New Zealand after five wars

Harrop, Angus J. (Angus John), Jarrolds Publishers, London, England, 1947

New Zealand after Five Wars

A. J. HARROP

Author of ‘MY NEW ZEALAND’, etc.

DR. HARROP IS A NEW ZEALANDER WHO possesses an intimate knowledge of his country and people, and lias also the advantage of being able to look at New Zealand from afar, since be spent the W ar years in London. In bis very worthwhile contribution to the study of the Imperial Commonwealth be passes from the era of settlement to that of expansion, then to the First W orld W ar and after, and on to the war with Germany and the war with Japan. In bis final section on “Present and Future”, Dr. Harrop discusses, in relation to New Zealand, such matters as trends in education, writers and artists, Maori renaissance, social security to-day, and the population problem. The book is illustrated by a large number of excellent photographs.

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The original publication details are as follows:

Title: New Zealand after five wars

Author: Harrop, Angus J. (Angus John)

Published: Jarrolds Publishers, London, England, 1947

NEW ZEALAND AFTER FIVE WARS

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

England and New Zealand

Amazing Career of Edward Gibbon Wakefield

Touring in New Zealand

England and the Maori Wars

My New Zealand

Zsaland Government) Mitre Peak, Milford Sound

A. J. Harrop

NEW ZEALAND AFTER FIVE WARS

“The stain of blood that writes an island story”

With 17 illustrations

JARROLDS Publishers (LONDON) Ltd.

Founded in 1770

47 Princes Gate, 5.W.7

LONDON NEW YORK MELBOURNE SYDNEY CAPE TOWN

THIS BOOK IS PRODUCED IN COMPLETE CONFORMITY WITH THE AUTHORIZED ECONOMY STANDARDS.

Made and Printed in Great Britain by GREYCA1NE9

(Taylor Garnett Evans & Co. Ltd.) Watford, Herts.

CONTENTS

Chapter I INTRODUCTION: World at War Page 11

PART I

ERA OF SETTLEMENT

II Early Days 18

III Maoris and Missionaries 21

IV Wakefield and His Plan 26

V "The Shadow of the Queen" 33

VI Systematic Settlement 36

VII War with the Maori King 43

VIII Confiscation and "Self-Reliance" 51

PART II

ERA OF EXPANSION

IX The Days of Gold 59

X Surveyors 65

XI Development and Experiment 67

XII Pacific Adventure 75

XIII Imperial Vision 78

PART III

FIRST WORLD WAR—AND AFTER

XIV World War 85

XV Aftermath 9 1

XVI Labour Wins Power 95

5

6

CONTENTS

PART IV

WAR WITH GERMANY AND JAPAN

Chapter

XVII New Zealand at War Again Page 99

XVIII Prelude to Battle 106

XIX Gesture to Greece 111

XX Campaign in Crete 11 7

XXI Battle for Egypt 12 3

XXII Battle for Italy 139

XXIII War in the Air 148

XXIV With the Navy in Europe 160

XXV War against Japan 165

(1) Working with the United States

(2) Military Operations

(3) Air Effort

(4) Naval Tasks

PART V

NEW ZEALAND—PRESENT AND FUTURE

XXVI Aftermath II 1 84

XXVII Trends in Education 187

XXVIII Writers and Artists 1 97

XXIX Population Problem 203

XXX Maori Renaissance 206

XXXI Social Security To-day 210

XXXII Note on Sport 211

XXXIII News Services 212

XXXIV With the United Nations 214

XXXV Recent Journey 216

Index 22 5

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Mitre Peak, Milford Sound Frontispiece

Mount Tasman face page 32

Royal Albatross, Taiaroa Head, Otago „ 33

Hauhau Ritual Dance, by F. H. Coventry „ 48

Maori Girl, Rotorua „ 49

Lower Queen Street, Auckland „ 80

Largest Gold-dredge in New Zealand, Loburn, South Island ~ 81

Lake Wanaka and Mount Aspiring ~ 96

Farming Country, Athol, Southland ~ 97

A New Zealand Spitfire Squadron in Britain, 1944 ~ 128

The Cenotaph, Wellington ~ 129

In the Routeburn River, South Island ~ 144

Lake Taupo through Gum Trees ~ 145

State Houses, New Plymouth. With Mount Egmont in background ~ 176

Wellington from Khandallah with State houses in foreground ~ 177

By the Parry Fall in the "Donald Sutherland", Milford Sound „ 192

Auckland War Memorial Museum ~ 193

7

PREFACE

The “Five Wars” referred to in the title of this book are;

The Maori Wars;

The South African War;

The War of 1914-18;

The War against Germany and Italy;

The War against Japan.

Since the Maoris ceded sovereignty to Queen Victoria in 1840 New Zealand has been at war internally or externally for some thirtv years.

Much more space is given to the wars of 1939-45 than to the others, though it is too early yet to attempt a complete history. What I have tried to do is to give a picture of New Zealand's recent achievements in war and peace against an historical background.

The type and blocks of My New Zealand, which I wrote in 1939 for the Jarrolds' "My Country" series, were destroyed in an early air raid on Plymouth. Some of the material of that book, greatly abridged, has been used to help provide in one volume a summary of the country's story from its discovery by Tasman in 1642 to the aftermath of the wars which ended in 1945. My thanks are due to members of the Cabinet, especially the Hons. R. Semple, F. Jones and C.F. Skinner, and many Government officials for their help in assembling material.

9

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION: World at War

At dawn on a day late in March, 1945, I left Rose Bay, Sydney, by flying-boat for New Zealand. After more than five years of London in war-time I had sailed at the end of October, 1944, for New York by the Aquitania. The full rigours of war were at this time pressing on the British people. The D-Day invasion had indeed gone well, but Germany was not yet broken. The winter ahead was to be the severest for many decades. At sea, of course, security demanded the strictest attention to every order and there were eight berths in what would have been two-berth state-rooms in peace-time. After five years of war-time Fleet Street, I was so security-minded that I refrained from diary entries except under great stress of emotion — as, for instance, when the first orange I had seen for years appeared at breakfast on the first day to be followed by grape-fruit on the second. Despite a course which—it may now presumably be revealed —took us far to the south, we berthed at 46th Street, New York, on the seventh day.

To pass from war-time London to war-time New York was to comprehend fully the difficulties of ever fairly assessing the war efforts of any two countries. The United States was providing men and munitions of war on a vast scale. No task was too big, no device too complicated for her industrialists to tackle. Her war potential was so tremendous that she could face the burden of two great wars at once without ostensibly putting any great strain on her people, hard and monotonous though much of the factory work had to be. There were some shortages, of course, but they were mainly confined to luxuries like cigarettes and taxis. In Britain, on the other hand, there was hardly anything that was not in short supply. Rationing provided enough food to maintain life, and the stipulated rations were always available, but they were necessarily monotonous. However convincing were the statistics of calories available to the people, one had only to look around a crowded carriage in an underground train to know that there was something lacking somewhere—and no statistics can provide for the thousands of mothers who stinted themselves to give adequate nourishment to growing children.

When the constant strain of bombing or threat of bombing is considered, one can only marvel that so much was done in the great centres of production in Britain. The long series of brilliant inventions and adaptations which made it possible to hold off the iron claws of the German war machine until we could turn and

19

12

NEW ZEALAND AFTER FIVE WARS

smash it have won for British scientists eternal credit and—even more remarkable—some provision for future research.

During the weeks I spent in the United States I found no lack of appreciation among the ordinary people of what Britain had done and was doing to eliminate Hitlerism. I flew by DC3 on a glorious Sunday evening to Cleveland, John D. Rockefeller’s home town, to find a happy city (despite no beer on Sundays) where the people seemed confident of the future and grateful to Britain for her part in assuring it. In Washington, as one would perhaps expect, knowledge of Britain’s war effort was fairly widespread, and even in Chicago, which I visited on the way to the Pacific Coast, Colonel McCormick’s fears of Britain’s designs on the United States did not seem to be taken too seriously. Here the international civil aviation conference was proceeding not too smoothly, and I met the New Zealand delegates.

On the long rail journey to San Francisco I talked with many American servicemen and noted in my diary that they were "all very friendly and interested in London". California was bathed in sunshine, while the East was swept by snowstorms. I looked on the Golden Gate and its bridge and found that it was only by a great effort I could bring myself to believe, in that peaceful scene, that London was being at that very moment tortured by flying bombs and rockets. But not so far away great shipbuilding yards working day and night showed that this coast, too, was fully geared to war—a lesson rubbed in when I went south to Los Angeles and saw the great Lockheed plant. I walked miles also to the Coliseum to see my first American football game—Randolph Field v. March Field—and soon understood the sport's popularity.

At the University of California I was asked to talk on London's war experiences to the colleagues of Dr. Paul Dodd, and found once more a keen desire for information about, and ready sympathy with, the British people in their ordeal. This experience was repeated at the Huntingdon Library, where the staff guards so many fabulous treasures of art and literature.

Even in Hollywood, blossoming with many-coloured Christmas trees, the impact of war in Europe was felt. Charles Boyer presided at the presentation of the Resistance film of the Liberation of Paris.

My stay in Los Angeles was pleasant, though enforced. I had come to the coast to connect with the Liberator ferrying service to Australia only to find that no more bombers were being sent. So instead of going as freight in a few days I had to find an alternative route to Australia. The once-monthly service by the Swedish line —to which the cream of the Pacific trade had been handed on a silver salver —was naturally booked well in advance, so, as an old stager on the Panama route, I turned in that direction once more. By travelling three days and nights by train I could reach Mexico

INTRODUCTION

21

City and thence hope to fly south. By catching the Mexican consulate as soon as it opened in the morning I managed to get a visa in three-quarters of an hour. My exit permit stipulated departure by air from California, so as a precautionary measure I got through to Washington to make sure that the Customs officials would not hold me up at El Paso in Texas. Then, late in the afternoon (after receiving, too late to accept, permission to go by air) I left for the border, first through the orange groves of Southern California, then across the Arizona desert.

We had four hours at El Paso and I checked up first of all with the United States customs officer. He was so keen to hear all about what had been happening in London that I did not get away for a long time. El Paso was drowsing in the sunshine. I saw a bank with a notice on the door that business hours were from 10 to 2 and went in to find that though it was open no business was done between 1 and 2. I went out again to the sunshine a little dazed but convinced that my call had been worth while. Time spent in learning about other nations' ideas of humour is surely not wasted.

In the afternoon I boarded the Mexican train to travel through desert regions where the Indians scratched the soil with primitive ploughs and found their simple economy disrupted by war-time rises in the prices of things they had to buy. Learning Spanish phrases killed time as we climbed steadily up towards Mexico City, standing at some 7,000 feet above sea-level. We arrived nine hours late but secured a family taxi (one in which the driver as a matter of course transports his wife and child) and were soon, after a welcome bath, dining in the roof garden restaurant of our hotel. If you want to appreciate strawberries and cream in December add three days and nights in a Mexican train to five London war winters.

Mexico City needs to be seen to be believed. It is ultra-modern in some ways, mediaeval in others. Its government has a progressive policy for the elimination of illiteracy. There is a flourishing film industry with a growing market in Spanish-speaking America. Modern Mexican paintings and murals in the Palace of Fine Arts illustrate the newer aspects of the country's culture, as a visit to the wonderful church, Villa de Guadeloupe, with its surrounding fair and pilgrims advancing painfully to the altar on their knees, shows the influence of the past. In the National Museum are remarkable relics of Aztec civilization, while at Chapultepec the proud regime of the Spanish Dons and the stirring days of revolution come to life. Overhead at midday, while marketing proceeds in the Cathedral square as it has done for centuries, Mexican aircraft patrol to show preparedness for any attack. Mexico was not called on for any great military effort in the war, but she did play a valuable part in supplying the Allies with war materials.

After four days the car took me to the airport for the long

H

NEW ZEALAND AFTER FIVE WARS

flight to Balboa at midnight. We left late at 2.30 a.m. and landed twice in Mexico before looking in at all the United Nations in this part of the world. San Salvador, smallest of the lot, was also the least united, a revolution having been in progress for some time. Air travel has meant much to these small countries, but flying conditions in great heat among high mountains are far from ideal. Our seventh landing of the day was at San Jos£ in Costa Rica. We did not reach Balboa till after dark and were at first refused permission to land in the vital Panama Canal Zone, but the authorities relented and our day's meanderings over some 1,700 miles came to an end.

It was characteristic of travel in war-time that I should learn that the ship I was supposed to connect with had not yet left England. So I had more than three weeks to gaze at the Pacific and adjust my mind to the perspectives of a different war. For the Canal, important as it was for the war in Europe, was even more vital in maintaining the fleets and armies assembling against Japan. To take a tanker to the war zones across the vast distances of the Pacific required strong nerves even for a few voyages, but the necessity to keep on month in and month out, year after year, not unnaturally led to a considerable wastage of tanker officers and men.

To keep the vital oil-stream flowing was the job of the United States War Shipping Administration in the Canal Zone, and when I moved over to the Cristobal end of the Canal I met Captain William Kirkwood, chief of the recruiting and manning division of the Administration in the Caribbean area, and saw something of his problems. Where men were not available from the local pool, telephone calls to Washington brought them travelling by air overnight to keep the tankers ploughing through the Pacific wastes to write the doom of Japan. The Canal itself was working at full pressure and was, of course, heavily defended. At both ends I heard something of what might have happened if the Japanese had struck against it at the same time as they attacked Pearl Harbour. Few fighters were apparently ready for action and mechanics worked seventy-two hours continuously when the storm broke.

I had leisure in Panama to follow the progress of a crisis in the Republic. Ironically enough, in this small but not unimportant member of the United Nations, there was proceeding a revolution of the Right. The President was evincing reluctance to abandon the cares and emoluments of office and had accordingly suspended the constitution. As he had been supplied with arms to defend the Republic against Japan and had taken the precaution of substantially raising the pay of the police, dislodging him was a matter of some difficulty.

The problem was urgently and daily debated on the balcony of the Tivoli Hotel by the opposition members of the assemblyJ^who

'5

INTRODUCTION

had prudently stepped across the road into United States Territory. In the dead of night they motored out into the jungle, crossed into republican territory, passed resolutions of the assembly condemning the president and then returned to the Canal Zone and the Tivoli. It was not till shortly before I returned several months later that the reluctantly retiring president really retired. The affair may seem trivial, but it rubbed in for me the lesson that it is unwise to assume that the logic of democracy is inescapable. Even where democratic forms have obtained for years, there can actually be autocracy. Indeed democracy is impossible without some system of universal education—and it is far from inevitable even where one exists.

My ship at last arrived and I went on board to find that it would be held up for four days for repairs. One of the six passengers was John Hetherington, Australian war correspondent and author of Airborne Invasion, returning after much strenuous campaigning. As an old inhabitant of the Zone I was able to help him and the others fill in time enjoyably at this their only stop on the long voyage. When we left, with grateful memories of American hospitality, we had three-and-a-half weeks of liberal education in the logistics of the Pacific War. That was the time we took to travel from Balboa to Brisbane, and a brilliant inspiration of the Ministry of War Transport only just failed to provide us with first-hand knowledge of the New Guinea conflict. We were ordered to proceed there when Brisbane was only a day or so away, and had it not been for the captain's ability to plead shortage of water we would have gone there. When we got in we found that the urgently required cargo we were supposed to be carrying was meat. For a ship coming from Britain to be carrying meat seemed highly unlikely, and it transpired that the signal had been sent to us in error. One wondered just how often the Berkeley Square beehive had produced similar inspirations.

On a hot February Sunday we landed at Brisbane, to find it still very much a garrison city though the main flood of American and Australian troops had by now passed northwards. Grapes and peaches were a shilling a pound. Steak and oysters could be enjoyed at something like a third of the New York price. Lennon's Hotel, airconditioned oasis only recently evacuated by the Americans, including General Mac Arthur's wife and son, bore much the same ratio to the Waldorf-Astoria. But it did not take long to find out that austerity had come to Australia in a way unknown in the United States. Rationing was severe. Supplies of beer in that thirsty climate were pitifully inadequate, and the queues for what existed were so long that the effort involved to get it was scarcely worth while.

Qantas flying-boat took me from Brisbane to Sydney and further evidence that Australia was having an uncomfortable war. The city was crowded. Houses and flats were virtually impossible to secure. Almost all things, except bare necessities, were in short

i 6

NEW ZEALAND AFTER FIVE WARS

supply. To the effects of war were added those of a long-prolonged drought, very obvious from the air. The British fleet, or what seemed a large part of it, was in the famous harbour, and the Navy was being overwhelmed with hospitality and revelling in ice-cream and fruit. But the housewife had plenty of worries, long after immediate threat of invasion had disappeared. The midget submarine raid was Sydney’s only direct experience of warfare, but the drain on the country’s manhood of the North African, Malayan, and New Guinea campaigns, not to mention her great air and naval efforts, coupled with vastly increased factory production, was very obvious in what was mercifully and surprisingly to prove the last half-year of the war.

I flew over drought-induced bush fires to Melbourne, Commonwealth defence headquarters, more spacious in lay-out than Sydney, but also overcrowded. At the Beaufort aeroplane works I saw convincing evidence of the industrial progress made in five years of war, before which Australia had not even manufactured motor-car engines. At Flemington racecourse, as at Randwick and Canterbury Park in Sydney, I saw great crowds relaxing in long totalizator queues and scrums round bookmakers. Racing was greatly restricted during the war but austerity never went so far as to abolish it. That would have been too great a blow at civilian morale.

On the air journey back to Sydney I stayed overnight at Canberra, the Federal capital, with its wide open spaces ready for great development over the next hundred years. The High Commissioner for New Zealand has duties enhanced and at the same time, he told me, simplified by the Australian-New Zealand agreement binding the countries to joint action in many fields. On the way to the aerodrome next day I was driven through the grounds of Duntroon military college to the Commonwealth War Memorial Museum, a shrine comparable to the Scottish War Memorial at Edinburgh, bearing glorious witness to the service of Australians in two world wars. Back to Sydney, and soon afterwards I was making the air crossing of the Tasman Sea, in a Short Sunderland with an all-New Zealand crew: Captain K. Brownjohn (commander) ist Officer C. Le Couteur (navigator), 2nd Officer D. R. Phillips (flight engineer), D. Reid (radio officer), C. Sutton (flight steward). Little more than ten years before I had stood on the Ninety Mile beach north of Auckland and seen Charles Ulm land in the Faith in Australia prior to making one of the pioneer flights which led to the regular service over the stormy Tasman. Now, as he foreshadowed when I spoke to him, the crossing was a routine matter, though still demanding, of course, a high standard in men and machines to set up its remarkable safety record.

The 1,200-mile flight occupied seven-and-a-half hours, and I had leisure to reflect on what I had learned on my travels and to

'7

INTRODUCTION

try to focus New Zealand in the international picture. How did it come about that these remote islands became so closely involved in a European conflict and played a part in it many times more important than much more densely populated countries, through some of which I had passed? I could see that there was no brief answer to this question and that to understand New Zealand’s present attitude to Britain and the world at large would require some background of knowledge of the country’s development over more than a century. This book attempts to supply that background before dealing in detail with New Zealand’s share in the Second World War and the present state of the country.

PART I

ERA OF SETTLEMENT

CHAPTER II

EARLY DAYS

Life in New Zealand is simpler than it is in England, even after the Second World War and its resulting invasion of the North Island by many thousands of American troops. My own boyhood was passed in the small town of Hokitika, on the west coast of the South Island, which, for all its weather-beaten and rather insignificant appearance, once played its part in history. There were no modern frills in education in my day. We could choose between the State or the Convent school, and my impression of the infant room of the former is one of large numbers of children well controlled by a teacher of a quality produced by necessity.

Through the primers and the standards we progressed, learning our way about the world on maps which still colour my ideas of geography—so much so that it is only by a firm effort that I convince myself that many of those boundaries we drew with so much care are vanished as completely as the isolation of Hokitika. On occasions, events in the world outside forced themselves on our childish minds. I can remember the gloom of the town, the solemn tolling of the bell in the fire tower, when the incredible news arrived that Richard John Seddon, Prime Minister of New Zealand, had died at sea. King Dick he was called, and if the whole of New Zealand was his kingdom, it was Westland that launched him on his spectacular career, that returned him as its member of Parliament automatically for a generation and mourned him most when he was gone.

As we travelled up the school we began to know something about our own country, partly through the reading of the School Journal, distributed by the Department of Education, and partly in the ordinary geography lessons. We learned that Hokitika was almost the nearest point in New Zealand to Australia, and that that almost mythical land was twelve hundred miles away. We learned that our South Island's area was 58,000 square miles and the North Island's 44,000. We were told, but scarcely believed it, that the British Isles, with their vastly greater population, were only slightly larger. We did not need to be told that one of the most striking

26

ERA OF SETTLEMENT

".)

physical characteristics of New Zealand was "its mountainous nature". As we walked to school we walked towards the long range of the Southern Alps and learned gradually the names of the main peaks which stood out so boldly on the clear, bright mornings which follow night rain on the Coast. From our front door we could look straight down Fitzherbert Street to the towering glory of Mounts Cook and Tasman, which as children we regarded as one mountain with a bite out of the middle. The height of Cook, 12,349 feet, was easy to learn and difficult to forget. It sprang from our infant tongues as readily as 55 B.C. and 1066. The names of the mountains provided a convenient text for the teacher who wished us to know when our land was discovered by Europeans. It was helpful, also, that Abel Tasman, the Dutch navigator, should have first seen "a great land much uplifted" (which he called Staten Landt after "Their High Mightinesses", the States-General of Holland, believing it to be part of the great southern continent) from a point some fifteen miles out from our Westland coast. This was on December 13, 1642, and it used to puzzle us a little why the next date we had to learn was one hundred and twenty-seven years farther on. We knew our coast was not very hospitable for shipping, but, after all, December was our mid-summer, and Tasman had braved a thousand perils to get so far on his voyage. Why did he not land in New Zealand ? Why was no attempt made by the Dutch to make use of his discovery ? Our teachers could give us a fairly satisfactory answer to the first question, for there was that conflict with the Maoris in the bay marked Mordenaars' (Murderers') in the first map of New Zealand based on actual observation. But our teachers could not tell us, and later historians have been unable to discover, what caused this conflict. Never, perhaps, in history has the loss of one boat's crew had such momentous results. Tasman gave up hope of water and refreshment and made off eastwards to sail through the South Sea to Chile. After a day's sailing he found himself with land on all sides, and four more days of stormy weather induced him to turn back, leaving undecided the question as to whether he was in a great bay or in a strait between two islands. He named the place Zeehaen Bight after one of his ships, but we know it to-day as Cook's Strait, and do not wonder that its treacherous tides foiled Tasman. That unfortunate man failed several times more to find a suitable landing-place before rounding the northern extremity of New Zealand—naming Cape Maria van Diemen, after the wife of the Governor-General of the Indies, who had inspired the exploration project—and sailing away to the east.

His safe arrival home after a voyage of ten months was not greeted with any great enthusiasm, largely because his discoveries offered no immediate prospect of lucrative trade. Van Diemen died in 1645. With him died the desire to see a Dutch Pacific. The

20

NEW ZEALAND AFTER FIVE WARS

directors of the East India Company were hard-headed business men, knowing the limitations of Holland’s power. They gave New Zealand its name and left it to the Maoris.

Captain Cook’s voyages were naturally of greater interest to us than the one fleeting visit of Tasman. We were probably told that James Cook was the son of a day-labourer of Marton, in Yorkshire, but the rise to fame of one so humbly born would scarcely surprise young New Zealanders, dwellers in a land where few have the advantages of wealth and high birth to help them in their careers. For us the rediscovery of New Zealand was Cook’s principal achievement, but his voyages, as we learned later, were of far wider significance. Over half the Pacific Ocean no ship had yet sailed. “Was Australia, in all its amplitude, yet but an outlying sentinel of a land of boundaries almost infinite? Was New Zealand the northern limit of a coast that stretched impregnably to the Pole ? Or did the south but repeat the island-clusters of Capricorn and the Equator?” Thus does J. C. Beaglehole, the New Zealand historian of exploration in the Pacific, summarize the main geographical questions which Cook was destined to answer. It was on October 7, 1769, that Nicholas Young, a boy of Cook’s ship, Endeavour, sighted New Zealand at the point on the east coast of the North Island named Young Nick’s Head. In spite of experience gained among the natives of Tahiti, the expedition’s first dealings with the Maoris were by no means propitious. Several natives were killed by the crew in self-defence, but even the miraculous intervention of fire-arms would not have prevented a Maori attack in force if Cook had not prudently sailed southward, taking his revenge for the failure to secure supplies by naming that rich district Poverty Bay, a burden borne by the inhabitants to this day out of respect for the great navigator.

Cook rounded the northern extremity of New Zealand in spite of the worst hurricane he had ever been in, and traversed that dangerous western coast which had proved so disappointing to Tasman. He named Egmont, the glorious peak of Taranaki, after the First Lord of the Admiralty, and then found an ideal place for rest and refreshment at Ship Cove in the fiord henamed Queen Charlotte’s Sound. Here it was that the ship’s company were awakened in the morning by the most melodious wild music Banks had ever heard, “almost imitating small bells, but with the most tunable silver sound imaginable”. No children in the whole world were better fitted to approve this description than those who lived on the West Coast of our day, for the bell-bird flourished there not far from the haunts of men, and though it is being driven further and further back, its glorious note is still to be heard in the forest. It is tempting indeed to regard the New Zealand of Captain Cook’s time as an earthly paradise, and to lament with the author of Sorrows and Joys

21

ERA OF SETTLEMENT

of a New Zealand Naturalist the advent of the Anglo-Saxon breed, "whose ferocious rat-like pertinacity has accomplished the ruin of a fauna and flora unique in the world."

Cook was concerned, of course, merely with the carrying out of his instructions. He established the insularity of New Zealand and completed the circumnavigation of the two main islands, charting 2,400 miles of coast with almost incredible accuracy. As possible places of settlement he suggested the River Thames or the Bay of Islands, in the north. He thought the Maori tribes insufficiently united to oppose colonization. The view was justified, no doubt, but cannibalism was practised to a limited extent by the Maoris, and Captain Cook's own summary of his experience with these fierce and resolute warriors, though just, was not perhaps sufficiently reassuring to encourage large-scale migration to the land of the bell-bird.

CHAPTER 111

MAORIS AND MISSIONARIES

What was this Maori race which dominated New Zealand, and whence had it come ? No final answers have yet been given to these questions, though it may be asserted with confidence that Maori culture is a branch of Polynesian and that its ultimate place of origin was Asia. The leader of the Maori community in all undertakings of moment was the chief, who held his place so long as he remained decisive in action. In the dread field of theology, as H. D. Skinner points out, he usually accepted the advice of the expert, the tohunga.

The social life of the Maori was permeated by religious influences, and it is a curious fact that the supreme being of the race, 10, was so sacred that most Maoris lived and died without knowing anything about him. lo held sway over the last of an ascending series of twelve heavens, each with its own departmental gods. These included Tane, god of forests; Rongo, protector of cultivated crops; Tu, the god of war; Tangaroa, god of the sea; and Whiro, guardian of evil Besides the cult of all these formal deities, the Maori had to placate the spirits of departed ancestors with ceremonies and observances which fear as well as affection deterred him from omitting.

The almost pathetic eagerness with which the Maoris seized upon nails and any metal object when white men first visited them was a reflection of the fact that their arts and crafts belonged to the Stone Age. It is believed that the art of metal smelting may have been known to remote ancestors of the Maoris, but it had

■i-2

NEW ZEALAND AFTER FIVE WARS

certainly been lost, and they were forced back on obsidian, found near the Bay of Plenty, and nephrite, the beautiful green stone which came from the West Coast of the South Island. For ordinary woodwork the adze, in one of a dozen forms, was the usual tool, and for carving there were greenstone chisels and gouges. Woodcarving reached its highest pitch along the eastern coasts of the Auckland province, and of the achievements of the craftsmen of this district H. D. Skinner says:

"A selected series of the best-carved musical instruments, boxes, paddles, and weapons would, probably, reveal a sense of decorative values and mastery of execution not equalled by any other race at a similar cultural level. . . . There can be no doubt that the most beautiful of all Maori finished products was the great war canoe, in which fine detail decoration fell naturally into place as a part of the perfect grace of the whole."

Though we do not know when and how the Polynesian navigators came to discover New Zealand, it may be surmised with reasonable certainty that the migration which ultimately took place to this colder climate was primarily economic. Polynesia was overpopulated, and wars resulted from the struggle for food supplies. The date of the first settlements in New Zealand is unknown, but the main migration undoubtedly took place about the year 1350.

When the potato was introduced about the year 1800 there saw a considerable increase in population in the South Island, where the taro and the yam had never been acclimatized. Where population was dense, settlements were usually grouped round a strong fort or pa, into which the whole people withdrew when threatened by attack.

