FOOTNOTE:[3]Now (1907) Prime Minister.
[3]Now (1907) Prime Minister.
[3]Now (1907) Prime Minister.
At daylight I came on deck to witness the steamer's arrival at Wellington. I have often heard many hard things about the capital of New Zealand. How, for instance, it was so subject to tremors of the unstable earth that no buildings could be erected save of the flimsiest character, how every day was evil, in that gales of wind were the rule and fine weather the rarest exceptions, while rain was almost a permanent feature of the atmospheric conditions. All of which statements were, of course, exaggerated, but still I felt must have a certain basis of truth; and I wondered why. This morning I know, and although I gladly admit the exaggeration, I feel fully persuaded that Wellington, despite its truly splendid harbour, is hardly used in the matter of climate. It lies at the foot of a closely investing range of high hills, the othersides of which are exposed to the full fury of the brave westerly winds which sweep around the world, only just deflected slightly by two outlying points of the South Island, Cape Farewell and D'Urville Island. Consequently the immense amount of moisture brought across the mighty Southern Ocean finds a congenial arrestment by the hills on whose eastern slopes Wellington lies, and the fierce squalls which sweep through the streets are only what will always be experienced on the lee side of high lands. Then, too, Wellington lies in the direct line of the backbone of New Zealand, the mountain chain which, with hardly a break, extends through its whole length from north to south, or, more correctly, from NNE. to SSW.; which, in view of the fact that this is essentially a volcanic country, will, I think, sufficiently account for Wellington's liability to seismic disturbance. At the same time it must be remembered that of late years these terrifying vibrations of the earth's crust have been so few and feeble here as to encourage the erection of substantial buildings, all of which, however, have been put up with the greatest possible attention to such details of structure as may be expected to minimise as much as possible any earthquake effects.
Fortunately my first view of Wellington was a favourable one. The weather was fine but overcast, still, although the sun was hidden, the air was clear, and I was able to take in the details of the grand land-locked harbour, the really splendid system of wharfage, and the imposing appearance of the buildings, which came right down to the wharves themselves. But I was, I remember, also impressed by the fact that Wellington looked cramped for room, and I was not at all surprised to hear, as I had been at Auckland, that an enormous amount of this crowded foreshore was reclaimed land, won back from the sea by an enormous expenditure of capital and labour, and returning a very high percentage upon the outlay. As in recent places which I have visited, but in a more restricted sense, Wellington appears from the bay like a town on sufferance, incapable of being extended in any direction save seaward, which extension has, of course, severe limits. But I learn without surprise that the surrounding hills are gradually being taken up for suburban residences, for the electric car takes little account of hills, and Wellington has a very fine system indeed, exactly like our own at home.
The business aspect of Wellington, especiallyas regards its shipping, is so striking as to make it difficult indeed to realise that its population is less than 60,000, or a quarter less than that of Auckland. The wharves here have an enormous area, and such monster ships as those of the White Star Line and New Zealand Shipping Company, that is to say vessels up to 12,000 tons register, lie at these wharves and load quite comfortably, while the position is so easy of access and so sheltered that vessels may come and go at any time of the day or night. This is the great distributing centre for the whole of New Zealand, most advantageously placed, geographically speaking, and with its people most keenly alert to extend their trade in every conceivable direction. Here may first be realised what a gigantic concern the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand has grown into from its very small and tentative beginnings about thirty-five years ago. It has now a fleet of fifty-five vessels, speedy, efficient, and well kept up; from vessels of nearly 6,000 tons gross register and 6,000 horse-power, which carry the "all red" mails to Vancouver, and the scarcely less splendid steamers of the Intercolonial service, in one of which I shall presently be sailing—theManuka, of 4,505 tons and 4,500 horse-powertwin screw—down to the few small vessels which act as feeders from the tiny outlying coast hamlets. This fleet, which is almost essentially a coastal one, has a total tonnage of 112,540 tons, which is not surpassed by any similar service in the world with the sole exception of the British India. And there the comparison is manifestly unfair, since quite a large proportion of the B.I. fleet are ocean liners in the fullest sense of the term. It is nothing short of marvellous how so small a country as regards population should have developed so splendid a fleet out of its coastal trade and communications with Australia.
I took a walk round the well-groomed, busy thoroughfares of Wellington as soon as I could get ashore, just for a casual glance in the few hours that I am to remain to-day. My next ship for a short and interesting trip to Picton and Nelson is thePateena, of 1,212 tons and 2,000 horse-power, which is to sail at one o'clock; so that I must leave any detailed remarks about Wellington for my return here, when I hope to spend a few days. I note, in passing, that the city seems to be as yet completely dazed by the shock of Mr. Seddon's death, but that, I think, is because yesterday the public funeral was carried out,and the remains of New Zealand's idol were laid away to their long rest.
Getting tired, I returned to the wharf and boarded my new ship to enjoy the spectacle of a couple of large steamers getting away in truly British fashion, that is without fuss or bawling, but as if the movements of the ship were directly controlled and regulated from the brain of the master. It was a beautiful sight, and it was hardly over before our ship also glided away from the wharf, and in a quarter of an hour was outside the harbour heading directly across Cook's Straits for the wonderful series of fjords which must be navigated in order to reach Picton. Then I became aware of one of the main difficulties of our modern navigation. Here is a man charged with the care of (on an average) 200 lives, to say nothing of property, who from week end to week end never gets more than three hours' continuous rest. By day the intricate navigation of these wonderful sounds and bays is severe; at night, in fogs, in gales, and pelting rain the strain is terrible. And it is incessant. Talk about business strain! Wherein does it compare with this? To the thinking man the spectacle of this overwrought son of the sea in such a position of authority, watching lynx-like each headlandas it looms like some glooming cloud upon his view, making mental combinations of the direction and force of the tides according to the time of day (or night, for people ashore do not understand that the maritime day counts twenty-four hours) taking into the hotchpot the age of the moon, and withal to combine these facts with the temporary contingencies of wind and weather, is fraught with deepest wonder that any man should be equal to it at all. Yet these men are, and by the universal rule that those who do the most get the least are always in what are subordinate positions. Although it must be admitted that compared with our coasting skippers at home such men are well paid. Yet no pay can compensate any man for such a wreckage of manhood as must result from the incessant strain of such a life. It is more than flesh and blood can stand.
