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The New Zealand Railways Magazine is on sale through the principal booksellers, or may be obtained post-free for 6/- per annum.
Employees of the Railway Department are invited to forward news items or articles bearing on railway affairs. The aim of contributors should be to supply interesting topical material tending generally towards the betterment of the service.
In all cases where the Administration makes announcements through the medium of this Journal the fact will be clearly indicated.
The Department does not identify itself with any opinions which may be expressed in other portions of the publication, whether appearing over the author's name or under a nom de plume.
Contributions are accepted for publication only upon the express condition that the contributor will indemnify the Publishers of the Magazine against all claims made by reason of anything in the contribution constituting an infringement of copyright or being defamatory.
Short stories, poetry, pen-and-ink sketches, etc., are invited from the general public upon New Zealand subjects.
Payment for short paragraphs will be made at 2d. a line. Successful contributors will be expected to send in clippings from the Magazine for assessment of the payment due to them.
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All communications should be addressed to The Editor, New Zealand Railways Magazine, Wellington, C.1.
I hereby certify that the publisher's lists and other records disclose that the circulation of the “New Zealand Railways Magazine” has not been less than 25,000 copies each issue since May, 1939.
Controller and Auditor-General.
29/¼0.
Trowbridge.
A scene on the upper reaches of the Arthur River, near Milford Sound, South Island.
(Rly, Publicity photo.).
The fearless spirit which created the British Commonwealth of Nations—nations of free peoples—will save them and keep them for the welfare of humanity. Through the centuries, that indomitable spirit has been shown in great warriors of land and sea, navigators and explorers, statesmen and scientists. That spirit is not dismayed to-day by the mechanised hordes of Germany.
That spirit moved Captain Cook to sail boldly into uncharted seas of the Southern Hemisphere and to prepare the way for the settlement of New Zeland. That spirit sustained the pioneers of a century ago, and enabled them to triumph over many difficulties. That spirit animated a hundred thousand of this country's sons for a strong fighting part in the war of 1914–18, and the same spirit is sending thousands to-day into the crusade for humanity against barbarism.
Our men will do their duty with that stalwart British spirit which covered their fathers with glory on the battlefields just a generation ago. They will not falter; they will not fail.
In the grim days immediately ahead, it must be expected that there will be further destruction on land, sea and in the air; from time to time, there will be confused situations and that, with a battlefront flung over such a huge area, the fortunes of war will vary. There may be disappointing reports of ground gained temporarily by the enemy in his furious advances, made with a prodigal disregard of cost in men and equipment. But any initial disappointments will surely be met with confidence in the British will to win, and any inclination to gloom will be dispelled by recollection that, in this war, as in the last war and in all other wars, preliminary skirmishes do not win the struggle. It is the last great battle that counts! Britiain and France will meet the German onsets. In addition to their control of enormous material resources, and their command of the sea, they have the inspiration that they are fighting for right against the ruthless forces of savagery which are seeking to extinguish the torch of liberty and religious freedom.
The British Commonwealth, whose peoples have won their liberty through centuries of struggle will not be broken. It will survive in greater strength than ever to help the people of the whole world to enjoy similar liberty. The pitiless despot who has challenged the champions of democracy will be conquered, and the German nation will never be allowed another opportunity to destroy the world's peace.
Up to the time of writing this message, over a thousand members of the Railway Department have joined the military forces for service overseas.
Recent developments emphasize the gravity of the international situation and impress upon all citizens the necessity for further efforts, whether with the military forces or in serving their country on the home front. As one who has had long association with the personnel of all branches of the Railway Department, and who holds a deep and abiding pride in his association with the Service as a whole, I make a confident appeal to all members to give a maximum of effort and efficiency in the nation's cause at the present time.
I make a further appeal on behalf of New Zealand's soldiers who are fighting our battle overseas. It is our duty to help in providing for the welfare and comfort of our comrades, particularly the sick and wounded. With this object in view, I suggest the establishment of a Railway Patriotic Fund to assist the National and Provincial funds already approved by the Government.
A similar fund has already been sucessfully established in other Government Services and I feel that railwaymen whose patriotism, loyalty and charitable instincts are second to those of no other section of the community, will not wish to lag behind in such a worthy and humanitarian movement.
Whilst realising that the question of making small and regular contributions to such a fund is a matter for the conscience and circumstances of the individual member, I propose calling a meeting of officials of the four service organisations to discuss details of the suggested fund in order that members of the Service generally may be assured that the moneys contributed by them will be controlled by their own representatives. The decisions and recommendations of this meeting will be forwarded to all members at an early date.
Knowing the spirit of the men and women employed in the Railway Department I feel confident of that unanimous support which will ensure the Railway Patriotic Fund being worthy of the Railway Service.
General Manager.
(Rly. Publicity photos)
As this series of articles on our country's industries comes to its close, I am indeed a proud New Zealander. I have visited over one hundred manufacturing units of all sizes and types, producing with precision and skill all manner of things. I have watched a mighty “K” engine being made, and a scooter; a twenty-ton vat of soap and a tiny tube of junket tablets. I have been alternately impressed by gigantic plant installations and comforted by the beauty of factory buildings and appointments. Above all, I have been struck by the ingenuity and resource of our experts of all degrees, and by their habit of world travel in pursuit of world knowledge. I have the backing of more than one distinguished observer from overseas in making this statement: the distinguishing and universal characteristic of New Zealand plants is their adaptability, accompanied by an “outstanding proportion of original devices.” In other words, more “gadgets” are first thought of in New Zealand than anywhere else in the world. I do not pretend to have made a comprehensive survey, but the articles do comprise, in retrospect, a reasonably adequate cross-section. The broad generalisation to give is that we can make most things here which minister to modern needs, and make possible a modern standard of living. I can foresee the time when we shall make everything; it is purely a matter of development. What we now make is of world parity in design and efficiency; what we make is the work of fellow-citizens who are thereby provided with a proper return. “Buy New Zealand Goods” is not a patriotic motto; it is civic commonsense and commercial prudence.
Most folk have the sensible habit of keeping their medicine cupboard in the bathroom, so that, before I deal with the high pitch to which soap-making has been developed in New Zealand, it might be as well to look at an institution which makes basic drugs and other chemical preparations. I paid a call on the Q.-F. Laboratories, Wellington. This familiar landmark is usually regarded as the manufacturing unit for two famous proprietary articles, but the range of its activities is astonishing.
When a chemist, in dispensing your prescription, reaches for one of those large brown bottles of mystery, he will often be using a pure chemical with a Latin name. Ranking first in this line of activity is Hydrogen Peroxide, here titled “Proxogen.” Ethereal soaps, green, soft soap so much used in the operating room, brilliantines, macassar oil, shampoos, milk of magnesia, and other close relatives, stand in picturesque rows on the shelves, and toothpastes, shaving creams and codliver
The wounded mill manager wrought better than he knew when long ago he wrote a letter of praise saying that the Fluenzol gargle was “Quicker Than Other Liniments.” Those initial capitals were to lead an army of production units outside the scope of any possible prevision.
The history of the company is typical of many New Zealand organisations. The founder, the late Cecil W. Palmer, was famous for his almost fanatical belief in his preparations. He was succeeded by Mr. W. H. Stevens, some sixteen years ago, and the policy of expansion has been steady ever since. The present imposing edifice stands foursquare as an important addition to New Zealand's array of utility producers.
I went over the factory with the brilliant chemist whose long line of letters behind his name only represents part of his attainments, for he is a man of long overseas experience in the science of manufacturing.
The Q.-F. factory is packed with original and effective new designs in mechanisms. Stainless steel is everywhere, and there is an air of cleanliness and wholesomeness, helped by the lustral white of the machinery, walls, and overalls.
I examined a contrivance that tests with exactness the lasting powers of Proxogen, the tintometer which checks uniformity in the colours of essences, ointments and so on, and I was intrigued with the ingenuity displayed in adapting a tablet coating mechanism till it played the role of a pill-rolling vehicle.