War was the national sport of the Maoris, and for centuries it was carried on without any very disastrous consequences. Great warriors came and went, but none ever established his authority over the whole country. It was only with the gradual increase of contacts with the outside world, the introduction of muskets, and the growth of trade that ambitious chiefs began to see the possibilities of turning the ways of the white man to account. By 1802 whaling off the New Zealand coasts had become fairly well established, and in 1805 as many as eight vessels were fishing at the same time. Maoris were often recruited to man the ships, and potatoes were cultivated in large quantities to supply them. The chief, Te Pahi, visited Sydney and enjoyed the hospitality of Governor King, who was greatly interested in promoting the welfare of the Maori race.

In Sydney also was Samuel Marsden, who had held His Majesty's commission as chaplain in New South Wales since 1793. Not content with the heavy task of attempting the moral regeneration of the

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penal colony, he wished to make it a centre of missionary activity in the Pacific. The London Missionary Society had made him its official correspondent in 1801, and Marsden was anxious that his own church should also enter the field. The Church Missionary Society had been founded in 1799. Its first missionaries went to West Africa. Thanks to the energy and initiative of Marsden, who visited England in 1807 and remained till 1809, the eighth and ninth on the fist, William Hall and John King, were designated for service in New Zealand.

By a remarkable coincidence the New Zealand chief, Ruatara, whose influence was later to help Marsden greatly, was a passenger in the ship in which the missionary travelled out with Hall and King. When he arrived at Port Jackson, however, he received a bitter blow to his hopes in the news of the “Massacre of the Boyd ”, in which forty people perished at the hands of the Maoris. Hall and King accordingly remained in New South Wales. They fared so well that they were reluctant to move on to New Zealand in 1813, when Thomas Kendall arrived from England and Marsden decided to go ahead with his plan. Kendall was sent out as a schoolmaster. He was afterwards ordained, and was instrumental in preparing the first grammar of the Maori language. Unfortunately his character was not strong enough to withstand the many kinds of temptation which the licentious life of the whaling stations on the New Zealand coast offered and his decline and fall was a sore trial to Marsden.

"All the difficulties in New Zealand that I have met with have been in governing the Europeans," he wrote to the Church Missionary Society in 1820. "They will not do what is right. They will not live in unity and brotherly love. . . . The love of money, the thirst for preeminence, the want of industry and zeal for the good of the heathen, have greatly militated against the success of the Mission."

After a preliminary visit of reconnaissance, insisted on by Governor Macquarie, the brig Active, which Marsden had purchased, took him, the missionaries, their families and five chiefs —including the great Hongi and Ruatara—to the Bay of Islands, where they arrived on December 22, 1814, after paying a visit to Whangaroa. The landing of cattle and horses from the boats caused great excitement among the Maoris, who had seen nothing of the kind before.

On December 25th, Marsden went ashore "to publish the glad tidings of the Gospel for the first time". He gave practical proof of his confidence in the Maoris by ordering all on board on shore to divine service except the master and one man. Ruatara had made an enclosure, erected a reading-desk and pulpit, and arranged someseats. He also explained to the Maoris what the sermon—from the text "Behold I bring you glad tidings of great joy"—was about.

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Marsden returned on board much gratified with the reception he had met with, and the Maoris showed their appreciation of the solemn spectacle by indulging in a war dance.

Life in Old New Zealand was far from idyllic, and some of the scenes described in Marsden’s Journals make the adventure stories of our youth pale by comparison. Here is one example of the view that might await any white adventurer into a Maori settlement:

“In this village I observed the heads of eleven chiefs stuck up on poles as trophies of victory. On inquiry I learned they were part of those Sunghee (Hongi) brought with him in his last expedition to the southwards. He had cured them all. Their countenances were very natural, excepting their lips and teeth which had all a ghastly grin as if they had been fixed by the last agonies of death. How painful must these exhibitions be to the wives, children and subjects of these departed chiefs, who are prisoners of war and labouring upon the same spot with these heads in full view!”

It was not until 1823 that the New Zealand Mission began to make substantial progress. In that year Marsden made his fourth visit, and he took with him the Rev. Henry Williams and his wife and three children. Henry Williams, who was born in 1792, entered the Royal Navy at the age of fourteen, and was present at Copenhagen in 1807. After the war he retired on half-pay as lieutenant and later took holy orders. He was to prove the strong man that the Mission needed, and when he was joined by his brother William in 1826 Marsden could feel that at last there was hope of teaching Christianity by example.

While in New Zealand Marsden had the opportunity of conversing with the great chief Hongi, who had accompanied Kendall to England in 1819-20 and had received much attention and many valuable presents. One of these, a coat of mail from the King, he wore in battle. Others he sold to purchase fire-arms and establish his ascendancy over tribes not so fortunate. As Kendall's protector, Hongi had to be carefully treated. Marsden told him that he thought the chiefs of New Zealand would be well advised to make him king, that he might put an end to their wars. He replied that he would not be able to persuade the chiefs to do this. When he was at war he was feared and respected, but when he returned home they would not hearken to anything he might say.

Late in 1825 Hongi began what was to be his last campaign against his enemies of Waikato, and he followed it with another attack on his neighbours at Whangaroa. In this campaign the Wesleyan mission station at Wesleydale was destroyed and the missionaries were forced to flee. Hongi himself was mortally wounded and borne to his home, where he died on March 6, 1828. Though cruel and treacherous in war, the great chief protected Europeans, and but for him the story of the mission would have been very different.

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Marsden made his sixth voyage to New Zealand in 1830, and when he arrived at the Bay of Islands he found both missionaries and Maoris disturbed by the outbreak of what became known as the “Girls’ War”. Brind, the captain of a whaler lying off Kororareka, had taken to himself two Maori girls as wives. Tiring of these after a time, he replaced them by two younger girls who were sisters. All four were bathing on the beach one day and began chaffing each other in a good-humoured way. Unfortunately, chaff turned into abuse and abuse into cursing in the Maori sense—an unforgivable sin. The ceremonial plundering, which was the inevitable sequel, was turned into a battle by the accidental discharge of a musket which killed a woman of the invading party. Nearly a hundred people were killed and wounded in spite of a hazardous attempt by Henry Williams to stop the fighting. When Marsden arrived he went with Williams to the rival camps and after a number of conferences succeeded in averting what threatened to develop into a general war.

Marsden came back from this voyage with a definite impression that until British authority was established in New Zealand the situation there must continue to be dangerous. He wrote to Governor Darling that a small armed King’s vessel should be stationed off the coast to restrain the bad conduct of the masters and crews of visiting ships. He did not advocate a military establishment as he thought that the soldiers would be too much exposed to temptation, but there is no doubt that he set in motion a train of events which ended in James Busby being appointed British Resident in New Zealand.

Marsden died on May 12, 1838, and was buried in the churchyard of his church at Parramatta, where for so many years he had gathered round him Maori visitors from the land which came first in his thoughts.

Though the mission settlements which gradually became established in different parts of the North Island were outposts of civilization, it cannot be said that their influence balanced that of the other white townships which sprang up with the development of the whaling and flax trades. These lawless communities attracted adventurers from all parts of the globe and the pages of Marsden's Journals are strewn with allusions to the harm they wrought. Marsden himself clearly envisaged the necessity for British intervention, but the Church Missionary Society itself was fearful of the consequences for the Maoris of regular colonization. It was soon apparent, however, that something must be done, and the event which perhaps did most of all to precipitate matters was the exploit of the notorious Captain Stewart of the brig Elizabeth in conveying the chief, Te Rauparaha, and his men to the southern island to make war on the tribes there. Stewart, who would apparently do anything

NEW ZEALAND AFTER FIVE WARS

34

for a cargo of flax, induced some of the southern natives to come on board his ship, when they were secured by Te Rauparaha s men and afterwards murdered. Viscount Godench, the Secretary of State, read Governor Darling's account of these vile transactions with shame and indignation. James Busby's appointment as Resident followed, but it was never made clear how he was to exercise his authority over miscreants of the Stewart type, who would stop at nothing and who would merely laugh at a functionary with no means of enforcing any decisions he might make. Busby did succeed in inducing a gathering of chiefs to choose a New Zealand flag and sign a Declaration of Independence, thus setting up some sort ot facade of national unity which might prove useful in the event ot controversy with another power. For Busby feared that the French had designs on New Zealand, and the part played by French navigators, like de Surville and Marion du Fresne in the history of the country shows that he had some grounds for this belief.

In 1830, according to Captain Peter Dillon—who won lame and the Legion of Honour by discovering the fate of La Perouse—the French Government "had so strong an impression ot the value of New Zealand as a place of trade and colonial settlements that they were willing to advance a million francs (£4°> 00 °) ln ™ c experiment, and on this occasion they conferred upon me the position of French Consul for the Islands in the South Seas, which I ultimately resigned". It was apparently proposed that the British procedure should be followed and a way for French colonists prepared by means of a mission, but the July revolution put an end to the plan for the time being and gave British statesmanship a chance to overcome its almost incurable love for procrastination. It was in this very year of 1830 that the movement which was to change the whole course of British colonial policy gained impetus, and we must now glance at the "theorists of 1830" and that archtheorist, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, the practical results of whose work have been greater than those achieved by men of action whose memorials are as the sands of the seashore.

CHAPTER iv

WAKEFIELD AND HIS PLAN

The Wakefields came of an old Westmorland family who adopted Quaker principles in the middle of the seventeenth century. Robert Barclay, author of An Apology for the true Christian Divinity as the same is held forth and preached by the People called in Scorn, Quakers, being a Full Explanation and Vindication of Their Principles and

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Doctrines, published in 1676, had a son, David, who founded the Barclay banking business in London. One of his daughters, Katherine, married Danial Bell of Tottenham, and their eldest child, Priscilla, who was born in 1751, married Edward Wakefield when she was twenty.

The eldest son of their eldest child was Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who was born in 1796, and came much under the influence of his grandmother Priscilla. According to her brother, “she was thorough Quaker in mind, but (inconsistently) extremely fond of general society and some worldly amusement”. She was devoted to works of charity, and wrote many books for children at a time when this field was largely neglected. It was she who first gave the idea of Savings Banks practical form in England, and altogether her career is such as to give the lie to the tradition that woman’s only sphere of usefulness before the latter days of Queen Victoria was in the home. Gibbon’s father, was for a time a friend of Francis Place, “the radical, philanthropic, Malthusian, utilitarian tailor of Charing Cross”, who described him as “an active, zealous advocate for anything likely, in his opinion, to be useful to mankind, and especially to the working people of Great Britain and Ireland”. He was indeed so warm in his advocacy of reforms in prison and workhouse administration that he neglected to some extent the training of his growing family, the burden of which fell largely upon Priscilla.

Edward Gibbon, on December 12, 1807, left Tottenham and her protection "for the dangers and temptations of Westminster School". His career there was not very successful, and in September, 18 10, he flatly refused to return, and was sent instead to the High School at Edinburgh with equally unsatisfactory results. He was admitted a member of Gray's Inn in 1813, but we soon find him in the diplomatic service, travelling much in the capacity of King's Messenger at first and later enjoying in Paris what his fond grandmother called "a respectable and luxurious situation, but unfavourable to principles and morals".

Then Wakefield fell in love, at the age of twenty, with Eliza Susan Pattle, the daughter of an East Indian merchant, and eloped with her, though she was a ward in Chancery. Wakefield was an adept in the art of persuasion even at this age, and he was eventually able to placate not only the Lord Chancellor but his wife's mother. The marriage was a very happy one. A daughter, Nina, was born in 1817 and a son, Edward Jerningham, in 1820, but this event was followed by the untimely death of the mother. The sudden blow caused Wakefield terrible agony and estranged him to some extent from his infant son. After a time we see him again a secretary at the embassy in Paris and beginning to reveal talent for political writing and ambition for a political career.

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To advance this ambition seems to have been the studied aim of a small coterie in the French capital, prominent among whom was Frances Davies, of Macclesfield, who was secretly married to Edward Gibbon's father. She secured an introduction to the family of a wealthy manufacturer named Turner, who lived at Shrigley, and an astonishing plan to abduct his daughter Ellen, then at school near Liverpool, and marry her was concocted.

The carrying out of the abduction, the ride to Gretna Green, the flight to Calais, and the trial of the Wakefields are so much in the best tradition of the cinema that no self-respecting film company would ever dream of presenting them to a long-suffering public. What would be left for scenario writers to invent ? And what would the public say of a story that landed the hero in prison in Newgate for three years and afterwards showed him as the trusted adviser of Lord Durham, author of the Durham Report on Canada, and a principal builder of two colonies, in which his own system of colonization was tried out. They would say that at last the film magnates had gone too far, and that it was time historical films were subjected to some form of pruning by experts. Yet the above bald summary gives only a hint of the triumph and tragedies of a career beside which that of Rhodes was comparatively uneventful. The Times gave nine columns to the report of the trial at Lancaster, and gave pen-pictures of the principal figures, including David Laing, celebrated blacksmith", who performed the marriage at Gretna: "Somebody had dressed him in a black coat and velvet, waistcoat and breeches of the same colour, with a shining pair of top boots— the shape of his hat, too, resembled the clerical fashion." Both Edward Gibbon Wakefield and William Wakefield received sentences of three years' imprisonment and a special Act had to be passed by Parliament to annul Ellen Turner's marriage.

In Newgate, Wakefield had leisure for reflection, and though he witnessed many terrible scenes, which he recorded in The Condemned Sermon and Facts Relating to the Punishment of Death in the Metropolis, he was allowed to have his children to visit him and was able to supervise their education. His cousin, Elizabeth Fry, visited him, and doubtless helped to turn his thoughts to the subject of the reform of criminal law and administration. Transportation was a common punishment for offences too small to merit death, and Wakefield was led to consider the effects of the system upon the colonies to which convicts were sent. He was able to collect much material from men who had defied the law and returned from the convict settlements. What they told him caused him to think deeply on the subject of colonization in the effort to evolve some alternative to the colonial policy of the time—which consisted largely of the indiscriminate “shovelling out of paupers” and convicts. Nowhere

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in the whole empire was there a contented colony, and never in the history of England had there been less enthusiasm for colonics.

Wakefield's studies convinced him that the root of most colonial evils lay in the method of disposing of land by means of free grants. In A Letter from Sydney he gave the world the outline of a system which, though necessarily modified in practice, formed the basis of a new method and effected a revolution in colonial policy. Wakefield's main requirements were that all future grants of land should be paid for; that a tax should be levied on the actual rent of all lands already granted, or to be granted, throughout the "Australasian" settlements; that the revenue thus obtained should form an Emigration Fund; that the supply of labourers should as nearly as possible be proportioned to the demand for labour at each settlement; that there should be equal numbers of emigrants of both sexes, absolute preference being given to young persons; and that any surplus of the proceeds from the land-tax and sales of land should be employed in the relief of other taxes. As to the price of land, it should be sufficient to promote a flow of settlers, but this "sufficient" price could be determined only by local conditions.

Wakefield's ideas made converts even while he was in Newgate, and the Spectator regarded the plan unfolded in the Letter from Sydney "as one of the highest examples of human ingenuity". Wakefield's basic principle of the sale of waste lands was adopted in Colonial Office regulations for the sale of land in New South Wales, dated January 20, 1831. The colony of South Australia was founded largely on Wakefield principles though he dissociated himself ultimately from the plan. He thought the price of land too low, but made it clear he had no intention of preventing labourers from becoming landowners after working for hire for two or three years.

Looking round for another place of experiment, Wakefield's glance fell on New Zealand, where the Baron Charles de Thierry was proposing to establish a sovereign and independent government, based on claims to land bought from chiefs who had visited Cambridge when he was an undergraduate there in 1822. James Busby, though doubting the Baron's sanity, thought there was enough method in his madness to demand precautionary measures. Accordingly he secured from thirty-five chiefs a Declaration of Independence before throwing up his office as Resident in disgust, owing to lack of support.

On September 20, 1837, the Baron dc Thierry issued an "Address to the White People of New Zealand". The arrival of a powerful French expedition to support him was daily expected, and when it was learned that Pope Gregory XVI had appointed a Frenchman as Bishop of New Zealand, early missionary opposition to British intervention in New Zealand rapidly gave way. Bishop

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Pompallier left Le Havre on December 24, 1836, but he did not reach New Zealand until early in 1838. When he landed at the Bay of Islands he would have fared badly but for the protection of Baron de Thierry and some Irishmen of his own faith. The presence in New Zealand waters of the French corvette, U Heroine, also had some effect. "Its mere presence in these waters has been very favourable to the holy cause of religion," wrote the Bishop gratefully.

French commercial interest in New Zealand had been growing for some time, and the prospect of an English monopoly being established there was viewed with apprehension. A writer in the Annates Maritimes et Coloniales in April, 1838, emphasized the importance to France of preserving New Zealand from British domination, and in the next few months proposals were discussed for a gradual colonization which should give France "a position at least equal to that which the Americans and English have already secured for themselves". Meanwhile, Wakefield, who always kept closely in touch with events in France, had been pushing on with his plans for the systematic colonization of New Zealand, and he was able to make good use of the argument that intervention in New Zealand by one power or another was inevitable.

In his evidence before a Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1836 Wakefield had reviewed the evils produced by profuse grants of land in colonies, notably at the Swan River settlement in Western Australia. He described also the advantages of New Zealand for colonization. He conceded that that country was not yet a British possession, but he asserted that Englishmen were already beginning to colonize it, though "in a most slovenly and scrambling and disgraceful manner". His evidence interested one member of the committee, Francis Baring, so much that, after a discussion with Wakefield and others, it was decided "to form an Association for the purpose of obtaining, if possible from Parliament, some regulation, both for the colonization and the government of the islands, to take the place of the irregular practices which were then on foot".

By May 12, 1837, Wakefield was able to write to his brother-in law, the Rev. Charles Torlesse, that a New Zealand Association was in the course of formation, and that the body of capitalists who would first emigrate was already considerable. In June the heads of a proposed New Zealand Bill were submitted to the Prime Minister, Melbourne, by H. G. Ward, M.P. He merely referred them to Lord Glenelg, the] Colonial Secretary, for whom James Stephen wrote a caustic memorandum on the plan outlined by the Association. Stephen saw two conclusive objections to the scheme: "First, it proposes the acquisition of a sovereignty in New Zealand which would infallibly issue in the conquest and extermination of the

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present inhabitants. Second, these suggestions are so vague and obscure as to defy all interpretation."

One important influence on the Government's attitude was the Church Missionary Society. Its secretary, Dandeson Coates, waged vigorous warfare against any project of colonization of New Zealand, which he thought would be disastrous for the Maoris. He wished the Government to acquire "a friendly influence over the chiefs" not to promote colonization but to avert it.

The persistence of the Association, however, and reports of the lawless state of New Zealand moved Lord Glenelg, "incurably somnolent" though he was, to write to Lord Durham on December 2 9> : 837> that the Government would be willing to consent to the incorporation of a Company by Royal Charter which would reserve to the Government the right of veto as to the persons forming the governing body and the officials in the colony. Lord Durham, now head of the Association, lost no time in replying that the association had been formed on the express understanding that its members should neither run any pecuniary risk nor reap any pecuniary advantage from the undertaking. Lord Glenelg replied less promptly, on February 5, 1838, that the Government would not oppose the introduction of a Bill into Parliament by the Association, but reserved the right to take any course concerning it which it might think fit. Five days later The Times, in a vigorous attack on Wakefield, gave a satirical picture of him as Governor of the new colony, with a large salary and many perquisites, and concluded: "In short, we are to have a radical Utopia in the Great Pacific, wherein, in pure honour of Queen Victoria, and in pure spite of home institutions, the doctrines of Jeremy Bentham and Robert Owen are to realize such unheard-of triumphs as shall utterly shame and outstrip the laggard progress of more antiquated nations."

In a later part of this book we shall see just how far the prophetic eye of the writer of this century-old leading article penetrated into the future of New Zealand.

In June, 1838, the New Zealand Association submitted its proposals to Parliament. The Bill proposed that Commissioners for Settlement in New Zealand should be appointed, with power to make treaties and to enter into contracts with native chiefs in order to enable them to exercise criminal jurisdiction over parts of the country not ceded. Land was to be sold at a uniform price of not less than twelve shillings an acre. Three-fourths of the land revenue was to be used in conveying emigrants to the colony and in purchasing rights to land, and one-fourth for local improvements and the benefit of the natives, for whom reserves of land were to be made. No convicts were to be transported to the settlements.

In the debate, W. E. Gladstone said there was no exception to the unvarying and melancholy story of colonization. The Bill was

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defeated by ninety-two votes to thirty-two, and the Government was left with the task of devising some alternative to the plans of the Association, which now decided to turn itself into a company to meet objections. The ship Tory was bought from Joseph Somes for £5,250 and despatched from London on May 5, 1839 —three days after the New Zealand Company, after long negotiations with a former company concerned in an unsuccessful expedition to New Zealand in 1825, was formally constituted. Lord Durham was Governor; Joseph Somes, the ship owner, deputy governor; and the directors included Lord Petre, J. W. Buckle, Russell Ellice, W. Hutt, Sir J. Sinclair, Colonel Torrens, Arthur Willis, and G. F. Young. Francis Baring and Sir W. Molesworth joined the Court later in the year; Viscount Ingestre, E. G. Wakefield, and H. A. Aglionby in 1840; Charles Buller in 1841; and Viscount Courtenay in 1842.

The Colonial Office declined to give the leader of the expedition, Colonel William Wakefield, letters of introduction or do anything which might be construed into a direct or indirect sanction of the Company’s plan to purchase large tracts of land in New Zealand. There even seemed a prospect that the Government might intervene and intercept the Tory at Plymouth. Wakefield accordingly drove through the night to the port to speed the ship on her way.

The die was cast and the Government’s hand forced, though it was not until August 13, 1839, that Lord Palmerston advised Captain William Hobson of his appointment as British Consul in New Zealand at a salary of£500 a year. His instructions, forwarded by Lord Normanby, set out that only circumstances “entirely beyond our control” compelled a change of policy towards New Zealand. They also included a strict injunction against the introduction of convicts to New Zealand. Hobson, in his reply, despaired of getting roads made without convicts, but the Colonial Office was inflexible on the subject, and thus more than made up for minor errors of judgment which may have produced temporary evils.

When Hobson’s instructions became known the reaction in France was violent, the Journal du Havre asserting that New Zealand was to become “the prey of British greed”. The French Government was exhorted to act, and on December 25 La Presse announced that a ship, to be called Le Comte de Paris, was being fitted out at Rochefort to take colonists to New Zealand. The Nanto-Bordelaise Company was formed to exploit claims to Banks Peninsula made by Captain Jean Langlois. In referring to the Nanto-Bordelaise project the Journal du Havre said on February 15, 1840, that the promoters had been commissioned by the Government “to examine whether the nature of the country is such as to lend itself to a project for the transportation of convicts, in which case the Company would cede

(Alan C. Browne, F.R.G.S., A.R.C.A.) Mount Tasman

(L. E. Royal Albatross, Taiaroa Head. Otago

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to the Government a suitable part of its territory." The Journal disapproved of the idea, but the very mention of it was enough. Lord John Russell concluded an agreement with a secret committee of directors of the New Zealand Company.

CHAPTER V

"THE SHADOW OF THE QUEEN"

The all-important task of leading the Company's first expedition to New Zealand was entrusted to William Wakefield, who had recovered almost as miraculously as his elder brother, Edward Gibbon, from the consequences of the abduction of Ellen Turner. He became a colonel in the British Army and served with great distinction in Spain, from which country he had just returned when the New Zealand plan was maturing.

Colonel Wakefield had with him in the Tory Dr. E. DiefFenbach, who had been appointed naturalist; Charles Heaphy, the Company's draughtsman, who was to achieve fame as an explorer; and Edward Jerningham Wakefield, Edward Gibbon's son, whose well-known book, Adventure in New Zealand, gives a vivid picture of the country he found.

The Tory sighted New Zealand on August 16, 1839, and Wakefield, after enlisting the services of Dicky Barrett, the whaler, as interpreter, entered Port Nicholson and began negotiations for the purchase of land. The result he thus described in his diary:

"I had the satisfaction to be received on all hands as a benefactor and to hear the reiterated assurances of contentment with the purchase money, and joy at the expected arrival of settlers. On Monday, September 30th, the Natives from all parts of the port mustered at the prescribed place (the Korokoro) for the appointed ceremony. In every direction on the beach the Native ovens threw up clouds of smoke, and an immense flagstaff was raised with the assistance of our carpenter, on which to hoist the colours of New Zealand, which I intend to leave here. In the afternoon, at a signal from the shore, all the cabin party and those who could be spared forward landed and were received by about three hundred men, women and children. Immediately on landing I had the New Zealand flag hoisted at the flagstaff head, when the same was done on the ship, which saluted it with twenty-one guns, greatly to the satisfaction of the assembly. A war dance then took place, followed by the chiefs addressing the different bodies of Natives assembled, assuring each other of their mutual good will. After justice had been done to the feast prepared, the healths of the chiefs and people of Port Nicholson were drunk in champagne, and, after christening the flagstaff, formal

c

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possession was taken of the harbour and district in the name of the New Zealand Company, amidst cheers of the Colonel's party and the Natives. The whole scene passed in the greatest harmony."

The New Zealand flag which was hoisted on the Petone beach on this historic occasion is in the possession of Mr. A. H. R. Gillespie, of Dannevirke. The design—a red cross on a white ground, with four stars on a blue ground in the masthead corner —survives in the house flag of the Shaw, Savill Line. The raising of the flag and the proceedings of Colonel Wakefield in general did not commend themselves to Captain Hobson, the official representative of the British Government, but this was only to be expected. What was of more importance was the adaptability of the Wellington settlement for the purposes of the first colony. The harbour was magnificent and its central situation assured the future importance of the port. But the harbour was surrounded by a rim of forest-clad hills, and the quantity of immediately available land within easy distance of the port was not very large. This was to lead to much disappointment among the first colonists, who were sometimes forced to take land at a distance because it could be worked more readily, whereas later comers secured more valuable sections nearer the port.

More important still was the fact that the Company's staff of surveyors who sailed from London in the Cuba on August Ist did not arrive until a very short time before the main body of settlers by the Aurora, Adelaide, and Oriental. To add to the resulting confusion the first town site at the Hutt was found unsatisfactory, and a move was made to the new township of Wellington, so named in payment of a debt of gratitude to the Duke of Wellington for his support of Wakefield's South Australian plan.

That these early difficulties did not result in the complete dispersion of the settlers and the ruin of the settlement was largely due to the great care taken by the New Zealand Company in the selection of its colonists. By November, 1841, 3,502 men, 2,850 women, and 2,571 children had been sent to the colony, and had it not been for the tardiness of the surveys and the attitude adopted by Captain Hobson to the Company's activities, progress would have been very rapid. Even as it was, foundations of a solid and lasting character were laid, worthy of grateful commemoration a century later.

Captain Hobson arrived at the Bay of Islands on February 3, 1840, and with the help of the missionaries and James Busby began negotiations for the cession of sovereignty to the Queen. He assured the chiefs who assembled at Waitangi that they might rely implicitly on the good faith of Her Majesty’s Government in the transaction, but of the chiefs who addressed the meeting five or six opposed him

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with great violence. Only the timely arrival of the chiefs Tamati Waka Nenc and Patuone turned the scales in his favour. The treaty, signed on February 6th, provided for the cession of sovereignty to the Queen, but confirmed and guaranteed to the chiefs and tribes of New Zealand "the full, exclusive and undisputed possession of their lands and estates, forests, fisheries, and other properties which they may collectively or individually possess, so long as it is their wish and desire to retain the same in their possession; but the chief of the United Tribes and the individual chiefs yield to Her Majesty the exclusive right of pre-emption over such lands as the proprietors thereof may be disposed to alienate, at such prices as may be agreed upon between the respective proprietors and persons appointed by Her Majesty to treat with them in that behalf". In return for this concession, which was aimed directly at the land-sharks who were now active in the country and also probably indirectly at the Xew Zealand Company, the Maoris were given "all the rights and privileges of British subjects".

Volumes have been written about this famous treaty, and the correct interpretation of its apparently simple clauses was to arouse violent controversy. A Maori chief interpreted it thus: "The shadow of the land goes to Queen Victoria, but the substance remains with us." His etoquence drew from James Stephen, a well-equipped critic, this comment: "There is, I think, great merit in the New Zealand style of public speaking." Vernon Smith, Under-Secretary of State at the time, rejoined: "Yes, but I fear they will discover that the subjects of Queen Victoria have something more than the shadow." His remark might well be taken as the theme of much of the dramatic history of the next half-century. As more and more chiefs began to realize that they had parted with something more than a shadow, war became inevitable.