I did not see the worst part of it going out, because at Picton I went fishing in the dark, and got so tired that I slept through the passage of the French Pass, in the anticipation, too, that I would see it on my return. So when I awoke in the morning thePateenawas stopped off what I find every one here imagines to be a phenomenon of unique quality, the Boulder Bank. It is a natural bank of pebbles nicely graduated from fine sand at the water'sedge up to the huge pebbles weighing a couple of hundredweight at the summit of the ridge and stretching parallel to the foreshore of the port of Nelson. It begins far beyond the limits of the port, having indeed a total length of eight miles or thereabouts, and has, hitherto, compelled all vessels of any size entering the port to wait for tide in order to get round its extremity and between a curious outlying rock perched upon a bunch of reefs of the most dangerous character. Now, however, the harbour board, greatly daring, have cut through the natural bank at a spot nearly opposite to the town and speak of having a channel deep enough to bring in ships like theAthenicand theCorinthicof 12,000 tons.Nous verrons.I hope their enterprise will bear fruit, for here, as elsewhere, the expense of such works falls with tremendous weight upon a population, all told, of some 9,000 souls.
Now comes the joke. This "Boulder Bank," as they call it, is an almost exact replica of the Chesil Beach, which extends from Portland to Weymouth, orvice versâ, according to which way you look at it. In the composition of the Bank itself there is absolutely no difference from that of Portland, but in direction and situation there is a great dissimilarity. Chesil Beach runs directly seaward from Weymouth in avery slight curve, having at its Channel end the English Gibraltar, Portland Bill. As most people know at home, the naval haven of Portland has been constructed by running a massive breakwater from Portland to the western horn of Weymouth Bay, or to leeward of the Beach, with two small openings almost like dock entrances without gates thereto. In Nelson, as I have mentioned, the beach runs parallel with the shores of the port, and the authorities have cut through the beach itself at a point nearer to the wharves already built, in order to bring the big oversea ships in for such modicums of cargo as there are to give them.
Nelson is a typical New Zealand coast town. Its streets are wide, its buildings humble, and the ranges shut it in to its little foothold on a foreshore. Its growth is imperceptible. It seems hardly credible that, remembering the natural advantages of Nelson that after over half a century of enjoyment of these natural privileges it should still remain so small and feeble in point of population. Yet the fact remains, and it is due to the same causes to which I have so often adverted, that I hardly dare to recur to them again, the determination not to have anybody come here who has only his labour to sell. That is beginning to change, but in spite of the progressive legislation inlabour questions, for which New Zealand is famous the world over, the Labour member and the labourer already established in a comfortable position looks sourly upon any proposition to introduce a competing element whether of his own blood or alien. And as far as I can see it will ever be thus with Socialistic schemes, so called, because they never seem to realise theindividualfactor. And until they do every form of legislation adopted is bound to be a failure, as all such schemes must fail which run in opposition to the fixed laws of nature.
One feature of all these New Zealand and Australian towns always strikes a stranger from England at once—the number of huge telegraph posts through the streets, laden with telegraph and telephone wires. No matter how small the town may be, these great mast-like posts bear their complex burden, for the telephone is a necessary of life here as it is in America. Indeed this particular feature reminds a visitor who knows both countries, of the United States, except that out here the people show their British love for order and neatness by having the posts neatly squared or rounded and painted, while the Americans, even in quite large cities, are content to have the rough tree with just the bark off, and sometimes not even that. Nelson, smalland sleepy as it seems to be, is no exception to the general rule, but it has puzzled me more than a little to understand what use can possibly be made of all this network of wires. There does not seem business enough done to employ the half of them. Perhaps what business is done requires a much more liberal use of the telephone than is the case with us.
Many things might doubtless be written about Nelson which would be intensely interesting to people who live there, some indeed who, in spite of the absence of bustle and general air of ease, have managed to make comfortable fortunes there. Of its glorious climate I can unfortunately say nothing, having been favoured during my stay of five days with exceptionally cold and very wet weather, which you are always told in such places is something unknown, even to the oldest inhabitant. But I have no doubt from its beautiful sheltered position that Nelson must for most of the year enjoy a climate almost ideally perfect, and a strong proof of this is to be found in the establishment there of several higher grade schools or colleges for both sexes, to which I am told parents send their children from all over NewZealand. It has, however, one eminently undesirable feature, such as I have noticed nowhere else in New Zealand, a vast foreshore of unpleasant mud flats which are laid bare at low water, looking and smelling most unpleasantly. Of course, the daily lavation by the tides makes even this of no effect upon the health of the town, but it is curious, to say the least of it, that in a coast where steep-to shores are the rule—and it is quite common to get a depth of 50 fathoms almost touching the rocks—that this long stretch of shallows should have been formed. I put it down to the influence of the Boulder Bank; and perhaps some day when Nelson has grown, that mud flat will be reclaimed, as at Auckland and Wellington, and be worth much money for building upon.
As the steamer in which I am to return to Wellington is fixed to leave in the middle of the day, I am looking forward with a great deal of interest to the return journey, because of the opportunity of witnessing the intricate navigation between here and Picton. For a slow steamer, unless under very favourable conditions, and for sailing vessels at all times, this route through the French Pass from Tasman Bay into Pelorus Sound is impossible. The passage is between D'Urville Island and the main SouthIsland of New Zealand, which here forms a series of fjords and bays of great depth of water and wonderful picturesqueness. There is very little cultivable land, but as on the rest of the ranges I have hitherto mentioned, there is splendid pasture for sheep, which may be seen quietly grazing all over those desolate-looking hills. Many of the settlers' houses, nay, most of them in this locality, are right down on the foreshores of sheltered little bays, and the people find easy and swift communication with each other by water owing to the amazing spread of motor-boat industry. It is no exaggeration to say that the petrol motor for boats has caused a perfect revolution in travelling by water out here, there being hundreds of these neat, swift, and handy little vessels all round the coasts. Of course the great petroleum companies are largely responsible for this, in the same manner as the gas companies at home by introducing the penny-in-the-slot meter and free fittings have enormously extended the use of gas among the poorer of the people. These companies have made the acquisition of a petrol motor, which can be fitted to any ordinary boat at a very trifling expense, most simple, easy, and cheap, trusting to the increased sale of petrol for their profits. Again and again I have been compelled to notice the spread ofthe use of motor-boats throughout Australasia, especially for fishing purposes, but nowhere is this so marked as in New Zealand, for which country, with its deeply indented coast-lines and rugged land surface, this form of locomotion by water is particularly suitable. It is also found most useful for schooners and other small sailing craft, which by its aid are independent of towage in and out of harbour, and also on the failure of the wind at sea can, by starting the motor, make from three to five knots through the water in a dead calm.