Q.-F. Laboratories make the whole range of tablets, a complex and precise series of processes, requiring the use of granulating methods, careful drying, sieving, compressing, and finally, a sugar coating contrivance. The latter is done by a large hollow sphere which rotates on a canted axis. The tablets swing round and round and the sugar coating adheres to them. A regulated current of hot air dries the coating gently, and inspection proves whether or not the unpleasant-tasting interior is completely protected from the palate. The same spheres will make pills, the particles rotating till they become perfectly shaped little globules.
The Proxogen plant is worth special study. The output is one hundred gallons a day, and the process is too long to describe in detail here. A distilled water plant is installed, and there are serried rows of filter presses. An impressive apparatus makes ointment, using white paddles rather like small steamer propellers which work in a mixer furnished with smooth stone millstones to reduce all the materials to the needed fineness. It should be mentioned that every now and then Mr. Harvey would pause and say: “This was made in New Zealand from my own design.” And the observation covered mechanisms ranging from large metal vats to more complex apparatus.
Filter presses consist of hollow plates which force the liquids through canvases, and it was noteworthy that in the Proxogen department these were all coated with oxygen-proof paint.
In the granulating room, there are 180 trays in enclosures steam-heated from underneath, and the resultant tablets are turned out by the machines at the rate of 4,800 per hour. I saw 84,000 tablets in one hollow sphere being sugar-coated, and next door a similar number being polished.
In another large workroom I enquired about masses of neat coils of slender iron wire, and found that these went into Bidomak along with phosphates and calcium. Everywhere I saw that regular and frequent tests were made at each step in the manufacturing processes. What Q.-F. Laboratories turn out is right up to B.P. standards. I accept the statement, too, made with quiet confidence, that in many preparations, noticeably Milk of
As one door opened, there came a whiff of perfume, heady and seductive. I was shown a bottle of rose perfume containing £215 worth of essence, which is easily understood when I learned that it takes a ton of rose leaves to make one pound of oil.
I should like to say, in leaving this admirable establishment, that it displays confidence in its future in a most practical way. The chief chemist has made provision everywhere for “doubling up,” and the roomy premises give ample facilities. The wide scope of Q.-F. Laboratories, the sturdy determination to adhere to stability and purity as watchwords, and its “chemically pure” composition as an all New Zealand company, are all features that call for high praise. Moreover, a full page would be required to contain the list of enterprises in New Zealand devoted to the making of drugs, chemicals, and kindred products. Vast premises such as those of Kempthorne, Prosser & Co. exist in many New Zealand centres, making everything from familiar toothache drops to stupendous outputs of our farming “life-line” fertilisers.
Everyone who has made the East Harbour trip to the Bays of Wellington will have noticed the spreading collection of modern buildings which house the vast enterprise of Lever Brothers, a household word from “China to Peru.” In an issue of the Port Sunlight quarterly, “Progress,” there is an article which describes the Petone site as combining “utility with beauty of surroundings,” and elsewhere in the same issue there are pictures of
But the most famous creation of the late Lord Leverhulme was Port Sunlight. “Some day to build houses in which work-people will be able to live and be comfortable” was the modest outline of his dream, in 1888, and the brilliant realisation is known the world over. Port Sunlight is a gracious model town of six thousand people, where life is pleasant, and planned, where modern standards of physical comfort are common to all its inhabitants. I value more than the material amenities the noble realities of brotherhood and communal endeavour for which Port Sunlight stands. Pensions, educational facilities, sports fraternities, holiday provisions and other civic advantages, are matters of right for the workers in this great British institution.
All honour to the founder who made the affirmation, startling at the time, that “the cheerfulness of the Port Sunlight community was the measure of the prosperity of Lever Brothers Ltd.”
The Petone works are extensive and the journey through them is no pilgrimage to be measured in minutes. Characteristically, by the side of the main gate, a handsome, one-storey building stands in its own green and flowery grounds.
I was soon initiated into the mysteries of modern soap-making on massed production lines. Here is nothing of “hit or miss” methods. Scientific precision, analytical research, and endless, scientific and thorough testing go into every process.
In the main laboratory, with its technical library and intricacy of glass tubes, retorts and complex apparatus, I was shown the shelves of “standard” preparations. Every new batch of soap, bottle of glycerine, tube of shaving cream, tablet of toilet soap, and every other of the long list of Lever products, has to conform in every minute particular to these, or be immediately rejected.
“No soap; so he died” is more than the opening line of a superb piece of nonsense verse. Soap was known in the misty dawn of time; there was a soap factory in Pompeii when it was overwhelmed by Vesuvius, and our own hardy pioneers made soap from the fat of New Zealand sheep and the potash got from the burning of New Zealand timber. The scientific basis of the processes of soap-making were, however, only dimly understood until a century ago.
For the layman, soap production is managed by the union of a metallic salt with a fatty acid. Fats, as we know them, whether vegetable or animal, are composed of fatty acids and glycerine. “Saponification” takes place when the mineral salts take the fatty acids away from the glycerine. The minerals used are alkalis, sodium and potassium, because these are soluble in water.
This job being done, the soap-maker has then to separate the soap from the glycerine, and this is done by using salt to which soap is unfriendly, as anyone who has tried to lather in sea water will readily believe. The panroom at Levers is an example of this process on a large scale. The vats hold twenty tons of soap at a time, and an ingenious system of movable levels, steam pipes, and inlets and outlets, contrive to drain off the glycerine remainder and precipitate the soap.
A huge boiling of Sunlight soap was
“Lifebuoy” has the familiar reddish colour, and as the vats recede in content, pinkish stalactites make their appearance on the sides. The distinctive blending of the ingredients means that every huge vat has not only a distinctive scent but a different con - sistency and colouring.
When everything is found to be in order with a boiling of household soap, it is run into long cooling frames, rectangular tall boxes whose sides let down. The great slabs are cut into bars by wires pulled through by pressure. These are dried and proceed to a pressing machine which stamps the tablets. I noticed an occasional deep notch in the large slabs and found these were for laboratory testing purposes. The packing in cartons is the usual mingling of almost human mechanism and incredibly dexterous fingers.
These household soaps differ in make-up, and the gradations are got by kilful adaptation of materials, and the use of different alkalis, resins and other chemical ingredients.
Now, toilet soap-making is quite “another story.” Here the processes are more complex, the ingredients highly selective, and infinite pains are taken. The soap itself, delicately pure, goes over water-cooled rollers which make it into an incredibly thin film which is scraped off by set knife edges. Drying chambers concentrate this film till it becomes 63 per cent. pure soap, but it has still more troubles ahead. It has a seven-fold milling and refining journey. To ensure the full permeation of the perfume, an elaborate set of happenings takes place. After the usual frame cooling, toilet soap is milled into shavings and matured again in a carefully regulated oven. Then the perfume is added and again the strips are worked until they are plastic and come out from the marbling mills like ribbons that have been accordion-pleated. Finally, the ribbons are pressed into bars, cut into neat tablets, and double stamped under tremendous pressure.
But one begins to see life in earnest at Levers’ factory in the preparation of Lux. This is made in a many-towered court of white where the intensive purpose is to get complete dryness in the flakes. Here you can watch the Lux diamonds pressed out in thousands, dried and dried again and again, finally ascending a lofty turreted flue. At long last there emerges a snowy white flake powder of ethereal softness and almost unbelievable purity. Here seemed to be the very soul of soap.
Finally, we looked in at the making of Persil and kindred preparations. The constituents for these are weathered in bags for six weeks. They then pass through sifting grids, go up in conveyers again to grinding machines, and generally are tormented, bedevilled and purified till they pass the tests of the laboratory experts.
The oxygen content of Persil is most ingeniously effected, and is a potent agent in this unique preparation.
In the beginning, readers will recall that brine is used to separate the soap from the glycerine, and nothing is more interesting than the care taken with this, the most important by-product of soap manufacture.
There is a newly-installed great department here which is reminiscent of a modern liner's engine-room, with its big boilers, steel-plated floors, and huge pipes. Here, in great vacuum boilers, the glycerine can be seen through the peepholes, furiously boiling, and eventually it emerges, chemically pure and completely colourless. This plant is the very last word in this branch of the scientific utilisation of soap-making by-products.