Captain Hobson was handicapped by ill-health almost from the outset of his career in New Zealand, and we must make due allowance for this in estimating responsibility for the unfortunate clash between him and the New Zealand Company. Hobson informed the Secretary of State a fortnight after the signing of the treaty that he intended to visit Port Nicholson. An attack of paralysis prevented this, and in the absence of any other form of government the settlers decided to put into operation the constitution drawn up before they left London. Hobson characterized this as high treason, and on May 21st, proclaimed the Queen’s authority over the whole of the North Island and over the Southern Islands also. These proclamations, provoked as was Hobson’s original mission by action of the New Zealand Company, effectively settled the question as to whether New Zealand was to come wholly under British control.

When the French expedition arrived in August, 1840, with the frigate LAube as support, Captain Lavaud, in command of the

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frigate, quickly made up his mind that the whole of New Zealand was then British, much to the disgust of Captain Langlois, on whose claims to land the operations of the Nanto-Bordelaise Company were based. Hobson, however, was taking no risks, and he sent Captain Stanley, in H.M.S. Britomart, "to defeat the movement of any foreign ship-of-war that may be engaged in establishing a settlement on any part of the coast of New Zealand". Stanley reached Akaroa after a very stormy passage on August 10th, landed the next day and hoisted the British flag at two parts of the Bay where there were houses, and at three whaling stations on the southern side of the peninsula. Four days later L'Aube arrived and, on August 16th, the Comte de Paris, with the French emigrants, entered the harbour. They were naturally disappointed when they eventually heard that they would be under British and not French authority, and if Captain Lavaud had gone straight to Akaroa instead of dallying at the Bay of Islands he might have been able to make out a case in international law for French rights to found a settlement there. As it was, his unadventurous policy provided plenty of ammunition for the opponents of the Government in the French Chamber, as can be seen in the reports of a four-day debate on the subject in 1844. If his courtesy, tact, and diplomatic ability had been used to different ends, the story of Akaroa might have been more exciting. As it was, the shadow of the Queen now lay over the whole of New Zealand.

CHAPTER VI

SYSTEMATIC SETTLEMENT

When Captain Hobson chose to carve out for himself an entirely new capital and call it Auckland, he showed himself a good judge of sites if not a tactful administrator. One has only to look at the great city which to-day graces the shores of Waitemata Harbour to realize that "Hobson's Choice", as the Company's settlers called it, had much to commend it —in the long run. But to found a new city hundreds of miles from the main stream of colonization required expenditure, and the Governor was forced to divert the land fund from its proper use in promoting a flow of settlement to the upkeep of the civil establishment. Some of the optimistic inhabitants of Auckland sent a petition to the Colonial Office praying for a grant of £lOO,OOO to defray the expenses of immigration and the public works necessary for the colony. By the time the inevitable refusal was written, Captain Hobson, worn out by worry, was dead.

In the meantime the New Zealand Company was going steadily

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ahead with its plans, basking in the temporary sunshine produced by the agreement with Lord John Russell. In its very first issue the New Zealand Journal had listed on February 8, 1840, no less than five New Zealand colonization societies then in actual operation; (1) the Plymouth Company of New Zealand; (2) the New Zealand Committee for the West of Scotland; (3) a Paisley New Zealand Emigration Society; (4) a Scots’ New Zealand Land Company; (5) the New Zealand Committee of Ireland.

Land sales in Scotland were not at first very considerable, and nearly all the settlers sent out in the first five years came from English counties. Forty-nine ships sailed from Gravesend, five from Plymouth, three from Deal, two from Greenock, one from Glasgow, one from Liverpool and two from Hamburg. Although its first settlement could hardly be regarded as firmly established, the Company soon had another expedition, under Captain Arthur Wakefield, searching for a suitable site. The leader, whose choice of what afterwards became the Canterbury settlement site was vetoed by the Governor, finally decided on Blind Bay for the settlement of Nelson.

The Plymouth Company aroused much enthusiasm for New Zealand in Devon, and one of those who decided to go out to its settlement of New Plymouth was Charles Armitage Brown, the friend of Keats. A projected Scottish settlement was held up temporarily, and it was probably just as well, for the Company had more than enough on its hands with three new colonies established in so brief a time. Nothing that had been said about the suitability of New Zealand was wrong, but it is probable that the extreme difficulty of communication in the country was insufficiently appreciated. As a result there grew up in time six different colonies, all with distinctive characteristics, some of which persist to this day.

.. ._ , .. — j. Charles Heaphy revealed some of the Company's miscalculations in a letter of March 7, 1843, which showed that many of the small capitalists who went out in the Company's ships, and who were expected to become employers of labour, did not do so. Of sixteen supposed capitalists in the ship in which Heaphy returned to Nelson "one turns merchant, one shopkeeper, two clerks; one gets into a Government situation, two establish themselves professionally, two go to Sydney, probably thence home, being utterly unfit for any colony; one, a person of known competence, wants to be back in England again, fox-hunting; one waits to see what is the best thing to do; one, an intended farmer and landowner, is timid and does nothing; another is hard up in a fortnight and bolts; two are undecided but may turn out well; one puts up a saw-mill and becomes a good colonist; and one turns farmer." One great obstacle to general cultivation, Heaphy pointed out, was the great extent of land owned by absentees, whose agents were not empowered to let

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it for sufficiently long periods. Heaphy preferred Nelson to Wellington, with its "exclusive habits and aristocratic motions":

"Captain Wakefield, than whom the Company could not have selected a fitter agent, will not encourage anything like exclusiveness, and of course there is a very good feeling among all parties, and a general appearance of unanimity, certainly conducive to the interests of the colony. On the occurrence of the late anniversary fete, Captain Wakefield, the district judge, and all the first people, were to be seen dancing on the green with their ladies; and right merrily they footed it too."

Within a very few months the chief actors in this pretty scene were dead. On April 25th, the Company's surveyors began to survey the Wairau district, which promised to supply an adequate quantity of land for the needs of new settlers landing at Nelson. The Company's right to the land was disputed by the chiefs Rauparaha and Rangihaeta, who agreed to await the award of William Spain, the Commissioner of Land Claims. The surveyors went on with their work; one of their huts was burned down by the Maoris; a warrant was issued for the arrest of the chiefs, and a party of forty-nine, headed by H. A. Thompson, the police magistrate, and Captain Wakefield, set out from Nelson to execute the warrant.

They were met on June 17th, by forty armed Maoris, and during the negotiations which followed, Thompson appears to have lost his temper and threatened hostilities. One of the Europeans fired a shot and a conflict ensued in which several fell on both sides. Captain Wakefield called out; “Cease shedding blood,” and the Europeans laid down their arms. Enraged by the death of his wife, Rangihaeta began a slaughter of the unarmed men. Wakefield and Thompson both perished on this dark day, which ended an era in the Company’s history. To all the uncertainties of experimental colonization in the new land was added the terror of possible conflict with the warlike Maori race. It was no wonder that land sales languished and the Company’s financial position became desperate.

Land titles were the root of almost all the troubles that afflicted New Zealand. The Maori system of land tenure was complex, and, as conquest did not abolish finally the rights of the conquered to the lands from which they were driven, the difficulty of securing a good title in a land long ravaged by wars may readily be appreciated. In his haste to secure sufficient land for the first settlers, Colonel Wakefield, contrary to the explicit instructions given him by the Company, made contracts with Maoris whose title to the possession of lands on which they were living was by no means complete. The actual price he paid for the land was not so important, for most of its value accrued from the act of colonization, and one-tenth of the

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area acquired was to be reserved for the benefit of the Maoris. The history of these reserved “tenths” is full of interest, and shows that the benefit of the system to the Maoris was by no means negligible.

The settlement of the land claims of early missionaries, settlers, and speculators in New Zealand occupied much of the attention of the early Governors. Unfortunately, William Spain, the Land Claims Commissioner, was wrecked on the way to New Zealand. He did not arrive until December, 1841, and did not receive his commission until February, 1842. The valuable time lost was never made up, and, as each case which came before the Commissioner was dragged out to an interminable length from various causes, the Company’s titles were left in doubt for years. Much of the blame for this must fall upon Colonel Wakefield, whose policy in this respect marred a remarkable record of far-seeing and courageous leadership.

When Captain Fitzßoy arrived to succeed Captain Hobson he waived the Crown’s right of pre-emption and added another class of claims to the land title chaos. He went on to make financial experiments, issuing debentures without authority and making them legal tender, and substituting for customs duties a tax on property. Finally, he reduced the fees payable to the Government upon the purchase of Maori land from ten shillings to one penny per acre. The Governor was inadequately supported by troops, and his experiments, designed “to prevent insurrection”, failed completely. Hone Heke’s first formal act of war, the cutting down of the flagstaff at Kororareka, caused the Governor to appeal to Sydney for reinforcements. He did not use the troops with sufficient resolution to impress Heke, nor did he force upon the settlers, until too late, a measure providing for the enrolment of a militia. Before this was done Kororareka, the capital of Old New Zealand, centre of that commerce in intoxicants, fire-arms, women, and preserved human heads which had made it notorious far beyond the Pacific, went up in flames.

Stern military action was now inevitable, and British troops made their first serious campaign against Maori stockades. At first repulsed from Heke’s pa, they made another attempt under Colonel Despard, who thought a breach had been made in the fortifications by one of the guns of H.M.S. Hazard. He was wrong —and a third of his men paid for the mistake with their lives. Soon afterwards Heke and his men deserted the pa to renew the struggle elsewhere. They set the pattern for the greater Maori wars which were to ravage the island from iB6O to 1870. More than this, they destroyed any impression that might have existed throughout Maoriland that the redcoats from overseas were invincible. Firm action by Fitz Roy at an early stage would have been the most humane policy in the long run. When the Governor was removed from his office and Captain

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George Grey came to succeed him, the war in the north was quickly brought to an end, but the mana of the white man was never quite so powerful again.

Grey cleared up as best he could the chaos created by Fitzßoy’s ill-advised actions. He appealed for a force of 2,500 troops in order to prevent the outbreak of petty but expensive wars, and Earl Grey promised that he should have them. In the south the Maoris were on the verge of revolt. Two hundred of them attacked a Port Nicholson outpost but were beaten off, and Grey’s subtle mind conceived the idea of breaking once and for all the power of Te Rauparaha, who was responsible, he felt, for most of the southern unrest. The great chief suffered the indignity of arrest, and the blow, which Grey defended in a despatch of forty-three pages, was fatal to his prestige. The stroke was successful—and characteristic of Grey in more ways than one. His policy was designed to modify the powers of the chiefs and to impose European forms of government on the Maoris.

On this count the verdict of history is, I think, against the Governor, for control of native affairs had to be given up eventually and it might well have been wiser to do so at once rather than to wait until passions were stirred by a wide-spread and bitterly fought war. Even when the New Zealand Constitution Act was eventually passed in 1852, six years after Earl Grey’s first attempt, the strong views of George Grey were still the principal influence upon its provisions. The control of native affairs was to remain entirely in the hands of the Governor. Under the direction of a Grey, no doubt, disaster might have been avoidable, but men with his capacity for ruling were rare.

The form of government set up by the Constitution Act recognized and underlined the diversity of origin of the various New Zealand settlements. Six provinces (Auckland, Wellington, Nelson, Canterbury, Otago, and New Plymouth) were established, each with a Superintendent appointed by the Governor and a legislature consisting of a single chamber wholly elective. The Central Legislature consisted of the Governor, with a nominated Legislative Council and an elected Assembly. Earl Grey had intended that the Council should be elected by the Provincial Legislature, but as there was no precedent for an elective upper chamber the Conservative Government which actually put the measure before Parliament thought it better to retain nomination by the Crown as the method of appointment. Control of waste lands was conceded to the local Government and the colonists were also given power to alter the Constitution. The Constitution was therefore a liberal one and was widely welcomed in the colony.

Two of the provinces established by the Act had only recently come into being. The Scottish settlement, planned in 1842, matured

51

in 1848. It was none the worse for the long delay, for it reaped a fine harvest of settlers from the disruption of the Established Church in Scotland. "New Edinburgh," as it was called until Dr. Chalmers stepped in with the timely suggestion of "Dunedin", became to all intents and purposes a Free Church colony, under the leadership of Captain Cargill and the Rev. Thomas Burns. The Scottish settlers among the Wellington pioneers were of the Established Church, and it was not till 1901 that the two denominations coalesced. The first ships arrived at Port Chalmers in March, 1848. Elevated at the early age of four to the dignity of self-govern-ment, the province of Otago and Dunedin, its capital, made haste slowly with typical Scottish caution, but their foundations were solid, and the infant settlement after a very few years assumed a leadership in commerce and education which was to last for a very long time.

A Church of England colony was projected by Edward Gibbon Wakefield in 1843, but it was not until 1847, when he persuaded John Robert Godley to join him, that the plan matured. They worked out the details during walks on the Malvern Hills, and they formed the Canterbury Association to carry out the plan. The original idea was that membership of the new colony should be confined to members of the Church, doubtless to avoid objections to the provision made for ecclesiastical and educational establishments. These were very elaborate, and they no doubt played their part in attracting the support of the Archbishops of Canterbury and Dublin, seven bishops, and a formidable array of peers and Members of the House of Commons. The price of land was to he£2, an acre, onethird of which was to be devoted to emigration and another third to religious and educational purposes. The Association was remarkably successful in attracting settlers of a good type, and of 1,512 passengers who went out in the first four ships and their four successors, onefourth had paid for cabin passages. Absentee ownership, the bane of Wellington and Nelson, was to a large extent averted.

Wakefield himself left England for New Zealand in the Minerva on September 29, 1852, and one of the many people who went to see him off was his niece, Frances Torlesse, then at school in London, with whom I often talked and who could remember the occasion quite vividly even at the age of ninety. The Minerva arrived at Lyttelton on February 2, 1853, and later went on to Wellington. Wakefield had remarkable powers of description and observation and in a long letter to Rintoul, editor of the Spectator, the paper which had supported him through thick and thin, he wrote:

"The worst feature, I think, of thi\ Colonial society is a general narrow mindedness. Everybody's ideas seem to be localized in his own part of the country. . . . I can't find one person w'io has had it in

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his head to contemplate the prosperity and greatness of this country; not one who really sympathises with my dreams for the last fifteen years. . . . You will think I must be very unhappy. But lam not so at all. On the contrary I am sure that there is a good foundation to work upon in the best set of colonists that ever left England in modern times; that poverty and crime [in the Old Country sense) are Impossible; that the country is unrivalled in climate and productiveness; and that the mind of the people will be changed by the coming responsibilities of political power. Only there is heavy work for me, if I can but keep health for doing it. At present I am not in the least down-hearted."

Wakefield was at once involved in violent controversy with Governor Grey, who had reduced the price of land to five shillings an acre. Control of waste lands had been given to the colony by the Constitution Act and Grey’s action was open to criticism on more grounds than one. The Governor’s action in postponing elections for the House of Representatives and in first setting up the Provincial Government was equally open to attack.

“ There never was a greater folly,” wrote Wakefield at the time. “Think of a new coach starting with six wild unbroken colts, jibbing, bolting, plunging, rearing, tearing away like mad; think of the coachman throwing the reins off their backs and stepping off behind .”

The Governor left New Zealand in January, 1854, on leave, in order to visit his mother, but did not arrive in England in time to see her alive. The onerous task of initiating representative government was left to an administrator, Colonel Wynyard. When the House of Representatives eventually assembled, Wakefield was outstanding among many members of unusual ability. After some remarkable manoeuvres, in which Wakefield acted in his customary capacity as the power behind the throne, representative was converted into responsible government. In May, 1856, Henry Sewell formed New Zealand's first responsible Ministry.

Wakefield himself had overtaxed his diminished strength in the political struggle and an attack of rheumatic fever, after he had spoken for five hours at a crowded meeting, ended his active career. Indifference to his claims to the gratitude of New Zealand is probably for the most part due to lack of knowledge. To do justice to his work does not involve depreciation of the work of the missionaries or of Captain Hobson. It is merely to give a true picture of the British colonization of New Zealand.

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CHAPTER VII

WAR WITH THE MAORI KING

The development of New Zealand was profoundly influenced by the series of Maori Wars which occupied the decade from iB6O to 1870 and retarded the development of some of the richest parts of the North Island for more than thirty years—a large slice in the history of a country so young as ours.

Difficulties in interpreting the Treaty of Waitangi arose as soon as thousands of settlers began to arrive. Did the Treaty apply only to lands actually occupied by the Maoris or to all lands over which they exercised, or had ever exercised, their sway? At Taranaki, Colonel Wakefield bought a tract of land of seventy thousand acres from the resident Maoris, only to find their title contested by a more powerful tribe of the Waikato. Governor Fitzßoy overruled an award in the Company’s favour and as a result the settlement of New Plymouth was confined to a very small area. It was the efforts to extend this that led to the first Taranaki War.

Colonel Gore Browne, who succeeded Grey as Governor, decided to retain control of native affairs in his own hands after consulting a number of prominent settlers and missionaries. His first great problem was how to deal with the activities of the Land League formed by influential chiefs to prevent the sale of land in an extensive area around Tongariro, “the burning mountain of Taupo”. Linked with the League was the movement led by WiremuTamihana (William Thompson), the principal chief of the Ngatihaua, to elect a Maori king. What tribal animosities had previously prevented was being achieved by external pressure. I cannot help thinking that it was at this early stage that Gore Browne made his principal mistake. If he had supported the idea of one Maori chief being elected as the head of his race, it might have been possible to lead the movement into profitable paths for both Maori and pakeha. Instead, he asked what he thought were rhetorical questions: “Are there two suns in the heavens? Can there be two Sovereigns in New Zealand?” His hearers answered the questions to their own satisfaction, and three months later Te Whero wrote to say that he had accepted the Maori kingship, while still professing attachment to the Queen. Gore Browne, now realizing that opposition would merely fan the movement, decided to do nothing to provoke it. Feuds in Hawkes Bay and New Plymouth led him to appeal for more troops, but it was some time before even a war steamer was sent. The settlers were told to band themselves into militia forces, but they were slow to take the advice.

Gore Browne visited Taranaki in March, 1859, and had an

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interview with the principal chief, William King. During the meeting Te Teira offered to sell a piece of land at the mouth of the Waitara River. The Governor promised to buy it if he could prove his title to it. William King, by virtue of his rank, and relying on Maori custom, vetoed the sale and left the meeting "with some want of courtesy" to the Governor. Gore Browne did not think King would resort to violence to maintain the right of veto which he had assumed, but took precautions "to enforce obedience should he presume to do so". How effective those precautions were may be judged from the fact that he had at his disposal only the 65th regiment, with 924 rank and file for duty, spread in all directions.

The Governor naturally viewed the prospect of a collision with uneasiness. He asserted that the white settlers coveted the Maori lands and were determined to possess them by fair means or foul. He saw clearly enough the dangers of unjust methods, but it cannot be said that he took sufficient precautions to give to his own actions in Taranaki the appearance of justice. The issue there was thus expressed by Archdeacon Hadfield: "Is a native chief to be forcibly ejected from his lands because an individual member of his tribe tells a subordinate land agent that it is his, and not the chief's, and that agent believes him? The Governor says 'Yes'; the chiefs say 'No'."

o —/ J — J * On February 22, iB6O, Lieutenant-Colonel G. F. Murray, after receiving a letter from William King, published a proclamation by the Governor placing the Taranaki district under martial law. The settlers gathered in the town, prepared for the struggle they had long regarded as inevitable. Colonel Gold arrived with reinforcements and marched to the Waitara to attack the pa King had erected on the disputed land. It was captured with slight loss, the Maoris retiring during the night, but the consequences of this encounter were far-reaching. "The question of the purchase of an insignificant piece of land," wrote the Governor, "is merged in the far greater one of nationality." Once battle was joined the Maoris began to attack settlers who had remained on their farms and to burn and pillage relentlessly.

Auckland was fearful of invasion from the Waikato, but the Governor's appeal for friendly treatment of Maoris visiting the town was treated with contempt. Gore Browne's request for additional troops led the Duke of Newcastle to reply:

“England cannot undertake the defence against a nation of war-like savages of a number of scattered farms and villages selected not with a view to such defence but to the profitable pursuit of peaceful industry. ... A policy which requires the continual presence of a large force carries, in most cases, its condemnation on its face.”

Meanwhile the King movement grew in strength, as its nominal head, Potatau (Te Where Whero), grew more infirm. The Governor

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feared that his successor would be more aggressive. The real leaders of the movement understood perfectly what they wanted —national independence. Bishop Selwyn contended that the proclamation of martial law at Taranaki was ill-advised, since no native had then taken up arms against the Government. He drew upon himself the wrath of the Ministry, and the Governor was also supported by the Provincial Councils of Canterbury, Wellington and Taranaki and by the residents of Wanganui, Nelson, and Auckland. The Governor even had his supporters among the Maoris, and the King movement never achieved complete union of the native race. Donald Maclean, who was in constant touch with the chiefs, believed that their main motive in promoting the King movement was to arrest the decline of their own influence and power.

A British reverse in Taranaki which revealed that the artillery used was powerless against Maori stockades led to an urgent request by Colonel Gold for reinforcements. Major-General Pratt came with them from Melbourne himself and found the state of Taranaki "deplorable". The Maoris impressed him as brave and formidable enemies. He tried to secure the complete evacuation of the town by women and children. Many went to Nelson, among them the family of Mrs. Rutherford, one of whose sons was to be Lord Rutherford of Nelson. Years afterwards she returned to New Plymouth and, until her death at a great age, took pride in the achievements of her son, who wrote to her by every mail.

Pratt used friendly Maoris in his campaign against hostile pas and on November 6, iB6O, won a victory at Mahoetahi against a force coming from the Waikato to help William King. The origin of the enemy was perhaps of more significance than their defeat, complete though it was. The cause of William King was joined with that of the Maori King.

The Waikatos were defeated again at Huirangi, and General Pratt believed that if the terms offered were not humiliating they might be disposed to make peace. On March 19, 1861, a truce was made, and in the middle of the negotiations which followed Major-General Pratt found himself superseded by LieutenantGeneral Duncan Cameron. New Zealand became a separate military command and Pratt returned to Melbourne, being rewarded for his services by the K.C.B. The truce allowed time for a stocktaking, and when Gore Browne came to assess British gifts to the Maori he found the cupboard rather bare. There was no school at all north of Auckland, no provision for a native service in which Maoris could play a part, and not nearly enough roads.

The Imperial Government was also stocktaking at this time, and the report of a select committee of the House of Commons, dated July ii, 186 1, set out certain principles which were to have a

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profound influence on the history of the Empire and its defence. With respect to New Zealand the committee said:

“While it may not be right, under all circumstances, to withhold from the settlers in that colony assistance in protecting themselves against the attacks of native tribes as long as the Imperial Government retains control over native policy, their principal reliance ought to be on their own resources.”

New Zealand had so far contributed nothing to its own defence, but had recently agreed to pay, as from 1858, £5 per annum per head for Imperial soldiers stationed in the colony. This token payment was insufficient to satisfy public opinion in England, and The Times was very emphatic on the point:

"The truth is that the New Zealand colonists, for whose exclusive benefit, if not at whose instigation, this war is to be undertaken, are literally the only parties who will not be out of pocket by it."

The Colonial Office rejected a Bill submitted by Gore Browne to establish a council to assist him in the administration of native affairs, because it thought that the moment was not opportune to appear to hand over the Maoris to the rule of white settlers. Sir Frederic Rogers, the Permanent Under-Secretary, thought that the projected measure gave the native Minister the power of causing peace or war. He was willing to concede to New Zealand one Imperial regiment free of charge, but thought that all additional troops should be paid for. “It seems admitted,” he said, “that in Maori affairs everything depends on the handling.'” The man with the highest reputation for handling the Maoris successfully was Sir George Grey, and that able Governor, then in South Africa, having offered his services to the Secretary of State, a long despatch on New Zealand policy prepared for Gore Browne’s instruction was scrapped. Instead of a new policy, a new man was to be sent out. The Colonial Office knew Grey well enough to realize that it would be superfluous to write at very great length to him. His policy would be his own in any event.

Before Gore Browne left he did attempt to supply one long-felt Maori want —a reasonably comprehensive system of courts. He also collected reports on the King movement, which was now reaching menacing proportions. Wiremu Tamihana, its leader, told the Governor a few home-truths about the manner in which signatures to the Treaty of Waitangi had been obtained. He was expected to attack Auckland, and the Government went to the length of embodying seven hundred and twenty-five men in the militia and, what is more, temporarily placing them on pay. So drastic a step made the

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Secretary of State regard the prospect of a Maori insurrection as “for the first time alarming”.

General Cameron’s first impulse on arrival had been to make an immediate attack on the Waikato tribes if they persisted in setting up a king of their own, but he was over-ruled. By May, 1861, there were 4,000 Imperial troops in the colony, and the number was sufficient to maintain an uneasy peace. Tamihana’s point of view was strongly supported by the former Chief Justice, Sir William Martin, in his “Memorandum on Our Relations with Waikato” which led to a wordy warfare lasting many years. There was a good deal to be said for Tamihana’s conception of a Maori state under a head owing allegiance to the Queen, but independent so far as internal administration was concerned. A Maori protectorate in the centre of the North Island might have saved both races much sacrifice, but the natural ability of the Maori race was as yet only vaguely appreciated and the device of indirect rule remained for others to discover.

The Duke of Newcastle saw the dangers ahead clearly enough: “We are proposing to attack them in vengeance for a name." Tamihana had eloquent defenders and was even honoured with a twocolumn article in The Times in which he was described as “the New Zealand King-maker”. But Gore Browne believed that he must break the mana of the new movement’s leader and he demanded “submission without reserve to the Queen’s Sovereignty and to the authority of the Law”. Such a policy could have only one result—to encourage the extremists in the King movement. The Duke of Newcastle saw and regretted this. He hoped that Sir George Grey would find a remedy for it, but he was not over-confident. He knew Grey’s masterful character and anticipated trouble over the working of responsible government. In an attempt to avert this he wrote privately to the Governor-designate:

“/ know your habits of mind and views of government of a colony are not strictly attuned to these ultra-popular institutions, but for good or evil they exist, and I cannot agree with Lord Grey that it would be desirable, even if it were possible, to change them, and I trust you will prove how good a workman you are by turning out a good job, even though you are provided with tools to which you have not been accustomed and which you do not like."

Even before he arrived in New Zealand on September 26, 1861, Sir George Grey passed some strictures on his predecessor’s policy which the Colonial Office thought might well have been delayed or suppressed. His own policy he set out in a despatch of November 2nd: not to be hurried into a renewal of military operations if these could be avoided, to introduce into all possible parts of the island

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institutions suited to the present growth of the country, and to secure all the friends he could among the natives, “so as to reduce the number of our enemies”. He withdrew Gore Browne’s ultimatum to the Waikato tribes because he was convinced they would not submit to it, and because no adequate preparations had been made for the general war which any attempt to enforce it would bring about. He proposed to consult his ministers in native affairs as on all other subjects. Grey’s plans for native government were, the Duke of Newcastle thought, “ingeniously contrived so as to throw the whole burden on the mother-country”, and the Treasury, recalling his exploits at the Cape, averred that they gave the impression that “Sir George Grey is prompt to claim for Her Majesty’s Government the reputation of liberality—without sufficient calculation of the cost”.

Grey began one of his characteristic progresses through the country, but it was not so triumphal as in the old days. Some of the chiefs showed “an entire distrust and want of confidence in the Government”. Grey’s move to counter this was to complete a road from Auckland to the Waikato River, so that troops might be brought quickly into action. We can scarcely blame the chiefs if they interpreted this action as a justification of their distrust. Time, they saw, was on the side on the white man, and they were determined to put their fortunes to the test of war.

To obliterate all trace of British influence was the avowed policy of the followers of the Maori King, and in February, 1863, Grey got wind of a plot to murder European out-settlers—a customary prelude to formal war. In March the Kingites raided the station at Te Awamutu, where J. E. Gorst conducted a school for Maoris and published a newspaper in Maori. The printing press was seized and Gorst was forced to leave the district. In Taranaki, too, opposition to the Government hardened. Grey found the Maoris completely adamant on the issues involved in the Waitara question, and he was forced to the conclusion that they were in the main right. Unfortunately he delayed publishing his conviction on the point until after two officers and six men of the 57th Regiment had been killed by natives in an ambush between Omata and the Tataraimaka block. And once again the Maoris attributed concession to fear.

Grey wrote at once for more troops and two regiments were sent from India. Long before they arrived war had begun in earnest. Grey saw a large Maori force routed at Katikara near New Plymouth. The Taranaki Herald, which had been loud in its demands for stern action, asserted that some wounded Maoris were killed after capture, and it is unlikely that the charge had no foundation. This was no civilized warfare, but a conflict with savages which at this time was fought with no quarter on either side.