Viewed from a distance, the French Pass did not look particularly formidable; I judged it to be about two miles wide. But as we came nearer the captain pointed out to me that the actual passage was reduced to less than a quarter of a mile by the upheaving of rocky obstacles until at last the deep-water channel was limited, as I have said. On the two extremities of the reefs which form the "heads" of the pass there are erected beacons, on one of which there is a light of about four candle-power, I should think; at any rate, as the captain said, it looked as if you needed another light to see it by. The tide, coming in from the vast open Pacific, fretted and foamed and boiled through the narrow pass and over the adjacent rocks, the vessel being hurled forward over theground at the rate of twenty knots an hour, her own speed being about fourteen. A fool could see how bad a place it would be for a slow ship or an ill-steering one, such having often been swept right round against the helm, perfectly unmanageable. And I shudder to think what this passage must be like with a westerly gale blowing, an enormous breaking sea on, and darkness over all. Yet it is done, and twice in twenty-four hours, too, by men who from week to week never have their clothes off except for a bath. Personally, I feel that it is utterly unfair to subject any man to such nerve-wrecking strain as that, especially when he has hundreds of lives depending upon his coolness, courage, and skill. Promotion to a long-distance clear run must seem to these sorely tried men like a change to Paradise.
We had hardly dashed through the foaming, whirling pass into the smooth waters beyond when a motor-boat, or oil launch as they always call them here, darted out from behind a headland to intercept us. The engines were stopped, the visitor swung alongside, and in five minutes had cast off again, having hove half a ton of potatoes and some fish into us for the Wellington market, due to arrive there soon after daylight in the morning. Away we went again, the forecastle now being crowded with passengersto see what, I believe, is the most interesting and extraordinary sight in the world connected with natural history—the visit of Pelorus Jack. Prior to my coming here I had heard numberless stories about this strange sea-monster's ways (he is usually spoken of as a fish), but although I could not refuse to believe altogether, I confess I made many mental reservations until I should see for myself. Fortunately the day was fine, the sea smooth, and the light good, it being about four in the afternoon. And as we passed the point off which he is expected and nearly always seen, he joined us, taking up his station on the starboard bow, right alongside of the stem. The first sight of him was sufficient to determine what he was—Grampus griseus, one of the smaller whales of theOrcaspecies, whose colour is usually chocolate-brown, this one, however, being piebald, brown and grey in patches, which show him almost white when he is just beneath the surface of the sea. Now the ship was going fourteen and a half knots, yet that grampus maintained his position by her side with the utmost ease, only the slightest quiver of his tail being noticeable. Occasionally he changed his position from starboard to port, pausing for a few moments right ahead of the swiftly moving ship, then, dropping astern a few feet, he wouldcuddle up lovingly against her side, turning over as he did so, as if he enjoyed feeling her chafe against his body. When thus engaged he rolled over sideways, presenting his back to the ship's side, but never once exhibiting any energy, as does the porpoise when accompanying a ship. It was an amazing instance of power in locomotion, and I could not help feeling that if he had chosen to exert himself he could have made rings round the vessel,i.e., travelled at the rate of about thirty knots an hour.
Now there are some facts recorded about this wonderful sea mammal that are of keenest interest. No other creature of his kind has ever been seen in these waters. He is of so quaint an appearance that the many thousands who have observed and snapshotted him—including, of course, mariners from every sea—all say that they have never seen his like before. That is, of course, in colour and habits. I have seen rorquals come and chafe the barnacles off their huge bodies against a ship lying becalmed, but never come near a ship in swift motion. And there are men who have been on this coast for half a century who aver that they always have seen him; he seems to be a permanent institution. Nay, more stories are told by the Maories, as well authenticated as such stories can everbe, that he has been known as long as their verbatim history extends. I do not profess to believe that he is immortal, but as we know nothing practically of the longevity of whales, it does not do to be too sceptical. What I do know I have told, and it is, I think, sufficiently marvellous to be entirely disbelieved by the average person as savouring of a sea yarn. I can only add that he remains with the vessel for the space of twenty minutes or half an hour, during the whole of which time, by day or night, he is in plain sight of any who choose to look over the bows. At the conclusion of his visit he departs, as he came, in a straight line for the shore. It is said that he was once injured by one of the regular steamers, or by some one on board of her, and that since then he has never been near that particular ship. This may be true, and I confess it does not seem to be a more wonderful instance of animal instinct than what I have myself witnessed, but it is not necessary to believe it in order to appreciate fully the strangeness of this natural history phenomenon. There are several photographs of him on sale in the form of postcards, and on them it is stated that he is the only "fish" in the world that is protected by Act of Parliament. That, I find, is an accretion of imagination. There is a resolution of theNew Zealand Parliament on record to the effect that he ought not to be molested by any one, but no special legislation exists. His dimensions are about fourteen feet long by six feet in girth at the thickest part of the body, behind the pectoral fins or forearms.
As the shades closed down upon us we skirted closely the bold and rugged headlands of that picturesque coast and entered Queen Charlotte Sound, a deep fjord or indentation at the innermost point of which lies Picton, a tiny town of about 1,000 inhabitants, connected by railway with Blenheim, another similar place. Not having been privileged to see it, on either of my visits, in daylight, I can say nothing about its appearance except that there is a fine substantial wharf, and that as far as its accessibility by water and shelter for vessels is concerned, it may safely challenge comparison with the whole world. But it has no growth, does not appear likely to have, for reasons which I did not care to go into, but which I shrewdly suspect are much like those applying to other stationary towns out here—dearth of population and consequent paucity of production and utilisation of the great natural resources of the land. In this connection I may note that I have just seen, with intense surprise, that the New Zealand Government are advertising extensively in theUnited States for English-speaking farmers to come here and take up land; and I wonder why this should be so, in face of the oft-repeated assertions of love for the Mother-country which has so many of her citizens unemployed and eager to make their homes in new lands under the old flag. It is on a par, I suppose, with a series of paragraphs which I saw here in one of the papers the other day upon the discovery of oil in New Zealand. There had apparently been inquiries on the part of the agents of the American octopus, Rockefeller, and some people were indignant at the idea of "Standard Oil" getting a footing in a free country like New Zealand. But the editor of the paper in question suggested that it would be a very good thing for the stock-holders, and, anyhow, whether they liked it or not, the Standard Oil Company could compel them to sell their property or prevent them from selling their oil! Unpleasant reading that for free people of the British race!