The activities of this vast establishment which provides opportunities for so many hundreds of New Zealanders are almost countless. Sunlight products, from Rinso to shaving cream, are known wherever cleanliness is considered worthwhile.
While in Auckland, I spent an interesting morning in the old-established works of the “Union Oil, Soap, and Candle Company.”
In this great factory is made the famous Taniwha soap, and here again I saw the up-to-date and scientific method in use which has revolutionised the cost and quality of soap. I saw copra being ground into its component parts in an enormous mill, which separates the pure oil and leaves a pollard-like substance which becomes a nutritious pig and poultry food. The oil is extensively used in Taniwha products.
Here is made the famous “Sylvia” starch. Starch is made from rice; it is ground into a fine powder first and then put through a number of processes which take out the gluten content and other impurities. Next it goes into drain boxes, and, after a period, is cut into squares. These are carefully wrapped and put into a “crusting” room, where great heat is applied. As these parcels are unwrapped, snowy starch is revealed. The qualities of Sylvia starch are genuinely due to the infinite patience and thoroughness of the preparation. The rice silo has to be seen to be believed, and the huge flat tanks where the starch is seen to be slowly solidifying into white flaky masses are imposing. Three hundred tons of rice are held at one time, and from this is distilled the milk-white liquor which is finally to become starch.
For sheer scenic value, however, I recommend this company's department devoted to the manufacture of soda crystals. A trip through this gleaming place with its changing panoramas is rather like a trip to the Franz Jozef glacier. Here are ice caves, miniature crevasses, overhanging transparent ledges of strange beauty and variety.
The Union Company specialises in this form of housewives’ help.
The making of candles is an art, and to my astonishment I found that the demand for this form of lighting is keen. “The more things change, the more they are the same,” seems to be as true in New Zealand to-day as when the French cynic first said it.
I had forgotten the variety of shapes, colours and materials in candles. There are the transparent wax, the graceful fluted taper, the stearin, and the solid, every-day sperm. The tallow, paraffin or other constituent, has to be carefully treated to give it the solidity required. The big vats hold eight tons at a time, and the contents are steamed into them, distilled, and then set out in trays for cooling. A high-powered hydraulic press takes the next step, extracting out all the oil. The candle-making machines are uncanny and complicated mechanisms which are the nearest examples of perpetual motion I have seen, particularly in the surpassing ingenuity of the wick-drawing method. An endless string draws through in a continuous line through the moulds which are set in rows like a colonnade of small pillars.
The Union Soap, Oil and Candle Company is one of New Zealand's veteran enterprises. Its name derives from a combination between two manufacturers whose actual start was made in 1865, the company dating in its present form back to 1882. I found this big organisation a happy family, many of the seniors having a lifetime of service behind them.
It is a fine example of New Zealand initiative, enterprise and pioneering courage. At the Otahuhu works I was conducted by a trained chemist of high scientific attainments, and I would like to stress that in these three great units visited, I was impressed with the number of experienced and enthusiastic experts of high practical and academic standing employed by the firms in question.
In these branches of industry, New Zealand is marching with the times.
Mr. G. G. Stewart
Mr. G. G. Stewart, Manager of the Publicity Branch of the Railways Department and Editor of the “Railway; Magazine,” has retired on superannuation after 42 years of varied service.
He came as a young lad from Scotland with his parents who settled at Nelson. There he received a sound primary and secondary education which gave him good qualifications for a railway cadetship at Westport in 1898.
He served in various districts, including Hawke's Bay, Wairarapa, and Nelson. In 1915 he was transferred to the Auckland district, and served at Mercer, and was stationmaster at Thames. He then went to Auckland, where, until 1924, he was in the District Traffic Manager's Office. He was then appointed a commercial agent, with headquarters at Wellington, and after service in that branch was in the Transport Department. From this position, because of his wide general railway knowledge and his literary versatility, he was appointed Editor of the “Railways Magazine” in 1925, and was made officer in charge of the Publicity Branch when this was established in 1926. He became Publicity Manager in 1927. For the greater portion of 1930 he was also acting commercial manager.
When he started on the work there was no “Railways Magazine” and no Publicity Branch, and he had to organise both, beginning with one assistant. With a widening of the range of activities the staff grew, and a photographic and plan-printing section was established, which has proved an important part of the Publicity Branch.
Mr. Stewart was an early President of the Wellington Publicity and Advertising Club.
On 13th May (the eve of his retirement) his colleagues of the Publicity Branch gave him their good wishes with a set of reference books. After warm tributes to his successful career in the branch, it was predicted that he would win further distinction as a writer.
Rly. Publicity photos.)
Scenes at the Railway Department's exhibit on the closing day (4th May, 1940) of the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition at Wellington.
[Copyright]
The entrance to a town is one of those things that the traveller notes first and often remembers most, after other impressions have become faint and blurred and merged with a hundred memories. Our provincial towns and townships have, to a large extent, lost individuality. One little market place or producing centre has its local Babbitry and Main Street, its Rotarians, its Chamber of Commerce and its Progress League, its golf links and town hall and mayor, just like the other fellows along the line. Quick travel, the radio, tinned music and American uplift, have standardised the whole boiling of them. The farm is no refuge, neither is the lock-up. But there is one characteristic of the provincial town or townlet that often retains some individual touch, and that is its entrance. The approaches to it remain different. Man's reading hand and his architecture modify, spoil or improve the landscape.
This is all by way of preface to my cursory review of some memories and impressions. Here are two contrasts in town approaches. You enter Putaruru between two churches, each perched on its hill cutting. Fifty miles away you enter the township of Kihikihi between two hotels, face to face at the elbow of the main road. The one seems to set out to respectable-ize the town to the traveller's eye at the start; the clergy's certificate of character.
At first acquaintance Kihikihi—you have its life here and there as on the West Coast—does not trouble about testimonials; it is content to remain what it was fifty, sixty, seventy years ago.
My selection of township types is merely at random; yet when I come to think of it one is a fair working example of a comparatively modern brisk little business town; the other an easy-going old-timer, comfortably farming away, and rather given to retrospective satisfaction with its place in the making of New Zealand history. It is not exactly a has-been; but it has a past, even a lively and a bloody past, the interest of which I can supplement with the remark that it has also a gloriously boozy past.
Who should know if not I? For I knew the place when the Native Land Court era was in flower, the era of free trade in Maori lands, the like of which we shall not see again. My home was not far away; “my father was a farmer upon the Maori border”—to adapt a line of Burns, and Kihikihi was our nearest township.
The military story of Kihikihi (the name means cicada, one of those ono-matopoetic names so numerous in the Maori tongue) goes back to the war of 1863–64, when all this Waikato country passed to the strong hand of the pakeha. There is no need to go into all that; we of the elder generation know it and its repercussions only too well.
But one recalls the fact that this was Rewi Maniapoto's home, and the place of his council meetings; his headquarters and the muster-place of his tribe. That fact made it important in the military and political sense; important, too, was the fact that it was the only part of the huge Ngati-Maniapoto territory which was confiscated by the Government in revenge for the temerity of the Maori King's party in demanding local-self government. However, we won't go into that. Waikato unhappily lost all their land; and they remained as refugees in Ngati-Maniapoto territory for a-quarter of a century after the war.
Kihikihi, first a strong place of the Maori, then a British watch-tower of the frontier, was a military post well into the Eighties. In my boyhood's memories the rifle and the blockhouse and redoubt are the foremost features. All the frontier, on our pakeha side of the Puniu River, was studded with fortified places, either of earthwork or of timber stockades and those topheavy-looking loopholed blockhouses which stood on hills and knolls all the way round from Cambridge and the Pukekura hills to Orakau and Kihikihi and on to Alexandra.
But, except for the busy camps, the drilling of Armed Constabulary and the Waikato Cavalry troops, and the occasional shooting or tomahawking affair on the border, farming progress was little disturbed.
