anthropological studies in his own homeland.” Although achievement appears to have carried him further away from us it is gratifyingly evident from his latest book that Dr. Buck's heart and interest are still largely with us. Although Dr. Buck tells in this book of the peopling of the scattered islands of the Pacific, as embraced by the borders of Polynesia, there are introduced many facts and memories closely linked to his own country. It is the mingling in him of the blood of the pakeha and Maori, added to his immense research work on the Polynesian people and their settlement of the many islands of the central Pacific, that imparts to this work the great value and interest it will have to students the world over. To New Zealand people in particular, however, the book must have an immediate appeal and no New Zealand library will be complete without it.
It is impossible for me in the space I have at my disposal to give anything but a brief sketch of the vast field covered in this book. It is not a weighty, involved tome for the delectation of the ethnologist, but one for the full enjoyment of the general reader. Here we have history in its most appealing from—the romance and adventure of the marvellous voyages of the early Polynesians, some of the journeys traversing over 2,000 miles in “double canoes.” The meticulous care taken in the preparation for these voyages, and the romance and the danger of it all, are fascinatingly described. We learn of the traditions and the sagas of these early people, and of the native origins and relationships that have such a deep interest for us.
The book is splendidly printed and illustrated (fifty-eight pictures from photographs), Frederick and Stokes, of New York, being the publishers, and Angus and Robertson the Australian and New Zealand distributors.
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While some may disagree with the extent of his “order of reference” the Bibliographical Brochure of New Zealand Literature by L. J. B. Chapple, B.A. (A. H. and A. W. Reed), is a valuable supplement to the existing New Zealand bibliographies. Mr. Chapple's introduction is interesting to students of bibliography. The brochure contains much valuable information. Very thoughtfully, the publishers have adhered closely to the format of the Hocken and Johnstone bibliographies.
A neat book-plate, a lino cut by Miss Hilda Wiseman, Auckland.
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A love for his country—the clean, fresh breath of life—sometimes a pensive pondering over life's mysteries; trees, birds and beautiful skies and waters; all these inspire Arnold Cork in his very satisfying book of verse, “Green Wood—White Wood.” Arnold Cork has a true poet's vision and a splendid sense of the symphony of words. One of his poems “World Music,” is one of the finest things yet written in New Zealand, while his ambitious orchestration of words in “Timber Mill” has given us New Zealand's most musical poem. I was pleased to see “Tapestry” included in the collection. I referred to the quality of this poem some time ago. There are thirty poems included, and it would be too much to expect that all were to attain the high standard of the ones referred to. Messrs. A. W. and A. H. Reed have the satisfaction of publishing this notable addition to New Zealand verse.
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Reviews.
“Free and Easy Land,” by Frank Clune (Angus and Robertson, Sydney) is one of the best Australian travel books I have read. The author has evidently enjoyed writing this book; it is as full of his own personality as it is as full of his own personality as it is of his quality for presenting interesting facts in a most appealing manner. The reader is therefore a joyful participant in the news gathering peregrinations of the author. He rambles from Brisbane to
Cloncurry, to the Gulf round Cape York and down the east coast. He works his passage over one part of the journey, at others travels as a tourist, and then with his wife. Every town he visits takes on a special interest for the reader, for Frank Clune has a great eye for purple patches or for those slender news items that become so interesting when presented by a practised hand. We meet cattle duffers, gold discoverers, explorers, convicts, squatters and heads of industry. They are all sketched colourfully. Ever and anon the author dips into history and tells of wrecks, of old sea navigators and explorers. His style is inimitable and he has a rare touch of humour. In reading this book you realise that Frank Clune is holding the stage—and he fills it ably.
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“The Bone Is Pointed,” by Arthur W. Upfield (Angus and Robertson, Sydney) is a gripping Australian detective story in which we meet once more our old friend Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte. Again Mr. Up-field gives us a complete break from the big city atmosphere of the average detective thriller. No dinner-jacket-smart-society-detective-story here. Instead, we have a thrilling tale of the Australian bush with “Bony,” a potential victim of the uncanny bone-pointing powers of the Australian aboriginal. Excitement piles on excitement as “Bony” grows pathetically weaker under the baneful influence of the pointed bone of the aborigines who seek to prevent him discovering the secret of the disappearance of a missing bushman. A graphic account of a remarkable rabbit migration adds to the interest of the novel. Truly a welcome change from the well-worn path of modern detective fiction.
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“Australian Inland Wonders,” by Charles Barrett, C.M.Z.S. (Robertson and Mullens, Melbourne) is an artistically produced booklet telling in picture and letterpress of the natural wonders of the Great Continent across the Tasman. Such subjects as barking lizards, and barking spiders, the great bower-bird, an underground world, the marvellous kingdom of ants, the ways of the aboriginal, make intensely interesting reading.
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“Out of the Mountains,” by Miss I. E. Dickens, M.A. (A. H. and A. W. Reed) is a tribute written with characteristic feminine charm about the Southern Lakes District, the Milford Track and Milford Sound. The book is evidently the result of a tour undertaken by a small party in February, 1938. The word pictures of the writer are easy and natural, but because of this do not lack anything of their vividness. Here and there are interspersed practical suggestions which should assist to keep the book in steady demand by tourists and trampers. The illustrations fit in nicely with the letterpress.
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“Railway and Tramway Enthusiasts’ Magazine” (Sydney, 6d. monthly). This well-illustrated magazine will be of interest to those railway and tramway enthusiasts who “recognise and appreciate the great work performed by the railways, tramways and their complementary services in the development and expansion of Australia and New Zealand.” In format, appearance and quality of contents, the magazine attains a high standard, and should prove a useful addition to every railwayman's library.
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“Tui's Annual.”—I have a great admiration for this Annual (published by the “New Zealand Exporter”) because of the practical help and encouragement it gives to New Zealand writers, artists and photographers. No “syndicated stuff” for “Tui's Annual”—everything is paid for. The latest issue is of high artistic merit.
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“First With The Sun” is the title of a collection of essays by Alan Mulgan due here shortly from Dents. Black and white illustrations from the Canterbury artist Olive Spencer-Bower will be included.
Due from A. and R. next month is a novel by Kenneth Roberts entitled “Rabble In Arms.” A. and R. run to big figures these days and confidently expect to sell 20,000 copies of Roberts’ book.
By “)
Playboy”“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown” — so wrote the Immortal Bard. How true that expression has proven, time after time in the field of sport! No sooner has a competitor attained his ambition, and won a championship title, than the attendant worries of a Monarch begin to make their presence felt. A champion must never have a “day off”; he must always be at the top of his form, otherwise he will provide headlines in the Sporting Press.