Daylight saw thePateenasteaming up Wellington Harbour again to her snug berth at one of the fine wharves, and there, opposite to her, lay the splendid steamshipManuka, twin screw, 6,000 tons gross, looking more like some grand ocean liner than any coasting vessel. I was glad to find that I had been able to catch her,and thus travel in her down to Dunedin, although it reduced my stay to a few hours only, as before. Nevertheless, I was able to get about a bit and note some of the more obvious improvements in the city. It was rather ominous, however, to note, as I did in the case of one large building in course of erection, the structural precautions necessitated by the extreme possibilities of earthquake shock. I feel that nothing could induce me to settle comfortably in any spot, however beautiful otherwise, where at any hour I might find my own abode and the adjacent buildings tumbling about like houses of cards before a strong breath. Yet in how many parts of the world is this indifference to one of the most terrible calamities that can befall humanity to be witnessed! It is a curious phase of the influence of hope upon man.
Wellington has certainly, as far as my experience of it goes, been grossly maligned for its weather. To-day is again as nearly perfect as possible, and that, I remember, in midwinter out here. I have had another pottering day such as I love about the city and its environs, and among my experiences has been a visit to the suburbsviâa sort of funicular railway, a cable-car running up the side of a steep hill starting from a tunnel, the entrance to which is in a back street only to be found by the initiated. The service is frequent and swift, and the journey to the summit and back well worth the taking, if only for the beauty and comprehensiveness of the view. It compels me to admit that beautiful as other parts of New Zealand undoubtedly are, the capital has charms peculiarly its own,especially now that the ingenuity of man has overcome the difficulties of transit.
Looking down from the great height to which the cable-car has carried us, the panorama spread out before our eyes is full of beauty, and without going back one word on what I have said of the glories of Sydney and Auckland Harbours, I gladly admit that Wellington has no reason to be ashamed. She has a harbour that the proudest nation in the world might well envy for its capital. It is, as I have before had reason to say, immensely difficult to realise, looking down upon that splendid series of wharves, with its thronging ships of the largest size, that I am in a city of less than 60,000 inhabitants, the capital of a country whose total population is less than that of three of our London boroughs. It is, of course, only to be accounted for by remembering that here we have a selected population whereof every adult unit is of account. There are neither unemployed nor unemployable paupers or pauperising agencies. Intensely Socialistic as is the legislation, it must be accounted unto them for righteousness that they do not tolerate the loafer, the workshy, and the unfit. They do not make the mistake which our Socialists do at home, of fostering and coddling the parasites of the proletariatat the expense of their fellows whowillwork, and scorn to accept doles from anybody while able so to do. It is impossible to imagine out here the spectacle of able-bodied men being driven to pauperism because they see so clearly that it pays better than work.
Now theManukais ready to start, and I am charmed by the manner in which this huge steamer is manipulated in truly British fashion—sans bruit, as the admiring Frenchman says. Hardly a sound is heard as she slips away from the wharf, and in a space little larger than herself is turned around and headed for the open sea. A delightful discovery has dawned upon me since travelling upon this coast, which is that the fine fleet of the Union Company and Messrs. Huddart, Parker & Co. are largely, if not entirely, officered and engineered by the native-born: if not exactly native-born, then brought out here so young that they are to all intents and purposes New Zealanders. Is this not as it should be? and should it not teach us a lesson at home, if we could learn a lesson, which seems doubtful as far as the Merchant Service is concerned, how good and useful and profitable a thing it is to have our most important trade in the hands of our own people? If only our clamorous so-called Free Traders at home could be brought to see theextent of the evil they are permitting in allowing the enemy—that is, the foreigner—to get his molluscan grip upon all our industries while our own best blood is being driven out of the country! No such mistake is being made here, although, of course, plenty of other mistakes are made, which is only natural.
I have wandered about this beautiful ship until I feel quite happily familiar with her, and I have finished up with a tour of her engine-room under the guidance of a chief engineer, a native of Port Chalmers, Otago. She is up-to-date in every detail, possessing everything in the nature of machinery to enable her to take a position in any ocean line whatever. In fact, she exemplifies the peculiar genius of the Scotch who, while keen to economise to the ultimate baubee, never begrudge the most lavish outlay which makes for efficiency and durability. I am quite proud to be a passenger by such a coasting steamer, and yet I am assured that the new ones now being built for the same trade are far ahead of her in every way. But then I learn that this Company, far away at the under side of the world, have in several matters of ship-owning been pioneers, owning the first steel steamer, theRotomahana, whose experiences on a reef of rocks showed how vastly superiorsteel was to iron for shipbuilding, owning the first ocean-going turbine steamship, theLoongana, of twenty knots, presently flying between Melbourne and Launceston, Tasmania, and running their ships at present with 95 per cent. of British crews, while aiming steadily at their ideal, which is to have them all British.
