northern sentinels of New Zealand which will now always be remembered
for the horrors attendant upon the wreck of the _Elingamite_ only a
few years ago. Curiously enough that terrible story--as it was so
fully reiterated about the civilised world I need not now re-tell
it--completely overlaid my early recollections of the Three Kings,
all fortunately very pleasant. As a small boy in a Sydney steamer
bound to Auckland I often saw them and always in fine weather, while
again in a whaleship as a young man I have circled around their grim
pinnacles, and never saw them veiled in the tempest spray which these
stern seas can always raise upon the slightest provocation. Be sure I
was up early in the morning, for the view along the north-east coast
of New Zealand if the weather is fine is not to be beaten anywhere,
more especially as you near the Hauraki Gulf and begin to approach
Auckland. The fine weather still held, and the sun, blazing out of a
cloudless sky, illuminated every crag, islet, and beach as we sped up
the splendid sound to where grim Rangitoto waits like a stern sentinel
over the smiling harbour, whose entrance he guards. I suppose living
constantly within sight of a volcano, whether it be active or extinct,
as long as its activity is not pronounced, tends to oblivion of its
potentialities. But I confess that in my youthful days I never entered
or left Auckland without glancing fearfully upwards at the crater of
Rangitoto, as do visitors to Naples at Vesuvius, and wondering whether
some day or other the giant Enceladus would awake from his slumbers and
involve all that busy, beautiful environment in one heap of smoking
ruins, _Absit omen_, and yet remembering the gigantic upheaval which
caused the ruin of the pink and white terraces a quarter of a century
ago, and, as geologists tell us, was only prevented from overwhelming
this beautiful town by an extraordinary barrier of strata beneath the
soil which shed the earth tremors off as a breakwater sheds the waves,
it is impossible for an outsider who has been a frequent visitor
to avoid having some such reflections as these. Fortunately for the
progress of the world, the condition of mind of dwellers in seismic
districts is closely akin to that of consumptives. It is a truism how
a poor fellow in the last stages of phthisis will look commiseratingly
upon a fellow-sufferer perhaps not nearly so far gone, and say, "Poor
chap! he can't last long." When you anxiously inquire after the
speaker's health he assures you, between bursts of coughing, that it is
vastly improved, and really he has hardly ever felt better in his life.
And so, in spite of St. Pierre, of Vesuvius, or of San Francisco, the
volcano-encircled towns of the world go steadily on their way without
apparently giving a thought to what may happen at any hour. Which, of
course, is just how it should be, if our life is to be lived at all in
decent fashion.
Ah! here we are in Auckland. But, dear me, I hardly know the place,
and have to look back to Rangitoto to get my bearings. There is, of
course, the same splendid land-locked harbour, but in my day there was
one wharf with a "T" at its end, and the smaller fry of schooners and
such-like, which in those early days Auckland was famous for building,
had to be content with tiny jetties or an outer berth in the anchorage.
And now the whole water-front of the city is a labyrinth of wharves,
which, being yet all too small, are being extended with the utmost
energy. No docks are needed in this entirely peaceful and land-locked
bay, but wharves, wharves, and ever more wharves, to accommodate the
trade of the Britain of the South. It is a splendid object lesson in
the maritime instincts of the British race that this city, whose total
population is about one-fifth of a big London parish, should have an
oversea trade of such enormous dimensions as to require the expenditure
of millions on the wharfage accommodation!
XIII
THE PARADISE OF LABOUR
Upon landing from the steamer, and strolling up the pier towards the
well-remembered Queen Street, I was puzzled to account for the fact
that the pier seemed shorter than it used to be. But I set it down to
my being so much younger then, and to having seen so many big things
of late years. I could not, however, help feeling that the rows of big
warehouses crowding along the front were much closer to the water's
edge than any buildings had been in my time, and I seemed to remember
also that the water used to come up into the town unhindered until it
chose to retire. Now, however, its entry was severely restricted, and
I was not at all surprised to learn that, along the whole water-front,
over half a mile at least, one hundred yards in width of land had been
reclaimed and built upon. It may be asked why, in a new country like
this, it should be worth while to spend money in reclaiming land from
the sea when there is so much land unoccupied. But when you learn that
the price of land in the city of Auckland ranges from £20 per foot
frontage up to a figure which closely approximates to that in most
parts of London, and that building land in even the remote suburbs of
Auckland is fetching to-day £400 per acre, you will not be surprised,
however much, like myself, you wonder at the reason for this state of
things.