But, occasionally, one meets a champion who gets more fun than laurels from the game. Such a champion is Neil Edwards, New Zealand Lawn Tennis Singles Champion. Success rests lightly on his head. I interviewed Neil the other day—talked with him in the busy room of the Locomotive Drawing-office, of the Railways Head Office in Wellington. Yes, Neil Edwards is another of the fine band of athletes who are employed by the New Zealand Railways.
Here was an athlete, not considered good enough to be “seeded” in the national tennis championships, back at work after winning the highest award tennis offers in New Zealand; but he was the same Neil Edwards who had joined the Service a few short years earlier. Success has not, and, I am sure, will not, spoil this level-headed athlete.
In these days of “Give Youth Its Chance,” one is apt to forget when Youth ceases and Age commences. Because Australian tennis stars develop at an early age, many New Zealanders are inclined to think that the best years in sport are over after reaching the quarter-century mark. They overlook the all-important fact that New Zealand's temperate climate develops the athletes much slower than the forcing climate of Australia, and that our athletes last longer than those from the Commonwealth.
All this is important, because Edwards may be termed, by misguided and ill-informed enthusiasts, as a “veteran”—although he has many birthdays to celebrate before reaching his thirtieth. Edwards may be one of the oldest of top-line tennis players in New Zealand, but I consider this to be an advantage. He did not take up the sport of tennis in a serious manner until three years ago—he had more defeats than victories when he started, because he was playing against more experienced men. His was not the easy path trod by many “infant prodigy” tennis players. To succeed he had to develop his technique while playing against men better than himself, and in learning how to play he also learned how to take defeat with a smile, and victory with becoming modesty.
So it is that I predict a successful reign for Neil Edwards. He will try to win all his matches, but should he suffer defeat—and all champions have their losses—he will not adopt the attitude that the end of the world has arrived. “Tennis is only a game and I am only a player”—that is Edwards's attitude toward the game that is yearly attracting more adherents.
A few brief particulars about Edwards should be of interest to readers. He stands 5 ft. 8 1/2 in. in height and weighs 10 st. 4 lbs. Not a big man, but “nicely put together,” to use the sporting vernacular.
Educated at the Upper Hutt (Wellington) School, Neil Edwards did not handle a tennis racquet until he entered the sixth standard. Even then he only indulged in spasmodic games; he wasn't particularly interested in the game.
Neil Edwards, New Zealand and Wellington Lawn Tennis Champion, with some of his trophies.
Leaving school, he entered the Wellington Technical College, but, during the three years he studied there had few games. His principal interest was Rugby football and swimming. After his three years at Technical College, young Edwards found rifle-shooting of greater interest than tennis, and for a year he went to the butts and tried to score bullseyes, instead of serving “aces.” But a year later he became a member of the Upper Hutt Tennis Club and dropped his shooting to persevere with tennis. So it was that New Zealand's 1939 tennis champion did not take an interest in tennis until after he had left school. Most of the present-day stars were outstanding at school, but not so Edwards.
In his first year in the Upper Hutt Club, Neil played in club and local tournaments, and represented his club in the Hutt Valley championships, winning the singles and playing in the successful doubles combination.
But his first really important season was in 1935–36, when he joined the Newtown Tennis Club. He entered in the Wellington ranking competition and commenced at twenty-second place, finishing the season in thirteenth place. The future champion had already started to make his mark in bigger tennis.
The following season saw Edwards improve his ranking to ninth place, some of the men ahead of him including Coombe, Charteris, Roussell (son of a former General Manager of the New Zealand Railways), Ferkins and France. His best performance that season was to finish as runner-up to Eric Roussell in the Wellington Champion of Champions tournament. His outstanding win was against Don France. Edwards had continued to improve!
In the 1937–38 season, Edwards started off with sixth ranking, depart-
(Continued on page 56
)
Perpetrated and illustrated by)
Ken Alexander
It has been said—or it hasn't been said—it really doesn't matter, that the test of an essayist is his ability to turn out a literary lark in the plumage of a peacock, to strike the spark of profundity from the anvil of inanity, and to make silk persiflage from sow's ears. Perhaps agility is more important than ability.
Lamb did the trick with roast pork, but it is not recorded whether Hogg did it with roast Lamb. That doesn't matter, either. All that matters is that the essay is a form of literary thimble-rigging that has brought out the gypsy in many an otherwise reputable author.
But what is an essay. The verb “to essay” means to try, to attempt, to make experiment. So the essayist is a tryer, at least, which puts him in the same class as punters and absconding cashiers. As a matter of fact, he is a desperate fellow who stops at nothing from soup to nuts, from winkle's eyes to whale's teeth, from rheumatism to Bolshevikism, and from one darned thing to another.
If he's a bad essayist he plugs into the time-machine every morning like you and me. If he's a good essayist he's a merry bird who spends his time flitting from fee to fee. He doesn't have to write essays; he only has to essay to write essays. Subjects don't cause him any concern. The world is his oyster. All he supplies is the vinegar and pepper. He grabs the first subject lying round. It might be baby's bald head bobbing about like a channel buoy in a choppy sea, in which case he writes an essay entitled “Perils of the Deep”—or it might be “Are Oysters Class-Conscious,” or even “The Life of Shelley.” All he needs is a starter.
The chances are that, unless he has gone completely native, the first thing he grabs in the morning is his trousers which explains why every essayist, early in his career, writes on “The Influence of Trousers on Human Progress,” or “The Influence of Human Progress on Trousers.” This does not mean that he actually writes about trousers. He only writes under cover of trousers. He may start by quoting “How Pants the Hart …,” lead on to deep-breathing, take a fly at “Breathless Moments in History,” and finish with “Famous Last Gasps.” It really doesn't matter.
When an editor orders an essay on the growth of Nazi-ism he is not surprised if he gets a survey of the rubber industry from baby-soothers to rubber truncheons—or even the effect of geese on military footwork.
After all, an essayist is only asked to essay or try. No reasonable editor insists on success. It is no use both of them becoming distracted. Distraction or digression is the chief ingredient of the essay. Opportunity's prodigality prods at the essayist. There is so much to be said, and so few words to say it in. It's like going into a second-hand shop to buy a bird cage. Ten to one you come out with a lame theodolite, an oleograph of Lord Roberts, a chased loving cup which seems to have been chased round a brick yard, and a stuffed pike.
Likewise, here is a world strewn with tattlesome tit-bits. When the essayist prizes himself loose from the kapok in the morning does he have to corrugate the dome and beetle the brow in peripatetic ponderation? Not a chance! His first idea comes while he squeezes his tooth paste out of the tube, and he throws an essay either on the “Romance of Spaghetti” or “The Indian Rope Trick.” He might sit down to breakfast on the chair with the wobbly leg that he has promised to tighten since the armistice and—hey presti-digito!—here is an article on “Thrones that Have Tottered,” or “Famous Falls.”
