are so mild, and the rainfall so abundant, that growth goes on right
through the year. Maturity comes so rapidly that it is said to be quite
a common thing for the farmer to plough up pasture and re-sow it simply
in order to get rid of weeds, a heavy hay-crop being reaped the very
next season. Large areas of permanent, original pasture were also seen,
especially in the Southern Island--tussock grass, which, as its name
suggests, grows in knobby tufts, but is not on that account to be
despised as fodder, enormous numbers of sheep and cattle growing fat
enough to kill for the market without any other nourishment. Turnips are
raised, to help out the grass in the winter months, but this is only on
a comparatively small scale. The greater part of the stock is entirely
grass-fed. Lambing, calving and milking take place in the open, and
steers go straight to the packing establishments, without previously
seeing the inside of a building of any kind. This accounts for the
profits that are being made out of sheep-farming, stock-raising and
dairying in New Zealand, in spite of the enormous prices paid for land
which, in good districts, is now changing hands at figures ranging up to
L170 per acre.
The Prince learnt, also, in his long drives through the forest, of the
nature of the timber; of the virtues of the tawny-foliaged _Rimu_, or
red pine, used for the interiors of houses; of the light, easily worked
_Kahikatea_, or white pine, for which such large demand has sprung up in
New Zealand and Australia for making packing-cases for butter, that
fears are felt lest forests, hitherto considered inexhaustible, should
become worked out; also of the _Matai_, or silver pine, which seems to
last for ever, even when exposed on such hard service as that of railway
sleepers, without any creosoting or other artificial protection.
About noon, the cars emerged upon an open valley, and the Prince was
given a public reception at Murchison, a village of wooden houses, which
were found in holiday array, the decorations including masses of holly
in the fullest Christmas glory of ripe scarlet berries, a curious
contemporary of the orchards, still loaded with unpicked apples, that we
had seen in the Nelson valley only a few hours before. In the Murchison
district alluvial gold-washing still goes on, but it is only a small
survival of what once was a flourishing industry, the yellow metal that
filled the west coast with diggers, fifty years ago, having almost
entirely given out.
Beyond Murchison, the gorges again contracted. The river became a white
torrent, rushing through a dark, winding channel, hedged with big, grey
rocks, above which rose sage-green, forested mountains. About six in the
evening we emerged on the Inangahua--"mother of whitebait"--tributary.
Here the valley widened out, and we saw a wonderful west-coast sunset.
The mountains took on vivid aquamarine blue and imperial purple, shading
into palest pink, as they faced towards the light or away from it.
Against this background, yellow-frosted poplars and scarlet-leaved wild
cherries stood out in sharpest contrast, the whole, with a pearly sky,
producing an effect of exquisite fantasy. A soft brown owl, fluttering
into our staring faces, recalled the fact that night had come, and that
shelter was still far off.
The Prince traversed the Inangahua marshes in the dark, reaching the
west-coast township of Reefton late at night. The streets, nevertheless,
were thronged with people. Illuminations and fireworks were in full
swing, and His Royal Highness had a reception in no way inferior to his
daylight greetings elsewhere. At Reefton he was in Westland of the warm
heart, the Wales of New Zealand, a land of collieries, lumbering,
gold-mining, and fishing, home of the late Richard Seddon, whose
eloquence did so much, in the long years of his Prime Ministership, to
bind New Zealand in that close alliance with Great Britain which bore
such gallant fruit when the great call came.
With Reefton I should class Inangahua, Greymouth, Westport, and last,
but most important of them all, Hokitika, head-quarters of the province,
which is represented in the New Zealand Government by Mr. Thomas Seddon,
son of the late Prime Minister, and one of the first members of
Parliament to volunteer for active service when the war began. In all of
these centres the Prince was most warmly received, Hokitika particularly
distinguishing itself by the size of its gatherings, and the good taste
bestowed on the decorations of its streets.