Then, as we grew up into the early Eighties, the changes came. Old King Tawhiao came out of his retirement; we saw at close-hand his great march of peace; Te Kooti was given the glad hand of peace by the Government; the frontier was opened, the barriers of racial hatred were removed; peaceful trade began and increased; schools went up, military watch was no longer needed; the unoccupied blockhouses and redoubts crumbled or were demolished by the township people regardless of historical values and forgetful of the protection those little forts gave the families of the frontier.
The partition of the great King Country began; the beginning of the ruin which the land-buying of Government and private individuals and syndicates brought upon the Maori.
The frontier went crazy over the quick exchange of blocks of land for the pakeha cheques which were cashed in the stores and the public houses. Hundreds of the native people camped in the townships—Alexandra and Cambridge, as well as Kihikihi.
Thousands of pounds were spent in those hotels and stores; they were scenes of such noisy revels, such mad drinking and rowdy shouting and dancing, such shopping regardless of expense. What impassioned protests from the business people of Kihikihi in 1886 when at last, and not a bit too soon for the welfare of the Maori, the Government removed the Land Court sittings into the interior of the King Country. Yells of rage from the hotel-owners especially, for Otorohanga where the first Land Court in the King Country was held, with Major Mair as the presiding judge, was “dry,” by decree of the Maori Big Three—Wahanui, Taonui, and Rewi. They were determined to save their people from the scandalous traffic in Waipiro, and they succeeded, for Otorohanga was a place of model behaviour for the duration of the Court, several months, and afterwards until the pakeha came for good. And there was soon no more of the old King Country we knew, in the wide fenceless time of the Rohepotae.
“When I heard they were growing and manufacturing tobacco in New Zealand,” writes Mr. Jas. Scattergood, a retired wholesale tobacco dealer, in a London trade journal, “I was not keenly interested, concluding that probably the stuff wasn't worth smoking. But last year, when I visited New Zealand to see my married daughter, I found to my surprise that the New Zealand toasted tobacco had actually become a serious rival to the imported article—and that it is not only of superfine quality but that thanks to the small amount of nicotine in it, it may be smoked ad. lib. without a particle of harm resulting to the smoker. After 50 years in the trade I can say unhesitatingly that I know of no other tobacco like this.” Well Mr. Scattergood there 1825 according to his son, the late H. V. Gully.Is no other tobacco like it! It is unique. And the five toasted brands, Riverhead Gold, Desert Gold, Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Cavendish, and Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead), are as well-known as Mount Cook. The comparative absence of nicotine in them (eliminated by toasting) is the secret of their harmlessness.
Kihikihi now had its real school, succeeding the primitive era of the Seventies. In the first little one-room school I knew the master made hot buttered toast for himself every winter morning at the fire while we hungry tantalised youngsters looked on and shivered. Not a crumb for us. He was a German, or Swiss; at any rate his name was.
The next teacher had a basin of gruel brought to him by his daughter every morning; he ladled in the burgoo with one eye on us and his cane ready to his hand at his high desk. I can't recall that I or my Maori mate, Billy Puke, who rode in from Orakau daily, ever learned anything under those two pedagogues.
In the early Eighties our first real teacher came and really taught us something—he was a good old Waipu Nova-Scotian Highlander, Mr. Norman Matheson, whose memory I love to this day. He had been one of the Rev. Norman McLeod's Gaelic flock, and the Highland tongue was strong upon him. As was the way with those who had “ta Gaelic” he had his own way with English consonants; he called me “Chimmy,” and called the school-kit a “kid.”
The surveyors came, for there was much pioneer work defining boundaries of blocks of newly-purchased Maori lands, and cutting the blocks into farming sections. There were parties of the kai-ruri and their men exploring bush and fern and swamp lands; and the stores were busy in a new enterprise, supplying pack-horse trains for the camps from the line that is now the Main Trunk westward to Kawhia and Mokau and inland to Taupo and the upper Wanganui.
And that period, 1886 to the end of the century, was the end of the King Country as we knew it in the Hauhau days and the transition era when barb-wire, policemen and white collars began the new invasion of the Maori sanctuary.
Govt. Publicity photo.
Mt. Ngauruhoe in winter garb.
National Park is a national all-the-year-round recreation resort which too many New Zealanders fail to appreciate. Its attraction as a snow-sport centre in the season is undisputed, but when I said that I would be there for the greater part of my annual holiday, the almost horrified reaction of dozens of people was, without exception, “But what on earth will you Do there in the summer?”
Two added scornfully: “That desolate, colourless spot!”
Desolate and colourless? I gasped. A place that is drenched in subtleties of colour for those with eyes to see: eddies of low, purple-tinted flowers against the tawny brown of the plains; masses of white-flowering shrubs lying like drifts of snow on the silent hillsides; the sudden warmth of golden broom flaring against grey boulders; starry patches of mountain daisies standing primly on silver stems beside silver-white rapids; exquisitely-tiny white bells swinging blue-tipped petals on thin brown stalks above beds of deep green moss, heads of creamy bells with their stems tinged with rose-red, or clusters of four-petalled golden-stamened flowers with green leaves closing compactly up beneath them and tight buds packed securely in the centre.
Of all the hundreds of folk who flock down for the exhilaration of the winter sports, how many realise how much they are missing by not seeing the Park in summer time, when so many of its diverse attractions are visible and accessible as they never are during the winter?
James Cowan, in his exceedingly well-written and well-informed book, “The Tongariro National Park,” describes these attractions in the following words:
“Steaming craters, sulphurous pits, a boiling lake, ice-cold lakes, glaciers, snowfields, alpine slopes, torrents and bubbling springs, rapids and waterfalls, huge cliffs and rocky pinnacles, forests and wild fern gardens, mountain meadows bright with leagues of flowers—to enumerate the varied scenes of the Tongariro Park is almost to make a catalogue of all New Zealand's landscapes.”
Even a casual stroll up the metal road of the mountain gives glimpses which are superb; a dazzle of white at a corner as Ruapehu comes into sight, its massive shoulder thrusting into the burning blue sky; on the right the beeches dropping down the hillside in tiers and conveying, through the wide spacing of their boughs and the smallness of their leaves, an indescribable quality of light and airy loveliness; on the way back, a different vista as the great cone of Ngauruhoe soars into the sky, its grey flanks striped with long claws of snow.
From the Chateau itself the panorama is rich with colour: dull green of the beech woods, tawny gold of the rolling hills; emerald green of the golf course slashing the landscape like a sword; dim brown of the plains broken by a range of hills as deeply-blue as a bird's wing. Far off, the flat-topped distinctive outline of Hikurangi. In the distance, tier on tier of further hills, merging from smoky-blue into grey-blue, from grey-blue into silver-blue, from silver-blue into the silver pallor of the skyline.
Or let the “no colour” critics take a walk to the Waiuku Gorge, starting through the beeches where the path is dappled with shifting light and shade, where a cold, clear stream cascades over boulders that its minerals have painted a bright golden-brown; through the open country and up a hillside till a fantastic outcrop of grey-black rock gives a look-out over the Gorge.
Sheer below the rock face, the delicate airiness of the beeches slants steeply down, the leaves of the trees directly below glistening in the sun as though each one were plated in pure silver. To the left, the river, far above the Gorge, gouges a narrow passage through the rock-cliff and hurls a veil of water down, down to the heart of the valley below—to thread the silver-grey boulders together with a ribbon of quicksilver, while on the farther hillside a half-hidden waterfall is a white flash behind a screen of lacy green.
Or, at the Taranaki Falls, let the critics again watch a river fling itself through a narrow chasm in the rock face and, thundering downwards in the light, carry a living rainhow with it to the pool below.
Of a certainty, delicate beauty and rugged grandeur dwell side by side in this domain of 149,700 acres, where “almost all New Zealand's landscapes” meet and mingle.
Of the Red Crater on Tongariro
“The last-born of the craters which once discharged lava within the walls of this basin of black scoria rock and cinders is the still active Red Crater—a mouth of glowing colour set round with jagged rocks, and venting hot sulphur and acid-laden steam and strange noises, and fearful pulsings and thumpings from the depths of the volcano. This Red Crater is 600 feet above the floor of the main crater and is about a quarter of a mile across. The scoria forming the sides is wonderfully coloured in red, orange, blue, yellow and black, with bright yellow sulphur incrustations….”