Should a dog bite him, the blood is hardly dry on his leg before he has pulled an essay on Venice, with particular reference to the Doges Palace,
“The Life of Shelley.”
And now time appears to be ripe to tear off a brace of short samples.
“It has been claimed that insanity is curable either by removing the sufferer from the scene of his suffering or removing the scene of his suffering from the sufferer. But in view of the fact that it has been proved so costly to roll up twenty acres of turf, fitted with bogeys, bunkers and nineteenth holes, and re-lay them on dairy farms, the question arises—is homicide justifiable when there is no hope for the victim? Some maintain that a shot on the first tee would settle, in the mind of many a wife, the vexed question as to whether or not she is a widow at law. There are some who object that Nero was spared and he only played the fiddle which requires no tee, no caddy, and not even a ‘spoon.'
“But, of course, the tea-caddy was not the national weapon of the Romans. They favoured the hemlock-cup for giving visitors the hint. Tea was originally adopted by the tea-totalarian states of Europe for curing skins: hence the word tannin. Tea is now known as ‘The Cup that Cheers'; but there are many who maintain that the cheers are not hearty enough. Hence brewing, which is rife in Europe and newspaper headlines. Without something continually brewing newspapers would have to publish news and this would put them out of business. They must always discover something brewing—a storm or a crisis or a ‘coup.’ ‘Coups’ are particularly important because the makers of ‘coups’ are coopers and coopers make barrels in which beer is wrapped. It is unlikely that coopers will ever be out of employment. This prompts the question, ‘Is Employment Work?’ Is barrel-making ‘toil’ or ‘a gesture of love and goodwill?’ If work is the white man's burden, is beer a burden?
“
You Stole My Heart Away”
“And so we return to golf—though I don't know why. The only question remaining is ‘are men too old to play golf at sixty?’ The answer must be that if they don't know any better at sixty, they may as well go on playing golf.”
You get the idea? It's as easy as tearing up bills. And now—
“Ah, dry those tears! Grief and sorrow are man's heritage. He builds his castles in Spain and suddenly finds that they have gone ‘nuts’ in Barcelona. Life is a pretty pickle. You stab at it with the fork of Ambition and it skids off the plate of Hope. Ah, me! Youth, youth! Youth is a spring union of joy and hope, and age is but its breath—poignant and lingering. But we must not despair. Remember the rousing
“Whether or not she is a widow at law.”
You get the idea? Well—perhaps you are right!
Leading New Zealand Newspapers
By)
Nellie E. Donovan
(Concluded.)
ChapterX.
Happiness Cottage.
Where could Gobby have got to? The children looked under the beds, underneath the chairs and behind the pictures on the walls, while their Mother sat with an amused smile on her face.
“Happiness Cottage.”
They were just giving up the search in despair, when a little voice said, “Here I am!” and out popped Gobby from the vase on the dressing-table!
“Oh, you naughty goblin!” cried Barbara. But Gobby was not listening. He took off his tiny cap, bowed low and said very politely to the children's Mother, “How do you do?”
“Are you really a goblin?” asked their Mother.
“Of course,” answered Gobby. “I look like one, don't I?”
“I don't know,” replied their Mother.
“I haven't seen a goblin before, so I can't say.”
“Your education has been neglected, then,” said the goblin cheekily, “if you haven't seen a goblin.”
“This is really amazing,” said their Mother. “I must see your Father straightaway, and I must take you home at once, Peter. Your parents are very worried about you.”
That night Barbara and Michael related the story of their adventure over again to their Father. Their Father was very amazed to see the goblin, who was dancing joyously round the room. Peter also told the tale that night to his parents and June, his sister, was very jealous that she had not had the adventure, too.
The police were notified that Peter had returned home, and soon the newspapers heard the story of the adventure. When Barbara and Michael woke up one morning two days after their return home and looked out of their bedroom window, down below in the garden they saw a number of young men, holding large notebooks and pencils tucked behind their ears, standing in a long line from the front gate to the front door. The first young man had his rather inky thumb pressed heavily on the bell, and its insistent pealing rang through the house.
Barbara and Michael dressed quickly and scampered downstairs. Barbara threw open the front door. “Good morning,” she said.
“Good morning,” said the first young man, “I am representing ‘The Nosey News,’ My card.” Barbara gazed at the piece of white pasteboard he thrust in front of her.
“May I request an interview. My Editor is very anxious to hear the story of your exciting adventures, and so are our readers. Of course,” he coughed discreetly, “we are prepared to pay for your story.” He smiled, and he had rather a pleasant smile, thought Barbara.
“How much?” she asked.
“How much?” The young man was a little taken back by the sudden question. “Well—er—” he coughed again—“shall we say fifty pounds?”
“F-f-fifty p-pounds!” stammered Barbara.
“Gosh!” exclaimed Michael, “What a lot of money! Let him in, Barbara!”
But Barbara's brain was working at a furious rate. She brushed past the young man, stood on the doorstep and looked down the long line of young men.
“Are you rep-sent-ing papers, too?” she asked.
“Yes,” they answered in chorus.
“Well,” she went on, “We have been offered fifty pounds for the story of our adventures by this young man,” she indicated the first man. “Are you going to pay us, too?”
“Excuse me,” put in the first young man, “but my offer was for exclusive rights. That means the story is to me, only.”
But Barbara appeared not to hear.
The young men grouped themselves into a formation called a scrum. There was much whispering and nodding of heads. Then the men fell quickly into line again. The second man nearest the door said, “We are willing to offer you ten pounds each from our respective papers.”
“Ten pounds,” said Barbara, “Not much, but it will do, seeing that there's —” she began to count the long line—“thirty of you. You may all come in.” And the clever little business woman
“Out popped Gobby from the vase.”
“The Captain”—Mr. P. Hinge's champion Labrador in his old school tie.
Inside the not over large drawing-room, the young reporters gracefully drooped themselves over the table, settee and chairs, and lounged against the walls like wind-blown hollyhocks.
While the young men scribbled industriously, Barbara and Michael in turns told their story and Gobby had a wonderful time, pulling the reporters’ hair, and flicking their ties in their eyes. It was a most exciting morning.
Barbara and Michael flung themselves down on the settee and kicked their legs high up into the air, after the young men's departure.
“Ten multiplied by thirty is three hundred pounds!” Michael giggled with joy. “Gosh! What a lot of money!”
“Don't forget,’ said Barbara, “we will have to give a share to Peter.”
“Oh, I forgot him,” said Michael.
“And me,” said Gobby, as he landed with a bound on Michael's chest.
“Oh, you don't get anything,” laughed Barbara. “And you really must be good, you know. You were naughty this morning.”