It was an evil night, cold and drizzling rain with strong landward gale, so I did not stay on deck late, but retired to my spacious cabin, feeling certainly that I should be awakened at Lyttleton. And it was even so. When the steward brought my tea and fruit at 6.30 he informed me that she was alongside—a fact of which my senses had before apprised me. The weather was still coarse and blustering, the high hills which hem in the deep bay of Port Cooper, at the inward end of which has been formed the snug and secure harbour of Port Lyttleton, being covered with dense mist, and everything being especially cold and cheerless. When I was here before the majority of the ships lay out in the bay, in a somewhat exposed position, with a gale from the eastward. But even then they did their discharging and loading on the inner side of the infant breakwater, where they were perfectly sheltered and served by the railway which ran along the breakwater, but they were only usable by smallvessels, such as the coasting steamers of the Union Company then were. Now I saw, with some considerable surprise, that not only has the original breakwater been nearly doubled in length, curving round in front of the town, but another arm has been extended from the opposite shore, so that the two now embrace a deep-water area as secure as a dock, within which great wharves and piers have been erected capable of accommodating vessels of the largest size. Close to us, at wharves where in my day only vessels of 400 or 500 tons could lie, were theOswestry GrangeandTurakina, two 10,000-ton steamers of the Federal and New Zealand Shipping Company lines respectively. There were five or six of the Union Company's steamers and one or two small sailing craft, but not one representative of the old sailing ships that used to be such a feature of the port thirty years ago.
The feature that I have so frequently noted as characteristic of most New Zealand ports, viz., that of nestling at the foot of the ranges on a little ledge of foreshore, is especially noticeable at Lyttleton, which town looks so absolutely cramped for room that the houses in many cases seem to be clinging to the sides of the encompassing hills. The latter, too, look higher than usual, but that perhaps is becauseof their nearness to the bay. But long ago the energetic colonists of the province of Canterbury took the bold step of tunnelling through that lofty range and connecting Port Lyttleton with the great area of level country beyond, the far-famed Canterbury Plains upon which the city of Christchurch is built. In certain parts of the city on a clear day I have been bidden to look away off at the ranges eighty miles away over a level plain no part of which was ten feet above high-water mark, and yet it was not boggy or swampy. So I should say that Christchurch was probably more favourably situated than any other New Zealand town when all the requirements of a town are taken into consideration.
As to the appearance of Christchurch architecturally, I confess I was disappointed. Of course I know that the day was vile as regards its weather, and no place will look well in drizzling rain and driving gale. But still, I saw that the usual mean wooden buildings, interspersed with pretentious edifices of stucco-covered brick, were here, as in Wellington and Auckland, the regular style, and I was disappointed, because I had great hopes of Christchurch developing into a fine modern city when I was here before, and it seems to me (I hope its citizens will forgive me forsaying so, but I don't suppose they will) to have become somewhat slipshod and down-at-heel in appearance. But, as I say, I had no fair opportunity of viewing it as a whole, and what I did see was a bird's-eye view at the best, my visit only lasting a few hoursen routeto Dunedin.
We left the harbour at about five o'clock in the usual quiet, easeful fashion, despite the weather, I being mightily struck by the manner in which this 6,000-ton steamship was turned round in a space less than twice her own length without the aid of a single spring or warp, or a sound being heard save the occasional clang of an engine-room gong, and the deep sob of the propellers. It was a fine piece of ship-handling, and when she pointed out between the closely confronted ends of the breakwater and sped seaward, I retired below, glad I had witnessed it but conscious that I had gotten chilled through by the inclement weather while thus deeply interested. So I went early to bunk, knowing that at daylight again she would be off the well-remembered Taiaroa Heads, the entrance to Port Chalmers Harbour, and felt that I must be on deck to see her going in round the spit. Surely at dawn the next morning I came on deck to face a wind bitter as any North-easter at home—a searching,cutting blast, sending the spume flying high over the long sand-bank that blocks the entrance to Port Chalmers Harbour, all but a narrow, curving channel of deep water close under the high land of the Heads, which seems terribly restricted for such vessels as do negotiate it. To enter it is necessary to make a complete half-circle, and keep within very narrowly restricted limits—almost as narrow, indeed, as when entering a dock, but under far severer conditions as regards ship-handling. Bor! but itwascold. I used to pride myself upon my indifference to cold, but this morning has searched me out so that I could hardly endure to stay on deck while the big ship ploughed steadily up the harbour and around the end of the sand-spit across the front of the pretty little port where thirty-two years ago the fine, big sailing-ships of Patrick Henderson & Co., New Zealand Shipping Company, and Shaw, Savill, used to lie thickly during the season. It looked so deserted now, so lonely, for since then the narrow and almost unnavigable channel up to Dunedin has been dredged and buoyed so that ships of almost any size can be brought up to the city wharves. But without a pause she swung round Flagstaff Hill, and held her way steadily onward until we reached the city front with its greatextent of wharfage, and a big Shaw, Savill liner, theKaramea, was lying cosily alongside her berth, and was secured at once, while just a few carriers and cabmen asked for hire, without, however, any bustle or fuss, because it was Sunday morning. I walked ashore, and just glancing around at the many alterations in the front of the city that have been effected since last I saw this place, made my way up to where I had elected to put up during my stay.
It was a most pleasant change from all my late experiences in this thriving Antipodean Colony. I always have borne kindly recollections of Dunedin, as of all the Australasian ports I used to know seemed to fill the requirements of the mind as carrying on the traditions of the Mother-country; and verily there was no disillusionment. It was as it had been, only more so. No sham buildings here. Massive stone edifices of a fine type of architecture, and where brick had been used, as in the General Post Office, it was honest, good work, not at all pretentious or hiding itself under a flimsy veil of cracked stucco, but reminding me forcibly of the sturdy fashion of the Midland Railway Company's buildings at home, good red brick, well-pointed, with white stone facings and parapets, not needing to be ashamed by comparison with any other erections around.In that comprehensive glance, I saw that Dunedin had maintained her high promise in youth as regards her buildings, and whatever had been done since was surely in keeping. The streets were beautifully paved; there were many well-laid electric-car lines, and I noticed that up the sides of the steep, encircling hills there were cable-car lines running, enabling the citizens who lived in the suburbs to gain their homes with great ease and little expense. I saw that Dunedin was a city of which none of her citizens need be ashamed, and I was very glad. Moreover, although this southern part of New Zealand has an unenviable reputation as regards weather at this time of the year, the drizzle cleared away, and the sun came out, showing up the grand buildings clearly and pleasantly.