~ „ Athsl's copyright

I ruimiiiH) Maori Girl, Rotorua

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By July, Auckland was again threatened by the activities of the Waikato tribes and New Plymouth was left on the defensive with a garrison of one thousand five hundred men. Grey considered it necessary to clear all Maoris not loyal to the Government from the country immediately south of Auckland and General Cameron assembled a large force at Drury to carry out the policy. Faced with the choice of taking the oath of allegiance or leaving their homes, every Maori chose the latter course and most of them took to the bush, thus compelling Cameron to set up several strong posts to safeguard his line of communications. The ultimatum was illadvised, and a grave injustice was done to the Maoris whose lands were later confiscated because they had answered it in the only manner possible to a brave and high-spirited people.

Cameron's advancing troops engaged the Maoris at Koheroa on July 17th, and the General himself rallied them at a critical moment by advancing in front of them, armed only with his ridingwhip, and leading them rapidly on. The Maori force was dispersed, but the fire was in the fern, and the long-threatened war in the Waikato was now a real menace to the security of Auckland. The settlers there gratified The Times by rising to the occasion with spirit. Volunteers and militia in the province numbered 4,000 men, fully armed, and drill was going on everywhere. It was carried on with greater zest than ever when news arrived that hostile natives had attacked the village of Cameron, destroyed commissariat supplies, and killed James Armitage, the district magistrate. In an attempt to relieve the village, Captain Swift, at the head of a force of fifty men, was mortally wounded.

Cameron met the guerrilla tactics of the Maoris by a flying column system which kept them in a continuous state of unrest and considerably complicated their commissariat, which depended largely on women as carriers. Troops of Forest Rangers were formed from New Zealand volunteers and by October nearly ten thousand settlers were under arms. A military force for service in the Waikato was recruited in Sydney, Melbourne, and Otago with good results. But the Maoris went on with their systematic warfare on out-settlers, avoiding as far as they could conflict with large forces. On November 20, 1863, their position at Rangiriri, strengthened by a formidable redoubt, was attacked by a force drawn from the 12th, 14th, 40th, and 65th Regiments. The main line was taken in an impetuous rush, but the central redoubt was defended with great pertinacity against successive assaults, before the one hundred and three survivors eventually surrendered. Cameron pressed on to find the Maori King's capital, Ngaruawahia, evacuated, with only the royal flagstaff, eighty feet high, to show the importance of the place. The King and the movement he represented flourished elsewhere.

Cameron forced the Maoris to abandon a series of carefully

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prepared positions and then on March 31, 1864, attacked with a thousand men three hundred Maoris at Orakau. Three times the brave three hundred flung back the assaulting forces and the sappers were called into action. When they were within eight yards of the outer works the General sent forward an interpreter who addressed the garrison thus:

"Hear the word of the General. You have done enough to show you are brave men. Your case is hopeless. Surrender and your lives will be spared."

To this answer was given, it is believed by the great chief Rewi Maniapoto himself: "The word of the Maori is, we'll fight for ever, for ever and ever."

The interpreter then said: "Send away the women."

To which they answered: "The women will fight too."

A few hours later the British troops effected an entrance into the ditch of the outwork, but still there was no surrender. What happened next is best told in the words of the British officer who wrote the official report:

“At 3.30 the enemy suddenly came out of their entrenchment in the open, and in a silent and compact body moved without precipitation. There was something mysterious in their appearance as they advanced towards the cordon of troops, without fear, without firing a shot, or a single cry being heard, even from the women, of whom there were several among them. They had been already more than two days without water; they had no food but some raw potatoes; an overwhelming force surrounded them, and all hope of relief failed; but still with an extraordinary devotion to their cause, calmly in the face of death, abandoned their position without yielding.”

The surprise of the movement gave it a momentary success, but when the troops recovered from the shock of seeing their enemies literally jumping over their heads, as they did at a bank in one place, they poured in a murderous fire. Though one hundred and one Maoris were killed in the battle, Rewi and many others made their escape and the mana of the Maori King movement waxed rather than waned after this defeat. It is perhaps not too venturesome to date from Orakau that decline in General Cameron's enthusiasm for the campaign which was to have such far-reaching effects. So impressed were the Imperial troops by the valour of the Maoris that the 65th Regiment erected in St. John's Church, Te Awamutu, a tablet to the memory of their fallen foes.

Cameron dispersed a Maori force under Wiremu Tamihana, but on the very next day the scene of war was dramatically changed to Taranaki again. Captain Lloyd and five men of a reconnoitring party were killed in an ambuscade on April 6th. Lloyd's head was

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cut off, dried in the Maori manner, and exhibited to other tribes. It became a symbol of the new fanaticism, which no punitive expedition, no devastating of the country for miles south of New Plymouth, could obliterate.

CHAPTER VIII

CONFISCATION AND "SELF-RELIANCE"

Maori hostility had been fostered by a series of measures designed to deter them from fighting. Even Sir George Grey, with his intimate knowledge of the Maori character, believed that confiscation of land and the introduction of military settlers would achieve this object. The Duke of Newcastle saw the dangers of the plan and declined responsibility for it: “If the other tribes are persuaded that it is a new and flagrant proof of the greediness of the settlers for land and not adopted as a just punishment for murder and rebellion, it may make them desperate and aid the efforts of the King Party to effect a general rising.” This is exactly what happened.

England was now pouring troops into New Zealand, and in February, 1864, the Taranaki Herald noted gratefully that there were in the colony ten regiments nearly all complete—l2th, 14th, 18th, 40th, 43rd, 50th, 57th, 65th, 68th, and 70th —besides two batteries of Field Ardllcry, Engineers, and Military Train—in all not less than ten thousand men, with four ships-of-war in addition.

In the Maori commissariat system, such as it was, the port of Tauranga played a principal part. Through it the followers of the Maori King received supplies, and it was the only port open to them. Wiremu Tamihana’s strategy was therefore directed towards keeping it open and the British were equally determined to close it. Though the situation was grave enough in Taranaki, it was deemed advisable to destroy the Maori force encamped at the Gate Pa, Tauranga, and a large force of 79 officers and 1,606 men was sent to do the job properly. On April 29, 1864, the attack began, and Cameron, whose faith in frontal attacks was as yet strong, sent his men forward at his favourite hour—3.3o p.m.

“On the appointed signal,” runs the official description of this dark day for British arms, “the assault was commenced in gallant style, and the men, splendidly led by the officers, dashed into the work, where they were quickly and desperately resisted by the Maoris, and hard fighting with personal encounters ensued. Colonel Booth and Commander Hay, who led, were both mortally wounded. Captain Hamilton, R.N. (one of the survivors from the wreck of the Orpheus), was killed and four captains of the 43rd, viz. Glover, Mure,

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Hamilton, and Utterton (than whom there were probably no finer officers in the Service), also fell, and several others were wounded. When the position seemed to be on the very point of being carried our men, from some inexplicable cause, fell back before the Maoris, who fought to the death, and they retired from the work under a heavy fire from the parapet, leaving behind several officers.”

Cameron attributed the retreat of the 43rd to “confusion created among the men by the intricate nature of the interior defences and sudden fall of so many of their officers”. Ten British officers and one hundred and one men fell in the battle, while the Maori loss was small. The defenders had no water and must have surrendered or tried to fight their way out within a few days. The lesson was this time not lost on Cameron, though he did allow the 43rd and 68th Regiments to engage a force of five hundred Maoris at Te Ranga, near Tauranga, and avenge the repulse at the Gate Pa. The Maoris led by Rawiri, described by his foes as “a brave man and a chivalrous gentleman”, fought with great gallantry to the end. Their leader and more than a hundred other warriors fell in the battle.

The reasons for the reverse at the Gate Pa were debated at length in the newspapers of New Zealand, Australia, and Britain, but it was not long before other and even more ominous news occupied the attention of leader-writers. This concerned the rise of a new religion, a resultant of the forces of old-time Maori magic and the teachings of Christianity working in the distracted mind of Te Ua, who assumed the mantle of prophet, promised his disciples immunity from pakeha bullets, an easy mastery of the English language, and a freedom from conventional moral restraints as preached by the missionaries. The symbol of the new movement was the head of Captain Lloyd which was to be “the medium of man’s communication with Jehovah”. Te Ua’s followers were called either Gabrielites (because the Angel Gabriel had appeared to him) or Hauhaus (from the refrain of the hymn the angel had sung, and which was used in the daily service). The new religion was believed in by some and encouraged by more of the Maori leaders, because its ritual and its services helped to unify the forces of resistance to the white man. As it spread, the war took on a new and more menacing character.

Meanwhile, the vexed question of the ultimate responsibility for the control of native affairs was being settled. The Maoris attached much weight to the mana of the Queen and none at all to that of the Government, which as a mere democratic institution was in constant danger of being changed. Gore Browne had appreciated this fact and had kept control, at least nominally, in his own hands. The British Government, dissatisfied with its experience of retaining control and anxious to reduce expenditure on

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Imperial troops in New Zealand, wished the local Government to assume responsibility for native affairs. William Fox, who succeeded Alfred Domett as Premier, agreed to do so on November 7, 1863.

On the important question of the treatment of defeated tribes the Governor and his ministers were often at variance. The Maori prisoners captured at Rangiriri were placed on Grey’s island of Kawau, and their eventual escape caused much controversy. Grey published a proclamation allowing Maoris, except those implicated in certain murders, until December 10th to come in and submit. His ministers threatened to resign because he had accused them of prolonging the war. They said that the Governor “neglects their advice when he thinks fit and makes it appear at other times that he is suffering a species of martyrdom from the way in which he would have it supposed that he was bound by the smallest expression of their opinion”. They complained also, in a memorandum signed by F. Whitaker, of Grey’s vacillation and infirmity of purpose. This was because the Governor, who had approved of confiscation in principle, was doubtful of its expediency when applied on the sweeping scale envisaged by ministers as necessary. Here the verdict of history is on the Governor’s side. The WhitakerFox ministry resigned on November 24, 1864, and the new ministry, under Weld, formulated the celebrated policy of “Self-reliance”— the putting into practice of principles which the Colonial Office and much of the Press of Britain had been urging for a long time.

The New Zealand ministers, in their notable memorandum of December 30, 1864, contemplated the removal of the Imperial troops as a means of ridding the country of the "system of double government" which had been, in their view, fraught with the most disastrous consequences to both races in the colony. Active operations in the Waikato, now occupied by 2,500 military settlers, would cease, and those at Taranaki would be undertaken by a small local force of armed constabulary. Military roads would be made and military settlements set up in rebellious districts.

Cardwell, the Secretary of State, naturally welcomed the plan and at once instructed General Cameron to send home five regiments. Cameron thought that the policy of ministers would require more rather than fewer Imperial troops, and he asked for a reinforcement of 2,000 men. Ministers opposed this, and, needless to say, their view prevailed in England.

On April 22, 1865, Grey issued a proclamation against the Hauhau religion. It followed the barbarous murder of the Rev. Carl Volkner at Opotiki on March 2nd. This first murder of a missionary marked a new and horrible era in the relations of the two races. "The missionary clergy," as Bishop Selwyn said, "were believed to be the agents of the Government in a deep-laid

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plot for the subjugation of the native people.” Faith was shattered —and even to this day it has not been completely restored.

As the struggle took on its new form, the Imperial troops grew heartily sick of the war. General Cameron himself applied to be relieved of his command on the score of ill-health. In a private letter to Grey he expressed the view that the war was being carried on for the profit and gratification of the colonists. Grey communicated this to his ministers and there ensued a quarrel between Governor and General which can have very few parallels in British history.

Cameron complained to the War Office of the use made by Grey of his private letter, and the two engaged in a brisk exchange of incivilities via Downing Street and Whitehall—for they were not on speaking terms. Cameron expressed the view that the distrust which the Maoris entertained for Grey was one of the chief obstacles in the establishment of a permanent peace. He defended his military policy with spirit:

“Having already lost a great many valuable officers and men in attacking pas, I think I may be excused if I am somewhat cautious in undertaking operations of that description without the most absolute necessity.”

Cameron declined to supply Grey with copies of certain despatches he had sent to the Secretary of State for War, and in reply to Grey's protest he wrote:

"Looking at the spirit which has actuated your Excellency's proceedings towards me during the last three months, it is a matter of no surprise or concern to me what construction your Excellency is pleased to place on my actions."

Cameron was prevented by Grey from sending home the five regiments whose return had been ordered, but he in his turn declined to use the troops as Grey and his ministers wished. He refused to attack the pa at Weraroa, much to the disgust of Major Gustavus von Tempsky, the dashing leader of the Forest Rangers, who tendered his resignation. The New Zealand ministers were equally indignant, and the publication of their minutes in the newspapers, with their revelation of the feud between Governor and General, caused consternation in London. The Secretary of State for the Colonies regretted that “two very able and distinguished men filling positions of great responsibility and importance” had not been able to maintain unbroken friendly and confidential relations. He added:

“It is painfully evident that two campaigns have been more than enough of a contest in which ten thousand of the Queen's troops, aided by a Colonial force sometimes nearly equal in number, have been engaged in

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war against a body of natives, never exceeding, as you have led me to understand, more than two thousand in number at one time."

The only encouraging sign at this time was the surrender to General Carey of the King-maker, Wiremu Tamihana, in May, 1865. He never at any time appeared enamoured of the war, and the fact that he was practically forced to take up arms to preserve his mana is an indictment of those responsible for native policy at the time.

When Cameron left, Grey tried the expedient of issuing a proclamation of peace —and hoping for the best. He would take no more land on account of the war and would be satisfied if the murderers of Volkner were given up. Grey's hope was vain. The Maoris were not slow to notice that every proclamation was more liberal than its predecessor. Some of them believed that if they held out they would get back all their confiscated lands —and "seed potatoes into the bargain".

General Chute succeeded Cameron, and Cardwell, the Secretary of State, gave Grey unequivocal notice that the number of Imperial troops must be immediately reduced to three battalions of infantry and one of artillery, for which a capitation charge would be made. The Weld Government resigned because of insufficient support for its self-reliance policy. Cardwell said that no change of ministry would affect the policy of the Home Government, and Stafford, who formed a ministry, adopted in principle Weld's policy concerning the removal of the troops, though years were consumed in correspondence before "Self-reliance" became an actual fact.

General Chute, as energetic as Cameron when he first arrived on the scene, made a vigorous expedition on the West Coast and secured the surrender at Opunake of Te Ua, the Hauhau highpriest, and twenty of his followers. Grey noted dryly:

“Our prestige has been restored, and the Maoris have been convinced that the British soldier, when properly led, can follow them to their fastnesses, and is nowhere to be successfully resisted."

He added that the more prominent ringleaders of the fanatical Maori bands had been "temporarily removed" to the Chatham Islands. By August 1, 1866, the Imperial forces in the country were reduced from 9,420 to 5,073 and the colonial forces from 3,441 to 1,439. The relative proportions are illuminating.

By November, 1867, Governor and General were again in conflict. The old complaint of Imperial officers writing criticisms of the local Government to friends in England, who published them, was the chief cause, and Grey also took offence because Chute was stationed at Auckland, "fifteen days' journey" from Wellington, the seat of government since 1865. The case of Colonel H. E. Weare precipitated a conflict which had long been pending between Grey

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and the Colonial Office. Weare wrote a private letter to his brother, the Rev. T. W. Weare, in which he incautiously repeated current camp gossip about "atrocious cruelties, practised either by the troops, or with their knowledge", on Maori prisoners of war. Mr. Weare thought it his duty to publish this letter, and it was referred to Grey by the Colonial Office. The Governor took offence at this, and in a long despatch positively declined to answer the charge that atrocities had been committed with his connivance. He also refused to treat Cardwell's communication as confidential. The Colonial Office took strong exception to the peremptory language used in the despatch and ordered him to withdraw it, with a pointed intimation of what would happen if he refused to do so. Grey said that he failed to detect any improper language, but gave the Office leave to withdraw any passages it felt inclined to. The Office was not prepared to take this course, but the new Secretary of State, the Duke of Buckingham, decided not to proceed to extreme measures.

The control of the Imperial troops was vested exclusively in General Chute by a despatch of December 1, 1866, and Grey felt this blow to his pride keenly. The Duke of Buckingham thought his attitude very natural. In a draft despatch he referred to the approaching termination of Grey's term of office, but the despatch as sent did not contain this reference, and ended with the curt intimation that notice of the appointment of Grey's successor would shortly be sent.

The despatch infuriated Grey and also won for him a good deal of sympathy in view of his twenty-six years of distinguished service as the Queen's representative in South Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. But the Colonial Office can scarcely be said to have acted without justification.

Sir George Bowen, who succeeded Grey as Governor, arrived on February 5, 1868. He did not like the outlook at all, and took advantage of Fenian riots at Hokitika to urge that the last Imperial regiment should not be withdrawn. The appeal was rejected, but it was not long before the Governor had enough grave events to deal with to justify delay in carrying out the embarkation orders.

Hauhauism had become the religion of a large part of the Maori race. Titokowaru, a Ngatiruanui chief, had openly resumed the practice of cannibalism. About a hundred and fifty Hauhau prisoners made their escape from the Chatham Islands and landed at Whareongaonga, near Poverty Bay. Their leader, Te Kooti, smarting under the injustice of exile without trial, was to display an astonishing aptitude for guerrilla warfare and a complete absence of pity in carrying out his raids. On the night of November 9, 1869, his band of warriors suddenly attacked the settlement at Poverty Bay and killed about forty Europeans and twenty Maoris "under circumstances of the most revolting cruelty".

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The exploit followed closely upon a serious reverse sustained by the colonial troops in an attack on Titokowaru's stronghold, Te Ngutu-o-te-manu, on the West Coast. Some of the troops fell into an ambuscade and a panic ensued, the officers striving in vain to bring order out of chaos. Major von Tempsky and Captain Buck were among those who fell. It was a bitter blow for those who had thought that the colonial forces would fare better in bush warfare than the Imperial troops had done. They did eventually manage to capture Ngatapa, Te Kooti's stronghold, but the leader, though wounded, made his escape by climbing down a cliff.

Bowen appealed for more troops, but Lord Granville, now Secretary of State, declined to reverse Imperial policy in this respect. One party in the colony wished to give up colonial control of native affairs, while another wished to retain it. But even the advocates of "Self-reliance" wanted help from the Mother Country in the shape of loans and equipment for defence purposes. Lord Granville curtly rejected a proposal for a loan to the colony 0f£1,500,000 asserting that the Imperial Government was in no way responsible for the colonization of New Zealand. The colony's danger was due to the operation of a confiscation policy which, if not inconsistent with obligations to the Maori race, was certain to appear so to those affected by it.

Rewards were offered for the heads of rebel leaders, and the struggle became correspondingly bitter. On February 13, 1869, the Rev. John Whiteley, a pioneer Wesleyan missionary, and a number of settlers were murdered at White Cliffs, thirty miles from New Plymouth. Only the action of the Imperial Government in allowing the last regiment to remain for the time being saved the colony from complete despair. The Stafford Government, which had made the removal of the troops a plank of its platform, even began negotiations for the permanent retention of the regiment. Sir Frederic Rogers thought that to allow the troops to remain would be to encourage the settlers in “the extravagant notion of subduing the natives—holding confiscated lands—exercising authority over the Maori King, and so on”. He was inclined to allow the retention of a small number of troops to garrison certain towns, but Granville was adamant, and both Gladstone and Cardwell, now Secretary of State for War, agreed with him. In a despatch of May 21, 1869, Granville declined to alter the Imperial policy of withdrawing all troops. He did, however, ask the Admiralty to arrange that warships cruising near New Zealand should show themselves as much as possible off the North Island coasts—so as to show the Maoris that the Mother Country had not entirely abandoned the colonists.

The Poverty Bay Massacre was a heavy blow to the prestige of the Stafford Government, and it was defeated on a vote of no confidence, William Fox again taking office on June 28, 1869. He

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feared a combined attack by the followers of Te Kooti and the Maori King on Auckland, and asked General Chute, then in command at Melbourne, to retain the 18th Regiment in New Zealand for the time being. Chute consented to this, but in the Colonial Office Granville hardened his heart. His policy drew vigorous protests from Sir George Grey and influential colonists then in England, who said that it was “calculated to drive the colony out of the Empire”. Henry Sewell, in a letter to Granville, asserted that he was “resolved upon abandoning the colony”. At this critical junction the military situation began to show improvement. Mails were being conveyed again across Titokowaru’s country. Te Kooti was defeated in two actions. Clemency was shown to condemned Hauhau prisoners. Bowen had a friendly interview with an uncle of the Maori King, Tawhiao, and Rewi Maniapoto, in November, 1869. On February 24, 1870, the last detachment of the 18th Regiment left New Zealand. “Self-reliance” was an accomplished policy at last.

But the colony still nursed a grievance against the man who made it adopt its own much-advertised policy. Ministers thought, and said so at some length, that the tone of Granville’s despatches was indicative of his desire to abandon the colony to its fate, Granville disavowed any such wish. The policy adopted was being enforced throughout the Empire without exception. Ministers were not impressed by the disavowal and Fox turned his attention to the possibility of securing a commercial agreement with the United States. This move was more revolutionary than it sounds to-day, for at that time all negotiations with foreign countries were conducted exclusively through the Foreign Office. Fox’s overtures to the United States and the fact that annexation to that country was openly discussed show how seriously Granville’s policy was taken. That statesman so far yielded to expediency to consent to a Government guarantee of a loan of a million pounds for immigration and public works. The colony consented to be conciliated, and the loan marked the end of one era in our history. The Ten Years of War were over—except for a few minor skirmishes. The Age of Expansion was at hand.

PART II

ERA OF EXPANSION

CHAPTER IX

THE DAYS OF GOLD

While the Maori wars were raging, the development of the North Island was greatly impeded. But in the South Island development and exploration proceeded rapidly. I cannot say that we learned a great deal about this in our schooldays. The history we did learn was mainly the history of the kings and queens of England, with much the same emphasis on dates and centuries that characterized the teaching of history in the schools of England at the same time. The victories of Marlborough, Nelson, and Wellington filled us with pride, and it is not without significance that these are the names of three New Zealand provinces. In our own island story we could see nothing to rival in interest the fall of Quebec, Waterloo, or the Indian Mutiny.

Of the Maori wars and the heroes of both races who fought in them we knew little or nothing. There were few Maoris in Westland. The pa at Arahura was only two or three miles from us, and we saw the women working in the fields or smoking a peaceful pipe in the cool of the evening. The men we mainly knew for their prowess on the rugby field, the tiny village possessing a formidable side. We did not know that the Arahura district had once been a Maori Mecca, for it was the most prolific source of the sacred greenstone from which the clubs and charms of the Maori were fashioned. To secure it men and women risked their lives in crossing the high passes of the Southern Alps and the rivers that hurry the short distance from mountains to western sea.

These Maori explorers were the first pioneers of Westland, and when European surveyors came they relied on Maori knowledge to help them to win a precarious subsistence from this land of forest and fern. We children had abundant first-hand knowledge of the glories of Westland’s '“bush”, as it was unromantically called. A favourite picnic place was Lake Mahinapua, and the track to it through the trees, comparatively unfrequented as it was, gave us plenty of opportunity to sample that tangle of green undergrowth and carpet of ferns which is a perennial source of delight. Running into the lake was Mirror Creek, where we saw —perfectly reflected—the tallest trees. I remember vividly the photographs of stream and

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forest which could be looked at either way up —so wonderful was the reflective power of the water. To-day the famous creek is spoiled —a sacrifice to sawdust and Progress.

The green fastnesses which gave us delight were anything but welcome to the early surveyors, who made their way along the coast. The wonderful greenness of everything has its origin in the remarkable rainfall on this western coast. The clouds rolling in from the Tasman Sea are caught on the heights of the Southern Alps and precipitate their moisture to the tune —lively enough on the iron roofs of our day—of well over a hundred inches a year. Indeed, the rainfall on the coast might well be reckoned in feet, for a few inches more or less is a very small matter. Fortunately much of the rain comes down at night and there is plenty of sunshine to make up for it. But every visitor comes prepared for rain, and when it comes it does not worry him much.

It was in the very early days of the Nelson settlement that the need for open land caused New Zealand Company surveyors to push southwards towards the West Coast. In 1845 an d 1846 Charles Heaphy, Thomas Brunner, and William Fox (later Premier of the colony) explored as far as the Buller River, and reported that there was good land for settlement at Matakitaki but not sufficient to encourage colonization until access was improved. Brunner kept on with the search, and in 1847 was the first white man to traverse the now famous Buller Gorge and explore the river to the sea.

A sprained ankle sustained after crossing the Paringa River forced Brunner to conclude his pioneer journey and with difficulty retrace his steps. He decided to ascend the Grey River from Mawhera and make either for Nelson or Canterbury. On January 27, 1848, he noted the discovery about six miles up the river of a seam of coal of very fine quality. "The coal is very hard and brittle, very bright and sparkling, burns freely and is free from smell. The seam is some feet deep and level with the river's edge, but at least a hundred feet below the surface of the earth." The great coal-mine that was worked here in later years was named after Brunner, and the township called Brunnerton. His name was also given tq the large lake which he explored shortly afterwards. His homeward journey prospered until he reached the Buller Gorge, where the weather broke, the river rose in high flood, and he became seriously ill. One of the Maoris, Kehu, and his wife, refused to leave him, though it seemed hopeless to expect that he could reach civilization again. The explorer's intrepid spirit prevailed, however, and after eighteen months' absence from the sound of an English voice he reached a shepherd's hut in the Motupiko Valley, and eventually Nelson itself. His great journey was fittingly rewarded by the medal and honorary membership of the Royal Geographical Society.

The next explorer of the West Coast was James Mackay, who

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traversed the course of the Grey River in 1857 and took away the first sample of Grey coal for display to the outside world. Later he was instructed to return to the West Coast and buy the territory from the hundred or so Maoris who inhabited it, making ten thousand acres of reserves. He did so, and on May 21, iB6O, for the sum of three hundred pounds, seven-and-a-half million acres were' acquired for the Crown.

Haast, the first scientist to explore the western wilds, was greatly impressed by the prospects of the Grey coalfield.

“/ must confess ,” he wrote, “that I was much excited, because, on examining the coal in situ, it was clear to me that I had to deal with real coal, its compactness, specific gravity, lustre, and combustibility leaving nothing to be desired. ... I had no difficulty in concluding that the spot upon which I was standing would prove a source of great wealth, not only to this district, but to the colony at large.”

He did not exaggerate the importance of the West Coast's coal resources, but the miners who were first to "enliven the country" were to be gold miners. Within four years the Maoris and birds of the Coast were to see an invasion of their solitudes which rivalled in scale the great Californian and Australian rushes.

But for some time West Coast prospects were dismissed from the public mind by the dazzling news from Otago. In April, 1861, roadmakers on the Lindis Pass, more than three thousand feet above sea-level, and far from supplies, found some small nuggets on the banks of the Lindis, a tributary of the Clutha. Provisions had to be carried by pack-horse, and flour was £6O a ton, but more than this was required to daunt those whose appetites for gold had been whetted by Californian and Australian tales. The returns were not in keeping with the cost of living, however, and when Gabriel Read announced on June 4, 1861, that he had discovered an extensive field in the Tuapeka district, there was an immediate rush to the spot. Read, who had Californian and Victorian experience, had been confident of success from the first. When he first reached Tuapeka, and the shepherd's hut which was then its chief landmark, the shepherd's wife laughed at his confidence. His reply was to promise her some of the first gold he won. Crossing the Tuapeka River, climbing one gully, traversing a ridge, and following down what has ever since been called Gabriel's Gully, he sank a shaft two and a quarter feet, and "saw the gold shining like the stars in Orion on a dark frosty night." Read was no miser. He spread the news immediately, and it travelled like wildfire. By the end of August more than 3,000 men had reached the Tuapeka diggings. Between July Ist and October 30th, 15,341 men arrived in Dunedin—lo,76s from Melbourne alone. In July, 1862, the population of Dunedin, the capital, was only 5,850, while that

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of Tuapeka was 11,472 of whom only 148 were women. Though claims were restricted in area to twenty-four feet by twenty-four, there was not room for everybody, and soon the diggers were spreading over the country looking for equally rich ground. They did not have to go far, for nearly all the neighbouring gullies yielded a good return, and the new sluicing method was employed effectively.

The cold and the falling-offin gold won (from 74,176 ounces in November, 1861, to 16,513 ounces in June, 1862) caused many miners to depart. But almost on the very last day of a snowfall which severely tried the Tuapeka miners, two Americans, Hartley and Reilly, walked into the Gold Receiver's office in Dunedin and deposited 87 pounds of gold. They had won it from the beaches of the Dunstan Gorge, near the junction of the Molyneux and Kawarau rivers. This country was far wilder and more desolate than that at Tuapeka, but when Hartley and Reilly received the reward 0f£2,000 conditional on 16,000 ounces being produced within three months, the rush that set in was phenomenal even for those wildly optimistic times.