“Some of those funny men wanted to ‘snap’ me, they said,” went on Gobby.
“‘Snap’ you!” exclaimed Barbara.
“Oh, he means having his photo, taken, I suppose,” said Michael.
“And did they ‘snap’ you?” asked Barbara.
“Oh, they thought they did!” laughed Gobby. “But they didn't, you know!”
And with that mysterious reply he ran out of the room.
And Gobby was right. For though his photograph had been taken many times, when the photographs were developed, Gobby simply wasn't there! I don't think anyone has ever taken a photograph of a goblin, for they are very elusive little creatures.
The newspapers came out with great headings—
“Children's Amazing Story.
Adventure on Magic Island.”
For many weeks the children were the centre of all interest in their little township. Children came from far and near to see the goblin. Gobby was enjoying life to the full. He would get into the kitchen and when the cook wasn't looking, he would empty a pot of pepper into the soup, and pour vinegar into the milk, and wipe soap on the floor of the kitchen for the cook to slip on.
Occasionally, Barbara and Michael would take him to school with them. But he was so naughty, pulling the children's hair, writing queer sayings on the blackboard, jumping into the inkwells, that the teacher would not let him come to school any more.
Barbara and Michael had told Peter about the three hundred pounds they had obtained for the story of their adventure. Between them they agreed, with the consent of their parents, that with the money they should build a cottage on the site where the Crazy Cottage used to be. This cottage was to be for the use of poor children, who could come and have holidays there.
And if at any time you visit the town in New Zealand, where Barbara, Michael and Peter live, you will see this cottage with a bright nameplate on the
A glimpse of Lake Te Anau from the balcony of the hotel.
And if you look very carefully, you will see Gobby, the goblin, playing in the cottage, for he had been too naughty to stay with Barbara and Michael.
But Gobby doesn't mind, for he still sees the children and he plays with the little boys and girls who come to stay at the cottage in their holidays, and he often tells them about the wonderful adventures Barbara, Michael and Peter had on the Magic Island.
(The End.)
Neil Edwards—
(Continued from p. 49.)
ures and retirements elevating him from ninth place. At the end of the season he had succeeded in reaching Number One position among Wellington players! He was chosen as Number One in the Wellington team to play Canterbury in the Wilding Shield contest, but lost both singles—to Angas and Barnett. In the Wellington open championship he was defeated by the veteran Don France, and in the New Zealand championship tournament lost to Bobby Pattinson (runner-up to A. D. Brown in the final). He won his club championship, but lost the final of the Wellington Champion of Champions to Denis Coombe. Playing in the Easter tournament he lost the final to Noel Bedford. Not altogether a successful season, but Edwards was in a transitionary period—he was remodelling his stroke equipment and preparing for better things to come.
So we come to the present season—Edwards's best to date. In ranking matches he has lost to Ferkins and Roussell, but in championships he has won the Wellington Open title and the New Zealand title.
Although “seeded” last season, i.e., so placed in the draw that he would not be called on to meet those considered to have the best chances of reaching the finals until the quarterfinals had been reached, Edwards was not among the select eight “seeded” in this year's national tournament. To win the national title he defeated four “seeded” players, a unique feat in New Zealand tennis history. Edwards, in the vernacular, was “a rank outsider,” according to those who “seed” the players, but his form warranted him being given a better chance of success.
In many of his matches, Edwards came from the back to win. Here I think is the secret of his success: he does not allow himself to get worried, no matter which way the tide may be running. Spectators at the national tournament recently concluded are unanimous that Edwards did not vary the tempo of his play; he allowed the other man to do the worrying and make the mistakes. Of such calibre are champions made. Instead of straining to produce something better when in arrears, Edwards realised that his play was good, and a continuation might see his opponent fall into an error. His psychology was correct. In each case, Edwards came from behind, without extra effort, to win the match. Would a younger player have shown the same common-sense?
With only three years of “big” tennis, Edwards has had few opportunities of meeting oversea players. His biggest match was against Stedman, the New Zealander, immediately after Stedman's return to New Zealand. Edwards won only three games in two sets, but learned plenty about the game.
“Stedman proved to me that our tennis is not fast enough,” said Edwards. I could not match him for speed and was all at sea. However, I met him in a friendly—non-competition—game later, and did much better. Were New Zealand tennis players given the opportunity to meet leading players at more frequent intervals—and allowed to play a series of games in succession—I feel sure our standard would improve.”
I asked him if he had ambitions to play at Wimbledon. He smiled when he answered: “I have ambitions. I would like to play at Wimbledon, if only to get experience and improve my game; but tennis is only a game and I have work to do. If ever I get the honour of being chosen to represent New Zealand abroad, and can get leave from employment, I would be thrilled. But, work will come first, and tennis next.”
There you have the true sportsman. He sees sport in its proper perspective. Win or lose, Neil Edwards will always remember that tennis “is only a game,” and when he goes down to defeat he will do so without any theatricals.
Using a 13 1/2 oz. racquet, Edwards has never been coached. He has not knowingly modelled his style on that of other players, but admits that, unconsciously, he may have developed a composite style based on strokes used by many star players. He has experimented with his strokes, and grips, and this season has changed to a partial “Continental” grip, instead of changing his grips when playing backhand or fore-hand.
His best stroke is the smash. “A natural stroke,” he explains. “I just hit the ball with all I possess.”
At the Newtown Club, Edwards plays on hard courts, but in inter-club and ranking matches plays on grass courts. He has a liking for the grass and finds that better stroke-control is possible. The hard courts do not produce the same tricky shots as are possible on grass and do not assist to speed up the game.
Edwards has not had the same success in doubles as in singles. A modest champion, he will not blame his partners for this lack of success. It has been said that Edwards is just as capable a player in doubles, but is in need of a partner. Such a statement could be made about any singles champion. Doubles play calls for two players with thoughts alike; two players who will help each other, encourage one another when things are not going right, and two players who prefer not to get the limelight. Neil states that the ideal doubles combination in New Zealand is Roussell and Ferkins. Two players with common interests and solid play. They may not be as good individually as others but, as a team, they are outstanding.
From the New Zealand Railways has come many outstanding New Zealand athletes. At the Festival of the Empire—the forerunner of the British Empire Games—Mr. W. A. Woodger, recently retired Railways District Traffic Manager, Wellington, was elected as New Zealand sprinter. Unfortunately, at a time when he was showing brilliant form, he contracted a chill, later developing into pneumonia, which prevented him from competing.
At the Olympic Games in 1928, the Railways were represented by Alf Cleverley, light-heavyweight boxer, and also had representation at the British Empire Games in 1938. Cecil Matthews, famous as the most outstanding distance runner in the British Empire, is a son of a Railway employee.