Nevertheless, Auckland as a city is disappointing--distinctly so. It
has one fine street, a really splendid wide and straight thoroughfare,
but in that street there are only two decent buildings, one of which
is, appropriately enough, the Auckland Savings Bank; all the rest,
though some of them are pretentious enough, are mean, and unworthy of
the first city of New Zealand in point of population (and some say of
wealth), being either jerry-built of brick and stuccoed over, or of
wood. Now, of all mean shams that my soul abhors, it is the imitation
stone-building of which the early Victorian era in London furnished
so many hideous examples. Good honest brick-work, or even wood-work
that looks what it is, I like, but stucco, hiding, as it always does,
the most slovenly and unreliable brick-work, and showing after a few
weeks its misery in the shape of numberless cracks, and even crevasses
(I saw one public building, before I had been five minutes ashore,
which had to be propped up as if there had been an earthquake), is
beneath contempt, and should never be encouraged by an independent and
outspoken people. I know I shall be reminded of the lack of suitable
building stone in this volcanic country, and the cost of getting stone
here from other parts of New Zealand where it is abundant; but that
is not to the point. There is plenty of brick--the best of brick--and
abundance of the most beautiful timber the world grows, wherefore
stucco, the sham of shams, should be anathema. Fortunately I shall be
out of the country before the Plasterers' Union can be out after me, so
I do not care.
Then there seems to be something lacking in so prosperous a city
in that there are so many mean streets and only one really good
thoroughfare. The city looks unkempt, dishevelled, as if it had not
yet made up its mind whether to rise to the height of a metropolis
or sink to the depth of a village. It looks fortuitous, and although
it certainly does not fall to the level of the average American city
of its size, it does not rise to the occasion like Perth, Western
Australia, for instance, although comparisons are odious; but I would
like to know why! On every hand may be heard tales of the abounding
prosperity of the country, and I have ever found that when business men
are contented with the way things are going, and say so, the visitor,
more especially if he be not one to whom something may be sold in order
to get rid of it, may depend upon it that things are even better than
they seem. Wages are high, food is plentiful and cheap, and, indeed,
all the necessaries of life are cheap in comparison with the standard
of wages. Only land seems dear out of all proportion to the prosperity
of the country.
This is indeed the paradise of labour. Practically all legislation is
shaped with an eye to what the worker with his hands will think of it,
and men who at home are classed with the demagogues, and treated as
dangerous subverters of law and order, here make the laws, administer
them, and rule the roost generally. I have been introduced to several
men whom I should at once have recognised anywhere as journeymen
carpenters, masons, plasterers, &c., with horny hands and an utter
absence of the graces or delicacies of speech, and told that they
were J.P.'s., members of the House of Representatives, or leaders of
societies wielding enormous power. It is not necessary, nay, it is
almost impossible, for strikes to occur, since every question of hours
and wages is submitted to Courts of Arbitration having all the powers
of legal tribunals. Strangely enough, the capitalists profess to like
this state of affairs. I anxiously looked for some sign of insincerity
in their remarks to me upon the subject, but could not detect any at
all. So I was, and am, compelled to believe that they are at least
contented to acquiesce in this condition of matters. Then it must also
be remembered that many quite large employers of labour are themselves
what we are pleased to call working men, that is, they still work at
the bench with hammer and saw, lathe and file, among the men whom they
employ, and their distance from employed to employer is not yet great
enough for them to have lost touch with their men.