The Prince's journey from Reefton to Westport was by motor through the
lower gorges of the Buller river, where the scenery was again
magnificent. Much of the route was along a narrow winding shelf, a
precipice dropping to the water beneath, while above the rocks overhung
the road, sometimes, as at a spot appropriately named the Devil's Eye,
to the extent of completely over-arching. The steep mountain-sides
around were covered with dense vegetation, gaunt Rimu trees smothered in
the embrace of flame-flowered Rata vines, and green lance-leaved
_kiakia_ creepers, with a thick undergrowth of tree-ferns standing erect
like pirouetting dancers in stiff green skirts and long black legs,
amongst a lesser crowd of gorse and bracken. The silence of the gorge
was broken only by the ripple of water and the sweet flute-notes of grey
Tui birds, a delicate contrast with the clangour of the church bells,
rung in honour of the Prince's visit, when the procession of motor-cars
emerged upon the open coast, and reached the mining township of
Westport. Here the reception was on the level, within sight of an
inclined road down which is brought what claims to be the best admiralty
coal in the world. This coal is mined high up in the hills above
Westport, and was burnt upon H.M.S. _Calliope_ when she thrilled the
world by beating out of the hurricane off Samoa in 1899. The Prince
returned in the evening to Hokitika. In an open square in this city next
morning, where the snows of Mount Cook shone out on the horizon, he was
presented with a digger's leather bag containing nuggets of west-coast
gold.
[Illustration: WESTPORT CHILDREN: A TUMULT OF FLAGS AND FLOWERS]
[Illustration: DUNEDIN'S WELCOME]
From Hokitika the route was by train, via the labour-controlled township
of Greymouth, and up the fine Brunner valley, passing a number of
winding-shafts of mines producing good steam-coal, where miners were
making L2 5_s_. daily, and more of them were urgently needed. In the
afternoon Otira was reached, where New Zealand's longest railway tunnel,
which when finished will complete the hitherto broken connexion across
the island, was in active course of construction. Here the Prince left
the railway and travelled partly by a four-horsed coach, and partly on
foot, amidst heights and glaciers, over the magnificent Arthur's pass,
which overlies the tunnel, itself two thousand feet above sea level. The
tunnel is one of the big engineering achievements of the century. It is
five and a quarter miles long, and has been so accurately laid out that
when, a few months since, the excavations from the two ends met in the
middle, they were out only by three-quarters of an inch in alignment and
one and a half inches in level, a minuteness of error of which Mr.
Holmes, Engineer-in-Chief, and his technical staff may rightly be proud.
Cheers, every few minutes, from people it was too dark to see, broke in
upon the rattle of the Royal train speeding to reach Christchurch by
dinner-time. Jolts at intervals informed us that we were crossing
sidings in the suburbs of a considerable city. Presently light shone
into the windows from outside, and we came to a standstill in a railway
station that might have been that of Oxford. Upon a red carpet,
stretched from the entrance to where the Prince's saloon drew up, was
standing Mayor Thacker, with ermine, chain and cocked hat, also members
of the corporation, waiting to welcome the Royal guest. By the time one
could get through the throng upon the platform from the front of the
train, the Prince, who was in the rear where a lane had been kept, was
inspecting a captain's guard of men and colours in the presence of the
dense, cheering crowd that pressed on the rope-barriers. A procession
followed, through two miles of decorated, illuminated, cheering,
flag-waving streets, the route kept with difficulty by police and
territorials. The cars soon separated from one another in the press.
Those who were towards the tail of the procession lost sight of the
Prince. Small boys waved paper flags in their faces, and had to be
discouraged from climbing on the radiator. Larrikins decided that one
correspondent was the Prince's doctor and christened him "Pills."
Another, the substantial representative of the "Daily Telegraph," was
found to resemble Mr. Massey, and was cheered as "Bill." Presently the
procession came to a standstill altogether, the crowd being squeezed
tight up all round, in front, as well as on the steps and mud-guards.