In golf, too, a Railway employee came near winning the prized Amateur Championship, Bill Riley, of the Locomotive Superintendent's Office, Wellington, being runner-up to Pax Smith in the national tourney played at Dunedin.
Neil Edwards must be added to this list—a list by no means complete—and New Zealanders will follow with interest the future sporting career of a champion who waited until he had developed a body to stand the strain of competitive play before embarking on strenuous sport. Edwards is not a veteran player—either in years or in actual play. He is a mature player, and there is need for such players in New Zealand representative tennis.
ByHelen
Fvills and Lace
Choose a flimsy cotton or a still daintier silk. Fit it neatly at waist and hips as you would an evening frock. Then have fun making the bodice fussy. The new night-gowns are lovely.
The full-length lady has chosen a pure silk spotted chiffon. The wide gauged band round the neckline is edged with self frills.
Frilly, too, is the waistcoat front below; and the frill at the high neckline flatters the throat.
Newest of all is dark purple chiffon, clinging in soft folds. Dark ribbon is drawn through the unusual white lace trimming.
Scotch terriers are ubiquitous.
I have seen one like a cuddly toy curled upon my best friend's bed—the latest night-dress case! A pair of them decorated the lapel of my tennis partner last Saturday. They are as popular as golfing figures or hunting scenes on really sporty silk square and tie sets. The very newest idea is to have dogs stamped in dark brown on a light leather hand-bag, on the cuffs of matching gloves, and on an umbrella cover. I didn't ask to see the umbrella, lest it also were covered with dogs. And I refuse to accept Scotties as a hair ornament or as charms on a bracelet!
It's a bit early to be buying glad rags for winter evenings, but certainly our summer dance frocks are looking wilted. Judicious colour will revive them. One of the most effective methods is to add a wide draped girdle. It is possible to buy paper patterns giving several styles. Very little material is required. Your own clothes sense will tell you what material—velvet, taffeta, lamé—and what colour is required.
“No, I don't enjoy the heat.”
“I can't bear hot weather.”
One feels sorry for people who have to make confessions such as these. They suffer real misery from headaches, heaviness, feverishness, during a heat wave. Too often, they regard such discomfort as unavoidable.
A little study of physiology, however, will convince them that hot weather conditions can be made bearable and even enjoyable. During the summer season, our bodies are most “alive,” developing, and building up reserves of strength in preparation for winter. The nerves, the ductless glands and the circulation function more actively. The body cells are broken down and rebuilt, and energy produced at a greater rate.
Consequently, there is a larger production of toxic matter, which must be got rid of through the usual channels. Failure of the body to cope with this extra elimination may cause a rise in blood pressure, feverishness or headaches.
How does the body cope with waste? A surprising quantity of toxins are got rid of from the lungs. Therefore deep breathing exercises are particularly valuable during the summer months.
The pores of the skin are more open during summer. To encourage the evaporation of perspiration, with consequent cooling of the body, clothing should be light and loose, preferably cellular in texture, so that air can circulate freely.
A daily tepid or warm bath, followed by a brisk towelling, removes the acid secretions which form a film over the skin. Salt water bathing is specially effective.
Exercise increases the flow of perspiration, but must be taken with discretion in very hot weather. Passivity in the heat of the day is best, but exercises in the morning and athletic activity, of not too strenuous a type, in the cooler part of the day, are beneficial. A certain amount of activity, especially walking, is essential to health.
Diet should undergo as radical a change as clothing. On hot days flesh
As the body may lose up to four pints of fluid on a hot day, it is essential to eat foods having a high water content. Tropical and semi-tropical fruits should be included as much as possible. Oranges, lemons, pineapples and grape-fruit are splendid for fruit meals and for drinks.
Prunes, dates, figs and bananas encourage intestinal elimination. The fruits of our temperate climes (apples, pears, etc.) contain much water and iron and phosphate salts which improve the blood and nerves.
Salad greens supply an added quantity of water to the diet and also assist bodily tone by their supplies of vitamins and mineral salts. The grated root vegetables, which add to the tastiness of salads, provide useful juices and the “bulk” which is so necessary in civilized diet.
Hot weather meals, then, should be carefully planned. Breakfast should be light, with fruit and cereals, or the cereal biscuits which are so much lighter on the digestion than bread. For lunch, the main dish may be a lettuce and egg or grated vegetable salad. Perhaps a cheese or nut savoury is desired as well. Cereal biscuits and butter will be found more satisfactory than bread. Dinner, served in the cool of the day, is the big meal. Serve several vegetables and a savoury dish. Light meats are best, and should be eaten sparingly. The meal should be topped off with a cold sweet or fruit, cooked or raw.
Fruit drinks should be taken frequently between meals. Cold drinks, and particularly iced drinks, should not be taken when one is overheated, as they affect the stomach and the smooth working of the digestive system. After a hot walk or a stiff set of tennis, the best drink is hot lemon, or hot tea with a slice of lemon. The hot liquid induces extra perspiration, the evaporation of which results presently in a feeling of coolness.
By simple health rules as to breathing, exercise, clothing and bathing, and by the planning of suitable light meals, the hot weather may be faced without fear. Summer may even become, because of its attractive diet, its delightful feeling of freedom given by a minimum of clothes, and the “holiday touch” about all spare time activities, the most enjoyable season of the year.
Furnishing Ideas.
The small dining room demands neat furniture in the modern style and with a light finish. The larger room allows the owner to indulge her penchant for the ultra-modern (plus chromium and glass) or period style.
If the dining-room is to be a room for use at other than meal-times, take particular care in its planning. Design the furniture to fit the room, not to fill it. Provide fireside chairs for comfort, and bookshelves and magazine racks for the idle hour. In the main suite, avoid the dullness of heavy oak and mahogany. If the room is fairly small, have a gate-leg table which can be set back inconspicuously against a wall. The dining-chairs should, of course, be comfortable, with backs made to fit, and seats upholstered in hide, rexine or tapestry. The sideboard must be planned with due regard to contents; avoid end cupboards if wall space is limited; space for cutlery drawers is saved if a baize-lined box is incorporated in a draw-leaf table.
Nearly as important as design, is the wood to be used. Popular woods are straight-grain oak and walnut. A natural waxed oak finish is attractive. (This type of floor finish is common in America. Rugs are scattered about and the floor presents a very attractive appearance, but requires more polishing than most New Zealand housewives are willing to give). Interest is lent to a very plain design by the use of two woods, e.g., Jacobean oak and bronzed oak. A suite in straight walnut may have bandings of deep figured walnut.
Tables: The increasing use of beautifully grained woods accounts for the disuse of tablecloths. Mats (so easy to launder!) show the graining of the modern table and the beauty of old pieces and reproductions.