No wonder Maori legends, as Mr. Cowan says, embody weird stories of “the multitudes of genii and demons with which the native imagination
(Govt. Publy. photo).
The origin of the name Ngauruhoe as related in Mr. Cowan's book is interesting:
“When Ngatoro reached the foot of the range now known as Tongariro, he decided to ascend it in order to spy out the country, like the modern surveyor.” He was, however, caught in a snowstorm, “a new and terrible experience for an immigrant from the tropical isles of the ocean. In his extremity he prayed for the fire of the gods.
“His priestess sisters heard him and appealed to the fire-demons, Te Pupu and Te Hoata, who sent the saving fire. The flames of life burst on the peak-top and his body gained warmth and he was saved. The words ‘riro’ (carried away or seized) and ‘tonga’ (south wind) in his prayer to the goddesses were the origin of the name Tongariro… When Ngatoro-i-rangi put forth his prayer, he slew a female slave as an offering to the gods. This slave, who was a personal attendant and food bearer, was named Auruhoe. When the god-sent flames of life burst forth Ngatoro threw the body of the slave into the blazing crater and that was how the volcano came to bear its name…”
Very interesting to the pakeha, but most unfortunate for poor Auruhoe, who had to pay the price of death for the perpetuation of her name!
There are variations of this legend, of course, just as there are variations of the tale of Egmont, Pihanga, and Ruapehu. Mr. Cowan, retelling one tale, says that in the old days:
“…. An assemblage of great mountains stood in the heart of the North Island. Like gods they stood there…. Tongariro was chief of them all, but… lofty snow-topped Taranaki stood there … and there also stood Tauhara and Putauaki” (now called by the pakehas Edgecumbe). “They were males, all these mountains; they were gods and warriors—all except one, who was a female. Her name was Pihanga… and these mountains loved Pihanga and each wished her to become his wife. But the one she favoured most was Tongariro” (Tongariro and Ngauruhoe being regarded as one). “He won her by fierce combat; he turned upon the other mountains and forced them to depart. He fought them and defeated them; Pihanga was his…
“And the defeated mountains debated among themselves whither they should go.” Tauhara and Putauaki decided on the Bay of Plenty, Taranaki” the setting-place of the sun.”
All one night they travelled. At daylight Taranaki halted at the west coast, where he stands now under the name of Mt. Egmont. Tauhara and Putauaki travelled north, Putauaki, halted by the dawn, standing still “at the northern end of the Kaingaroa Plain, nearly a hundred miles from his original standing place.”
Tauhara, however, was “the slowest of the three rejected lovers. He travelled with tardy, lingering steps; he paused many times to look back towards Pihanga, whom he was leaving. And when daylight came and stopped his march he had only reached the place where he stands now, near the shores of Taupo Moana. And he ever looks back across the lake at beautifull Pihanga.”
Taranaki mythology differs, and as Mr. Cowan points out, there is a remarkable similarity in this kind of animistic symbolism between the mountain folk-tales of New Zealand and those
Of the place names round the Park, one which owes its origin to actual history is that of Whakapapa—“to lay out flat-like boards or flat rock.”
“On the upper parts of the Whakapapa River a battle was fought about five generations ago between Ngati-Tuwharetoa, led by Pouwhare, and a war-party of Whanganui men commanded by Manako. The Whanganui invaders were defeated and many of them were slaughtered, and their bodies were laid out side by side on the rocks and tussock. This level array of corpses was compared to a flat rock or table…”
The story of the Haunted Whare also has its source in fact. In the early days when sheep-stocking was being attempted in the mountain country, a Maori shepherd, by name Wi Takerei, was found dead on the floor of a slab whare built near the waterfall on the Whakapapanui, one of his eyes being missing. “The lonely desolate spot on which the whare stood had been regarded by the Maoris as haunted by the ghost of a young woman who had come to a violent end near there, and now the people were disposed to believe that the kehua or ghost had had something to do with the young shepherd's death.”
The Haunted Whare now standing is not the original whare, but stands about a quarter of a mile from the site of the original hut. Soon after it was put up, “it was occupied for a time by a surveying party working around the mountains, under an assistant surveyor named Springall, who had a Maori wife. Some time in 1883, Springall and his wife and another Maori woman were snowed up in the whare. Late one afternoon they were playing cards at the table facing the one window when suddenly the woman saw a face at the window. The apparition seemingly was that of a young Maori woman, of a handsome and fair type. The two wahines were overcome by the shock. Springall rushed outside but could see no one, and there were no tracks on the snow.”
Later, after the whare had been deserted for a time, a traveller camping there for a night reported seeing the same face at the window, and an old recluse who was stationed there as a shepherd “used to say he was visited by a mysterious Mohoao woman several times.”
But for a last impression of National Park, let us make a summer-time ascent of Ruapehu. As we go up to the Salt Hut area by car, an extraordinary sight lies spread before us—the whole of the landscape right out to the horizon obscured by an immense snow-field of curling white cloud apparently frozen into immobility, the sensation of unearthliness at the sight being exactly the same as that received in a plane, when great banks of cloud below shut out the solid earth and open up another world.
Yet around us the world of valley and hillside, of green trees and running water, was so clear in the early morning light that it seemed to have been purified, and the air was so thrillingly clean one wanted to taste it.
From the Ski Club hut the climb really began. Up over rock faces, trudging heavy boots whose soles were lavishly bestrewn with hobnails, past a waterfall from which the spray was cold on the lips, on up to the glacier, where only the slip-slip of footsteps in the snow broke the silence, a rhythm that became hypnotic. On and on, up and up, till the vast sweep of the glacial fields stretched pure and lovely under the morning sky, with three or four skiers making dark patterns against the background of blinding white. Then, at the summit, a stillness and whiteness so profound that it could he felt. Ice-cliffs rising from the hot lake in the crater, the white spire of Te Heuheu slashed by black lava ridges; then, lower down, as we descended, to the right the gleaming waters of Lake Taupo, beyond it the outline of “trady Tauhara.” In front, the stretch of the plains now visible, with all its nuances of rich and dim blues and greys, greens and browns, and far to the west,
(Govt. Publicity photo.).
Then the thrills of the descent—and what thrills! Taken on a “private toboggan” formed simply by sitting on the snow, clasping the hands round the lifted knees to keep the feet from impeding speed—then rushing down, down, down in a dizzying whirl that for sheer excitement and exhilaration would be hard to beat. And so, finally, back for late afternoon-tea in the Chateau lounge, a sun-bath on a Lilo on the big sun-balcony, a bath, dinner, dancing, music, billiards, table tennis—all the unlimited comfort and social fun of a superluxurious hostel in a national park which is a national asset, offering superb facilities for all-the-year-round recreation.
Along with a number of other primitive people of the Pacific area, the pre-Euro-pean Maori practised the art of Tattooing, or Moko. According to a native myth, Moko was introduced by one Mataora, who long, long ago visited the subterranean spirit world of Rarohenga, and after a short sojourn there brought the practice back to the mortal world. Some see in this story a perverted remembrance of a voyage made by some far-off ancestor to a land where tattooing was in vogue.
The prevalence of the custom among the Maoris was accounted for by the belief that it made the appearance of the warriors more terrible in war, when fighting was carried on at close quarters; and also caused them to be more attractive to the opposite sex, as well as its significance from a religious point of view. Tattoo showed at a glance, also, the rank of the wearer. The great chiefs had their faces and bodies covered with a variety of designs of extreme beauty, while all the freemen were more or less decorated in this manner, slaves only being denied the privilege. In the case of females the tattoo—which was purely to enhance their beauty—was usually confined to the lip and chin.
The process of tattooing was a long and painful one. The first step was the removal of the subject's beard, which would not be allowed to grow again until he reached old age, and was then a proof that he had ceased to care for his appearance, and thus the hairs were pulled out by the roots. In olden days a pair of mussel shells was employed for this purpose, but with the coming of the Europeans large tweezers took their place.