Here, as elsewhere in New Zealand, I am astounded at the paucity of the population when looking around upon what has been done. It seems impossible that this beautiful city with its environs has less than 60,000 inhabitants. According to appearance it should have been 200,000; but there are the figures, and no amount of manipulation can alter them. I am told that the bulk of the trade of Wellington is carried on by Dunedin merchants, and certainly, judging by the names I saw over the principal mercantile buildings in Wellington, there would appear to be much truth in the assertion. That, however, will not explain why this wonderful little city still deserves the diminutive. It is, as I have elsewhere noted, the headquarters of the most compact and go-ahead coasting Steamship Company in the world—a Company, too, that is launching out now in directions that will make it anything but a coasting concern. Of course everybody (to use a colloquialism) knows that Otago is preeminently a Scotch Colony, but if the visitor did not know that, and had been an observant globe-trotter, he would at once perceive on arrival here that the Scotch passion for solidity and permanence of buildings so manifest in all Scotch towns, is abundantly in evidence here.
But perhaps I have said enough to show that the small southern city of Dunedin, hidden away in the far, mysterious South, has no need, as far as her experience and institutions are concerned, to be ashamed of her origin. She has indeed kept the flag flying. There is, however, one matter that is of great importance and may, indeed, have had considerable influence in delaying her growth. She possesses a splendid harbour in appearance, but its navigability is of a very low order. The entrance at Taiaroa Heads is so tortuous and narrow that it is an exceedingly difficult matter to get these modern big steamships in or out. Also the channels available for such vessels within the harbour are so restricted, and have such sharp curves, that the risk of taking huge ships through them are exceedingly great even up to Port Chalmers, one-half the distance from the city. Theenterprise of the citizens has succeeded in so deepening the remaining portion of the harbour up to the city from Port Chalmers that vessels of 8,000 tons may and do get up there, but it is an arduous task, and when they do arrive they see confronting them a low beach separating that part of the harbour from the Pacific; which leads even the most casual observer to the conclusion that a very short cutting, far less expensive than the incessant dredging of the present channel, should suffice to admit the largest ships to the city wharves direct from the sea without danger or delay.
Here, again, we see the disabling, deterrent effects of a small population upon such improvements as this would be. Engineers make light of difficulties, which only exist in order to be overcome, but money in abundance must be had, and a small community must be taxed beyond bearing for a local improvement, which, when carried out, does not show an adequate return for so many years that the generation which achieved it may as well look upon it as money lost. You see it all comes back to the same starting-point—want of population. It is the crux of all questions out here, and to all appearance will still remain so. Very well; if the Colonists still are content to have it so, if the working class, which undoubtedly rules New Zealand now, isconvinced that this condition is the best for them, I suppose it will so remain, and as to that they would probably say it is nobody's business but theirs. And there the visitor is compelled to leave it as long as he can; but it is ever present with him.
There is another aspect of these thriving Colonies that will not be thrust aside. How utterly, abjectly, defenceless they are, if the protection of the Imperial Navy is withdrawn. Here we see a city as beautiful as a dream. Her foreshores are crowded with stately buildings of stone which would do credit to any country, however old. The romantic heights which embosom the city are dotted with pretty homes to which the citizens ascend by means of the cable-cars, and right away down to the verge of the Pacific on the level ground cast up for ages by the sea lie in hundreds the comfortable dwellings of the workers. It gives a patriot a thrill of horror to contemplate the fate of such communities as this in the easily imaginable event of the Motherland being so hardly bestead as to need every warship she possesses for, not merely the defence of her own shores, but the safe convoy of food to Great Britain. Should one swift cruiser of the enemy succeed in eluding the pursuit of the home defending squadrons, and get out here,it would be an easy and, alas! a congenial task, judging from what we are compelled to read in the organs of public opinion in Germany, for such a vessel to reduce these smiling centres of industry to heaps of smoking ruins without incurring the slightest risk. In the face of this awful and, I am bound to believe, imminent danger, what are the Colonies doing? Paying a subsidy to the support of the Imperial Navy which is nothing less than a puerile insult—£240,000 all told, of which amount New Zealand, with her amazing prosperity, contributes £40,000. It does not seem to occur to these Labour members, these devisers of Socialistic plans for the benefit of their own class, that it is of little use to make a list of ideal conditions of life if they take no steps to protect the people who enjoy that life. The plain fact is that the whole of the Australasian Colonies are living in a fool's paradise in regard to this matter, and pay no heed whatever to the spectacle of the anticipating Teuton licking his lips as he thinks of the fat prizes that will presently fall to his prowess and the results of his forethought. As I have ventured to point out to them again, if only they would tax themselves in the same measure as we at home do, say at the rate of £1 5s. per head per annum towards the acquirement and upkeep of a Navy it would mean a sum of atleast £5,000,000 per annum, or in three years enough to account satisfactorily for any hostile European squadron that should dare to venture into these waters on piratical purposes intent.
I do not care whether they acquire a purely Australasian Navy or subsidise a sufficiently powerful squadron of the Imperial Navy for Australasian defence. The thing is to prepare for the defence of this wonderful group of cities set on the borders of the Southern Seas, reared by men of our own race, Anglo-Saxon to the core, without more than a trace of that extraordinary mixture of breeds which is seen in the United States, making it the most polyglot population on earth, and filling the mind of the observer with intensest amazement at the interested cry of "hands across the sea" or of blood being thicker than water.
There is something about Dunedin that appeals very strongly to the visitor fresh from home, and I think that something may be summed up in the word "weather." During the winter at any rate Dunedin can compete successfully with us in Britain in the matter of atmospheric uncertainty of conditions and disagreeableness. It is no uncommon thing to get five or six different samples of weather in almost the same number of hours, each vieing with the other which shall be most unpleasant.It is a strenuous climate, and it breeds strenuous folk as it always did, and therefore it is that Dunedin strikes the visitors from Britain as being homely. And when you take a trip by train, as I did, across the level plains of the Taieri bounded by snow-crowned hills, and watch the sheep standing in the sodden turnip rows stolidly munching away with their backs to the bitter blast and driving snow, you find it hard to realise that you are not journeying North from Euston or King's Cross to Scotland in midwinter, until you come upon a farmsteading and note that it is built of wood, or miss the hedgerows and walls that bound the tiny fields of home.