Most tables have flap sides, or are of the draw-leaf variety, so that they may be accommodated to the number of guests. Styles vary from those that remind one of the kitchen table (save that the top does not overhang, and the legs may be of the new rounded shape) to the period refectory table. The modern variant of the refectory has very wide table ends, sometimes enriched with simple carving. Another variety has roll ends.
Sideboards: In regard to style, aim for one in which the general outline satisfies the eye. Avoid the type where the “undercarriage” is set in from the edge of the piece, giving a top-heavy look. It is quite possible for a piece of good design to be clear of the floor without having this top-heavy appearance.
Most sideboards are of plain shape, with a flat surface and no top-piece. Interest lies in the decorative use of wood—banding, carving, or inlay (e.g., large squares, with the grain running in different directions).
In very modern sideboards the drawer and shelf arrangement is less conservative, as in the case of one
A handsomely carved reproduction to accompany a refectory table, has a top-piece with cupboards and “pillars.”
The types of wood most used are Jacobean oak, natural waxed or limed oak, figured walnut and sycamore. Various combinations of woods are used. I have seen an oak suite with cross-grain banding in oak, and a waxed oak with walnut banding. A light-finish suite has dark handles and plinths.
All styles of dressing-tables may be seen: the three-drawered, flat topped table; the kneehole type with drawers at the sides and a shallow top drawer for beauty requisites. Mirrors are single (round or oblong), triple, or of the cheval type. Some triple mirrors have a curved outline. A mirror of triptych style may stand on a flat table. In modern sunk-centre tables a fairly narrow glass shelf is placed handily below the mirror.
Wardrobes and chests are more or less elaborately fitted according to the price one wishes to pay.
In furnishing the bedroom, don't forget day-time comfort. Have an occasional chair, perhaps with curved wooden arms. If you have a large room, you may like a bay-bed as well. Smart dressing-table stools may have panel ends, a shaped frame, an upholstered seat. The pedestal cupboard or bedside table should incorporate a bookshelf. For the double-bed, one can plan a head-piece built in, one with the table and shelves at either side.
Lounge:
Most lounge furnishing commences with the three-piece suite, which, though scorned by the would-be aesthete, is one of the most comfortable adjuncts of the home. For this furniture, which will receive heavy wear, make sure of the quality of springing and upholstering. Patronize a firm which is willing to give a guarantee.
According to the type of room, you will choose for covering tapestry, moquette, damask, velvet, quilted tapestry, leather or leather-cloth, a folk weave material perhaps in a tweed finish.
The shape of the suite may be square in outline with table arms, or the whole effect may be one of graceful curves. Very modern suites are made in one curve and have wooden arms instead of solid padded ones. A period note is struck with the bergére suite, made with a wooden frame and cane back, and with upholstery in silk damask or tapestry. Another period set has high backs and wings, and a covering trimmed with galon and fringe.
Occasional and fireside chairs are in bewildering variety, but nearly all provide the utmost in comfort.
Occasional tables, cupboards, bookshelves and magazine racks are of all shapes and sizes, and are, in many cases, planned in combination. Special corner pieces are also planned, e.g., the fitment containing bookshelves, cupboard and drawer. This piece is cleverly made to fit over the skirting board.
Health Notes.
It is usually during the cold, wet weather of winter and early spring, that many people show symptoms of rheumatism. The weather we are experiencing now, however, cannot be described as anything but changeable, and it affects those subject to rheumatism. At first there may be merely a sensation of soreness or stiffness of the joints or muscles. This may be followed, however, with gradual loss of power and freedom of movement, thus every care should be taken to guard against the attack of this enemy to health.
At the first twinge of rheumatism it is well to turn our attention to the condition of the teeth and gums, tonsils, and the digestive tract. Decayed teeth and unhealthy gums are an open invitation for this enemy “to walk in on us.”
Massage, with or without liniment, is efficacious. Warm clothing is essential and, of course, diet is an important factor. It is as well to cut down the meat ration—except white meats—and substitute fish, etc., instead. Eat plenty of green vegetables and fruit, both raw and cooked, but moderate your supplies of starchy foods, such as potatoes, milk puddings, and white bread. Fruit drinks between meals instead of tea and coffee, also help to drive away the enemy.
The “growing pains” of children are often a form of rheumatism. During changeable weather they should be suitably clad, so as not to run any risks on account of the vagaries of the weather.
Anaemic patients often look askance at the idea of a liver diet, being under the impression that it is monotonous, but it need not become objectionable if a little care and imagination are blended towards the preparation of various dishes. The most fastidious tastes may then be perfectly satisfied.
While taking the liver diet, fats and sugar are restricted, and not more than one glass of milk, or 1 oz. of cream should be taken daily. Plenty of green vegetables, fresh fruit, etc., are beneficial. Cereals, potatoes, bread and puddings are included in the diet, together with a small quantity of underdone meat. Salt and condiments are partially banished.
Liver Recipes?.
Add minced liver to chicken broth or clear soup, with a little salt and pepper. Heat, but do not allow to boil.
Steam liver in chicken broth until soft, mince liver or push through sieve, season with little salt and very little sugar. Use a dessertspoonful of gelatine to a pint of chicken broth. Add liver. Set in mould. Garnish with parsley and white of egg and serve on lettuce and sliced tomato.
Pass twice through the mincer 4 ozs. of liver, one shallot and a pinch each of salt, pepper and mustard. Put into a basin, add one tablespoon mushroom ketchup or other suitable sauce, one tablespoon orange juice and one tablespoon tomato pulp. Mix thoroughly and leave in a cool place till wanted.
A well made sauce should be free from lumps, have a glossy appearance and velvety smoothness.
Add liquid gradually and stir all the time the sauce is cooking.
Boil from three to five minutes, and then beat well until smooth and glossy.
One oz. butter, one hard-boiled egg, one oz. flour, one breakfastcup milk, pepper and salt. Take the yolk of the egg and with a fork work it into the flour until quite free from lumps. Melt butter in saucepan. Remove from the fire and work in flour and egg yolk until quite smooth. Add milk gradually and stir until boiling. Add pepper and salt and the roughly chopped white of egg.
By)
Leo Fanning .When you are weary of the daily spread of dread in the press, tired of the raucous yap of Europe, you are well advised to throw a few things together and speed away to Akaroa, a place of peace, where dictators cease from troubling and the happy are at rest.
It's very easy, you simply go to Christchurch, and let the Railway people take charge of you. They whirl you away in a comfortable bus, or they take you in a train as far as Little River, and pass you on to a car for the run over the hills and along the blue bay.