The instruments used for making the incisions in the flesh were like small narrow chisels, “usually made of bone, but in some cases a sharp stone or shark's tooth took the place of these. Of the bone chisels some had merely a sharp edge while others were furnished with comb-like teeth. These chisels were of various sizes and shapes so that they could be applied to different parts of the body and were used for fine or coarse work. The average width of a blade was about a-quarter of an inch, and all were hafted to wooden handles by binding with native twine.
After the removal of the subject's
The method of applying the colouring matter seems to have differed with the districts, for some authorities state that the cutting instrument was dipped into the pigment, for each cut; others that the colouring matter was rubbed into each incision, or that a wisp of tow was drawn across the separate incisions.
A good account of a typical Moko operation is given by John Rutherford, one of the six of the crew of the Agnes, captured by the Maoris in 1816. He says:
“The whole of the natives having seated themselves on the ground in a ring, we were brought into their midst, and being stripped of our clothes and laid on our backs, we were each of us held down by five or six men, while two others commenced the operation of tattooing us. Having taken a bit of charcoal and … produced a thick liquid, they then dipped into it an instrument made of bone and having a sharp edge like a chisel and shaped in the fashion of a garden hoe, and immediately applied it to the skin, striking it twice or thrice with a small piece of wood. This made it cut into the flesh as a knife and caused a great deal of blood to flow, which they kept wiping off with the side of the hand, in order to see if the impression was sufficiently clear. When it was not they applied the bone a second time to the same place…. While I was undergoing the operation, although the pain was most acute, I never either moved or uttered a sound, but my comrades moaned dreadfully… Although the operators were very quick and dexterous, I was four hours under their hands, and during the operation Aimy's (a chief) eldest daughter several times wiped the blood from my face with some dressed flax. After it was over she led me to a river that I might wash myself (for, it had made me completely blind) … and then conducted me to a great fire … In three days the swelling which had been produced by the operation had greatly subsided, and I began to recover my sight, but it was six weeks before I was completely well. I had no medical assistance of any kind during my illness.”
To tattoo a person fully was, in fact, a matter of time, for if too much was attempted at once it positively endangered life; therefore weeks, months, and even years might be required to complete a piece of work.
As if the physical torture of Moko was not sufficient, the subject, while under the hands of the tattoo artist, was subjected to the laws of tapu or taboo, by which he was forbidden all communication with people who were not in the same condition as himself. In eating he could not touch his food with his hands, but was either fed by another appointed for the purpose, or took it up on a fern stalk as a fork, since according to the old superstition, the man who dared to raise a finger to his mouth before his Moko was completed for the time, would find his stomach invaded by the Atua or fiend, who would devour him alive,
Before the coming of the white man to New Zealand the pigment employed in the Moko process consisted of either the burnt and powdered resin of the kauri pine, kahikatea, or that of koromiko, a veronica, the latter being considered to give the best results. In European times, however, gunpowder was used as a colouring agent. This was rubbed into the cut and produced a blue mark which time could not efface.
The earliest form of Moko pattern was probably that called by the Maori “Moko Kuri,” which consisted of a set of short lines successively set at right angles to its neighbour, on either cheek, with the variant of the form S in the middle of the forehead, but the designs employed at the time of the coming of the Europeans were much more complicated, of which the accompanying illustrations are good examples.
Certain features were common to all Moko patterns, so that at a distance one fully tattooed man looked exactly alike another. Chief among these features were curved lines on either check-bone, four curving lines on each side of the forehead, lines between and below the check-bones and ears, lines on each side of the nose, six lines on either side of the chin, and lines on the centre of the forehead, the latter usually taking the form of eight radiating bars with a V-shaped central recess. From the nose to the end of the chin on either side were sometimes three or four sets of lines passing the corners of the mouth like a parenthesis. The upper lip was adorned with varied and suitable patterns, while the lips themselves had rows of closely-placed horizontal lines. The
It is clear from the above that the majority of the lines and curves which go to make up the Moko design follow the course of the facial muscles and wrinkles, giving emphasis to the whole.
The operators or artists in Moko were usually professionals who worked for hire. The reputation of a skilful man became well-known, and he was regarded by his less talented countrymen as a person of great ability. The professionals acquired their skill by practice, which was only made possible by the fact that some Maoris, being unable to afford the fee of a fully-fledged artist, considered the efforts of a beginner better than no Moko at all. To secure the services of a distinguished artist men would travel considerable distances, while presents and payments flowed into the coffers of the widely renowned operators—double-barrelled guns, canoes, clothes and even slaves were presented to these distinguished persons. A certain Aranghie, one of the most famous of artists in Moko, according to Mr. Earle, draughtsman to H.M. survey ship Beagle (1827) “… was considered by his countrymen a perfect master of the art of tattooing, and men of high rank and importance were in the habit of making long journeys in order to put their skins under his skilful hands … I was astonished to see with what boldness and precision Aranghie drew his designs on the skin and what ornament he produced. No rule and compasses could be more exact than the lines and circles he formed … It was most gratifying to behold the respect
In addition to enhancing the appearances of the wearer and showing him to be a man of rank, it ensured that upon the death of the tattooed one, his head would be severed from the body, preserved, and become one of the family treasures. The chief object of this custom appears to have been the perpetuation of the memory of the dead, and the preserved heads of mokomokai, as they were called, took the place which statues and other monuments fill in European society. In the case of a departed chief his mokomokai was a sign that in some mysterious way his presence still dwelt among his people, inciting them to emulate his virtues and to follow in his steps. Mokomokai of a slaughtered warrior served to keep alive the memory of the injury received by the tribe in whose possession it remained, and afforded a constant challenge to revenge or retaliation. The heads of relatives or friends were kept carefully hidden awaay in some secluded spot, being brought forward for the public gaze only on great occasions, such as tribal gatherings.
The process used for the embalming of the heads differed from district to district, but in a typical case the first act following decapitation was the removal of the brain from the skull by way of a perforation at the back of the latter, the cavity of which was carefully cleaned of all fleshy matter. Next came the removal of the eyes, and a small manuka stick was inserted between the skin and bone of the nose to preserve its form, and in a great number of cases the tongue was also removed. Thus far completed the head was next exposed to the rays of the sun, and then smoke-dried over a wood fire. When the desired stage of desiccation was reached, this process ceased, and the eye sockets were carefully filled with flax or in some cases artificial clay and shell eyes were placed in them, but if the former filling was used, the eyelids were simply closed and sewn together.
The first example of mokomokai to reach Europe was a specimen taken home by Captain Cook, and was only given over by its owners with very great reluctance. With the arrival of unscrupulous traders, however, a regular business in preserved heads sprang up, and all the beliefs and ceremonies of ages were swept away, and no man with a well-tattooed face—other than a chief—was safe since such individuals were constantly watched with the hopes of being caught off guard, so that they might be killed and their head sold to the traders. In 1831 Governor Darling, of New South Wales, issued a proclamation prohibiting this form of trade, and so successful was it, that when an expedition from America visited New Zealand in 1838, only two heads were obtained.
New railway records, are being set up in Britain these days. Freight traffic has attained undreamt of proportions; passenger business steadily grows; locomotive and wagon shops are turning out new equipment on an immense scale; and new junctions, running loops and sidings are being brought into use by the hundred to facilitate the war effort.
The summer passenger rush, which normally extends from Easter to the end of September, would, it was thought, prove this year to be on a greatly reduced scale. Actually, experience is showing that there is every prospect of the summer vacation bookings being well up to average. Because of the petrol rationing, large numbers of travellers are being brought to the rail route; then, there is the regular movement of parents visiting their children in the evacuation areas; and, curiously enough, there has sprung up another big passenger movement in connection with the periodical visits of members of the staffs of big city firms to their London homes, from which they were dragged away when many banks, insurance offices, and business houses transferred their headquarters into the country early in the war. Unlike the German railways—which have placed the severest restrictions on civilian movement—the Home lines are everywhere available for civilian travel. Additional trains are placed at public disposal at week-ends and public holidays, and cheap fares of various kinds continue to operate. The principal cheap bookings consist of monthly return and weekend tickets, while for day outings cheap day-tickets at single fare for the double journey prove most popular.