There is another thing which I am bound to note in these impressions, and that is the apparent absence of rabbits in this country, which I have always been led to believe suffered from a veritable plague of these voracious prolific rodents. I pride myself upon missing nothing of consequence that passes within view as the train flits by, but I hereby solemnly declare that I have not yet seen a whole rabbit in this country. By which I mean that I have often eaten rabbit but have never seen a living one. I could not travel one-tenth of the distance in England that I have travelled here without seeing many rabbits and hares scampering across the well-tilled fields, and I have naturallyfelt very curious. Questioning such folks as I thought might know, I have received various answers such as that "You won't see them near the railway line" (why?) and "They don't show much in the daytime" (again why?); but the substance of it all seems to be that the rabbit-catching and exporting industries have been able to cope with what once was a pest so successfully that there is now a fear among a certain section of the up-country population that "rabbiting" will soon cease to be a lucrative employment. At any rate it appears certain that, without the importation of snakes or the inoculation by disease or any of the quaint schemes which were mooted in the legislative assemblies out here, the rabbit problem has been solved and does not now stand in the way of the South Island farmer raising lucrative crops.
Here (between Christchurch and Invercargill) may be seen a wonderful stretch of agricultural land almost as level as a table, in many places forty miles wide, two or three hundred miles long. Often it extends to the sea from the snow-capped ranges of mountains which decorate the sky-line inland many miles away, again it assumes the nature of a wide valley bounded on either side by ranges of hills. It is beautiful land, and in many places it is well cultivated, but an enormous amount of it is still only usedfor feeding sheep, which seems a waste when the uncultivable ranges are so eminently fitted for that purpose. In other places the rivers which seek the sea from the mountains having so large a space of perfectly flat country to pass over have meandered sluggishly over very wide areas, creating deltas of barrenness by reason of the detritus they bring down with them. These great spaces, over which the railway passes on low trestles, just present a perfectly desert surface of grey gravel and pebbles where not a blade of anything green is growing, which seems unnatural, remembering the extremely fertile character of most riverine country. And I could not help thinking that if some steps were taken to confine these wandering streams to a single deep channel for each, that many great benefits would result to the land itself, which would soon become cultivable, and also a means of communication with the interior by water would be created. Such an improvement, however, seems as yet a very long way off.
I am debarred at this present time from writing of Invercargill, the southernmost city of all British possessions, for I have not been able to get farther south than Gore, which, with a population of a small village, or about 2,000 souls, gives itself, with a sublime air of importance, the proud title of the "Chicago ofthe South." It would be ludicrous if it were not said in such deadly earnest, and yet when the visitor sees the energy and the up-to-date methods manifested by this tiny community, he is bound to take off his hat to its citizens. It is most brilliantly illuminated by electric light on tall standards, which would not shame any city in the world; nearly every house is also lit electrically and has its telephone; the streets are generously wide and mathematically straight; and the houses, although mainly of wood, are beautifully designed and most substantially built. Moreover Gore, like several other similar towns in the South Island, has decided by a majority of its citizens that it will not allow the sale of any intoxicant, and consequently there are no liquor saloons. Whoever feels that he needs stimulant of this kind may import it and keep it in his house, or give it away, but he may not sell it under a first penalty of £50, and on a second offence, three months' imprisonment without the option of a fine. Gore has just entered upon a second period of three years of "no licence," so presumably the citizens find it works satisfactorily, and undoubtedly the system is spreading. The visitor will be wise to offer no opinion upon the subject, seeing that it is a matter of purely local concern to a self-governing community.
I am glad to have seen Gore and met its genial, hospitable citizens, but I am not sorry to get away, since during my stay a blizzard of great virulence has been raging. A tantalising kind of weather indeed. For occasionally there would be a burst of brilliant sunshine and the sky would look serene. Then with amazing celerity a black mass of cloud would arise from behind the ranges, overspread the sky, and burst upon us in a perfect hurricane of biting blast and blinding snow. But upon entering the train and starting for the north it was wonderful to see how rapidly we ran out of it into balmy, summer weather, until when we reached Dunedin we seemed to have entered another season altogether than winter, as fine a day indeed as heart could desire.
I might just remark here that the New Zealand Government Railway rolling stock is allAmerican, but the cars are of mixed type, some being like our corridor cars at home, only with the corridor wired at the side instead of being perfectly closed in like ours, and others of the open American type, seats on each side with a middle aisle. They are fairly comfortable, but the speed is slow, even on the express trains the pace is only about twenty-five miles an hour. The line is usually single and laid American fashion, that is, the rails are spiked down to the sleepers with hold-fast nails in a fashion that to us at home seems quite casual and temporary. The officials are genial, but being Government servants, which always seems to mean something different to public servants, they do not waste any time in superfluous civility, and they come down upon any hapless passenger who unwittingly infringes a bye-law with draconian severity. But with all that they are courtesy and gentleness personified when compared with the autocrats on the American railways, who actually resent savagely being spoken to civilly, and proceed to insult a passenger who is accustomed to speak to those whom he pays to serve him as he would like to be spoken to himself. Our Colonial brethren do not make that grim mistake, though quick to resent any needless assumption of superiority.
It has been a great pleasure to renew myacquaintance with Dunedin, and to note the development of its shipping facilities, as well as the way in which the high character of the city architecturally and structurally has been maintained and developed, although the latter phase is much less important than I was prepared to find it. But principally I was interested in Port Chalmers, that idyllic spot for beauty of situation which has been left stranded, as it were, in its little nook by the passing of the traffic up the tortuous estuary to Dunedin. It is almost as it was when I last saw it, thirty-one years ago, in a state of arrested development. With the exception of three of the Union Company's steamers, which were lying there coaling, the port was deserted, instead of having quite a fleet of fine sailing ships such as used to lie at its wharves in my day. Such traffic as it has now is confined to the large steamers of Messrs. Shaw Savill, the New Zealand Shipping Company, and others which do manage to get up as far as this, but seldom venture up to Dunedin, as being too risky and involving besides too much loss of time. I really experienced all that sense of everything being dwarfed and mean, such as so often strikes a boy upon revisiting the scenes of his youth in some sleepy village or some small town after being away in the great world for years.