By October 3rd the first official gold escort was ready, and it took down to Dunedin 6,031 ounces. By the end of the year 70,000 ounces had been despatched. Two canvas townships had sprung up on the field by November. One of them is now called Clyde and the other Alexandra. A third township called The Junction was established where the Kawarau and Molyneux (Clutha) meet It is now named Cromwell. These three places are as sedate and peaceful to-day as they were gay and reckless in their youth. The glamour of gold touched everything. Men who paid seven shillings for a four-pound loaf of bread and half-a-crown for a pound of sugar lost all conventional ideas of the value of money. They probably earned on the average only thirty shillings a day, but the lucky ones set the pace in the dancing saloons and hotels. The others, with Fortune possibly just round the corner, followed.

From the Dunstan to the Arrow Gorge and then to the Shotover River the golden tale went on. But if the rewards were great, the winter climate was severe and the lack of timber a great drawback. In a later age dredging companies were to work over again the famous fields and reap varying rewards, but the miners who flocked to New Zealand were for the most part restless searchers. A mere rumour would send them flying to a new district, leaving even a fairly rich claim for the prospect of something richer.

So it was inevitable that when news came of finds on our western coast thousands should leave Otago for the new fields and take part in the first real peopling of Westland. In November, 1864, G. O. Preshaw, author of Banking Under Difficulties, founded on the

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north bank of the Hokitika River—the site of the present town — a calico store, and a building concocted of brushwood, flax, and other materials. The first ferry-boat was formed from a large tree “scooped out all in one piece, 2s. 6d. the charge for crossing”. On the other side of the river were several tents and four stores. It was in March, 1865, that the Australian invasion of Hokitika began. Eager watchers in the ships, pressed into service to take the miners across the Tasman Sea, saw a line of fires right along the coast, where parties of diggers were at work. From Hokitika the rush pressed on to Kanieri, Eight-mile, Big Paddock, Blue Spur, Waimea, Arahura, and a score of other places. Thousands of men were scouring the rivers and hills, meeting with rich rewards in many cases and encountering severe privations in almost all. Haast, whose first acquaintance with the coast we have already mentioned, found the previously deserted beach now a high road, busy with men and pack-horses pressing on to Hokitika, where a long street, straggling along the beach for half a mile, had sprung up as if by magic. It “consisted already of a large number of shops, hotels, banks and dwelling-houses, and appeared as a scene of almost indescribable activity”.

The men who strode along the Hokitika streets were men who had looked death in the face—and they dressed for the part of bold adventurers, “scorners of despair and fear”. A high slouch hat, the front turned up sharp and the back turned down, a Crimean shirt with a knotted crimson scarf, a pair of moleskin trousers —-having a bright yellowish tinge by reason of the clay which seemed to wash in but never to wash out —and kept in position by a crimson silk scarf, sometimes carrying a leathern sheath with a knife, “nugget” pattern boots, and crimson silk laced cord around the crown of the hat—this was the full dress of the time, and the stroller through Hokitika streets to-day may like to let his imagination people them again with the diggers of k old.

The value of the gold produced in Westland leaped frames,s6o in 1864 t0£i,127,370 in 1865 and£2,140,946 in 1866. This was the peak year, though 1867 also yielded over two millions, and it was not until 1871 that the figure fell below a million. Canterbury, which had shown no special interest in the prospect of an invasion of its western territory by a horde of miners, soon realized the advantages of the gold rush and hastened to share in the lucrative trade by constructing a road across the mountains. As early as June 2, 1865, the Canterbury Provincial Council undertook to indemnify the Superintendent “in the expenditure of any sum or sums of money, not exceeding the sum of £200,000 which his Honour may deem necessary to incur in the formation of a road to the West Coast.” The road presented considerable engineering difficulties, and the contractors were further hindered by “the extraordinary inclemency

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of the weather”. Yet the great new route to the Coast was open early in 1866—a tribute in itself to the lure of gold.

When the rushes had died down and it was a question of rail communication, decades were consumed in arguments over many matters —and the Coaching Era lasted well into my time, giving me the opportunity to savour the joys of box-seat travel behind horses whose intelligence and surefootedness in negotiating hairpin bends in snowstorms on Arthur’s Pass was a constant wonder and delight. In my first journey across the Alps our horses had to swim across the Waimakariri, as those of Cobb & Co. had done fifty years before. That great stream, turbulent and threatening when swollen by the melting snows, was the grave of many men from Canterbury who braved the mountain route to the goldfields as the shortest cut to riches.

One of the miners who arrived at Hokitika from Melbourne in the Alhambra in 1866 was Richard John Seddon, who had been born at Eccleston, Lancashire, in 1845. He was apprenticed to an engineer, but the lure of Australian gold was too much for him. Hard work on the Victorian fields brought him no reward, and he found work in the railway workshops at Melbourne. Then came the news of the Hokitika rush, and Seddon once more responded to the lure. Again he was unlucky at gold-seeking, but instead of deserting Westland he became a store-keeper at Stafford, and thus unknowingly took a first step to fame. For it was from his store that the provisions of a certain prospector in the Waimea came, and when this man discovered a party “washing up” at the Taramakau River, it was to Seddon that he first reported the news. They moved at once to the new diggings, and Kumara was born.

Seddon took charge of the place from the start, discovered a liking for public life, became a member of the Road Board, of the Provincial Council, of Parliament, and ultimately, when Prime Minister, of the Privy Council. His early dislike of red tape caused a Goldfields Warden to write: “There is a political agitator named Seddon down here, who makes a great deal of row because there is no one to attend to the rush on the Kumara field.” Early planks in the political agitator’s platform were manhood suffrage, equitable taxation, reform of the Legislative Council, a good system of local self-government, settlement of the land, reduction of the gold duty, and the restriction of Chinese immigration. He gave a first taste of his quality in serving his beloved Coast by engineering through Parliament the Bill to provide a railway between Greymouth and Hokitika, in spite of the declaration of opponents that “it wouldn’t pay for axle grease”.

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CHAPTER X

SURVEYORS

After the fever of the days of gold Westland was left in isolation behind its mountain barrier. The miners had covered a great area, but the knowledge they gained was not sufficiently accurate to be placed on maps. The work of surveying, which had lost its prominence during the years of the gold-rushes, now came into its own again. One of the greatest of the explorers of the new age was C. E. Douglas, who for twenty years after 1874 made a systematic survey of the rivers of South Westland and investigated the possibilities of practicable passes across the Alps. Of this remarkable man, whose name I can remember hearing often as a child when other surveyors were talking with my father, A. P. Harper wrote in 1896 in Pioneer Work in the Alps of New Zealand:

“As a naturalist and explorer, Douglas has had few equals in New Zealand; no amount of hardship or difficulty deterred him from his purpose; he was painstaking and accurate in his reports; he has explored chiefly from love of such work, and only recently received aid from the Government; he never exaggerated his difficulties or the results of the expedition; he never attempted to take credit for a single thing which he had not done; he always allowed his companion, when he had one, a full share in the honour of the exploration, and never tried to add to his own credit by depreciating the work of others. In fact he is, in my opinion, an ideal explorer.”

Some of Douglas’s later explorations are recorded by Harper, who left Hokitika with him in October, 1893, to map Lake lan the and explore the Franz Josef Glacier. At that time a daily coach ran to Ross and a weekly pack-horse mail service to Gillespie’s Beach, eighty-eight miles farther south. On November Ist the explorers camped at the glacier in a special type of tent designed by Douglas for life in the wilds.

As the explorers climbed up the glacier they found the ice “terribly rotten”, and on two or three occasions Harper had to let Douglas down bodily into a crevasse, so that he could cut steps up from the bottom. At Cape Defiance they found the only real piece of lateral moraine on the glacier.

"Behind us the hillside had dense Alpine scrub on it, and rose very steeply to the rocky pinnacles of Mount Moltke; to the right a stream (Harper's Creek it has since been named) came down from the icefields of the same peak. The valley down which this creek flows is very steep, and on the upper side has sheer rocky precipices, which are

E

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2,000 feet high near the glacier, and as the valley rises they gradually become lower, until at the head they are only some 500 feet. Over this rock wall, a waterfall, the Unset Fritz, decends in one leap, 209 feet, being the drainage of the Andermatten and Baumann Glaciers on Mount Roon. In front of us was the grand ice fall in all its glory, 1,800 feet or more in height, and a mile wide, presenting a dazzling array of towering seracs and deep blue crevasses. I have seen many fine ice-falls in Switzerland and New Zealand, but very much doubt if any, except perhaps the Haast Glacier on the Tasman, is as grand as that of the Franz Josef. Though I call it 1,800 feet in height, it may be said that for 3 poo feet at the least the glacier is really an ice-fall.”

The survey of the western coast occupied many years, as I have good reason for knowing. My father was in the Survey Department and was often away for long periods. If we were lucky he would get home on Friday nights for the week-end, but it would be an early start for the wilds on Monday mornings. When I was very young, I learn from R. S. Odell’s Handbook of Arthur's Pass National Park, my father explored the stream running into the Otira River which he called Deception River, with the object of seeing whether its valley offered a possible route for the Midland Railway. Later I went camping occasionally with the survey parties. By this time the expeditions had grown in size and fairly substantial camps were erected. Fred Martin was the camp cook and photographer, and after thirty years there comes back to me the delicious aroma of the evening meal, blended with the smoke from the wood in the camp oven, which came to us after long days with the chainmen in the forest. Some of the days I spent fishing in the streams for what we called mountain trout, and if anybody can tell me of a more delectable occupation in more beautiful surroundings I should like to hear of it. Imagine a clear stream making its way through forest probably traversed by not more than a dozen or so men since the beginning of time. Above the stream a section of blue sky framed by the green tops of the tall trees. A few yards from the edge of the stream, no trace of the sky. We walk about as in some immense natural conservatory carpeted with delicate ferns, decked with clematis and a host of other creepers. Occasionally we come to a clearing made by the fall of some giant tree, whose trunk the mosses and ferns quickly clothe with green. Here, perhaps, we sit to share the midday sandwich with the bright-eyed tomtits who know no fear, to admire the flitting fantails, and to listen to the bell-birds calling from their tree towers. This to me is the essential New Zealand, the part of her which no other country can completely duplicate, and the part of her which, despite the pressure of crowds, the hunger for timber, and the fumes of petrol, can still be found by those who look for it. My only regret is that I was too young to appreciate my good fortune

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in being brought close to the very heart of New Zealand, too young to know that scenes like these I should see again only in the mind’s eye, except, perhaps, for an occasional hurried visit from London.

CHAPTER XI

DEVELOPMENT AND EXPERIMENT

Th e discoveries of gold in Australia and in New Zealand had a very important effect on the various settlements of the colony, whether they were themselves the scene of rushes or not. The rise in agricultural prices, stimulated by the demands of the diggers, made farming reasonably payable and carried the settlements over what might easily have been a period of disaster, owing to the check in land sales brought about by the Maori wars. Between 1861 and 1870 the population grew from 99,000 to 248,000. Between iB6O and 1873 the exports increased from half a million to four-and-a-half millions, and imports from one-and-a-half to seven million. Otago and Canterbury, free from war, gained a long lead over the North Island provinces, and it was not till 1901 that the North again surpassed the South Island in population.

With the decline of the gold-fields and the withdrawal of the Imperial troops, with their large commissariat expenditure, the country faced a period of economic depression for which it was psychologically ill-prepared. Imports fell to four millions in 1871 and exports increased only slowly. A simple policy of strict economy did not commend itself to the sanguine settlers who had entered the country in the gold-rush decade. They saw vast areas awaiting development and men out of work who might very well be given the task of opening them for settlement. Loans for development purposes were not entirely new and the country had already borrowed seven millions, but a bolder policy was now demanded.

The man who supplied it was Julius Vogel, a journalist who had migrated from Victoria to Otago, and who in 1869, six years after entering parliament, became Colonial Treasurer. In his financial statement of June 28, 1870, he contended that the colony could afford to borrow over the next ten years 10 millions for railways, other public works, and immigration. The principle of the proposals was sound enough and the safeguards he suggested were ample. Unfortunately they were swept away by men of less ability. Vogel has been described by Pember Reeves as “an imaginative materialist who was a Conservative Protectionist with a belief in State enterprise, a constructive financial administrator and an Imperialist somewhat ahead of his time”. His loans were raised on fair terms

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and the amount he borrowed was not excessive. He proposed to set aside 6 million acres of land as an endowment for the repayment of loans, but provincial jealousy swept this provision away.

Vogel had his revenge later, when he swept away the provinces, but the harm was done. Loan expenditure went to the heads of New Zealand politicians and the provinces were aptly described as the "nine sturdy mendicants". Speculation in land was encouraged by the pushing on of necessary and unnecessary railways. When Vogel left the Treasury the rate of borrowing increased, and between 1870 and 1880 the public debt rose from under 8 to more than 28 millions, while population grew from 248,000 to 484,000

A Parliamentary paper of 1880 shows that of this increase in population about 100,000 was due to immigration under the Public Works and Immigration Act. The new settlers were classified according to nationality as follows: English 51,103, Irish 24,895, Scottish 16,711, German 3,034, Norwegian 703, Swedish 686, Italian 312, and French 284. Thus half of the new settlers were English and more than 90 per cent British. For the most part they found employment on the land, for there were few secondary industries to attract them. Wool was the country's staple product before and after the alluvial gold-rush days.

New Zealand had proved a good country for sheep, and the pioneer run was started by Charles Clifford in the Wairarapa in 1844. The original flocks of merino sheep came from Australia. They prospered and by 1850 the Flaxboume station, in Marlborough, leased from Te Rauparaha, was carrying 70,000 sheep. Between 1858 and 1881 the number in the country increased from \\ to nearly 13 millions. The new settlers who arrived in the '7o's found the industry highly organized, even if the conditions on the runs and the communications with the ports were rather primitive. Packing-cases and flourbags supplied most of the material for furniture in the camps, and for a shaving mirror a kerosene tin filled with water did duty. For cooking there was the universal "billy" for tea and the camp-oven for general purposes. An experienced man with a camp-oven can turn out meals of fine quality, but the "new chums" produced some weird and wonderful results. G. L. Meredith records that his first bread resisted even attack by tomahawk! In his time the supply of sheep far exceeded the local demand for mutton.

“Squatters are forced,” he writes, “to turn their fat stock into money by boiling them down for their tallow. There is a boilmg-down works at Featherston, in the Wairarapa Valley, where thousands of these large fat sheep, weighing from 65 to 75 lb., are boiled down. One can get a ten-pound leg of mutton there for gd.

The wool industry had its share of trouble from disease among the sheep, but its chief affliction was the advent of the rabbit. This

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pest, introduced into the country in 1859 in order to provide sport, multiplied to an alarming extent, and in South Marlborough, where its depredations first began, hundreds of thousands of acres had to be abandoned. On large holdings the problem was almost insuperable and armies of rabbiters fought a long fight. Every landowner was compelled by law to clear his property of rabbits. In 1878 three million skins were exported. In 1883 the number was 10 million. Ten years later it reached its peak at 17 million. The pest was gradually conquered, but it remains a standing example of the evils of ill-considered acclimatization. For the present generation deer take the place of the rabbit, and though they work mainly in remote districts they are ruining forests which should have been handed down intact to posterity.

Acclimatization in the plant world has also produced some lamentable results. Linnaeus, the great botanist, is said to have burst into tears at his first sight of a field of gorse in flower, and, as P. T. Kenway, a pioneer of Poverty Bay in the 'Bo's remarks, many New Zealand farmers could sympathize with him. Water-cress, arum lilies, pink oxalis, and the common sweet-briar are other plants whose prolific growth has made them pests in various districts, while the blackberry can be placed in the same exalted rank in the hierarchy of pests as the rabbit. To root it out is ruinously expensive, and much time and money has been spent in research into other methods of control.

Clearing the land was a great problem of the run-holder, and the indiscriminate burning down of forests is one of the great blots on the settlement of New Zealand. For a whole generation before 1914 some 300,000 acres of forest were consumed each year. Only the more enlightened of the settlers understood how to make adequate reserves of trees and to protect them from the fire and axe of the bush-feller. Burning-off is a highly skilled operation. A bad burn means that years must elapse before grass grows properly. A good bum may clear four square miles of land in less than that number of hours, and leave behind a magnificent seed-bed, from which it is possible by careful sowing to get early and spectacular results.

After a permanent pasture was established, the sheep-farmer was faced with the problem of selecting stock best suited to his particular locality. For the back-country the merino was generally chosen, while heavier breeds were preferred for richer land. For a time indiscriminate inter-breeding went on, but experience taught the value of pure-bred stud flocks and these were slowly developed. Equally important was the evolution of a characteristic New Zealand breed. The process was begun by James Little on the North Otago station, Corriedale, which gave its name to the breed. Based mainly on a merino-Lincoln cross, the new breed was established in the

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'7o's, and as the type produced both a fine-wool fleece and an earlymaturing carcass it was ideally adapted for the revolution in New Zealand primary production brought about by the advent of refrigeration.

It was no accident that the problem of sending refrigerated cargoes of meat to England was solved in the early 'Bo's, just when the boom of the Vogel development days had been followed by a disastrous fall in prices. To supplement farmers' returns from wool it was imperative that a method of utilizing the by-product, meat, should be evolved. Large outlay in experiment was required, but one of the financial companies which found many sheep-runs on its hands owing to the depression provided the money required, and at last, on May 24, 1882, the Dunedin arrived in London with the pioneer consignment of New Zealand frozen meat, which met with a ready sale on Smithfield. Within nine years the export of carcasses rose to 2 millions and there were freezing works at eleven ports.

The great shipping companies—the Shaw, Savill Line and the New Zealand Shipping Company—saw the possibilities of the trade, which hastened the conversion of transport between England and New Zealand from sail to steam. There was at first a good deal of prejudice against frozen meat in England, but this was gradually broken down until New Zealand lamb sometimes commanded a better price than the home-killed product, largely because of the uniformity of its quality and the stringent precautions taken to maintain it.

Refrigeration also gave New Zealand its great dairy industry. The Government, even before the Dunedin’s pioneer voyage, had encouraged the farmers to band together in co-operative societies to produce for the Australian market. A bonus was offered in 1881 for the first 50 tons of New Zealand co-operative factory butter, and if the movement was slow to gather impetus it was largely because the districts most suited to dairying—-Taranaki and the Waikato —were the very ones most retarded in development by the Maori wars. But there were 74 co-operative factories by 1891, and by that year nearly the whole of the butter exported went to Britain, whereas in 1885 all but 1 £ per cent went to Australia. To-day the value of exported butter and cheese is about 20 millions, and Government grading and inspection ensure that the highest quality is maintained.

The economic forces at work in New Zealand when the Vogel boom gave place to the depression of the ’Bo’s, have been closely analysed by Dr. J. B. Condliffe in New Zealand in the Making. They were by no means simple and only a brief summary can be attempted of “a pathological situation which yielded, in the ensuing period of prosperity, to such healing economic forces as a widening basis of industries, the opening up of new lands, and more favourable

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external markets, rather than to political regulation". There were two main barriers to settlement and therefore to the full economic development of the country —the locking up of the rich North Island lands by Maori troubles and the system of tenure which enabled landowners to make great aggregations of land.

In the South Island particularly land was farmed on the most extensive methods and in large areas, while even in the North Island the waiving of the Crown's right of pre-emption enabled private purchasers to build up great estates from lands bought direct from Maori owners. With an economy based on wool there

was some excuse for large estates, but when 100,000 immigrants arrived under the Vogel scheme there was a scramble for land in which the wool kings held all the advantages. They sold at high prices, and when export values fell the new settlers went to the wall and their properties to the banks, mortgage companies, or the former owners.

The Conservative Party in power at the time met depression by retrenchment. They could offer no prompt solution of the problem of subdividing the land, urgent though it was. “Their friendships, their interests, their theories, forbade them to think of using the weapon of taxation,” writes Pember Reeves. “Committed to a policy of parsimony, they could not consider State purchase. Individualists—where property was concerned —they could not dream of compulsion.” They did not believe that small farms could pay unless they were very near to towns. The Oligarchs, as Reeves terms them, were wedded to the freehold tenure, “the progeny of which are speculation, the piling up of mortgages, lasting debt, shifting ownership, and recurring financial crises”. By 1892, 13 - 6 of the 66-7 million acres in the country were held on freehold tenure, i 2 -5 on lease from the Crown, 10 8 were native lands, 8-4 were Crown lands, and 6-6 were reserved for public purposes, while 9-0 were classed as barren or otherwise unavailable.

There was a very real land hunger in the country, and acute distress among the people in the towns added to it. Many gave up the struggle and left for Australia during the years 1886-1891. In Canterbury unemployment was particularly acute in the early ’Bo’s, and Dunedin and Auckland suffered badly later. Some employers took advantage of the situation to exploit the labour of women and children. In a series of vigorous sermons, the Rev. Rutherford Waddell, of Dunedin, exposed the evils of sweating, and a newspaper agitation which followed clearly established the need for Government regulation of industry. It also fostered the trade union movement and stimulated a demand for protection of local industries from overseas competition. The time was ripe for State action to meet a definite emergency, and the way for it was

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prepared by the passing of Sir George Grey’s amendment to the Representation Bill of 1889 abolishing plural voting.

The general election of December, 1890, saw the end of the “Continuous” Ministry, which, except for brief intervals, had held power since 1869. John Ballance succeeded Sir Harry Atkinson as Premier, and for the first time a democratic Ministry was in power with a majority large enough to allow it to carry out its policy. That policy was by no means cut-and-dried, but the new Government was willing to use the powers of the State to solve economic difficulties, and as it included men with imagination and ability there were soon prepared measures which attracted world-wide attention.

At first the Legislative Council, composed of nominees of the outgoing party, blocked the way, but its members were not so vigorous after the election of 1893 had confirmed the LiberalLabour Ministry in power. Richard Seddon, who succeeded to the Premiership on the death of Ballance, found himself with a following of 56 in a House of 74, and in the session of 1894 the Compulsory Arbitration Act, Lands for Settlement Act, Shops Act, and Advances to Settlers Act were all passed. The Minister of Lands, John McKenzie, brought from the Scottish Highlands “one burning conviction: the right of a farming peasantry to have access to the soil”. Closer settlement was the aim of all his measures, and by the graduated land-tax, the overhaul of tenures, and the use of State powers to purchase and redistribute land he broke through the deadlock of land monoply. The Advances to Settlers Act, introduced by Sir Joseph Ward, gave farmers credit at a lower rate than they could obtain from private sources, and was a constructive measure limited only in value by the conservative manner in which it was administered.

W. Pember Reeves, who became Minister of Education in 1890, was soon afterwards entrusted by Ballance with the additional portfolio of labour. The Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act which he drafted created the first system of compulsory arbitration of labour disputes by a State tribunal. Reeves thought that most of the work arising from the Act would fall upon the conciliation boards and that the Arbitration Court would merely act as a supreme tribunal in cases where conciliation failed. For various reasons its development was very different from this. The workers were delighted by the Act, but the employers treated it with hostility. In view of the low rates of wages at the time this was only to be expected. By 1905 the Court had developed into a tribunal “sitting continuously to legislate upon the minute details of wages, labour conditions, holidays, apprenticeship, and all other labour questions”. It confined itself, however, until 1908, to organized secondary urban industries.

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From 1894 to 1906 New Zealand was free from strikes, and this must be accounted a tremendous economic gain. In the latter year organized labour began to express acute dissatisfaction with the awards made, which were based on cost-of-living figures rapidly growing out-of-date. Seddon’s prestige kept the Liberal-Labour ranks together, but after his death a separate Parliamentary Labour Party was inevitable. One candidate was elected in 1908. In 1910 the New Zealand Labour Party was formed and four candidates were returned to Parliament in 19 11. It was in the ranks of the miners that the greatest discontent arose, and it was among their leaders that doctrinaire Socialism, as opposed to the opportunist State Socialism which had so far contented the country, found its most vocal advocates. Strikes in 1906 and 1907 brought about an overhaul of the Arbitration Act and Conciliation Commissioners were appointed. The Court fixed minimum rates and laid down general policies. As they learned their work and won public confidence the Commissioners dealt with 90 per cent of the disputes successfully.

Another change made in 1908 was the imposition of more effective penalties for strikes and lock-outs, but that did not prevent the rise of the Miners’ Federation of Labour with its basic theory that “the working class and the employing class have nothing in common”. The Federation grew rapidly and the number of strikes increased. The Waihi strike of 1912 saw the Miners’ Union defeated in an attempt to obtain recognition as the only union with which the employers should deal. There were ugly clashes with the police. One striker was killed, many others were imprisoned. The strike left a legacy of bitterness against the new farmers’ Government, and the right and left wings of the Labour movement attempted to coalesce to fight it. Direct action was tried in the great waterside workers’ strike which began at Wellington on October 20, 1913, and the defeat of the Federation of Labour shattered its organization for the time being.

One of the great landmarks of New Zealand’s social history was the passing of the Old Age Pensions Act in 1898. Sir Harry Atkinson had envisaged a contributory pensions scheme in 1882, but received no public support. Now Seddon devised a non-contributory scheme, based partly on a draft by W. Hall-Jones, and forced it through the Lower House after a committee sitting of ninety hours, during the whole of which the Premier sat at the chairman’s table, with respite only at the meal hours. The original provision was for a maximum pension of£ 18 yearly, if the applicant’s other income did not exceed £34. As time went on the provisions were greatly liberalized.

The banking crisis of the early ’9o’s gave Seddon and his Finance Minister, Joseph Ward, a severe test. Since 1889 the Bank of New Zealand, a private organization established in 1861, had been making

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losses. It advanced money during a prosperous period when values were high, and was then badly hit by the depression of the early ’9o’s, when many properties were thrown on its hands. Some of these were administered badly. Securities accepted in support of weak accounts had fallen greatly in value, and if the losses involved had been properly faced they would have completely absorbed the whole of the reserves, and about one-third of the paid-up capital as well.

The President of the Bank, G. Buckley, resigned and incurred great unpopularity by stating that the balance-sheet was misleading and that half the Bank's capital had been lost. The shares naturally fell in value sharply, but adequate remedial measures were still not taken, and on June 25, 1894, the Bank's representative came to Ward with the disconcerting news that State action alone could save the Bank from stopping payment. Ward and Seddon were faced with the task of averting a disaster which would have spread ruin throughout the country, and even as they talked about it the position was getting worse. They learned on Friday morning that the Bank could not keep open without assistance beyond the following Monday. A few minutes after 7.30 the same evening Ward introduced the Bank of New Zealand Share Guarantee Bill. He showed how necessary it was, even from the narrow point of view of the Government's own losses in the event of failure, and Seddon reinforced his appeal by announcing that the Bill must be passed that night.

The leader of the Opposition, Sir William Russell, though a strong opponent of State banking, waived objections on that score, and the second reading was carried by 52 votes to 9. By 11.30 the Bill was through the committee stage and at midnight it went to the Legislative Council. The Council appointed a Select Committee which took the evidence of Seddon, Ward, and the Bank's representative. At 4 a.m. the Bill was passed and a few minutes later the Governor, who had been up all night in readiness, gave his assent. The country woke up to find the crisis resolved overnight, and there was a chorus of praise for the vigour of the Government's action.

The Act gave the Government considerable control over the Bank’s immediate activities, by virtue of its guarantee and eventually acquired 75,000 preference shares, which gave it a permanent share in the profits of the Bank. It also received the power of nominating a majority of the directors, but many years were to elapse before this was used to influence banking policy. Finally, in 1945, the Government acquired the whole of the shares of the Bank of New Zealand.

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CHAPTER XII

PACIFIC ADVENTURE

Although New Zealand was faced with heavy enough tasks in developing her own resources, she took from the beginning a keen interest in the Pacific Islands. Possibly this interest was mainly inspired by desire to avert foreign occupation of groups which might be unpleasantly close to New Zealand in the event of war. In 1848 Sir George Grey recommended the annexation of Fiji and Tonga—a suggestion very coldly regarded by the Colonial Office which only a few years before had been converted with extreme reluctance to the idea of a British settlement in New Zealand itself. But when the Maori Wars were over, Grey’s ideas exercised considerable influence on New Zealand politicians, and Vogel proposed the annexation of the Samoa group in August, 1871. The Imperial Government refused to listen to this and other similar proposals, and this attitude annoyed Vogel, who, in a plan of “suggested action of New Zealand in relation to Polynesia,” wrote on February 5, 1874:

“I have never felt any desire to see New Zealand constituted an independent State. . . . Still, I have not been able to disguise from myself that, were New Z ea^ independent, she would not have stayed her hand from attempting to civilize and attach to her in permanent connection the islands of the Pacific. . . . Great Britain, which might look upon them from four standpoints —(l) as naval stations; (2) as important to the preservation and safety of her Australian possessions; (3) in order to preserve them from becoming convict stations; (4) on account of their commercial importance —has stood aloof. ... It seems to me that New Zealand may earn for reluctant Great Britain—without committing her to responsibilities which she fears —a grand island dominion.”