It is well to use the train for one of the journeys, because the carriages command delightful close-up views of Lake Ellesmere with its stately fleets of black swans in happy sanctuary during summer, and the lovable impudent pukeko flashing their blue plumage in games of hide-and-seek among the raupo.
Road and rail both give you some charming glimpses of harvest fields and pastures, cosy homesteads with bright gardens and tempting orchards—a real Canterbury salute which fills you with confidence that New Zealanders will continue to have a good living, plenty of the things which help a waist to keep its curves. Yes, it is a fortunate country, a favourite of Nature.
* * *
Once you are in Akaroa, you simply do as Akaroa does (enjoying the moments as they come). Everybody is friendly; there is plenty to eat and drink; the clear, clean water of the harbour is warm; the native birds sing for you; you wonder why you have ever worried about anything; you sleep well; nobody in Akaroa has nightmares; nobody has “nerves.”
* * *
The old French impress meets you in the names of streets—Lavaud, Balgueri, Benoit and others, and in the walnut trees. One feels that some of the French settlers must have had competitions in walnut planting. One can imagine the shout of joy long ago when an enthusiast found another good place for a tree. The beautiful foliage colours the hillsides, and in autumn the nuts drop on pedestrians from branches hanging over many of the paths which meander among orchards and gardens. A glance through leafy aisles shows the noble blue of the bay.
* * *
Various towns — particularly New Plymouth, Wanganui, Nelson and Greymouth—believe that they hold the tui championship. Well, if they can beat Akaroa they must have a marvellous wealth of tuis. During antumn and summer visits to Akaroa I have heard the chants and chuckles of tuis from dawn until dusk. There are also plenty of bell-birds. Early in January I heard their heavenly chimes—the peals of single birds—during the whole of an afternoon, a few minutes’ walk from the waterfront. In the Domain I saw bell-birds gracefully sipping the nectar of creamy flowers of the Kai-komako beside a path. They had not the least fear of me. Fantails and native pigeons were also friendly in that public woodland. I picked their thought: “This is Akaroa; everybody is kind to us.”
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Govt. Publicity photo.)
A glimpse of romantic Akaroa.
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A launch takes you to all kinds of cosy little nooks among the green hills, but chiefly to a cave near the heads. It is a huge temple of Nature, which fills the intruder with a vague sense of reverence. High up on niches of rock stand pied shags like statues. Now and then a bird flies across the huge dome. One can imagine that old-time Maoris came to that temple for some of their ceremonies.
* * *
Another day you have a seat in a Railway service-car that runs through the eastern bays, which carry on the peaceful tradition of Akaroa. The driver knows everybody and everything; he will write a book some day; it will be a good one.
On the summit road the many-bayed harbour plays hide-and-seek with you. One moment you think you have left it behind, but it is waiting for you
* * *
So in that old-world town of Akaroa the days and nights glide on blissfully. Finally you feel that there is only one thing wrong about it; you have to leave it. The terrible hands of duty clutch you, snatch you away, but you have memories that will comfort you when you are caught up again in the urge and surge of things in a place that is not Akaroa.
N.Z. Centennial News.”
A Helpful Publication.
One of the many activities of the Department of Internal Affairs in preparations for the Centennial is the publication of a monthly magazine, “New Zealand Centennial News.” In his foreword of the first issue the Minister, the Hon. W. E. Parry, remarked: “The national purpose of the publication is mainly to enable all members of Centennial organisations to keep in helpful touch with one another and with the Department of Internal Affairs, which is administratively concerned with the celebrations. The magazine will also have reports of progress, from various viewpoints, in different districts, and other suitable information.”
In that issue and in others the primary purpose has been kept well in mind. The contents have included brightly-written “Centennial portraits”—brief sketches of the careers of Captain William Hobson, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, Colonel William Wakefield, and Tamati Waaka Nene in a series which will include other notable actors in the early historic stage of this country.
Among other features have been facsimiles of the hand-writing of Captain Cook and the two Wakefields, reproductions of famous scenes, and articles in which the romantic past has been recalled.
The anticipation that the magazine would be helpful in the Centennial work was quickly verified. The preface of No. 2 mentions that the initial estimates of distribution indicated that an issue of 2,500 would be sufficient, but soon after the copies had been sent throughout the Dominion it became evident that another 1,000 would be required.
From the range of contents of the first four issues it is evident that bound copies of the complete series will be good souvenirs of the Centennial.
Specially Written for “N.Z. Railways Magazine,” by)
W. F. Ingram
Wellington athletes and supporters had a great day when the Australian stars, Ted Best and Gerald Backhouse, appeared at the Basin Reserve on January 7th. There was the best attendance at an athletics meeting for many years, and some brilliant racing was witnessed.
“New Zealand's Mile of the Century” brought together Gerald Backhouse, second at the Empire Games, Pat Boot, third at the Empire Games, and Billy Pullar, sixth at the Empire Games. It is history now, how Boot won from Pullar in 4 min. 14 3/5 sec.—the second fastest mile ever raced in New Zealand, but there is an “inside story” which is not so well known.
Backhouse had the distinction, at the Olympic Games in Berlin, of defeating, in the first heat of the 800 metres, John Woodruff, ultimate winner of the final. Backhouse told me that Woodruff was fortunate to qualify for the semi-finals. Backhouse used sound track tactics to beat Woodruff, when he went to the front and chopped down the long stride of the American Negro champion. Off-balance and striding too short, Woodruff could not settle down to run his usual race, and had to draw on all he possessed to reach the semi-finals. In the final, Woodruff did not allow any competitor to interfere with his freedom of movement, and won comfortably.
There was a repetition of this incident when Boot, Pullar and Backhouse met at Wellington. Backhouse went to the front at the start and shortened his stride. Boot, instead of falling into the trap, dropped back a little into third place. Then Pullar went to the front.
Pullar has a natural short stride and when he took the lead he set a solid pace which was acceptable to the other competitors. However, his short stride unbalanced Backhouse, who endeavoured to drop back a little and so get in his natural stride. Unfortunately for Backhouse, Boot was right behind him and he could not get out of the box. He was then forced to run slightly to the side and rear of Pullar. This forced him to face some of the strong wind that was blowing. Boot, on the other hand, was tucked in behind and sheltered from the wind.
For two and half laps, Billy Pullar, who had raced 4 min. 14 4/5 sec. at the national championships in Auckland two years earlier, set the pace to two of the Empire's best milers. A strong wind made his run a difficult one, but he did not shirk it. Never have Wellingtonians seen a more determined run than that shown by Pullar, but it was merely a repetition of his New Zealand titular effort at Auckland. A furlong from home, Boot shot to the front; it was the first time he had taken the lead, and he had waited until he had the advantage of the following wind. Once he went to the front there was no stopping him; he won by 15 yards in 4 min. 14 3/5 sec. Backhouse made an effort to overhaul him, but lacked the pace and condition, and gallant Billy Pullar, making a fresh return to life, chased Backhouse and passed him to take second place.