The only change of any importance noticeable was that a fine new dry dock was being dug, which, I have no doubt, will be a very great boon to the big ships which call here, but I should think will be mainly used by the fine vessels of the Union Company. So I bade farewell to the pretty little old-fashioned place, with its lovely views over land and sea, and sped on over the railway towards Christchurch (it was being commenced when I was here thirty-two years ago) past the picturesque place where I once essayed farming—Purakanui—and catching occasional glimpses of beautiful bays, all silted up and worthless for navigation or shelter except by the smallest craft, to the thriving towns of Waitati, Oamaru, and Timaru. This is the unsheltered coast-line known as the ninety-mile beach, where the communication with the land depends upon the weather, but the richness and fertility of the great plain extending inland assures the prosperity of the towns studded along the harbourless shore.
It is pleasant travelling, especially on a day like this, for the train although slow is very comfortable, and there is an excellent dining-car with good and plentiful food at a low rate compared with what is to be found in any other country in the Old World or America. And here I think it only just to say that wherever I havetravelled out here I have found the same thing—the very best of food, plainly but excellently cooked and nicely served at a very low cost. I know that my ideas in the matter of food are considered to be old-fashioned and heterodox, but I cannot help that; my deliberate opinion is that in the matter of food which is honest and good without being ambitiously messy and ostentatiously disguised, the Antipodes can challenge the world. As far as food is concerned, it is like travelling from one home to another.
The extent and fertility of this great plain, bounded on one side by the sea and on the other, far inland, by snow-capped ranges of mountains, is very impressive, and when occasionally the train pulls up at a thriving, bright town like Ashburton, and the traveller notes the neatness of the roads and comfortable appearance of the buildings, and the utter absence of squalor and grinding poverty, such as are, alas! too noticeable at way stations in America and in our own country, he feels a glow of satisfaction at being permitted to pass through such a land of plenty and of peace. And so we roll on into the thriving city of Christchurch, which is built entirely on the flat and is consequently not so picturesque or imposing as Auckland, Wellington, or Dunedin, but gives an impression of solid prosperity as well as of great extent, remembering always the number of its population.
But I amen routefor Wellington, and my train is timed to catch the ferry-boatMararoa, a 3,000-ton steamship of fifteen knots an hour, that, leaving Lyttleton (the port of Christchurch) at 5.30 p.m., is timed to be in Wellington at daylight, or, say, about 6.30 a.m., having in the meantime covered a distance of over 170 miles. She is a beautiful vessel, fit for any service in the world, but with the modesty generally attendant upon all such undertakings out here, the voyages which she and her sister ship, theRotomahana, make on alternate days, are called the Wellington-Lyttleton ferry service. The only similar service that I can think of at present for distance and speed is the Fall River Line from Fall River to New York. But there is really no comparison possible. Those great top-heavy, gorgeously decorated vessels are obviously designed for service in sheltered waters, and are entirely unfit for a sea-voyage, while, for all their gingerbread decorations, I think meanly of the comfort they give for the money that is paid. However, as one is almost a lake service and the other must needs be prepared to encounter some of the worst weather in the world, it is, as I said, impossible to compare them.
The train, halting a very brief space at Christchurch, speeds on through smilingsuburbs until it enters the great tunnel under the mountain which shuts off Christchurch from the fine harbour of Port Cooper. It stops for a few minutes at Lyttleton town nestling on the foreshore, then runs right down alongside of the ship so that the passengers have merely to step from the railway car to the gangway of the fine steamer, which will presently slip out to sea, and, in the face of any weather, land them at the wharf at Wellington as soon as they have rubbed the sleep out of their eyes and got ready for business.
And so with the rest I find myself at the capital city again, which, in strong contrast to the stormy South which I left the day before yesterday, lies bathed in golden sunshine, the air balmy as our summer, and the green, encircling hills with their cosy homes peeping out from the rich verdure, giving no hint that this is the winter-time. Truly a goodly land, well-favoured by nature, and in the hands of a people determined to keep its blessings as far as may be under their own control, unable to see any sense in following the example so persistently set them by the purblind people at home, of handing over its choicest benefits to the unthankful alien or the sneering inimical foreigner. It is of no use looking here for any specimens of that great and influential class athome who are the friends of every country but their own, and who, while professing to labour for the good of the people, persistently encourage the efforts of those without, who hate Britain and all her works, leaving no stone unturned to undermine her position in the world and reduce her to a dependency of their own.
The work of the Wellingtonians in developing their city has been astounding. On my previous visit I noted the extension of the residential quarters of the city to the slopes of the encircling hills, but I did not dream of the extent to which this has been carried. It came as a positive shock to me to learn that land in this rugged country, which is really as picturesquely uneven as Switzerland, without, of course, the enormously high mountains closely guarding it, has increased in value within the last generation from almost nothing to a thousand pounds an acre! Of course, engineering science in getting cable and electric cars running up the precipitous slopes of these hills is largely responsible for this inflation of land values, but comparing these values with those obtaining at home within easy reach of our great business centres, I am filled with astonishment at the price of land in New Zealand. I am strongly inclined to think that there is somethingartificial and temporary in such prices, especially when you remember that upon such enormously expensive land buildings are erected that, although beautiful to look at and entirely in accordance with their romantic environment, are practically all of wood. Still wooden house building has reached a high level of excellence in Wellington. If you can shut your eyes to the material, you will find nothing to gird at in the quality of the houses or their interior finish. In a word, they are beautiful and comfortable as well.
It is not often given to the citizens of an important city to be able to get from their offices in a few minutes to homes that occupy exquisitely beautiful points of advantage as regards scenery, and at the same time commanding an outlook of immense area over the sea and the harbour of their city. This is essentially the case in Wellington, and it is an advantage that is fully appreciated, judging from the extraordinary development that has taken place within the last few years. The amount of land available for the erection of business premises near the wharves was very little, but that has been rectified by reclamation, more evident here than anywhere else in New Zealand, where the extension of foreshores and their conversion into busy business thoroughfares is carried toa greater extent than anywhere else in the world. Here are to be seen splendid avenues of traffic, bounded on both sides by grand buildings, where a generation ago the sullen sea beat incessantly upon long, barren, shallow beaches. The aggregate cost of these great works has been enormous—phenomenal, when it is remembered how small are the numbers of the population that have achieved so great a result; but the returns from this enterprise have undoubtedly justified the keen foresight and business aptitude which has energised them as well as prompted the outlay. It is with no ordinary feeling of satisfaction that I here bear my tribute to the go-ahead qualities and the enduring work of these makers of the Britain of the South.