One splendid result of this close equality of capital with labour is
that there is no room for the whining rascal who gets so much utterly
undeserved sympathy and the lion's share of pauper-making doles at
home, the workshy or unemployable. He could not exist here. I do
not quite know what they would do with him, but I am perfectly sure
that he could not live here for any length of time. It is a land of
workers, not loafers; and while for the worker who is unfortunate
in any way there is every help and encouragement, for the class for
which our sentimentalists who call themselves socialists at home
are mainly responsible, there is nothing available but elimination,
and that very swiftly. This goodly position of the worker is not
confined to the outside workers only, the journeyman mechanic,
labourer, &c., but it extends to the class which at home with us is so
terribly handicapped in small business and in large wholesale houses,
counter-salesmen and clerks. The majority of shops close at six, only
a few refreshment-houses, tobacconists, &c., remaining open. No such
spectacle is possible here as that which I have often seen at home at
certain seasons of the year, when employees must work practically all
night as a set-off to the fact that they get a fortnight's holiday
in the year without pay. Or of the shops which, under the stress of
competition, keep their pale slaves on their feet from eight in the
morning until ten at night, and on Saturdays until twelve. Everything
that can be done is done in the direction of early closing, even to
the hotels (there are no public-houses here) whose bars are closed
rigidly at ten o'clock, and on Sundays may not open at all. Nay, so
far is this carried that, if you are staying in an hotel, you may not
have a visitor to see you after ten, or on Sundays at all, lest you
should be tempted to offer him fluid hospitality, and thus evade the
law which declares that no man may drink intoxicants during prohibited
hours, except in the privacy of his own permanent or temporary home.
Local Option is carried out to its fullest extent, and has some queer
results where a district closed to the sale of liquor ranges with one
that is open. But there is no gainsaying the fact that all that can
or may be done by what we at home know by the opprobrious epithet of
grandmotherly interference to discourage the consumption of strong
drink, is done.
In many other ways what we call the liberty of the subject is
interfered with, the distinct proviso being laid down that the law
may punish any person for doing anything which is harmful to his
neighbour. Which, of course, strikes at the root of monopolies, and of
all those evils which usually accompany the building up of enormous
fortunes out of the woes of the wage-earner. And yet, of course I
suppose, there are evils attendant upon all this dry-nursing--evils
which I have heard liberally descanted upon by citizens, but will not
enlarge upon myself because, in the first place, I am not likely to
come here to live, and next because I am too grateful for the removal
of many of the horrible diseases of the body politic which are rampant
at home, and can there, alas, only be cured now by drastic remedies
involving much suffering to innocent people. Of course you have heard
all about the old-age pension system out here, which is now about to be
extended to Australia. I am not sufficient of an actuary to know what
it will eventually cost, but I do know that at present it is hailed
with intense satisfaction by all classes, who pride themselves upon
having solved a problem that has baffled all the civilised nations.
More than that, a public-spirited citizen of Auckland has erected and
endowed a really beautiful building in one of the most romantically
picturesque suburbs of Auckland, which is called the "Costley" home
for aged people, and is on the lines of what we at home should call an
almshouse or set of almshouses. Here with their pensions the old folks
can, and do, live most comfortably, having entire liberty to do what
they please, just as if they had retired upon a competency of their own
earning. And, indeed, they are led to regard the old-age pension in
that very light. In such a practical community as this it is, perhaps,
superfluous to add that every care is taken to exclude from the
benefits of the pension scheme all those whose habits of drunkenness
and laziness have made them unworthy of its provisions. It really does
not put a premium upon wasteful debauchery.
When I was last in Auckland, thirty-five years ago, I used to be much
amused and interested in watching the Maories, both men and women,
strolling about the streets with a lordly air of indifference to
everything under the sun but their own ease and comfort. The idea of
work of any kind seemed entirely foreign to their nature, and although
they were gratefully taking to the white man's style of dress, it was
very slowly, and the mixture of native and European costume produced
some grotesque effects. It was very funny to see a Maori belle dressed
from top to toe in what she had been led to consider was the height of
European fashion, plump suddenly down on the nearest convenient spot
and hastily remove the tight boots which had been making her hobble
like a Chinese lady. Tying them together with a piece of string,
she would sling them over her shoulder, then producing and lighting
a short, black pipe, she would resume her leisurely way sublimely
indifferent to what anybody thought of her carefree proceedings.