Boot received a wonderful ovation—and deserved it! But I do not place so much value on the actual winning of a race; I prefer to analyse what happened to others in the race and base my criticism on that. Boot won, because he ran a sound race; Pullar did not win, because he went out to run a fast race, a race to thrill the public with its concentrated speed and dramatic quality. I will never forget the “Mile of the Century,” but it will live in my memory, not because Pat Boot won in such grand time, but because of Billy Pullar's gallant run.
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Rly. Publicity photo.)
A recent photograph of the Railway Department's Workshops at Woburn, Wellington.
Information that Cecil Matthews, New Zealand and Empire's best distance runner, has had to receive medical and surgical attention for a rupture will be received with dismay by those who were anticipating something even better from the young Canterbury athlete. However, Matthews had not intended making this season a big one; he was concentrating on the Olympic Games to be held at Helsinki, Finland, next year.
This set-back to Matthews, although unfortunate, has come at an opportune moment. Matthews will now be able to rest for the remainder of the track season and commence his training with a view to the Olympic meeting. It is a theory I have advanced on many occasions—that New Zealand should select its Olympic team a season in advance and relieve them of strenuous qualifying competition in the season of the Games, thus enabling them to train under an amended schedule—and with Matthews in compulsory retirement—and resting—he
On February 18th, New Zealand will have its first “Fitness Week.” It is paradoxical that the sponsors of this campaign—the Physical Welfare and Recreation Council—will be more than satisfied if there are no people watching the displays! They would prefer everybody to be taking part and nobody looking on!
It may seem to be stretching the long bow to say that everybody—except those in hospital or invalids—will be able to take part in this “Fitness Week,” but an analysis of what can be done will show that there is a place for everybody.
The men of advanced years will be able to participate in bowls, or fishing; mother will have croquet or bowls—yes, quite a number of the fair sex play this intriguing game; the not-so-old men will have bowls, tennis, swimming, hiking, and most of the sports to which the youth of New Zealand has a leaning. All that is needed is a resolution that each and every New Zealander shall participate in some form of physical exercise during “Fitness Week”—and, having done that, to resolve that every week in the year shall be a “Fitness Week.”
Physical exercise is not necessarily based on sporting activity—although sport is a pleasant way of “taking the medicine.” A return to a pleasant half-hour of wood-chopping or lawn-mowing would do much to restore fresh vigour to many a husband who feels that Age is creeping up on him!
Just as a drunken driver is a menace to the community, so is a non-swimmer who persists in bathing in the sea, or rivers. Every New Zealander owes it to the community that he or she shall learn to swim. A survey of deaths by drowning during the summer months reveals that there are more deaths brought about in this manner than by motoring!
It is not difficult to learn how to swim. Of course, the younger one is when learning the easier it becomes, but even adult persons may learn in a very short time if they will only take the trouble to try. “Learn to Swim” week will be held concurrently with the “Fitness Week” and will provide an opportunity for all New Zealanders to learn and so reduce the mortality rate.
A red letter date in the history of New Zealand cricket will be the day on which Sir Julien Cahn's cricket team steps ashore in New Zealand. Sir Julien, a wealthy London business-man, makes cricket his hobby, and yearly assembles a team of cricketers worthy of international ranking and takes the team on tour.
Wit And Humour
It was the final of the local cup tie and feeling ran high among the spectators. One of the home team supporters was continually drawing the referee's attention to infringements of the rules apparently committed by the visitors, but the ref. wasn't having any. Finally, in the middle of the second half, when the noisy spectator had almost made himself speechless with his shouts of “Foul!” a train on the railway about a hundred yards away whistled loudly. “There you are ref.” shouted the man excitedly. “Even the driver saw that one!”
* * *
Which is you favourite railway station?—The one I have never been to.
What is your pet aversion?—People who loll about in corridors.
What is your favourite hobby?—Studying the bye-laws and regulations.
What is your earliest recollection?—Being hidden under the seat by father. (From “Punch.”)
* * *
Just before the train started a boy ran up to the ticket inspector and whispered: “Sir, there's two men on that train without tickets.”
The inspector searched the carriages in vain, and then seeing the informer standing near, enquired: “Where are they?”
“On the engine!” replied the boy, making rapid tracks for the exit.
(From the “Railway Gazette.”)
* * *
Well-meaning Old Lady: “Do you like to go to school, little boy?”
Small Boy: “Oh, going is all right, and coming back isn't so bad either. It's staying there between times that makes me tired.”
Wife (apologetically): “I took the recipe for this cake out of the cookery book.”
Husband (tactfully): “You did quite right, darling. It never should have been put in.”
* * *
“I'm a self-made man.”
“You're lucky. I'm the revised work of a wife and three daughters.”
After the Party: “And what about breakfast, sir?” The Delinquent: “Yes, of course. Bring me a piece of dry toast—say, on Wednesday week.”
The visitor paid his bill at the fashionable hotel, and as he went out, he noticed a sign near the door, “Have you left anything?”
So he went back and spoke to the manager.
“That sign's wrong,” he said. “It should read, ‘Have you anything left?'”
* * *
Mother (trying to give a lesson): “Now dear, what would happen if you broke one of the ten commandments?”
Child: “Then there'd be nine!”
Amiable victim (bowled over by accident): “I'm perfectly all right, thank you. I'm not a bit hurt.”
Motorist: “I say you're behaving jolly well about it. It is a real pleasure to knock down a thorough sportsman like you.”
* * *
“Waiter, there's a fly in my soup.”
“Well, after all, mister, how much soup can a fly drink?”
* * *
A Cockney rang up the station to inquire the fare to Ealing, but the man at the other end of the line couldn't catch the name of the station. In desperation he asked the inquirer to spell it.
The reply came as follows: “E for ‘Erbert', A wot the ‘orses heat, L where yer goes when yer dies, I wot yer sees wiv, N wot lays a heg, G (long pause) gee whizz!”
* * *
First Nurse: “It's hopeless!”
Second Nurse: “What is?”
First Nurse: “That glass-blower patient. Every time I try to take his temperature he blows a bubble in the thermometer.”
* * *
Said Mrs. Browne to her rather flashy new maid: “Mabel, when you wait upon my guests at table to-night, please don't wear any jewellery.”
“I have nothing valuable, mum,” replied the girl, “but thank you all the same.”
* * *
“Ye've worked hard and willingly for me, Pat,” said the farmer to his oldest employee, “and I'm going to give ye that fat pig.”
“May heaven bless ye, sorr,” said Pat. “It's just loike ye!”
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