Horn-tooting and endeavours to move forward an inch at a time, coupled
with the vigorous assistance of the police, gradually got us on the move
again, and amid a din of laughing and cheering we saw the Prince being
got out of his car and carried into the club where he was to stay, to
reappear a few moments later on the balcony and wave acknowledgments to
the people, by this time squeezed solid once more.
Similar scenes occurred on the following day, the same cheerful,
friendly, British crowd assembling in the streets and blocking the wide
Latimer Square, where the Prince received a number of formal addresses,
inspected a fine body of boy-scouts, and was serenaded, first in Welsh,
and afterwards in Gaelic, by groups of nice-looking girls in the
quaintness of chimney-pot hats and kilts. Proceeding afterwards to
Hagley park, the Prince reviewed some four thousand territorials, and
shook hands with two thousand returned men. Later in the evening he held
an informal levee at the civic hall, where he shook hands with another
two thousand people. By this time, if there is a scientific way of
accomplishing the gesture of friendship, His Royal Highness had probably
learned it.
Christchurch is the third biggest city of New Zealand. A larger
proportion of the inhabitants is said to be of English extraction than
in any other city of the world outside the British islands. Certainly it
is one of the most home-like places we saw upon the tour with its
well-paved, well-lighted streets, fine business quarter, and pleasant
residential suburbs full of comfortable houses, each standing in its own
grounds. In Christchurch clear water courses down the gutter on one side
of many of the streets. This is from subterranean springs, tapped by
artesian borings, by means of which the entire city is supplied. The
water is supposed to be derived from the snows of the southern New
Zealand Alps as they soak into the valley of the Waimakariri--"freezing
water"--river which flows into the Canterbury plain.
A fine harbour, with water so deep that even the _Renown_ was able to
lie alongside the wharf, exists eight miles off, at Lyttleton. Until one
goes over the ground it seems strange that a large city should have been
built so far away as eight miles from the harbour connected with it. The
lie of the hills explains this however. The harbour of Lyttleton is so
hedged in by steep slopes that it has been considered impossible to
build a city around it, and Christchurch occupies the nearest level
ground across the range. Connexion is facilitated by a mile-long
railway tunnel, one of the oldest undertakings of its kind in New
Zealand.
Although so close to the hills, Christchurch stands upon almost
absolutely level ground, a corner indeed of the big Canterbury plain,
_par excellence_ the farming country of the Dominion. The city contains
cold-storage plant, a biscuit factory, and wool and hide establishments,
all of which proved their Imperial value during the war. It also
possesses one of the best high schools in the country, run on the lines
of a British public school. Being also the distributing centre for a
large and flourishing farming community, Christchurch is going ahead
rapidly, and has an excellent future before it, its south-of-England
climate making it a favourite place of residence.
Farming is not in New Zealand an occupation penalized by the dread of
hardship or burden as one is apt to find it elsewhere, largely because
of the real love the New Zealander has for the land. The Mayor of one of
the larger cities we visited in the Northern Island, himself a
prosperous wholesale grocer, told me that neither of his two sons, when
they returned to New Zealand from France, would look at his business,
though he had kept it going longer than he would otherwise have done,
with the express purpose of handing it on to them, there being no one
else in his family to whom to leave it. They both insisted upon being
set up as farmers. The reason they gave was that farming life was
pleasanter and less exacting than any kind of business, and this
although they had, with farming, to begin all over again, whereas in the
wholesale grocery trade they had a long established and flourishing
concern ready to step into.
The fifteen-year-old son of a prominent official said to his mother,
who passed on the irreverent observation to me, "Isn't father a loony to
do office work when he might have a farm of his own?" The boy's mind was
typical. I met refined women who said they wouldn't live anywhere in the
world but on a farm, and never once did I come across anyone who was on
the land and wanted to get off it. This attitude of mind has the
qualification that it is sheep and cattle-farming that is referred to,
and not dairy-farming, which is infinitely more exacting, though, at
present prices, and especially since the discovery of the possibilities
of the dried milk-trade, definitely more profitable. This is because the
sheep and cattle-farmer is not continually tied, and, while he has to
work hard at times, can also often get away, whereas the dairy-farmer
must be on hand all the year round, to see that the milking is attended
to, and that the milk is promptly disposed of at the creameries, of
which numbers are springing up, mostly run, upon a co-operative basis,
by groups of farmers themselves.