Vogel’s plan for a “New Zealand and Polynesian Company” came to nothing, and the Imperial Government’s distrust of Vogel himself was matched by critics in the colony. The Lyttelton Times said his scheme was “without parallel for speculative audacity since the days of the famous South Sea Bubble”.

When British sovereignty was proclaimed in the Fiji group in 1874, New Zealand received no share in its government and declined to contribute to the expense. Vogel, however, did undertake that when New Zealand made any further recommendations for annexation a statement of the amount she was prepared to contribute annually would be given. In 1878 Sir George Grey objected to the arrangement under which Britain and France agreed to respect the

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independence of the New Hebrides. He took the opportunity as Premier to advance the idea which he had conceived thirty years before as Governor —of New Zealand as an ideally situated base for British expansion in the Pacific.

In 1883 Grey brought forward a Bill for the appointment of a commissioner with powers to treat with the governments of any countries in the vicinity of New Zealand for the annexation of any islands not occupied by or under the protectorate of any foreign Power. He saw New Zealand as the Queen of the Pacific, sending out governors and legislators to all the distant islands, uniting them in "one common system of education, one common form of government, one class of habits". He even saw the islands as an outlet for the future population of New Zealand, and we can only smile ruefully when wc reflect that so many years after his vision we are still not within sight of a population of two millions. Grey's eloquence won a victory in Parliament, but there were nineteen hard-headed members who thought New Zealand had enough to do to look after itself. The Imperial Government shared their view.

It was only after repeated representations from the Australian colonies and from New Zealand that Lord Derby consented to the proclamation of a British protectorate over part of New Guinea and the immediately adjoining islands in October, 1884. The hoisting of the German flag in Samoa in January, 1885, drew a protest from Robert Stout. The New Zealand ministers wished to send the Colonial Secretary to the islands to report on the situation, but the Governor objected to this. He consented to inquire from the Imperial Government about its attitude to annexation and received the expected reply that it was "impossible". However, a British ship was sent to the group and ultimately a joint protectorate of Britain. Germany, and the United States was arranged. This did not work well, and Seddon, always optimistic, proposed in 1894 that New Zealand should administer the islands for the three Powers. Troubles in the group in 1898 and 1899 caused Seddon to offer the Imperial Government a force for service in Samoa. Joseph Chamberlain, the Colonial Secretary, refused the proffered troops but accepted the services of a New Zealand Government steamer.

When the South African war broke out, Britain, much to the disgust of Seddon, renounced her rights in the group, partly to Germany and partly to the United States. In a memorandum of April 16, 1900, he asserted:

"Some definite action of <i forward character is required in the Pacific at the earliest opportune moment, for the surrender of Samoa has disheartened the natives in the islands, disappointed the people of Australasia, and lowered the prestige of Great Britain in this part of the globe."

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Seddon himself supplied the forward move by completing the annexation of the Cook Islands. After his vigorous word-picture of the cruiser Mildura, "buoyant and ready" in the harbour, tearing at the hawser and anxious to get away as a messenger of peace and expansion, only eight members remained unconvinced, and even they did not spoil the harmony of "Rule Britannia" and "God Save the Queen" which greeted New Zealand's acquisition of a "foreign policy".

The newspapers, in those far-off days before the broadcasting of Parliamentary debates, remained untouched by the Seddonian oratory and were inclined to ask for more than merely sentimental advantages to set against the outlay and responsibility of governing and defending island groups. It was not until the outbreak of war in 1914 made the capture of German possessions in the Pacific a matter of immediate importance that New Zealand found herself in control of an area of island territory sufficiendy important to gratify the shades of Grey, Vogel, and Seddon.

Our experience as a mandatory Power has not been unchequered, and throws some indirect light on certain deficiencies in our system of training for native administration, in so far as we can be said to possess any system. We have not taken advantage of the wonderful opportunity of scientific study presented by the Maori race at our very doors. We have produced great individual students of the race, but what attempt has there been to co-ordinate knowledge and make it available for the day-to-day work of administration? When, almost too late, a movement did begin for the regeneration of the Maori people, it was a movement from within, and for the rise of the Young Maori Party we can take little or no credit.

In Samoa the strong personality of Olaf Nelson and the vigour of the nationalist Mau were dominant influences, and General Sir George Richardson, the Administrator, whose rapid rise in the Army was tribute enough to his ability, found his path beset with difficulties. I remember hearing his own version of the position when I met him in London, and I could not but be struck by his sincerity and obvious desire to do what was best for the Samoans as a whole. He was undoubtedly handicapped by his military rank in conciliating the Mau, and the expulsion of Nelson from the group did not make matters easier. Nelson returned to the group and became a member of its Parliament for a few years before his death. The Mau is no longer illegal. The New Zealand Government is doing all it can to assist the Samoans to govern themselves, but it cannot yet be said that the problem is satisfactorily solved. The effect of transfer to United Nations trusteeship, as offered by the Dominion in 1946, remains to be seen.

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CHAPTER XIII

IMPERIAL VISION

W e have already seen that New Zealand was added to the British Empire with extreme reluctance, and that the relations of the two countries at certain periods were very strained. To talk of New Zealand as always the model daughter in the Imperial family, as was customary at least until recently, is to give a misleading impression. New Zealand considered herself badly treated in some ways. The Times and many others considered her badly spoiled. Some of her leading politicians, including William Fox, were not immune from the taint of republicanism that affected some members of the House of Commons.

In the Stafford correspondence presented to the Dominion by the family of the former Premier I found an entertaining reference to the initiation of the Order of St. Michael and St. George as a means of honouring Imperial services. New Zealand politicians of the day consented to this because of the obvious pleasure it gave to English recipients, such as Lord Lyttelton and Sir Charles Adderley. The impression conveyed was that the leading New Zealanders were by no means anxious to figure in the lists of the Order—a reprehensible state of mind very soon outgrown.

But the main source of coolness between the countries disappeared with the sailing of the last Imperial troops and the granting of a loan to the colony. Henceforward, apart from periodical difference of opinion on the question of expansion in the Pacific, New Zealand was mainly concerned with increasing the links that bound her to the Mother Country. The personal antipathy of Sir George Grey to the Colonial Office did, however, produce at times proposals which might have had an opposite effect. Vogel, in a debate in August, 1876, shortly after the bitter struggle which had ended in the abolition of the Provinces in spite of the determined opposition of Grey, accused the former Governor of returning to politics with the object of reopening his feud with the Colonial Office. If he became Premier, a dispute with the Imperial Government would certainly result.

The prophecy was fulfilled. When the Governor, Lord Normanby, rejected Grey’s advice to refuse his assent to a Land Bill and proposed the Secretary of State as arbitrator, Grey said he could not accept that officer’s decision, as he had no right or authority to interfere with the proceedings of either of the branches of the General Assembly, or to determine what were their respective rights and privileges, or communicate to them any decision or opinion. The Governor was able to retort that Grey himself had appealed to the

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Secretary of State to disallow the Bill to abolish the Provinces, but Grey, though defeated, was unsubdued. He attacked the Colonial Office in the manner popular a generation previously, but did not succeed in arousing any public feeling on the matter.

The proposal that the Governor of the colony should be elected by the people, made in 1877 by Robert Stout and supported by Grey, would not, the latter maintained, loosen the connection with the Mother Country. The proposal was doubtless partly due to hostility to Lord Normanby, and Grey may also have imagined himself as a popularly elected Governor plaguing the Colonial Office once more. To-day the Governor-General is the King’s personal representative and no longer represents the Imperial Government. There is no general demand for an elected Governor or even for one chosen by the King from the citizens of the Dominion, though the Labour Party conference in 1939 did discuss a proposal to this effect and refer it to the Government.

It was significant that after 1870 thirteen years elapsed before the subject of relations with Britain was debated in the House of Representatives. By 1875 Fox, who but a few years before had been advocating annexation to the United States, was so impressed by the change of outlook in Britain that he proposed an Imperial Parliament, with local parliaments for England, Ireland, Scotland, and possibly Wales. The first direct cable message between Wellington and London was received on February 18, 1876, and it is impossible to exaggerate the effect of improvement of communications in the development of a sense of unity in the Empire.

The debate of 1883, which broke the long silence on the subject of relations with Britain, had for its text a motion that “action should be taken, in conjunction with the other colonies of the Empire, to obtain just and fair representation in the Imperial Parliament”. The motion was abandoned, but the debate showed that many members preferred not to interfere with the Imperial connection but to allow the colonies to progress in self-government until such time as a true union with Britain might reasonably be considered.

The question of joining the proposed Australian federation was warmly debated at this time. Sir Harry Atkinson favoured the idea, saying: “It is an absolute impossibility that we should ever grow into a separate nation.” Stout regarded Australian federation as a necessary preliminary to Imperial federation. Vogel disputed this and opposed federation with the Australian colonies. Grey thought that we should enter nothing less than a federation of all Englishspeaking peoples. This ambitious project was the subject of a motion in the House in 1885 by James Macandrew, who suggested that the Imperial Government should arrange a conference between the British dominions and the United States. The confederation was to be, he explained, an attempt to make war impossible. No member

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should go to war without the assent of the rest and none should be attacked without the rest coming to its assistance. The concept was too advanced for the times, but who shall say that we are not painfully making some steps in the direction indicated ?

In the same year George Beetham put forward a series of resolutions affirming the necessity of some form of federation to ensure the permanent unity of the Empire. They were not taken very seriously, but a specific plan by Vogel for a colonial representation of twenty members in the House of Commons for an experimental period of three years kept the subject before the public. The newspapers could not see much reason in the Imperial federation idea. “We are internally as free as we need wish,” said the Lyttelton Times, “and, at the same time, we are bound indissolubly to the mother country.”

When the first Colonial Conference was held in 1887, the topic of Imperial Federation was banned and nobody seemed to mind very much. Even Vogel reconciled himself to the idea that federation would extend only to groups of colonies and not to the whole Empire. As the best substitute for the ideal behind Imperial Federation, Seddon proposed in 1902 that Imperial Conferences should be held every three years. The principle was adopted but the interval was made four years. At the conference of 1907 Sir Joseph Ward proposed the formation of an Imperial Council to consist of the Prime Ministers of the self-governing colonies, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the Secretary of State for the Colonies. Its powers would be consultative and advisory only. “A permanent Imperial Conference would, in my opinion, be invaluable,” said Ward. “Our country is very anxious and willing to assist the Old Land in the event of trouble arising, to do so voluntarily by men or by money, and, I think, always would be ready to do its share in fighting for the defence of the Motherland in any portion of the world.”

‘ A great Council of the Empire” had been regarded as feasible by Joseph Chamberlain in his opening speech to the conference of 1897, but Sir Joseph Ward was unable to convert the representatives of the other dominions to his ideas. The Imperial War Council was to show that they were not entirely impracticable, and with the remarkable development of air transport there is no insuperable obstacle to the establishment of an Imperial Council, if the times are held to demand a body capable of speaking with authority for the whole Empire. The conference on Pacific defence held at Wellington in 1939 between Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand showed that the logic of events was impelling progress in consultation.

New Zealand was for so many years engaged in an internal war that she did not trouble to make provision for possible foreign aggression. Indeed it was tacitly understood that if she undertook

Lower Queen Street, Auckland

. (New Zealand Government) Largest gold-dredge in New Zealand. Loburn, South Island

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the whole responsibility for internal defence the Imperial authorities would protect her shores from invasion. Even as late as 1877 Sir George Grey, who can scarcely be accused of circumscribed vision, said he would prefer to spend money on the civilization of the Maoris, thus removing an internal enemy, rather than devote it to harbour defence works to resist a foreign enemy. For this purpose, he said, the New Zealand ministers trusted confidently to the fleets of Britain, who, they felt satisfied, would “never allow a foreign enemy to dominate in these seas”. Lord Normanby, the Governor, thought the decision rather discreditable and did not hesitate to say so: “It is manifestly impossible that England . . . should keep sufficient ships in these seas to secure at all times her various possessions from the attack of small expeditions, or of a single ship or privateer; and it is, in the Governor’s opinion, the duty of each colony to make such provision as they consider necessary for the purpose.”

When Britain, faced in 1878 with the prospect of war with Russia, surveyed the problem of Imperial defence, the conclusion was quickly reached that it was impracticable to defend New Zealand from the sea alone. A system of land batteries at the four principal ports was recommended and the British Government offered the necessary twenty-two guns to the colony for£44,ooo. Grey accepted the offer by cable and New Zealand made her first small step towards preparedness against foreign aggression. But it was characteristic of the cheese-paring methods of the time that the guns procured during this scare were not actually mounted until 1885 when there was another threat of war with Russia.

The public conscience was by this time aroused, and in a year the voluntary defence forces rose in strength from under five to more than eight thousand. The Lyttelton Times declared roundly: “Either we must defend the country or we must leave the Empire.” At this period, not for the first time, New Zealand felt herself neglected by British ships-of-war, whose visits were outnumbered by those of foreign vessels. Partly to remedy this, Robert Stout offered a contribution of£20,ooo a year for naval defence, provided that at least two ships made a New Zealand port their headquarters.

The whole subject of naval defence in the Pacific was thrashed out at the Colonial Conference of 1887. Dillon Bell, the AgentGeneral, represented New Zealand with Sir William Fitzherbert, who, as I have described in England and the Maori Mars, made a proposal in 1868 for joint naval defence of Australia and New Zealand under a separate Imperial command. Sir Frederic Rogers thought the proposal spirited, as it undoubtedly was at so critical a period. The arrangement of 1887 was based on the same principle of dividing the cost among Britain, New Zealand, and the Australian colonies. Britain was to provide five new cruisers and two new

F

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torpedo boats and the colonies were to make a joint annual contribution of 5 per cent of the cost, up per annum, and were to maintain the ships in peace-time. Two of the ships were to be stationed in New Zealand waters.

The colonial point of view as expressed by Dillon Bell at the time is worth recording. “The colonists,” he said, “accepted the duty of national defence not as a transient obligation, but as a permanent one belonging to each colony as an integral portion of the Empire.” “They have known perfectly well all along,” he said, “that any disaster to which they would be exposed by a European war was not one that could ever arise from any wrong-doing of their own to a foreign Power, but only from the international relations of England and from a foreign policy in which they can have no voice. They have cheerfully accepted this penalty of Empire, because they do not choose to give up their rights of citizenship.”

With the advent of Seddon to power, New Zealand cheerfully undertook penalties of Empire which would have seemed impossible a few short years before. On September 28, 1899, Seddon proposed in Parliament that a contingent should be sent to South Africa. He expressed sympathy with Macaulay who had pictured a New Zealander recounting the downfall of the Empire on a broken arch of London Bridge. Seddon asserted that the New Zealander of the future would be able to describe not the downfall of an empire but its preservation, thanks to the initiative of New Zealand that day. “We shall, before many years have elapsed, be represented in the council of the nation at home; the New Zealander will be advising in council, not croaking on London Bridge.”

Seddon’s proposal was carried by 54 votes to 5 with great enthusiasm, reflected in the country by the rush of volunteers for the force. The first contingent of 215 officers and men left in the Waiwera on October 21, 1899. A second of 258 followed in January. In February the Governor, Lord Ranfurly, informed Joseph Chamberlain that the first rough-rider contingent was about to leave and that the colonists declined to allow Her Majesty’s Government to pay transport expenses. Seddon’s biographer, James Drummond, says that Seddon’s action in sending the troops had been criticized because it “illustrated the exaggerated view he took of the position occupied in the world by the country he ruled.” Drummond asserts that Seddon looked upon the contingents in an entirely different light. “He placed no value in the numerical strength of the contingents. He knew that the Imperial Government could settle its difficulties without the colonies’ assistance; but he believed that the moment had arrived when those who had been talking of national unity should do something to show the world that it was not talk alone.”

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On his way to England for the coronation of Edward VII Seddon was delighted to accept an invitation from Lord Kitchener to visit South Africa. At the front he inspected—at Klerksdorp—the Eighth New Zealand contingent, which had just returned from a successful drive. He was accompanied by Generals Hamilton, Baden-Powell, and Wilson. General Ian Hamilton, addressing the column, praised the New Zealanders and said he did not want any better men under him. This naturally gratified Seddon, who traversed sixty miles of the front and also visited New Zealanders in hospital at Johannesburg, Potchefstroom and Klerksdorp. His cable back to Sir Joseph Ward that “no more contingents will be required” was regarded everywhere as an augury of peace. The total number of contingents sent was ten, the number of officers and men 6,343, with 6,491 horses. There were many applicants for every vacancy in the contingents, whose record drew from the writer of The Times History of the War this verdict:

“It would be hardly an exaggeration to say that after they had had a little experience they were by general consent regarded as, on an average, the best mounted troops in South Africa.”

The proportion of men sent far exceeded that of any other colony, and was barely exceeded by Britain itself. The men received a great welcome home in August, 1902.

Possible complications with foreign Powers arising from the war had led to the passing of the Defence Amendment Bill of 1900, with provision for fortifications at the four centres and at Westport, the important coal station, and for the increase of the volunteer force to 18,000 with an Imperial reserve liable for service overseas should the policy of the Empire require it. At the Colonial Conference of 1902 Seddon proposed that the Pacific naval squadron should be increased and New Zealand agreed to increase its contribution to £40,000. By 1908 increasing international tension caused this amount to be raised to £100,000, and Sir Joseph Ward said that ministers, recognizing how important it was for the protection of the Empire that the Navy should be at the absolute disposal of the Admiralty, did not desire to suggest any conditions as to the location of the ships. In March, 1909, Sir Joseph, who was endowed with remarkable powers of prescience in the sphere of international affairs, proposed to his Cabinet that at least one, and possibly two, first-class battleships of the latest type should be offered to the British Government, as a gesture of moral support as well as a means of practical assistance. The Cabinet agreed unanimously and H.M.S. New Zealand was the result.

The Defence Act of 1909 provided for universal military training for men up to the age of thirty, and Lord Kitchener himself advised

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on the organization of the scheme in a report of March, 1910, in which he recommended close co-operation between Australia and New Zealand. The universal training scheme at least provided a skeleton organization on which a substantial force, adequately officered, could be built; and General Sir Ian Hamilton, who visited the Dominion in May, 1914, thought the human material second to none in the world. Unlikely as it would have seemed to British statesmen and permanent officials of the ’70’s, New Zealand found herself in 1914 comparatively well prepared to face the trials of a world war and to send abroad an expeditionary force of onetenth of its population.

PART III

FIRST WORLD WA R—A JfD AFTER

CHAPTER XIV

WORLD WAR

Parliament was sitting when war broke out in August, 1914. Thanks to this circumstance and the overhaul of national defence undertaken since 1909, it was possible—eleven days later—to despatch troops to take possession of the German wireless station in Samoa. By October 15, 1914, the main body had embarked. The Prime Minister, W. F. Massey, was leader of the Reform Party, which had defeated the Liberals in 19n, and the narrow majorty he secured in December, 1914, paved the way for a coalition with the Opposition which came about on August 19, 1915. The National Government, formed from the leaders of the two largest parties, extended the life of Parliament for a year and then concentrated on the country’s war effort.

- J - — —. — ~ Four permanent training camps had been constructed and the flow of recruits taxed the energies of all the officers who could be secured to train them. A national register undertaken by the Government showed that voluntary enlistment might well have been adequate for all purposes, but the principle of compulsion was introduced by the Military Service Act of 1916 in order to avoid unfairness inseparable from the voluntary system. Selection for service was by ballot, with right of appeal, and voluntary enlistment was continued as before. When peace came 92,000 men had volunteered (26,000 during the period of compulsion) and 32,370 had been conscripted. Of a total eligible male population of under a quarter of a million, 117,175 actually served overseas during the War, while 7,000 others served in the Dominion. Of 2,200 Maori volunteers, no fewer than 336 were reported killed or missing.

The principle of conscription did not go unchallenged. Some coal miners, though they were exempt from compulsion owing to the essential nature of their industry, came out on strike as a protest, but were persuaded to return by two members of the Cabinet. Conscription of labour without conscription of wealth was trenchantly criticized by the Labour Party.

The main body, after waiting three weeks for its escort, left Wellington on October 16th, and joined the First Australian

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Division at Albany, Western Australia, for the voyage to the Suez Canal. The chief incident on the way was the destruction of the German raider Emden. At Alexandria the troops had some weeks of intensive training before the first brush with the Turks took place on February 2, 1915. The New Zealanders helped to prevent the enemy crossing the canal.

They were soon to be engaged in a sterner task —the attempt to force the Dardanelles. To write without emotion of the wrecking of this valorous enterprise should be impossible for any New Zealander. To read in the official histories, in Compton Mackenzie's Gallipoli Memories, H. W. Nevinson's The Dardanelles Campaign, or John North's Gallipoli: The Fading Vision, of the chances missed through ineptitude in Whitehall, lack of imagination in places near and far, and perhaps most of all through sheer bad luck, is a bitter experience even for those of us who were at school in 1915. What it must be for those who survived the campaign scarcely bears thinking about. They went out "so full of hope" from Mudros harbour, cramming the decks of their ships to cheer their comrades from other lands as the great fleet passed out to sea and stood across for Tenedos. They landed with the Australians at half-past four on the morning of Sunday, April 25, 1915, on the beach of Ari Burnu, two miles north of Gaba Tepe.

Advance parties of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps had glimpses of the Narrows, but the Turks closed in and for three and a half months the forces at Anzac fought with their backs to the sea in a triangular area of four hundred acres. Their average strength was only 20,000, but by their tenacity and valour they immobilized half of the whole Turkish Army. Their leader was Sir William (now Lord) Birdwood, whom they would have followed "to death and beyond" and who has told me himself of his pride in commanding as fine a body of men as the fortune of war has ever brought together in a foreign land. The tragedy of the Anzac landing may be expressed in a few words. The troops were forced to use their superb energy in digging themselves in on the hillside. They had been put ashore at the wrong place.

Exhausted by privation, the burning sun, and disease, the Anzac Corps was losing every two weeks from these causes alone as many men as would fall in a major action. So great was the wastage that in the end any man who could stand in a trench and hold a rifle had to stay. On June 9th, the New Zealanders, under Colonel W. G. Malone, took over Quinn's Post from the Australians, and it became the show-place of the line —a miracle of improvisation which aroused pride even among the Turks when they showed it, with due discretion, to German war correspondents. In mining and counter-mining, assault and counter-assault, the weeks passed. It was a war of its own, but it could not go on for ever. There are

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limits to human endurance and the men of Anzac were drawing close to those limits. A great offensive was planned for August, and in preparation for it the sorely tried troops had to excavate accommodation for another 25,000 men in addition to their ordinary work of fighting and carrying up stores.

The battle for the heights of Sari Bair began on the night of August 6th. For six weeks a destroyer had shelled a strong Turkish position, Old No. 3 Post, at nine o'clock every evening, and the garrison naturally retired to the rear slope for shelter.

“On this particular evening,” writes John North, “the New Zealanders formed up on the southern slope of the hill in the shadow of the beam from the searchlight; and when at half-past nine it was switched off and the naval bombardment was directed on the rear slope, they charged the parapet and clambered into the trenches. The surprise was so complete that a Turk at a switchboard in a front-line dug-out was bayoneted before he could explode his circuit of twentyeight mines.”

By this and other exploits the way was made clear for the assaultting columns, but consideration by the commanders for their men, who undoubtedly needed rest, led to delays in pressing home the attack which proved fatal to success. Colonel Malone, the commanding officer of Wellington battalion, did gain almost undisturbed possession of the heights of Chunuk Bair, but he had to make his main line fifteen yards below the crest, and when the Turkish counter-attack developed he was almost completely cut off. A few gallant parties of the Auckland Mounted Rifles did manage to get to him, but the firing-line was soon full of dead and dying men. Colonel Malone himself was shot through the head, and of his battalion of 670 men only 70 were not killed or seriously wounded.

By the time the New Zealand troops in forward positions had been relieved few of them had slept for four nights and five days and their supplies of food and water had been inadequate. The “precious foothold” they had gained on Chunuk Bair was lost by the relieving troops, themselves exhausted and outnumbered, and the Turkish counter-attack was held up only by New Zealand machine-guns and a concentrated naval bombardment of the heights of Chunuk Bair. The battle of Sari Bair was lost. Nobody can doubt that it was momentous in world history. The capture of Constantinople and a swift ending of the war passed from the realm of probability.

In the eyes of the Commander-in-Chief, Sir lan Hamilton, his staff could read what he felt. “Those tormented eyes were seeing not us but Suvla and the heights beyond, not us but the Aja Liman Anafarta Ridge beyond, not us but the silver Narrows, not us but the cupolas and domes and minarets of Constantinople, which with

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every wasted moment were becoming more and more remote and nebulous and unattainable.” For years I saw the General walking up the aisle of St. Clement Danes, or later, St. Martin in the Fields on April 25th, to pay tribute to the men who did their best to make his dreams come true. Despite his age, it was easy to picture “his thin, eager form” striding restlessly about waiting for news which always seemed late in coming—or for reinforcements which were invariably late in coming or never came at all.

The August offensive failed and there was only trench warfare to look forward to. The Turks were now strong enough to resist any possible attack, and after a visit by Lord Kitchener in November evacuation was decreed. Many of the New Zealanders felt that it would have been better to stay, and Masefield has written:

At Anzac, the friendly little kindly city, which had been won at such cost in the ever glorious charge of the 25th and held since with such pain, and built with such sweat and toil and anguish, in thirst, and weakness, and bodily suffering, which had seen the thousands of the 13th Division land in the dark and hide, and had seen them fall in with the others to go to Chunuk, and had known all the hope and fervour, all the glorious resolve, and all the bitterness and disappointment of the unhelped attempt, the feeling was far deeper. Officers and men went up and down the well-known gullies moved almost to tears by the thought that the next day those narrow acres so hardly won and all those graves of our people so long defended would be in Turk hands.

Perhaps the supreme irony of all was the complete success of the evacuation. Nothing had ever gone right before, but the gods or the furies that protected this peninsula saw to it that the departure of the invading forces went like clockwork.

“On the nights of the eighteenth and nineteenth of December, 1915,” records John North, “the last twenty thousand of the Anzac garrison, in superbly ordered progression at three miles an hour, with socks or sand-bags over their boots and torn-up blankets on the floor of the trenches, folded their tents and stole away. The last parties moved back from posts in some places within five yards of the enemy. At twenty minutes to three, in the early morning of the twentieth, the Australian position on Lone Pine, writes the official historian, became open to the enemy. His fifteen hundred solidly printed pages nobly commemorate the unexampled story they tell; but the final tragedy to which the whole narrative moves is summed up in these four words.”

The rights and wrongs of the Gallipoli strategy need not be argued here, though it seems clear that Winston Churchill’s plan might well have altered the whole course of the War if Lord Kitchener and the War Office had not persisted in regarding it as a mere side-show. For anybody who thinks that valour is a deciding

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factor in modern war a course of reading in the narratives of the Gallipoli campaign will form a necessary corrective. It was a terrible introduction for troops from the new lands of the Antipodes and it was perhaps as well that the full story of missed chances became known only gradually. Even as it was the withdrawal was a severe blow to the morale of the Allied forces.

In Life of an Irish Soldier, General Sir Alexander Godley has told, in 1939, the story of the campaign, and as it was he who organized the universal training scheme in New Zealand and commanded the Expeditionary Force, his reminiscences are of great interest. They underline the misfortune which attended the adventure at every turn and confirm the verdict of other writers that no men could have been braver than those who faced the Turks on the deadly Peninsula. The valour of both sides has, we may hope, a memorial more enduring than marble in the pact signed by Great Britain and Turkey.

To us at school the story of Gallipoli was elevated at once to the heights of History. We felt that it would stand out even in the story of this world war almost as boldly as it must in any account of the rise of Australia and New Zealand to nationhood. I was now at Waitaki, where our new open-air dormitories bore the names Anzac Cove, Quinn’s Post, Chunuk Bair, Lone Pine . . . and from them went boys who were to fill the places of men left on the deadly Peninsula. Our annual camps and regular military drill days naturally took on an importance we had not previously assigned to them. We proceeded in skirmishing order over the hot fields and spared a breathless thought for those who were playing this game in earnest. It was only when the names of those we knew began to appear in the casualty lists that the war really came near to us, for the British Navy and the alliance with Japan protected our shores, and there was no need in a land of primary production to ration food.