Limited though passenger publicity necessarily must be, the Home railways have thought it well this season to issue as usual their annual holiday handbooks. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, and it is recognised that hardworking civilians will find refreshment and new vigour through a brief seaside or country vacation. I have before me as I write two of the new holiday guides—the Great Western “Holiday Haunts,” and the Southern “Hints for Holidays.” The G.W. publication is a splendidly produced volume of 744 pages. There are descriptions of about 600 resorts and 5,000 holiday addresses, and illustrations are again a special feature. The attractive wrapper depicts a couple of beach belles basking in the summer sunshine somewhere in the West Country. The Southern Company's “Hints for Holidays” handbook runs to 512 pages, and it has been published largely at the request of many proprietors of hotels, boarding houses and apartments, who regard the work as one of the most important channels for their publicity. Like the Great Western handbook, “Hints for Holidays” provides wonderful value for sixpence, and a generous proportion of first-class illustrations has been maintained.
New works, other than those directly called for to facilitate our war effort, have been reduced to a minimum on
The Metropolitan Railway forms one of London's most important transport links, and recent official figures tell of the striking growth of traffic over this route, and of the increase in the population served. In 1933, some 25,348,000 passengers bought tickets at Metropolitan stations. In 1938 the figure was 38,446,000, an increase of 52 per cent. Including passengers who purchased their tickets at other stations, it is calculated that some 53,300,000 people made use of the Metropolitan line in 1938. The Metropolitan Railway passes through thirteen administrative areas, and the population of these areas grew from 727,000 in 1931, to 958,700 in 1938, since when even more striking increases in population have occurred. To meet increased demands for travel facilities, the London Transport Board extended the running of Piccadilly trains to Uxbridge in 1933, and in 1935 embarked on a big improvement plan on the Metropolitan line. Recently, Bakerloo Line trains have commenced to run over the Metropolitan as far as Stan-more.
Cinema publicity is growing in favour the world over. Here at Home, we have just witnessed the release of a fine film production styled “Carrying On,” devoted to a review of the part which railways have played since the beginning of the war and how the growing effort of the nation is being served. The film was shot in different parts of the country: locomotives and trains, men, women and children, merchandise, guns and foodstuffs form the “stars.” The story opens towards the end of August last, when thousands of holiday-makers were being handled by the railways, while behind the scenes the transport officials were perfecting their plans for any emergency. Then, evacuation scenes are pictured, with 3,000,000 people being carried to places of safety in the biggest mass movement ever attempted. At midnight on September 1st, the Government took over the railways, and we are shown war work in progress. Carriages and premises were blacked out; trained A.R.P. personnel took up their stations; armed guards appeared at strategic points; the rapid movement of troops, guns, tanks and munitions commenced; reinforced concrete control rooms were completed for use in emergency; over six miles of passenger carriages were converted into ambulance and casualty trains; and hundreds of special trains were provided at short notice, carrying the machinery and man-power of our fighting forces. The film gives us shots of every phase of war-time railway activity, and apart from its propaganda value provides an invaluable record for posterity of the magnificent effort of one and all associated with the Home railways war machine.
Railway buildings of various kinds continue to be turned over to the authorities, and many railway hotels now house servicemen or Government departments. One of the first railway buildings to be acquired for national use was the Southern Railway Orphanage, one of the finest institutions of its kind in the country. Fortunately, it has been possible to find suitable homes for all the children, and to-day the orphanage serves as a splendidly-equipped hospital. Four of the largest establishments run by the Railway Convalescent Homes movement also have been transformed into hospitals. Waiting-rooms and other
Up to the time of writing, no great use has been made of the casualty evacuation trains constructed in the Home railway shops. These trains, however, form a vital part of the A.R.P. programme, and they are ready for use at a moment's notice. The trains are each composed of twelve vehicles, and are primarily intended for the evacuation of civilian casualties from First Aid or Clearing Stations to the Base Hospitals. They are stabled at suitable points throughout the country, and each train is made up of two corridor brake thirds, nine brake vans and a vestibule vehicle. The third brakes are equipped for the storage of domestic, food and medical supplies, and have cooking facilities and compartments for the train staff. The brake vans are fitted with brackets on both sides of the bodywork to carry stretchers, of which more than thirty are available in each car. The remaining vehicle is used by the train staff for mess and recreational purposes. The exteriors are in the railway companies’ own standard colours, and no special finish is given inside.
When the barque “Tory” sailed into Port Nicholson on 20th September, 1839, the settlement of New Zealand was begun. This is a landmark in our history as clear-cut as Tasman, Cook, or the Treaty of Waitangi. The arrival of the “Tory” was the first step in the development of Wellington. Cook Strait was full of whaling-ships, dozens of them, but with the exception of a small missionary schooner, Port Nicholson had not been visited by any ship for many years. The voyage of the “Tory” is a very important, interesting, but little-known story in the growth of this colony.
(Detail from a sketch by Charles Heaphy).
The settlement of New Zealand by the New Zealand Land Company in 1840 was preceded by the preliminary expedition in the Tory, led by Colonel William Wakefield, brother of Edward Gibbon Wakefield. The expedition was dispatched from London to make necessary arrangements for the settlement of the colonists who were to arrive early in January, 1840. The Tory herself carried no colonists, in fact, apart from the officers and crew, there were only six cabin passengers aboard. Of this important party, many later played a conspicuous part in the development of the colony. Colonel Wakefield guided the infant city of Wellington through its first critical years. Edward Jerningham Wakefield, Edward Gibbon's only son, was prominent in the political life of the colony and published a most exciting account of the first years of the settlement, Adventure in New Zealand. He came out as a mere youth of nineteen, as he said himself, in search of adventure. Another mere youth, Charles Heaphy, was employed as draftsman to the company. His record is a particularly creditable one. He left behind a magnificent collection of paintings and drawings, did great exploration work, was Commissioner of the Thames goldfields, fought in the Maori Wars, reaching the rank of Major and earning the Victoria Cross. The naturalist was Ernst Dieffenbach, New Zealand's first political refugee, a Berlin medical student who had been exiled to London. His explorations and reports were notable contributions to the development of the colony. He was, incidentally, the first white man to climb Mount Egmont. Dr. Dorset, a popular figure in early Wellington, was surgeon to the company and was proprietor of a well-known establishment in Wellington, the Medical Hall. The only other passenger was a native Nayti. who had found his way to Europe in a French vessel, and returned as interpreter to the expedition. His services were dispensed with soon after the arrival in New Zealand. He is the only member of the party who is lost in oblivion. The pace of European development was too much for his simple outlook and like so many of his fellow natives he has been disregarded as a factor in the bestowing of the blessings of civilisation. The master of the Tory, Captain Edward Main Chaffers, a distinguished naval officer, had been master of the H.M.S. Beagle, the survey ship with Charles Darwin aboard, which had called at the Bay of Islands in 1836. He also remained in Wellington as unofficial harbourmaster, where he rendered incalculable service by charting the harbour and discovering the passage at the entrance which bears his name. Several of the crew also remained in New Zealand, but the master and his cabin passengers certainly occupy a most prominent and creditable position in the history of the colony.
The Tory was a three-masted barque of a trifle over 384 tons burthen. Her length was only III feet. She was regarded by all who saw her as a particularly trim craft with fine lines and exceptional sailing qualities. Captain Chaffers was most enthusiastic about her ability and reported on the voyage out that they passed every vessel they had come up with, including some large ships. He even expressed the desire to fall in with a man-of-war to put her to a real test. One interesting feature was her figurehead, which was a large reproduction of the Duke of Wellington, and which strangely enough had nothing to do with the naming of the city. The Tory was the only vessel the New Zealand Land Company ever owned, all the others being chartered. She was built in 1834 and purchased in November, 1838, for £5,250 from Joseph Somes, the Deputy Governor of the
He died in 1845 worth something between one and two million sterling. The London Times in his obituary stated: “… in the city he was very highly esteemed and naturally enjoyed the great influence which arose from high character and ample capital.” He was, however, a very able man and performed valuable services to the Land Company in arranging the shipping even though he may have been performing valuable services to his own company at the same time. Of the details of the arrangements we are not here concerned. After many setbacks the vessel finally left Gravesend on 5th May, 1839. A very elaborate public luncheon had been held on 29th April, at which the Earl of Durham was present and on 5th May the passengers of the Tory dined with a few friends before going aboard.