This passion of the New Zealander for the land is a trait of the most
far-reaching significance. It accounts for the largeness of the rural,
as opposed to the urban, population in this Dominion. It has much to do,
also, with the splendid physique of the average New Zealander, and the
amazing healthfulness and longevity he appears to enjoy. This applies
especially to the middle classes, amongst whom there is extraordinary
immunity from such city diseases as consumption. The death-rate from
tuberculosis of New Zealand is less than half that of England and Wales.
It affects also the whole political outlook of the Dominion. The farmer
everywhere tends to be conservative in his views, for he has a stake in
the country. His farm may be small or large. The individual holding, on
the average, is probably not more than from thirty to eighty acres, an
area which even the most unskilled of labourers may hope, in the end, to
own; and one which, under the favourable agricultural and climatic
conditions prevailing, is sufficient to keep both the man himself and
his family. The number of holdings is therefore rapidly increasing, and
the effect which this has upon the whole political atmosphere is
incalculable. Nominally, the Government of the day may be Conservative
or it may be Liberal, but the voter's choice is one of men, rather than
of policy. Labour itself, as has already been pointed out, has become
conservative. It thus comes about that, in spite of the possession of
both manhood suffrage and womanhood suffrage, there is probably no
country in the world less open to subversive social theories than is New
Zealand.
XI
ENTERPRISE IN NEW ZEALAND
It is impossible to travel through New Zealand and to meet the men it
sends into public life, without being impressed by the high character,
moderation and conservativeness which characterize politics in this
Dominion.
There is no country where the spirit of live and let live is more fully
operative, none where charges of political corruption are less common,
and none where the spirit of co-operation for public ends is more
general. The "ins" at present call themselves Reformers, he "outs"
Liberals, but, so far as I have been able to make out, Mr. Massey's
Government retains its majority far more on account of the popularity of
himself and his colleagues than because the general policy for which
they stand differs very materially from that which would be adopted if
Sir Joseph Ward and his Liberal supporters were to return to power. In
consequence, again, of practically all voters having a stake in the
country, of one kind or another, whether in the form of house-property,
land or money, the administration they elect is intensely
individualistic, and probably there is no spot on earth where property
is more respected, or personal rights more secure.
The financial position of the Dominion is also relatively good, for
although New Zealand's public debt bears a proportion to its population
not far different from the corresponding proportion in England, there
are two factors which make the situation of the Dominion definitely more
favourable. One of these is the larger potential margin of taxability in
New Zealand, owing to the greater individual prosperity of its
inhabitants and the extent of its still undeveloped resources. The other
is that so much of New Zealand's public debt has been invested in
remunerative public works. Out of a total debt of L194,000,000 no less
than L40,000,000 has been put into the acquisition or construction of
the three thousand five hundred miles of railway existing in the
country, an investment which itself pays the whole of the interest
charges concerned. Indeed, at present rates for labour and materials,
this happy country possesses a property worth probably more than twice
what it has cost to obtain.
The railway factor in New Zealand is thus a very important one. It is
one also of special interest, as the New Zealand Government not only
owns but manages the whole of the lines, an arrangement not found in
other parts of the world to conduce to either efficiency or economy in
working. It seemed so impossible to believe that a democracy could be
keeping politics out of business that I fear I asked a great many very
impertinent questions on the subject of political graft in connexion
with railways. The map of New Zealand offered an invitation to
inquisitiveness. It showed that the country possesses a remarkably large
number of small unconnected railway lines running inland from the
various ports. Even to-day there is no complete through line in the
South Island, though progress is being made in linking up branches to
obtain it. One was at first inclined to attribute this state of things
to political pressure brought to bear upon the Government to supply
individual political constituents with more than their share of
transport facilities at the expense of the general traffic requirements
of the country. On going over the ground, however, two perfectly
innocent reasons leapt to defend the lines. The first is that in a
country as well supplied as is New Zealand with harbours round the
coasts, the natural main artery of traffic is by sea and not overland.