After Gallipoli the New Zealand Mounted Rifle Brigade was reorganized in Egypt and helped to clear the Suez Canal of Turkish troops. They took part in General Allenby’s drive through Sinai and Palestine and won from him the tribute; “Nothing daunted these intrepid fighters: to them nothing was impossible.” In France the New Zealand Division, with its Maori pioneer battalion, played an important part in the Battle of the Somme, July-September, 1916. They sustained 7,000 casualties, lost no guns, and captured 1,000 prisoners. They played their part gallantly in the subsequent war of attrition with its costly “limited offensives.” In July, 1917. the Division took part in the attack at Ploegsteert Wood and the 2nd Wellingtons captured La Basseville. Early in October the New Zealanders marched through ruined Ypres, and in the general advance of October 4th carried Grafenstafel and, as General Haig

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wrote, “drove the enemy from a network of trenches and strong points on the Grafenstafel Spur”. Of the 5,000 Germans captured in the whole advance the New Zealanders accounted for 1,159. Then came the heroic attack on Bellevue Spur, frustrated by heavy rain and sheer weight of metal. The situation resembled in some respects the position at Chunuk Bair —and once again the limits of human endurance had been reached.

When Germany launched the great attack of March 21, 1918, and forty divisions attacked the fourteen of the Fifth Army under General Gough, they were able to press that army back to the hills behind Albert and east of Amiens. The New Zealand Division was rushed in from the north and brilliantly defeated German forces near Beaumont-Hamel. In April, another German push threatened danger and the Division again successfully intervened at Nieppe Forest and near Meteren. Then in August, after twelve days’ fighting, in which the Division sustained more than 2,200 casualties, the New Zealanders occupied Bapaume. At the end of September they broke one section of the Hindenburg Line by capturing La Vacquerie and Crevecoeur, and then, with a British division on either flank, attacked the fortress of Le Quesnoy. When the German commander refused to surrender, a platoon of New Zealanders forced their way across the moat and scaled the rampart. The garrison was compelled by this bold exploit to surrender on November 4th. A week later came the Armistice, and the end at last of the long agony. New Zealanders had served on many fronts, but the tribute of Lord Haig to those whom he knew personally will summarize the achievements of them all:

"No Division in France built up for itself a finer reputation, whether for the gallantry of its conduct in battle or for the excellence of its behaviour out of the line."

In New Zealand the heavy task of financing the war and organizing the efforts of the whole of the population was carried out with a remarkable degree of efficiency, considering the unprecedented nature of the emergency. raised for our war needs, £55,392,895 was found in New Zealand, with its population of about a million and a quarter. The New Zealand Imperial Supplies Department paid out £160,585,507 for meat, wool, butter, cheese, and other commodities required by the Imperial Government. Some of the wool not required for military purposes was sold to the public and half the profits (£1,620,000) reverted to the growers. They subscribed £236,293 to establish “The New Zealand Sheepowners’ Acknowledgment of Debt to British Seamen Fund.” One outcome of the Fund was Flock House, a farm training centre for children of men of the Royal Navy or Mercantile Marine who served in the War and suffered disabilities. Nearly a thousand

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children passed through it. In 1939 the house was presented by the trustees as a rest home for the wives and daughters of farmers and was assured of a further career of usefulness.

When New Zealand’s soldiers returned from the War a grateful country did its best to devise a system which would secure for every man a position equal at least to that which he held on joining the forces and with, if possible, some compensation for the time lost on military service. Needless to say this ideal was not reached in all cases, but it was probably approached more nearly in New Zealand than anywhere else. The attempt to settle soldiers on the land was only partially successful, the generous nature of the scheme contributing to this result by inflating land values. Many men, after years of labour, had to give up the struggle. War pensions were on a liberal scale, and the interests of men who served were safeguarded by the New Zealand Returned Soldiers’ Association. On April 25th every year, the anniversary of the Gallipoli Landing, the sacrifices made by the New Zealanders on all fronts are commemorated.

CHAPTER XV

AFTERMATH

Rising prices for primary produce during and immediately after the War seemed to usher in a Golden Age for the New Zealand farmer. He readily responded to the boom conditions, and the country was flooded with imports. The Government took a hand in the game by borrowing lavishly for settlement schemes and public works. Secondary industries shared in the boom, and the only discontented section of the community was that which depended on Arbitration Court awards for its rate of wages. The cost of living rose more rapidly than the Court’s bonuses, which were intended to meet it, and there was much dissatisfaction. I find that I wrote some “Thoughts on the Present Discontent” in the October, 1919, issue of a student magazine, The House, which will serve to show something of the atmosphere of those post-war days and at the same time illustrate the rise of the Labour Party. The first scene is the Trades Hall, Christchurch:

“Outside, the fireworks and festivities of the Peace celebrations of a seemingly contented people—inside, a quiet and logical speaker addresses an audience grimly discontented with its share in the blessings of life. The subject is the ‘Peace Terms’ of a ‘Peace which passes all understanding.’ A straightforward presentation of the terms, an examination of them from a social and economic point of view, a denunciation

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of their futility and powerlessness to prevent further war, are the three divisions of the speech. The question of indemnities is discussed in the light of history, with special reference to the Franco-Prussian War. As we were very patriotic we knew that the speaker must be wrong—that Lloyd George really has the welfare of the world’s workers at heart, and would rather be out of the limelight than in it, that the people really did have a say in the terms, and that we have achieved what we entered the War to secure —but we couldn’t find a flaw in the speaker’s arguments, nevertheless. Perhaps when we are rich we shall see the palpable fallacy of it all. As it was, we left the Hall, and, on entering the garish light of Cathedral Square, regarded the portraits of those who had saved the world for democracy with hardly the same veneration as we had two or three hours before.”

The second scene is in the Opera House:

“A very different scene this —-a house crowded to overflowing, and a speaker of the fiery variety. Labour’s Plan for Reconstruction was unfolded to us, and we were treated to a savage denunciation of the leading politicians of New Zealand. The coal shortage was explained, very ingeniously; it was due to the Government desire to discredit the Labour Movement by making the people annoyed with the workers—then a General Election. Nobody we know credits the Government with enough brains for this, so here again the speaker must have been wrong. Labour, we are told, is going to contest the election, not with the brickbats of vituperation, but with the logic of facts; the speaker gave us some of both. The singing of the Socialist anthem was most impressive, if slighdy sinister to those of us who had not heard it sung by people in deadly earnest —the strained earnest voices seemed to foretell tremendous changes in the social structure of ‘God’s own country’.”

The other scenes describe the miserable conditions of a mining village and the lot of a soldier's widow living with her two children in a single room in Wellington. "As we learn more about the social conditions of New Zealand to-day," I wrote, "we cease to wonder at the discontent abroad in the land." It was to be sixteen years before that discontent reached its climax in the Great Depression and the first Labour Government took office, but it was in the immediate post-war years that the foundations were laid. As I read the article over, it surprises me how few people anticipated Labour's victory in 1935, for I have no doubt that what I felt as a young student in 1919 is more or less typical of what the young people of the next generation felt during the depression of 1931-33.

On his return to the Dominion after the Peace Conference, Sir Joseph Ward and the other Liberal members of the Coalition Government withdrew, and the general election was fought on Party lines. W. F. Massey's Reform Party secured 48 seats, the Liberals 18, and Labour and Independent Labour 13. By 1922 the fall in wool prices and the bursting of the post-war bubble had led

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to retrenchment—a spectre always before the Civil Service—and a decline in popularity of the Government. The Reform Party lost 10 seats, and was thus without an absolute majority in the House of 80. There were 20 Liberal, 17 Labour, and 5 Independent members. I have memories of this election campaign as I was on the staff of The Press at the time and was one of those assigned to cover W. F. Massey’s appeal to the electors of Christchurch. The meeting broke up in disorder, the Prime Minister had to have police protection, and I remember thanking my lucky stars when I got back to the office only slightly battered by the excited crowd.

J. G. Coates succeeded to the Prime Ministership on the death of W. F. Massey in 1925, but, in spite of his record of vigorous administration of the portfolio of Public Works, he failed to stem the tide of public opinion which was flowing steadily against Conservatism—even when diluted with large doses of State Socialism. The situation was complicated by the return to politics of Sir Joseph Ward, whose mana was still sufficiently strong to give life to a United Party combining the remnants of Liberalism. In a moment of inspiration Sir Joseph came out with a plan for a £70,000,000 loan, and though some people believed at the time that this was a slip of the tongue its results were magical. The Coates Government was defeated and Sir Joseph Ward took office for a while, though he was physically unfit for the task. He was succeeded by G. W. Forbes, who was faced with a catastrophic fall of world prices and sought refuge in the traditional policy of retrenchment and a coalition with the Reform Party. To reduce the gap between farm costs and the returns from farm produce was the immediate problem before the Government, and since most of the costs were fixed by legal contract it became necessary to introduce overriding legislation if these costs were to be lowered quickly enough.

Laws were passed cutting all interest and rents by 20 per cent, Civil Service salaries by from 15 to 25 per cent, and all Arbitration Court award rates of wages were reduced by 10 per cent. Compulsory arbitration was abolished in favour of "compulsory conciliation and voluntary arbitration", and Dr. W. B. Sutch in Recent Economic Changes in New Zealand, published in 1936, thus summarized other measures:

A virtual moratorium was placed on farm debts; the Government also exerted continual pressure on the banks with the result that lending rates were brought down by successive reductions from 7 to 4J per cent (this, of course, was partly caused by the falling off in the demand for loans); rural rates were eased by Government subsidies to the counties; a 5 per cent sales tax was imposed—with exemption of the necessities of life and all types of farm equipment; the graduated land tax was abolished and a farm income tax (with exemptions) substituted; subsidies

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to reduce the selling price of superphosphate and the transport cost of fertilizers generally were continued; while freights on the carriage of farm produce were reduced internally by a payment from the Department of Agriculture and externally by an arrangement wih the shipping companies.

The Labour Party vigorously opposed the Government’s deflationary policy, contending that “there was no warrant for reducing the standard of living of the people for the purpose of trying to export twice as much to pay interest on New Zealand’s debts”. Actually the percentage of the country’s exports required to meet interest payments on overseas debt rose from 14-42 in 1928-29 to 26-09 in 1931-32, though the amount of the debt had been decreased by nearly one-eighth owing to conversions and repayments. The disastrous fall in wool and butter prices undoubtedly tested to the full the acumen of the Government’s financial advisers, and it has been argued that the depreciation of the currency by making 125 New Zealand pounds equal 100 pounds sterling was undertaken too late to be fully effective. The change of policy which it represented caused the resignation of W. Downie Stewart, the Finance Minister, who was succeeded by J. G. Coates. One of his first measures was the setting up of a Reserve Bank, with State representatives on the directorate, and power to fix the rate of exchange. Though the State did not take complete control of the bank, the way was open for this at a later date.

Though there was much to be said in theory for the measures taken by the Government to meet the crisis they did not answer in practice. The number of unemployed rose from under 12,000 in 1930 to nearly 80,000 in 1933. In its handling of this problem the Government lost the confidence of the country. Government relief work was provided, the number of days per week being decided by the number of the applicant’s dependants. The rates of pay and the conditions of work led to riots in the main centres early in 1932. The Government then increased the allowances, but the policy of insisting on unnecessary work rather than paying sustenance was continued for a considerable time. It seems incredible that better ways of employing the available labour could not have been devised. When the Government, as a further measure of economy, extended the life of Parliament for a year, a revolutionary rise in the prices realized by farm products would have been necessary to save it from defeat. At the General Election of November, 1935, the Labour Party secured 55 of the 80 seats, though it did not as yet command an absolute majority of votes polled.

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CHAPTER XVI

LABOUR WINS POWER

New Zealand’s first Labour Government took office on December 6, 1935, and the City of London, with its customary pessimism, took a gloomy view of the country’s prospects —or rather of its prospects as a field for investment. But if Socialism was going to ruin us, it was taking a long time in the process. In Socialism in New Zealand J. A. Lee listed the various measures of State Socialism that have been applied. They begin with the establishment of the Post Office Savings Bank and the taking over of the electric telegraph by the Weld Government of 1864-65, and some of the other important measures follow:

Fox Vogel Ministry, 1869-72: Government Life Insurance Public Trust Office. Railway construction by State. Public Works Policy.

Hall, 1879-82: Death Duties introduced. State Hospital treatment. Ballance, 1891-93: Departments of Agriculture and Labour established.

Seddon, 1893-1906: Old age pensions. Superannuation for police, railway servants, teachers. Compulsory purchase of land for settlement. Advances to Settlers Act. State coal mines. State fire insurance. Accident insurance. Control of water power. State maternity homes.

\V:trd, 1906-12: Superannuation for public servants. Widows' pensions. School medical service. Workers' housing scheme. National provident fund. Hydro-electricity development.

Massey, 1912-25: Miners' phthisis pensions. War pensions. Housing Act. Board of Trade Act (wide powers over economic life in the Dominion). Export Control Boards for meat, dairy produce, fruit, honey, and kauri gum. Dental treatment in schools (partial).

Coates, 1925-28: Rural advances and Rural Intermediate Credit. Forbes, 1930-31: Transport Licensing (to protect Government railways). Creation of Unemployment Fund.

Forbes-Coates, 1931-35: War Veterans' allowance. Broadcasting stations taken over by Board. Board to regulate price and marketing of wheat. Compulsory debt conversion and reduction. Reserve Bank Act. Transport Go-ordination Board established. Agriculture (Emergency Powers) Act, for control of dairying. Milk in Schools (partial).

When we look at the main measures of the Labour Government in its first term of office we can see that for the most part they are

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logical extensions of the seventy-year process of evolution towards State Socialism:

Milk in schools to all children. Dental clinics for all schools. Free carriage for pupils of secondary schools. Hospital treatment to be free. Guaranteed price of butter, cheese, wheat, tobacco, honey. Control of internal and external marketing of primary products. Measure to establish an iron and steel industry. Establishment of commercial broadcasting.

Even for the Government's most important innovation the way had been prepared, as we have seen, by the passing of the Reserve Bank Act in 1933. By an Amendment Act of 1936 the Bank became a complete State institution, the private shareholders being bought out at a generous rate. The Bank was given power to underwrite Government loans, to extend long-term loans to the Government, and to make advances to the Government for the purchase and marketing of New Zealand products. The Bank controls all foreign funds accruing from the sale of New Zealand products abroad and also the transfer of overseas funds to and from New Zealand. Power was also given to suspend the right to demand sterling in exchange for Reserve Bank notes. This power enables the Government to stop a flight of capital or to ration imports.

In 1938 the decline of the country's overseas funds became so marked that the Government exercised its powers to stop the flow of money from the country and to ration imports. As this measure was designed to protect the service of the Dominion's overseas debt, the City of London found itself in a dilemma, disliking the remedy, but having nothing to propose in its place. New Zealand bondholders were disturbed by what Dr. J. B. Condliffe in a 8.8.C. news talk aptly called "tendentious Press messages from political opponents of the Government in New Zealand". Dr. Condliffe explained that in periods of world depression, New Zealand, like all other primaryproducing countries, gets caught with large import orders usually after the prices of her exports have fallen, the inevitable result being a decline in her reserves of foreign exchange. Formerly this strain used to be met by the banks rationing credit, and so producing deflation, depression, and unemployment in the Dominion. This happened in 1921 and again in 1931.

“Once more,” Dr. Condliffe continued, “heavy imports have strained the balance of payments; but this time they are due not only to a fall in export receipts, but also to a monetary policy which has produced full employment at high wages, the Labour Government having refused in the present emergency to restrict credit in the Dominion. By taking the shock on its exchange reserves it is attempting to insulate the Dominion from the strain on its balance of payments. It has not plunged New Zealand into depression because the rest of the world has been depressed. But it must take reasonable precautions to see that it is not

Lake Wanaka and Mount Aspiring (*’«*** *««■»*

0 (Kerr Zfahnd Government) Farming Country, Athol, Southland

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caught short of foreign exchange. This is why it has taken control of exchange assets and is cutting down imports. It may not need to cut them on the average as much as normal banking action did in 1921 and 1931, though particular articles may be cut more. In 1931 they fell by 42 per cent and remained at that level for a year or two. British exporters may find that it is better to have prosperous customers in New Zealand, even if they cannot import all they would like to, than to have them plunged into depression by wholesale contraction of bank credit.”

Dr. Condliffe said that one main reason for the Government’s action was its firm intention to meet all debt obligations fully and promptly. There would be no default. Moreover, it was the Government’s intention to import as much as possible from Britain. The more she sold to Britain the more she could import from her. A cut of 3 per cent had been imposed on imports of New Zealand meat into Britain, and if the Dominion could no longer count on an expanding market for her agricultural produce she must turn to the development of her local manufactures.

As was only to be expected, the Government's policy of control of imports has been vigorously opposed by the interests most directly affected in the Dominion. Much criticism was lavished on the absence of any declaration of the principles on which the various cuts in particular imports were based, and perhaps an earlier declaration of policy would have been wise. The community is sensitive to dictatorial methods and any appearance of arbitrary action by officials should be avoided.

We are so dependent on overseas markets for the disposal of our primary products that orderly and economical marketing has become one of the chief concerns of Government. The Labour administration, looking at the matter primarily from the point of view of ensuring a reasonable standard of living for everybody, was first concerned to fix a guaranteed price for those products whose value on the London market was insufficient to give the producers a reasonable return. The chief curse of farming in New Zealand has always been the uncertainty as to London price levels.

We are a nation of optimists, as can readily be seen from the totalizator returns, and farmers share to the full the tendency to expect a better season next year, even if they never seem satisfied with the existing one. The price of land has never been regulated by the average values of produce, but always by the possibility of high returns in a single year. In boom years farms changed hands with astonishing speed and the rising spiral of prices meant ruin for the man who bought just before the break in the London market, which always came sooner or later.

A guaranteed price for butter and cheese did something more than make the farmer certain of a fixed return for his labour and

G

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that of his family. It made it possible to assess within a few pounds the value of his farm, and thus check unhealthy speculation. The guaranteed price is, of course, a subject of perennial controversy, for the farmers naturally tend to favour a higher figure than the Government, which has to find the money and justify the price to the rest of the community. The Government’s aim is to secure not only for the farmer, but for the farm worker, an adequate return, and in fixing farm wages and holidays it has raised costs. But the farm wages cannot be described as excessive, for there is an alleged drift of labour from the farms to public works. Unless all labour is to be paid for at the rate previously ruling for farm labour, it is obvious that farm costs must rise—and no Labour Government could contemplate a lowering of wages in Government service, shops, and secondary industries below what it regards as a reasonable level.

Wages are, of course, only one of the farm costs that have risen and they are not the most important, in view of the relatively large amount of work (about three-quarters of the total) done by the farmer and his family on New Zealand farms. Interest, the main item in most farmers' budgets, has been kept stable, but goods imported from abroad or produced locally have risen in price, as they have for all sections of the community. In theory, at least, this is allowed for in the revised guaranteed price.

- -~ » i The dairy farmers, after five years in which the average London price of butter in January had dropped from 1845. to 665. 6d., were ready for a guaranteed price scheme and they had much to do with the Labour victory at the polls in 1935. Dissatisfaction with the actual price—rather than with the principle —caused them to turn against the Government in 1938, but it is unlikely that the system will ever disappear. It has too many obvious advantages, notably in the prompt pay-out to farmers.

PART I V

WAR WITH GERMANY AND JAPAN

CHAPTER XVII

NEW ZEALAND AT WAR AGAIN

For a country so remote New Zealand took a keen interest in international affairs. Her leaders realized that Fascism in Italy, Germany, and Japan was a menace to world peace. New Zealand banned the shipment of scrap-iron to Japan as early as 1936. She refused to recognize the Italian conquest of Abyssinia and in a memorandum to the Auxiliary-General of the League of Nations declared that it was necessary to set up an organization of United Nations with real powers to enforce its decisions and real machinery for examining questions as they occurred. "It wanted above all," as Walter Nash, Minister of Finance, wrote in his book New Zealand in 1943, "an organization with strength. It wants that now."

In 1937 the Prime Minister, M. J. Savage, expressed at the Imperial Conference in London his Government's view that grievous mistakes had been made in the past in Empire foreign policy. He proposed that a concerted international effort should be made to remove the economic causes of conflict, and he criticized the attitude of the British Government towards the League of Nations.

This dissatisfaction with British policy was not confined to the Labour Party. The Press, Christchurch, a Conservative journal, wrote on June 7, 1938:

“Mr. Anthony Eden’s remark, in a letter to his constituents on the Eastern situation, that ‘a policy of concession will not alone suffice to check the deterioration’ is the best concise criticism of Mr. Neville Chamberlain’s foreign policy that has yet been uttered. The nature of that policy is sufficiently indicated by the catchword ‘appeasement’, which now appears in almost every statement by Mr. Chamberlain on the Foreign Office. The British Government, that is, seeks to preserve peace by throwing to the wolves pieces of meat just large enough to keep them quiet for the time being. There are two fatal weaknesses in such a policy. The first is that the wolves become progressively more impudent and more difficult to fob off. The second is that considerations of justice and morality have necessarily to be abandoned.”

The crisis of September, 1938, bewildered New Zealand. It was felt that if a stronger line had been taken more honourable terms might have been secured at Munich. The Press, though not prepared

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to say that war should have been risked, took a gloomy view of the future, writing on October 7:

"In Europe to-day, truth is being overwhelmed by lies, reason by passion, freedom by tyranny, and justice by the will of the strong."

The Round Table summary seems just:

“There was verbal unanimity on the obvious practical conclusions: that in war New Zealand would follow Britain whatever the immediate occasion of war might be. In times of peace New Zealand has ardently claimed and exercised its right to form and stand up for its own views on foreign affairs. In this time of crisis, however, the Dominion made no concerted attempt to form an enlightened public opinion on the problems that had produced the situation. Events moved so fast and so mysteriously as to stun the mind, and to render futile (if not to forbid) public discussion of why these things should be.”

Two speeches in July, 1938, may be quoted. The Minister of Education declared that:

“though they worked in the closest co-operation with the British Government, that did not mean that they must be prepared to swallow everything the British Government cared to put forward.”

The Leader of the Legislative Council said: "Of course, in one split second after Britain became involved in War, New Zealand also became involved." In practice, therefore, the attitude of the Dominion was not likely to impede the British Government should it decide to make a stand for fair dealing in international affairs, but there was enough potential friction to lead to the appointment of a High Commissioner for the United Kingdom in New Zealand, which was the last Dominion to retain the Governor-General as the representative of both the Crown and the British Government.

As the war shadows deepened Australia and New Zealand began to co-ordinate their defence plans. Liaison with the Imperial forces was very close. The Committee of Imperial Defence, attended by the High Commissioners in London, met almost every week. "Should war arise," I wrote in 1939, "it is unlikely that the War Office will have to send to the New Zealand Government cables like this: 'For the defences of Samoa, see Wkitaker's Almanack.'" This gem of 1914 is enshrined in Downie Stewart's biography of Sir Francis Bell. In April, 1939, New Zealand arranged at Wellington a Pacific Defence Conference of representatives from the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand to formulate measures to be taken in view of the likelihood of war with Japan. Certain points in the Pacific were, as a result, garrisoned by New Zealand even before September, 1939, and the Dominion made herself responsible for the defence of Fiji.

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New Zealand declared War against Germany within a few minutes of Britain. The Acting Prime Minister, Peter Fraser, said:

"We address ourselves with sad hearts but with firm determination to the immediate task in hand—the task of rallying all the forces and resources of our land so that we can stand side by side with the United Kingdom and the other nations of the British Commonwealth on their struggle for international righteousness. Not in anger but in sorrow; not in lightheartedness, but with heavy hearts; not in hatred but with a grave sense of great responsibility for mankind and to the future of humanity; not in malice and revenge, but with a prayer for peace on our lips, the British people to-day dedicate themselves to the work of overthrowing the oppressor and freeing the peoples of the earth from bondage and slavery to a ruthless and cruel tyranny."

On September 6, in a broadcast from his home, where he was lying ill, the Prime Minister, M. J. Savage said, he believed the cause for which the Empire was fighting was worth the sacrifice involved: "Both with gratitude for the past and confidence in the future, we range ourselves fearlessly beside Britain. Where she goes we go, and where she stands we stand."

The National Anthem was sung and cheers given for the King when Parliament unanimously approved the declaration of war. That the country generally approved was shown by the response to the call for recruits for a "Special Force" for Service "within or beyond" New Zealand. On September 12th, the first day for recruiting, 6,655 men between 21 and 35 presented themselves. There was also a wonderful response to the call for Volunteers for the Air Force. The Organization of National Security operated smoothly on the lines of the War Book of which the Prime Minister had given details earlier in the year.

Operational Control of the New Zealand Naval Division was transferred to the Admiralty. Negotiations were initiated for the sale to the United Kingdom of the whole surplus of butter, cheese, meat and wool. A Council of Primary Production had for the first time on September 21st, to organize Production and Marketing of farm products under an "Imperial Commandeer" and adjust prices within narrow limits. To avoid enrolling into the armed forces men essential to industry, the production of raw materials, a Central Council for the utilization of man-power was established. The control of waterfront work was taken over by the Government in March, 1940, and a Control Commission established "to ensure the expeditious despatch of produce to the United Kingdom, efficient operation, reasonable conditions, continuity of employment and adequate payment for the workers".

The Prime Minister declared on March 2nd that recruiting figures were good—"rather brisker than during the corresponding

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period of the World War". Hitler further stimulated recruiting by his invasion of Belgium and Holland. A whole football team enlisted in a body after a game at Wellington. But the fall of France showed that a long and bitter struggle for victory must ensue, and the Government introduced an Emergency Regulations Bill providing for Compulsory Service. On June 18, 1940, the National Service Emergency Regulations were gazetted. The Labour Party had consistently opposed conscription throughout its history and many of its members had been prominent in the fight against it in the previous war. It was a measure of the emergency to free peoples that the change was introduced with so little controversy. Before conscription was introduced 63,747 men na d volunteered for the N.Z.E.F. and 14,000 for the R.N.Z.A.F. At this time, too, enlistments for the Maori Battalion, always voluntary, numbered 4,103 — 43 per cent of those eligible.

The proclamation directing enrolment of the first division of the General Reserve was issued on August 7, 1940. It applied to all single men between 19 (later 18) and 45. The second division—married men between 18 and 45 —was called up in stages from May, 194 1 —men without children first then those with children according to age groups.

The main measures of policy in man power mobilization are summarized conveniently in the report to the Minister of National Service, by H. L. Bockett, Director of National Service and Controller of Man power, in 1945:

"The first phase— i.e., September, 1939, to December, 1941, when Japan struck southwards—saw the policy measures estimated best to gear the nation to an overall war effort against an enemy for the most part pursuing aggression in theatres far removed from New Zealand. In addition to the organizational measures introduced during this period, the following national service measures were implemented:—

(a) The raising and reinforcement of an overseas Army Division. (The strength of Army personnel overseas at the end ajaj 44,000.)

(b) The raising of a considerable part-time Territorial Force. (At the end of 1941 there were 35,000 in the Territorial Force in New Zealand, while other home Forces totalled 26,000.)

(c) The raising of a continually increasing Air Force for service both overseas and in New Zealand. (In December, 1941, the strength of the R.N-Z-A-F. in New Zealand was over 10,000 including 1,000 W.A.A.F.s, while overseas there were over 5,000. In addition there were about 2,700 New Zealand personnel with the R.A.F.)

(d) The raising of a small but steadily growing Naval Force for service both in New Zealand and overseas. (The strength of the R.N-Z-N- increased from 1,300 at the outbreak of war to 3,000 in May, 1940, and to 4,900 in December, 1941.)

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(e) The raising and maintenance of the auxiliary war organizations referred to in Subsection (i) of this Section— e.g., Home Guard, Emergency Precautions Service, Women's War Service Auxiliary, etc. (At the end of 1941, the strength of the Home Guard was 94,000, the National Military Reserve 8,000, and the Emergency Reserve Corps 88,000.)

(/) The staffing, per medium of the voluntary State Placement Service, of the important war industries— e.g., footwear, farming, engineering, tanneries, food-manufacturing, etc.

"The basic trend during the second phase— i.e., December, 1941, to November, 1942, often called the year of Japanese threat—was in the direction of all-out domestic, military, and industrial mobilization to defend New Zealand itself. The main measures which marked this phase were: —■

(a) Mobilization on a full-time basis of a considerable part of the Territorial Force and the National Military Reserve, and the removal of distinction between Territorial and other service. (The peak mobilization of persons was achieved in September, 1942, and, excluding casualties, totalled 154,000 males and 3,000 females, or 170,000 if the 13,000 casualties then recorded are added. Of these, 127,000 were in the Army, 24,000 in the Air Force, and 6,000 in the Navy.)