The Tory ran round to Plymouth, nearly ending her voyage at the beginning by fouling a schooner on rounding the breakwater. After a delay of four days she finally left England on her adventurous expedition.
The trials of the past few weeks soon disappeared, with the hills of England, which many of them were seeing for the last time. The next day running before a fair channel breeze at a steady
(From a sketch by Charles Heaphy).
Tory began to settle to her long voyage and the passengers to the details of their life aboard. Captain Chaffers kept to the east and ran down the coast of Portugal. On the 22nd, the little party saw in the distance the hills of the island of Palma, one of the Canaries. This was the only sight of any land on the whole voyage. Captain Cook had remarked on one of his voyagers on not seeing land for 1,098 miles but the Tory did 16,000 with a faint glimpse of Palma and 14,680 without any sign of land.
On board, life was very dull, and a weekly manuscript paper and a debating club helped to pass the long hours. One interesting, if dangerous experiment, was performed by Edward Jerningham, who hypnotised Charles Heaphy. Colonel Wakefield reported the incident, giving details of Heaphy's conduct, which was apparently very violent. Some days later Heaphy was again, “magnetized” as they called it and Colonel Wakefield this time tersely dismissed the incident by reporting: “Nearly same effect as before.”
The Tory, though an excellent craft, was particularly foul in the hold, and various efforts were made to destroy the foul air which was so strong as to blacken the paint in the forecastle. The health of the crew was very bad during the voyage, but they did not appear to see any connection between this and the ship's condition. It is strange to think that to-day this would be an obvious explanation.
On 7th June, the Tory crossed the Equator, twenty-six days out of Plymouth. On 10th July the Cape of Good Hope was doubled and the run, almost direct to New Zealand, along the Roaring Forties, began. On several days, runs of over two hundred miles were registered, and finally to everybody's delight land was sighted on 16th August. This proved to be the high land on the West Coast not far south of Cape Farewell. The voyage had taken 96 days, which was a remarkably fast passage. This was the fastest passage for many years to come and certainly the fastest of any of the company's ships. I have been unable to find the date that the Tory's record was beaten, but it was certainly many years later. The speed in reaching New Zealand was very fortunate for the company as there would have been much confusion if she had taken even a moderately long voyage. The Cuba, with the surveying party aboard, took 157 days. Then the immigrants had left England well before word was received of the Tory's arrival and it can well be imagined what their plight would have been if the Tory had not made such a fast passage.
On the morning of 17th August the vessel slipped slowly between Long Island and Motuara into historic Ship Cove in Marlborough Sounds. The next morning she was moored within 300 yards of the shore by a hawser to a nearby tree, thus occupying nearly the same position as Captain Cook during his three earlier visits to this anchorage. The Maoris who spoke “more or less English,“
“A basket of potatoes weighing 20 lbs. sold for a pipe, and a blanket which cost eight shillings in London fetched three pigs 80 lbs. each and this was considered a liberal scale of barter on our part.”
On 31st August the expedition left Ship Cove for Te-awa-iti, even then corrupted into the now familiar “Tar-white.” Here the ubiquitous Dicky Barrett came aboard and though the confident visitors were not aware of it (they were reduced to mirth at Dicky's appearance) the new settlement was at last on the road to success.
Three more weeks were spent in the congenial if roystering company of the whalers, and Captain Chaffers charted Tory Channel (and its western extremities) naming it after the ship. Points Dieffenbach and Heaphy; Colonel Wakefield took an expedition up the Pelorus River. At daylight on 20th September the Tory weighed anchor and slipped through the narrow and treacherous entrance, across Cook Strait and under all sail raced along the rugged coast to Port Nicholson heads, where even against a stiff nor'-wester, no difficulty was experienced in beating into the harbour under the instructions of Barrett. Somewhere up the channel probably from Seatoun, two canoes put out and the two principal chiefs of the harbour. Te Puni and Wharepouri, came on board, where they were welcomed by Barrett, who was related to them by marriage.
The Tory stood on up the harbour and finally anchored north of Somes Island (Matiu). The chiefs stayed aboard and even at this early stage excellent progress was made with negotiations for the sale of land. They invited Colonel Wakefield to inspect the land immediately and during the next week the ship and all on board were kept busy. Colonel Wakefield and Edward Jerningham explored the valley, Dieffenbach and Heaphy went on a huia expedition into the Orongorongo Valley, and Captain Chaffers and Te Whare spent five days with one of the boats surveying the entrance of the harbour, of which an excellent chart was made. There were fishing expeditions led by the chief mate, Richard Lowry, to a small bay which thereafter carried the name Lowry Bay.
Amidst this hurly-burly of activity Colonel Wakefield arranged the details of the purchase of the land. On the deck of the Tory on 27th September the goods were displayed and the deeds signed by the chiefs and witnessed by Barrett, Lowry and Nayti. On 30th September, the famous celebration took place on the beach. Thus was the city of Wellington born, and on 4th October the Tory slipped out of the harbour leaving a contented Maori people enjoying the full benefits of the muskets, jews harps, razors, nightcaps and sealing-wax.
The Tory put into Cloudy Bay on 5th October, but Colonel Wakefield decided that it was unsuitable, and left on the 13th for Te-awa-iti.
Tory anchored off Kapiti just too late to see a battle between the Ngatiawa and Ngatiraukawa which had taken place that morning and had finished on the beach in view of the whalers. Eventually, however, the sale of land was arranged, a sale which was later repudiated by Te Rauparaha and a further sale was arranged in East Bay in the Sounds where Barrett rejoined the party.
On 17th November, after many delays, the Tory set off up the coast calling at Wanganui and Sugar-loaf Islands (New (Continued on page 34
).
(Continued from page 31).
Plymouth where Barrett was left to buy land and Dieffenbach made arrangements for the ascent of Mount Egmont. The Tory headed north to Hokianga where no sale of land was arranged and on 19th December, she put in to Kaipara but was wrecked on entering the channel. Great difficulties were experienced and all the passengers were nearly lost in the long boat, but after much cargo had been jettisoned the Tory was taken up the harbour, run ashore and repaired near Beacon Point.
This long job necessitated Colonel Wakefield's hurrying across to the Bay of Islands and chartering a small brig to return to Port Nicholson to receive the first immigrants expected early in January, 1840. The Tory was finally roughly repaired and arrived back in Wellington on 7th March. No further use could be found for her in Wellington so on 19th April she set out for Sydney for repairs and cargo for home. The first mate, Richard Lowry, was in command.
The rest of the story is shortly told. It is a sordid ending to such a romantic performance.
The Tory arrived in Sydney on 7th May, and refitting was begun. This was a costly process and was made more expensive by large expenditure on liquor. Finally, on 15th September, she left for the East Indies for cargo, with Richard Lowry as master and Nicholas Lowry as first mate. Richard Lowry died after leaving Batavia and Nicholas was often confined to his cabin, drunk, leaving the ship virtually in the hands of William Elgar, the boatswain, who, incidentally, was the father of the well-known Elgar brothers, prominent settlers in the South Wairarapa.
Apparently, Nicholas Lowry's habits were known to the company, for on hearing of Richard's death, efforts were made to remove Nicholas from the command of the vessel. However, Nicholas unwittingly managed to forestall them by wrecking the ship on Half-moon shoal in the China Seas on 21st January, 1841. Here, however, we meet one of those episodes of the sea, so many of them unrecorded, which are epics of endurance, hope, despair and frustration. Two small boats with twenty-nine men, no fresh food, in a treacherous sea, surrounded by islands inhabited by head-hunting natives, were a thousand miles from a European settlement. These hardy men, however, set off for the nearest land, 55 miles away, and after landing, cooking the beef, and filling every available vessel with water, set out on the long voyage back to Singapore. This port was 900 miles distance, but the necessity of keeping land in sight added another weary two hundred miles to the voyage. The dangers from the sea were added to by