The second is that the mountain backbone of New Zealand is so tremendous
that the cost of through railways which, owing to the lie of the land,
must necessarily cross this backbone is enormous. This is exemplified by
the stupendous works, culminating in a five-mile tunnel, now under
construction to link the west coast with the east in the South Island.
The same applies to the North Island, it being impossible to traverse
the central railway from Auckland to Wellington without being impressed
by the difficulties that have had to be overcome, alike on the Raurimu
spiral in the middle, and at the famous one-in-thirteen incline near the
southern terminus.
Mistakes have, no doubt, been made sometimes, and it is quite possible
that in some cases local influence may have bettered public utility,
both in the routes chosen for new lines, and in the order of their
construction. Upon the whole, however, the Public Works Department of
the New Zealand Government, which is responsible for the building of the
railways, is to be most warmly congratulated upon the lay-out as well
as upon the standard of excellence attained in the matter of the work.
The three-feet-six-inch gauge adopted in New Zealand may possibly have
to be changed eventually to the standard four-feet-eight-inch gauge in
use in Europe and America. The decision to adopt the narrow gauge,
however, was come to at a time when there was much to recommend the
selection, since it enabled railway facilities to be afforded very much
sooner than would have been possible had the more expensive standard
gauge been chosen.
The New Zealand Government has also pursued a sound policy in doing
renovations, even where they have involved considerable structural
improvements, out of revenue. I was informed that original cost has, all
along, been replaced out of working expenses, where changes in the lines
have been made on capital account, and that since about 1907 all
relaying of lines and replacing of bridges and rolling-stock has been
charged to working expenses. Again, a considerable length of line has
been relaid each year, with heavy rails and new sleepers. The people of
New Zealand in consequence now own the entire railway system of their
country at a cost far below its present market value, and that too in a
state of structural efficiency, which, especially after five years of a
war to which the railways sent seven thousand of their trained men, is
very remarkable. The Royal train could testify to that, running as it
did over difficult country, from one end of New Zealand to the other, at
a pace which was seldom less than forty, and sometimes went as high as
sixty miles an hour, fast travelling on a narrow gauge anywhere.
The railways are under a general manager responsible to a
minister-in-charge, at present the Prime Minister, and independent of
the Public Works Department, whose responsibilities end with
construction. In order to minimize political interference with traffic
charges, a rule is enforced that all rates must be published, thereby
facilitating discussion of them. No special local tariff also can be
sanctioned without public notice being first given. All rates are thus
subject to criticism in Parliament. Again, at present, ninety per cent.
of the traffic of the country, including both passengers and goods, is
carried on a flat-rate basis applicable to all lines, and all places. Of
the remaining ten per cent., all but a small proportion is carried on
concession rates designed to help the development of backward areas, it
being recognized that the railways are only adjuncts to the opening up
of the country and its resources. The fractional proportion which
remains is carried at special enhanced rates, but this does not affect
the general position, as it applies only to a few isolated sections of
not more than twenty miles apiece, where construction has been unusually
expensive, and where high rates have been adopted to cover interest on
the cost.
A further safeguard is provided by the fact that a rate can only be
changed on the recommendation of the general manager, who is a member of
the public service, and therefore debarred from taking part in politics.
Very much the same safeguards apply to the appointments. The personnel
of the railways in New Zealand is permanent, no new Government having so
far ventured to make any wholesale changes. The great majority of the
men now in the service have begun at the bottom, either as unskilled
apprentices or as cadets admitted after passing a qualifying
examination. I was unable to hear of either promotions or fresh
appointments for political reasons.