And the older natives were often dressed in a complete native garb,
save that they wore trousers. It helped one to realise how near to
the native times of supremacy we were to see these calm-eyed Maories
strolling along the streets gazing at the strange sights but never
manifesting any surprise or even interest.
And now, so long after, I find almost as many natives about as I did
then. You meet them everywhere, not now in native garb it is true,
but wearing, with a curious alteration of set and cut, the ordinary
European raiment. The women, too, hang skirts and jackets upon their
stalwart bodies, but I did not see any more tight-fitting boots,
most of the ladies wearing generous men's sizes and shapes for ease,
while they also chose to wear, as being more comfortable and useful,
men's wideawake hats secured with hatpins. The short pipe is still
in constant evidence, also the tattooing on the chin which marks the
married woman, while a child is often seen slung on her back in true
native fashion all the world over. One thing excited my attention, in
view of the statement made that this splendid race is slowly dying
out--it is the magnificent build of many of the men. It is well known,
of course, how fine a human animal the Maori half-breed makes, but I
have seen many full-blooded Maories here whose physique was that of
the Farnese Hercules, a splendour of trunk and limbs that even the
slouching way in which their clothes are flung on them could not hide.
But nothing will ever make the native take to the idea of steady,
settled work--fixed hours for anything; it is unnatural to expect it,
and, as far as I can see, the ruling powers of New Zealand do not
expect it. They educate the Maori, give him a goodly share in the
Government, treat him with kindly respect, and do nothing to hinder him
from retaining his ancient language, but they do not commit the blunder
of supposing that he will become a European.
I have been for a drive to-day around the suburbs known as Mount Eden
and One Tree Hill, from whence a peculiarly beautiful and comprehensive
view of Auckland and its lovely environs can be obtained. But in spite
of the beauty of the country and the luxuriance of the verdure, the air
of prosperity manifest by the neat and sometimes handsome dwellings
dotted about everywhere, and the wealth of flowers--the arum lily
especially growing in masses by the waysides as if it were a noxious
weed--one grim feature of the landscape would exclude every other
consideration. Auckland is literally hemmed in on the landward side by
a ring of craters of extinct volcanoes; nay, it would almost seem as
if the whole region had once been one vast volcano, like Mauna Loa in
the Sandwich Islands, having many vent-holes. Evidently the present
quiet condition of things has lasted for many hundreds of years, and
I fervently hope that no uneasy demon will arise to mar that ancient
peace.
XIV
A UNIVERSAL SHOCK
The pious aspiration with which I closed my last chapter has not been
quite fulfilled. The earth mother is quiet, thank Heaven, but the
minds of the people have been stirred as by some mighty disaster. On
Monday, June 11th, the news was suddenly flashed across from Sydney
to the whole of New Zealand that the _Oswestry Grange_ had returned
to Sydney, whence she had sailed on the preceding day, with R. J.
Seddon dead. It is almost impossible to convey to you at home what
a sensation this news made. We all love the King, but it is with an
impersonal affection; we shout and cheer for the various political
leaders of our party according to our tastes; but here it was as if
the country had been smitten with an irretrievable disaster. The
visitor forgot the smallness of the number of people affected as he
realised the extraordinary consternation this sudden death produced
among all classes, even those who had been most violently opposed to
him politically. I was staying at the time in an hotel kept by an
amiable Hebrew, and in consequence largely frequented by gentlemen of
that faith (who, by the way, are particularly numerous and influential
in Auckland), and it was to me amazing to see the grief of all, the
genuine sorrow manifested, and hear the sentiments of deep affectionate
regret that were uttered by the landlord and his friends.
The secret of this amazing popularity seemed to be that first and
foremost the deceased Premier, while he magnified his office and
never failed to magnify New Zealand also, was essentially accessible
to all, hail-fellow-well-met with Tom, Dick, and Harry. He never, so
it was said, put on "side," unless he were dealing with magnates who
endeavoured to put it on with him, when he would be aggressively,
almost ferociously, self-assertive. It has been repeatedly stated that
he was offered a peerage at home, but refused. This man, so essentially
of the people, who, like so many other men in power in this new and
thriving country, had toiled at many humble occupations in order to
earn a living, and who, when he had obtained the summit of power out
here, lived in simplest style without a trace of ostentation, was wise
enough and courageous enough to refuse such an honour as most men will
toil and intrigue and spend fabulous sums in trying to obtain, because,
so people here say, and I am fain to believe, he knew that as a peer he
would have been a nonentity, but as plain Dick Seddon he was really the
uncrowned King of New Zealand. Naturally his essentially Socialistic
policy was fiercely assailed by those whose privileges and profits it
curtailed, and nothing less than ruin was predicted for the country
so subjected to political experiments of the most drastic order. But
although it is for the present beside the mark to say that, so far
from the country being ruined, it was never more prosperous than it
is now, it is curious, almost pathetic, to note how all the voices of
controversy are hushed, how all parties, all newspapers, unite in doing
honour to the man whose proudest title was Digger Dick. There has been,
as far as I have been able to hear, not one dissentient voice raised
against the chorus of eulogy, and there certainly has been none of that
indecent exultation so often painfully manifested at home on the death
or downfall of one of our great men by the party opposed to him.
During the later years of his life Richard John Seddon was
exceptionally fortunate, over and above the position he earned by
Titanic toil. But in nothing was he more fortunate than in the manner
and time of his passing away. It must be remembered that he had just
closed such a triumphal progress through the chief cities of the
Commonwealth of Australia as a monarch, even the proudest, might have
envied. He came to Australia as his own ambassador to endeavour to
effect a closer union between the Commonwealth and New Zealand in
matters of legislation, and especially in the direction of a reciprocal
tariff. How far his self-imposed mission was a success it is as yet
too early to say, but it is certain that he dominated the Australian
politicians like a giant towering above pigmies. One would have
thought that New Zealand was the great State and Australia the small
to read the speeches made and the editorial comments thereupon. In
fact Seddon seemed to hypnotise the politicians as he did the ordinary
banqueters of whom I spoke in a previous chapter, so that even such a
platitudinous and vulgar plagiarism from the arrogant Yankee as his
frequently uttered allusion to New Zealand as "God's own country"
was always rapturously applauded and received as the coinage of his
own brain, a happy idea such as no other mind would be capable of
receiving. This description of New Zealand was especially pleasing
to Seddon's warmest supporters, the Maories, who are all nominally
Christian now, and who all firmly believe that he was the inventor of
the epithet.
And then, when this triumphal progress culminated in Sydney and he
had embarked for "God's own country," as his last telegram stated,
he sat down to rest with his family around him, and suddenly laying
his head upon his wife's shoulder, murmured "Oh, mother!" and died;
instantly, peacefully, painlessly. Of course it was a terrible shock
to his devoted partner and his no less devoted children, but as far as
he was concerned it was a passing such as few great men are privileged
to obtain. Even Nelson, whose end was similar in that he passed at
the summit of his glory, had to endure long hours of agony, whereas
Seddon's end was such as most of us, however humble, must crave for,
but few obtain.
Business seems paralysed, and the newspapers can apparently print
nothing else but pages about the deceased Premier; but of course,
although the intense mourning and general _distrait_ air will continue
until the funeral at Wellington in about ten days, the people will
discover, as they have so often discovered before, that no man is
irreplaceable, and that the sincerest tribute to a great man's memory
is to carry on his work after his departure.
Perhaps I have devoted overmuch space to Mr. Seddon in a work like
this, but really the event has caused so great a sensation out here
that it seemed impossible to pass it over in a few casual words.