(b) The wholesale mobilization of members of the First and Second Division of the General Reserve— i.e., single and married men of military age.

(Army male personnel in New Zealand in December, 1942, aged over eighteen years totalled 35,000 Grade I and 18,000 Grade II.) ( c) The introduction of compulsory civil defence service and the expansion of component services to the strength of 150,000 by the end of 1942. (There were also some 115,000 enrolled in the Home Guard at this time.)

(d) The recruitment of women to the auxiliary wings of the three Service arms— viz., Women's Auxiliary Army Corps, Women's Auxiliary Air Force, and Women's Royal Navy Service. (At the end of 1942 the strength of the three women's Services were as follows: W.A.A.C., 3,000; W.A.A.F., 3,000; W.R.N.S., 200.)

(e) The compulsory industrial mobilization of civilians under the industrial-mobilization procedure empowered by regulation in January, 1942. [By the end of 1942, 17,000 directions into essential work had been given to males and 3,000 to females.)

(/) The development of the Women s War Service Auxiliary to the point (November, 1942) when enrolments totalled 75,000.

“Thus by September of 1942 the military mobilization had been carried so far that 157,000 persons were serving in the Forces either in New Zealand or overseas, while a further 250,000 men and women

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were serving part-time in the Home Guard, Emergency Precautions Service, and other auxiliary services. This huge deflection of manpower from industry by itself created serious man-power shortages in the basic industries. These were greatly accentuated by the enormous programme of defence construction, both for New Zealand and Allied troops, that was so spectacular an aspect of the industrial scene in 1942. Despite the degree of preparedness achieved by September of that year there was scant ground for optimism in the face of invasion, while demands for additional man-power as reinforcements for the Division overseas and as recruits to the rapidly expanding Air Force were daily growing more clamant. Although much had been achieved by the policy initiatives launched in the year of Japanese threat, the overall man-power position remained most serious.

"The third period—that between November, 1942, and March, 1944 —could be called the period of maximum overseas contribution, for during it this was the basic policy. This period was opened by the crucial reverses of Japan on Guadalcanal and of Germany and Italy at El Alamein. With the immediate Japanese threat now removed, the chief developments which served the main policy trend were:—

(a) The continued reinforcement of the Army Division in the Middle East, and the despatch to the Pacific of a Second Division of 11,000 officers and men in November, 1942, the strength ultimately increasing to 18,000 during 1943.

(b) Survey of personnel followed by drastic contraction of homedefence units, the Home Guard, Emergency Precautions Service and other auxiliary war organizations. (Early in 1944 the Home Guard was disbanded, while most of the functions of the civil defence were transferred to the Internal Affairs Department as from the beginning of April, 1944.)

(c) The continued expansion of the Air Force and, to a lesser extent, the Navy. (By March, 1944, the strength of the Air Force had increased to 41,000, including 3,500 females, while that of the Navy had increased to 9,400, including 500 females.)

(d) The direction to essential industry of the man-power released from the Forces. (Note: — From home-defence units alone more than 18,000 men were made available to industry from March, 1943, to March, 1944, while the full-time members of the Home Guard and the National Military Reserve for the most part also returned to industry.)

(e) Postponement of further service of youths under twenty-one who had been mobilized but who were anxious to lay the foundations of their career.

{f) The intensified administration of the Industrial Man-power Regulations in the service of maximum industrial output of munitions, food and clothing, and of the continually expanding defence construction programme.

“In results, the third phase yielded a substantial diversion of manpower from the domestic scene to overseas theatres of war, while it also

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greatly augmented New Zealand's industrial contribution to the allied war effort. The policy objective of maximum overseas contribution was thus splendidly realized, as the part played by the New Zealand Forces in various theatres of war shows."

The fourth and final period from April 1944 saw the maintenance of New Zealand's overseas contribution based on the recognition of "three inescapable facts:" (1) that it would be impossible to maintain both the Middle East and Pacific Divisions together with Navy and Air Force establishments by calling up fit men reaching military age and by combing out Category "A" men held in industry under appeal; (2) that the Pacific Division was then for the most part engaged in noncombatant service which was not likely to give way to continuous active service for the whole division, while the Middle East Division was playing a vital part in the Middle East Campaign; (3) the production of foodstuffs and other supplies for Great Britain and for the Allied Forces in the north-west Pacific was becoming increasingly important. Butter-fat production had declined steadily since 1941, while in the 1943-44 season there was a decline in the output of meat. Defence and other essential constructive programmes were behind schedule and engineering, footwear, woollens, clothing and foodstuff manufactory industries were lagging in output, with no prospect of improvement with the man-power available.

To all her other commitments New Zealand now found added the necessity to play a part in the relief of liberated countries. The stage was thus reached when the Dominion's population of less than 1,700,000 could not at the same time meet her internal industrial demands and support abroad the Army Division in the Middle East (at that time 35,000 strong, the Air Force in the Pacific and elsewhere (then totalling 13,000), the Navy in all theatres (then almost 10,000) and the 3rd Army Division in the Pacific (then numbering about 18,000). It was accordingly decided to repatriate the bulk of the 3rd (Pacific) Army Division for direction into essential industry. This relief to industry was offset by the working of the Middle East Division Replacement Scheme under which men who had completed three years' service overseas would be returned to New Zealand and released to industry. This meant that trained men in industry were released to the forces and men with overseas service but possibly no industrial experience had to replace them either directly or indirectly.

The first replacement draft of 1,762 men was sent overseas in October, 1944, when 1,800 men arrived back from the Middle East. Other contingents followed.

By March, 1945, 370,000 men and 14,800 women had been called up or had volunteered for service in the Forces—about 23 per cent of the total population.

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The total labour force of New Zealand at the outbreak of War was estimated at 700,000, of whom 180,000 were women. By the end of 1943 the labour force had contracted to 634,000, notwithstanding an increase of 48,000 in the number of women employed. Releases from the forces saw a rise to 655,000 by the end of 1944, but there were still some 11,000 vacancies in high-priority industries, notably building in the case of men and textiles in the case of women. From the inception of industrial man-power control in January, 1942, until March 31, 1945, 130,381 orders were issued to men and 38,231 to women, nearly half of them in the last year. Only 4,922 appeals were entered, and 2,058 of these were allowed.

Against this background of organization in the Dominion we must now review the achievements of the contingents overseas.

CHAPTER XVIII

PRELUDE TO BATTLE

The first contingent of the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force arrived in Egypt on February 12, 1940, and the news was displayed with great headlines in London and New York. The men spent some months training in desert camps near Cairo—waiting to see whether Mussolini would put his "millions of bayonets" to the test. The second contingent was diverted to England when the Nazi avalanche threatened to carry all before it. The news that the First Lord of the Admiralty had to send to the Australian and New Zealand transports when they arrived in June could hardly have been worse. France had fallen and invasion of England might be only a matter of weeks. Shortly afterwards, when the High Commissioner paid an official visit to the camps in the Aldershot area, I saw thousands of New Zealanders drawn up to greet him. It was an impressive sight, repeated when the King made a tour of the camps shortly afterwards to see the men at work.

"After lunch with General Freyberg and his officers," I wrote in The New Zealand News at the time, "the King varied the official programme to stand by the roadside and take the salute as an infantry battalion went past on a route march. On the other side of the road a few country people, including half-a-dozen children, were the sole witnesses of a spectacle more significant in many ways than the prancing pageants that celebrate the triumphs of Nazi devilry. Behind the King stood many officers, including General Sir Alexander Godley. As the men marched past, their faces, turned to the King, reflected something of the feelings that must have stirred in them, something of the wonder that they should be marching along a leafy English lane saluting the

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symbol that unites the free peoples of the Empire in the greatest struggle of its long history. The picture of this scene, of these men who, a few brief months ago, were working at a hundred different occupations twelve thousand miles away, will in the end mean more than the pictures of bombed homes and machine-gunned refugees which pave the way for Nazi culture.”

As the battle of Britain was joined in September the New Zealand contingent took up its position in the forward defence area of South-East England. Air battles were fought over their heads nearly every day and the camps quivered at night with the noise of anti-aircraft guns. For two months it was touch and go whether the Nazis would put their fortunes to the test of invasion, and the New Zealanders, despite many deficiencies in equipment, grew daily more prepared to defend the soil of Kent. Then they were withdrawn inland for rest and refitting. In the New Year message to The New Zealand News on January 7, 1941, their commander, Brigadier J. Hargest, wrote:

“Perhaps we were fortunate in the time of our arrival—just when France was capitulating and the portents were darkest, so that the presence of ourselves and other Dominion troops had a heartening effect. Whatever the reason, from the first moment everyone has shown us the greatest friendliness and courtesy. The Army staffs, those British units who erected our camps and actually had hot food ready for us, the civilian population in every district we have entered—all have contrived to help and make us feel that next to our own country, this is Home.”

An editorial note ran:

“Let no member of the 2nd N.Z.E.F. who has been here in these fateful months think that his time has been wasted because he has not been engaged in actual fighting. The year 1940, and the Battle of Britain are as sure of a place in history as 1066 and the Norman Conquest, 1588 and the Spanish Armada, 1815 and the Battle of Waterloo. Your children and your children’s children will read of those incredible days when only a strip of blue water and a few hundred pilots stood between a slightly mad ‘Living Room’ decorator and the Empire of the World. They will read with pride that in a place of honour ready to meet the Nazi hordes when Britain’s forces were marshalled to meet the shock of invasion were the soldiers from New Zealand. Wherever the fortunes of war may take you, whatever brilliant campaigns may be in the future, you will not forget these months.”

By February the New Zealand contingent had left for Egypt to join the First Contingent and the Third, which had arrived from the Dominion in September. Until the contingent from England arrived the New Zealand forces were not able to work as a Division, but they took part in many operations. The New Zealand Command

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had been asked if they would provide officers and men for three patrols of the Long Range Desert Group and on July ist they had agreed to do so.

“It must have been a hard decision to take,” wrote Major W. B. Kennedy Shaw in Long Range Desert Group. “It involved a small but continuous liability against their own then scanty forces, and also the placing of New Zealand troops directly under British Command. I think they never regretted the decision; certainly no one else ever did. . . . There can be no doubt whatever that much of the early and continued success of L.R.D.G. was due to the speed and thoroughness with which the New Zealanders learned desert work and life. To exist at all in the Qattara Depression or in the Sand Sea in June, or in the Gebel Akhdar in February, is in itself a science which practice develops into an art. The problem is to make yourself so much master over the appalling difficulties of Nature—heat, thirst, cold, rain, fatigue—that, overcoming these, you yet have physical energy and mental resilience to deal with the greater object, the winning of the war, as the task presents itself from day to day. ... I had never met New Zealanders before; all the knowledge I had of them were my father’s words of the last war—that they were the finest of the troops from the Dominions. Closer acquaintance showed that one should always believe one’s father.”

The main task of L.R.D.G. was, in the words of the official publication, Destruction of an Army, "to find out what was going on in the inner heart 600 miles west of the Nile, behind the huge protective arc of the Sand Sea, and to be in a position to give warning of, and to delay, any enemy thrust from Kufra."

The men chosen were mainly from the New Zealand Divisional Cavalry supplemented by specialists from New Zealand anti-tank and machine-gun units. Captain P. A. Clayton, formerly of the Egyptian Survey Department, and five New Zealanders drove across the desert as far as the Jalo-Kufra road to watch for enemy traffic between Benghazi and Kufra. After this reconnaissance three columns of trucks, piloted by Major R. A. Bagnold and Lieut. Kennedy Shaw, made the first military crossing of the Great Sand Sea, which seemed a perfect protection for the Italian garrison of Kufra. Kennedy Shaw's description is vivid:

"There is nothing like these sand seas anywhere else in the world. Take an area the size of Ireland and cover it with sand. Then with a giant's rake score the sand into ridges and valleys running north-north-west and south-south-east, and with the ridges, at their highest, five hundred feet from trough to crest. Late in the evening, when the sands cool quickly and the dunes throw long shadows, the Sand Sea is one of the most lovely things in the world; no words can properly describe the beauty of those sweeping curves of sand. At the summer midday, when the sun beats down all its shapes to one flat glare of sand and the sand-drift blows off the dune crests like the snow-plume off Everest, it

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is as good an imitation of Hell as one could devise. It was across 150 miles of this dead world that Bagnold was proposing to take for the first time a force of heavily-loaded trucks.”

The patrols parted and were given up at General Headquarters, Middle East, as lost. But they eventually turned up in Cairo with Italian prisoners and captured documents. They received a letter of congratulation from General Wavell for their contribution "towards keeping Italian forces in back areas on the alert and adding to the anxieties and difficulties of our enemy".

Another expedition set out in October. It laid mines and established that the Italians were not planning an offensive southwards. In an attack on 'Ain Dua, Lieutenant J. H. Sutherland, a New Zealand cavalry officer, was ordered to attack the enemy's left flank, which his party did very effectively. Sutherland was awarded New Zealand's first M.C. of the war. One objective of the L.R.D.G. had been achieved —-the disorganization of enemy communications in the desert. Then began a series of remarkable raids on the garrison of the Fezzan in South-Western Libya.

Meanwhile, Wavell was making his great bid to wrest the initiative from his numerically stronger opponents. The Axis plan, once Mussolini had declared war on June 10, 1940, was clear enough. Germany was to deal with Britain while Italy thrust for the Suez Canal. New Zealand units moved into the desert at this critical period and for a time experienced little more of action than that provided by sporadic Italian air raids. They trained in siege and in mobile operations. When Graziani advanced the British forces fell back from the frontier of Egypt, which they had never intended to hold. The Italians dug in at Sidi Barrani but had no suspicion of Wavell's plan for a counter-attack. The New Zealand Reserve Mechanical Transport Company of the N.Z.A.S.C. played an important part in the actions which turned the tables on the Italians.

Motor transport drivers, signallers and engineers represented New Zealand in the next phase of the war —the Allied drive into Cyrenaica. Two hundred New Zealand trucks brought up thousands of Australians for the battle of Bardia and the drivers slept through New Year's Eve on the open desert. After the capture of Tobruk New Zealand transport carried Australian troops to Derna and then returned to handle the immense freight service run by the New Zealand A.S.C. The New Zealand drivers remained on this important job until they were withdrawn by the New Zealand Division when it was preparing to operate as a complete unit late in February.

New Zealand had also made a great contribution to Allied strength by providing from its Divisional signals the nucleus of a corps signal unit whose job was to establish and maintain communications throughout the whole Western Desert Force. These men were

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told by the Corps Commander, General Sir Richard O’Connor, when the Cyrenaica campaign was completed in February, 1941, that the Western Desert Force could not have carried out its task without their help.

New Zealand engineers operated a pumping-house on the quay at Solium, provided a water-carrying convoy from salvaged Italian vehicles, and set up a water supply for Tobruk. They restored electric power at Derna and generally repaired so far as was possible the damage done to installations by the retreating Italians. The 19th Army Troops Company saw action ranging from intense air bombing to the rescue of shipwrecked prisoners. They manned water barges and supply points, carted loads of land mines away and levelled aerodromes along hundreds of miles of the coast. The 10th Light Aid Detachment of the New Zealand Ordnance Corps entered each town almost immediately after its capture to attend to the water installations and pumping appliances. By getting 95 tons of water quickly to Msus the 10th L.A.D. made possible the operation which resulted in the fall of Benghazi.

When Cyrenaica fell the Long Range Desert Group ceased to be based on Cairo and also ceased to be composed entirely of New Zealanders, though two New Zealand patrols remained. On December 27th, the force left Cairo and motored for several days over the Great Sand Sea and westwards across Libya to make a rendezvous with Free French Forces from Chad before attacking

Murzuk, more than a thousand miles from Cairo. The Italians were taken by surprise and the main objective—the destruction of the hangar and aircraft at the aerodrome—achieved. The French commander, Colonel d’Ornano, and Sergeant C. D. Hewson, a New Zealander, were killed.

The next task of the L.R.D.G. was to co-operate with the French, now commanded by Colonel Leclerc, in their thousandmile journey across waterless wilderness to attack Kufra. The patrols, in advance of the main force, were attacked by an AutoSaharan patrol of seven vehicles, one carrying a gun of about 65 mm. calibre. Three of the British trucks were destroyed by gunfire and the remainder had to withdraw.

Trooper R. J. Moore, the New Zealand driver of one of the destroyed trucks, managed to hide with Easton and Winchester, from the Guards patrol, and Tighe, an R.A.O.C. fitter. Two courses were open to them: to make for Kufra, seventy miles, and surrender, or to follow the tracks of the patrol southwards in the hope that they would be picked up. Largely on Moore’s initiative, they decided not to surrender, although Moore himself was wounded in the foot and Easton in the throat. They had no food. All they saved from the burned-out truck was a two-gallon tin of water with a bullet hole near the top and containing about if gallons. But they walked

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doggedly south, keeping by day to the car tracks which became very hard to follow and trying, often unsuccessfully, to sleep and rest in the bitterly cold nights.

By February 6th, the fifth day, they had covered 135 miles and reached Sarra, where there were a few mud huts but no food. Tighe could go no farther. He stayed in one of the huts and was found by a French patrol, which set off next morning to trace his companions. They found Easton 55 miles away from Sarra, lying on the ground but alive. He died that evening. Another party was following the tracks of Moore and Winchester. Sixty-five miles from Sarra, Moore had to leave Winchester after giving him half the water that remained—one mouthful. The French found Winchester near delirium but able to stand up when he heard their cars. Ten miles farther on they came up with Moore, still marching steadily, after covering 210 miles in nine days, and “slightly annoyed” at being prevented from proving that he could march the remaining eighty miles to Tekro and the nearest water. “Moore’s March” was honoured by the award of the D.C.M. “Few can have been better earned,” as an officer of Middle East Command stated in a broadcast account of this “incredible” feat.

During the advance into Cyrenaica the Italian garrison of the Jarabub oasis had been cut off, and to contain it a New Zealand patrol of L.R.D.G. and an Australian cavalry regiment were detailed. It eventually fell to an Australian force sent down from the north. A New Zealand patrol helped the French to garrison Kufra. They made buildings of stone, cemented with salt from the marches, and of palm trunks and branches. Flies, mosquitoes, snakes, and scorpions made living conditions trying. Supply problems were continuous, but the New Zealanders made the best of things until they were relieved.

CHAPTER XIX

GESTURE TO GREECE

When Italy struck at Greece on October 28, 1940, she had what appeared to be overwhelming superiority both in arms and munitions, but instead of winning all along the line she experienced reverse after reverse. Germany began to concentrate forces in Bulgaria, and in February 1941, Greece accepted an offer of assistance from Britain. This offer was dictated by political rather than military considerations, for it was painfully obvious that Britain had scarcely enough men and munitions in the Mediterranean theatre to maintain

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her position in the Western Desert, let alone provide an expeditionary force for a campaign in Greece. "Lustre" was the code-word selected for this force, and it was well chosen. The force projected was to be composed of the Ist Armoured Brigade, the New Zealand Division, the 6th and 7th Australian Divisions, and the Polish Independent Brigade, but Rommel's first advance in Cyrenaica prevented the embarkation of the Poles and the 7th Australian Division.

On February 17th, Major-General Freyberg was informed that the New Zealand Division would be the advanced guard of the force. The prospect of coming to grips with the enemy was welcomed by officers and men, many of whom had been training hard for a year without seeing any action. General Freyberg and his advanced divisional headquarters staff landed at Piraus on March 7th. The first of his men left Alexandria the same day. They had a great welcome from the Greek people when they arrived, and during their march forward to establish a front, where the Division with the 6th Australian Division became the 2nd Anzac Corps under the command of Lieut.-General Sir Thomas Blarney. When the Germans attacked, the British expeditionary force consisted of 24,100 men from the United Kingdom, 17,125 Australians, and 16,532 New Zealanders. Their Greek allies were poorly equipped and the eighty aeroplanes which the Royal Air Force could muster had to contend against 800 German and 300 Italian aircraft. Axis tanks similarly outnumbered ours.

An enemy advancing from Bulgaria and Thrace must penetrate through one or more of three passes—Edessa, Veria and Katerine. South from Katerine there were two possible attack routes —one along the railway through the Platamon tunnel and via the coast, the other by the Olympus Pass across the shoulders of Mount Olympus. The New Zealanders prepared to hold the Katerine Pass, while widespread demolitions were prepared in front of the Olympus positions. The Division was spread over such an enormous front that there was no possibility of establishing a continuous defence line but merely a series of strong-points. The sth Brigade, the official archivist’s account states, took up planned battle positions astride the Olympus Pass. The 23rd (Canterbury-Otago) Battalion had its right flank resting on the slopes of Mount Olympus and its left touching the 22nd (Wellington) Battalion, which was astride the deep gorge down which the road and river ran to form the pass. On the left and occupying a line running to the Mavroneri river and along its banks for several thousand yards upstream was the 28th (Maori) Battalion.

The German drive south began on April 6, and a Nazi armoured spearhead thrust towards the Monastic Gap. The Yugoslav forces guarding the gap and the British contingent (including part of the 27 th New Zealand Machine Gun Battalion) were reinforced and

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placed under the Australian commander, Major-General Mackay. On April 9th the New Zealand Division was ordered to withdraw from the Katerine area and occupy its prepared positions in the Olympus Pass and Platamon tunnel area. On the next day the 27th (Machine Gun) Battalion attacked—the first New Zealanders to go into action, after having no sleep for three days and nights. German motor-cyclists, with machine-gunners in side-cars, were picked off by the New Zealander's fire. Tanks then came up in support of infantry, but could not break through until April 12th, when a general withdrawal was necessary.

The Germans did not attack the Olympus positions in force until April 13th (Easter Sunday) when efforts to cross the River Aliakmon under a heavy artillery and mortar barrage at three main points were repeatedly frustrated by the light machine guns of the New Zealand Divisional Cavalry, the river banks becoming thick with German dead. Eventually the New Zealanders were forced to withdraw, passing through the Olympus Pass on April 14th and closing its entrance by high explosive charges.

The New Zealand positions on the Olympus-Aliakmon line now barred the enemy's progress into Southern Greece, and Nazi armoured columns thrust forward along three roads. The first of the enemy motor-cycle scouts were only two hours behind the retiring New Zealand cavalry. Bren gunners of the sth New Zealand Infantry Brigade accounted for them all. The New Zealand artillery supporting the 21st (Auckland) Battalion checked another heavily armoured column in the area between Mount Olympus and the sea. In the Servia and Kozane area the 4th New Zealand Infantry Brigade was dug in on the mountain slopes. Their position could be approached only by winding bridle-tracks. The Greek Army to the west was hopelessly outgunned and could not be expected to hold out for long despite its matchless courage. Therefore the Olympus-Aliakmon line had to be left almost before the battle for it had begun and preparations were made to move back to Thermopylse. Nazi dive-bombers and troop-carrying planes became very active. Strafing of roads was intense, but even after the heaviest raids the gunners opened fire again before the bombers were out of sight.

On April 15th, the 19th (Wellington) Battalion, who had been waiting impatiently for action through long months, saw enemy infantry advancing confidently in the expectation that all resistance had been crushed by the heavy artillery barrage. Scarcely a man of three companies returned. The New Zealanders took 178 prisoners. Three more fierce attacks were made during the day and repulsed with great loss.

On the same day the sth New Zealand Brigade Group, which included the 28th (Maori) Battalion, had been fighting at Mount

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Olympus. A motor-cycle detachment attacked 22nd (Wellington) Battalion positions astride the pass. Armoured vehicles attacked the front held by the Maori Battalion, but a shot from an anti-tank rifle exploded the petrol tank of one vehicle, setting it ablaze and blocking the road. Eight other vehicles were destroyed in the resulting confusion. The 23rd (Canterbury-Otago) Battalion repulsed an attack on the right flank, and gunners of the sth New Zealand Field Regiment in twenty hours' continuous firing of 3,000 shells did great execution among the enemy.

On April 16th, heavy fighting began along the whole front and men brought up on giant troop-carrying trucks began to infiltrate through the New Zealand lines, helped by drizzling rain and mist. The Maoris fixed bayonets and stalked the enemy. Demon-like, made gigantic by the billowing gas capes they wore to keep out the rain, with the mist swirling about them, brown faces working with fury, and the savage shout of tribal battle cries upon their lips, these Maori warriors must have seemed to the enemy, as the official account states, like horrible beings from another world. The Germans turned and ran to hide in the mist.

The covering force for the withdrawal of the whole Anzac Corps to Thermopylae was provided by the 6th New Zealand Infantry Brigade and the Divisional Cavalry. The 6th New Zealand Field Company blew up the pass road in seven places. Rain and mist gave some protection against enemy aircraft and most of the convoys from Olympus reached Larissa without trouble. The withdrawal of the infantry from the Servia area was a nightmare experience for men who for the most part had had no sleep for three days.

The most serious attack which was worrying General MaitlandWilson at this time was made by a full enemy division and 400 tanks sent against the small force of the 21st (Auckland) Battalion, supported by a troop of field artillery and a troop of anti-tank guns. The New Zealanders put up a spirited resistance and beat off several attacks, but at last the 21st Battalion was forced to withdraw to the Vale of Tempe, in the Peneios Gorge. They got their guns across the river and then destroyed the ferry. Desperately needed reinforcements arrived and the defence of the gorge was reorganized. Heavy cruiser tanks, however, got round the demolitions in the gorge while other tanks forced a crossing of the river on the front held by the Australians. In spite of the avalanche of enemy tanks men of the 21st Battalion held positions on two spurs until late in the afternoon. Some of them broke through the enemy ring to reach the Larissa road. Others had to take to the hills and retire to the Thermopylae line as best they could. Some got through to their unit farther south; others did not catch up with it until Crete was the scene of battle. The enemy lost heavily in the Peneios Gorge battle.

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"We killed until we were sick of killing," the defenders said. The way was open to Larissa, but the Germans did not at once seize their chance, and the convoys of the 6th New Zealand Brigade Group passed safely through at midnight on April 18th without interference.

The "miracle of the mists" had protected the early withdrawals, but then the R.A.F., whose men had fought superbly against overwhelming odds, was forced to withdraw from Larissa to Athens and the Luftwaffe's full-scale attack was virtually unopposed. Both New Zealand and Australian convoys were forced to use the main highway, which was terribly congested. Dive-bombers attacked. Men scattered from the vehicles, to return when the aircraft had left and press on as far as they could. An urgent call for fighter protection was sent out, but none could be given. Attacks were relentless but casualties amazingly small. The New Zealand Army Service Corps performed miracles in the supply of food, ammunition and petrol. By April the Anzac Corps had reached their positions in the Thermopylae and Brailos Passes, after a fighting withdrawal of nearly 200 miles.

The Australians and New Zealanders lost no time in putting their new line into a state of defence. The New Zealanders guarded Thermopylae, where Leonidas had faced similar odds in the fifth century B.C. The pass is formed of a narrow coastal strip between the spurs of a high mountain ridge and the sea. On the right, from the coast near Molos, was the 6th New Zealand Brigade, and on the left the sth New Zealand Brigade. The 4th Brigade and the New Zealand Divisional Cavalry kept watch on the coast-line. In support of the New Zealand line was a considerable force of British artillery as well as the New Zealand 25-pounders, many of which were actually in front of the forward defence lines. While the German attack was being prepared, news came on April 21st of the capitulation of the Greek Army in Epirus, and the date of evacuation of British troops, already seen to be inevitable, was advanced to April 24. The 6th New Zealand Brigade was to hold on at Thermopylae for three days while the sth Brigade retired south. The whole of the New Zealand Divisional artillery and two regiments of British artillery kept firing for fifteen hours on April 24th, despite constant air attacks, and 30,000 shells were fired at the enemy. Tank attacks were repulsed and by night the planned withdrawal began. By dawn the New Zealanders were a hundred miles away and the Germans tried in vain to discover where they had vanished to.

The sth New Zealand Brigade of nearly 5,000 men had reached the evacuation beaches and the care of the Royal Navy. On Anzac Day the 6th Brigade had crossed the Corinth Canal and reached Miloi. On the following day, April 26th, a large force of German paratroops attempted to secure the bridge across the Corinth Canal, thus cutting off the retreat of British forces, including the New

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Zealand 4th Brigade. At the height of the paratroop landing men of No. 2 section of the 6th New Zealand Field Company destroyed the bridge. The 4th Brigade had taken up a defensive position astride a road through a narrow gorge above the plain of Thebes. The 18th (Auckland), 20th (Canterbury), and 19th (Wellington) Battalions were supported by Australian artillery and anti-tank guns. A reconnaissance party was allowed through unmolested in order to deceive the enemy, who sent forward a force of more than a hundred vehicles. When the tail of the column was within range the gunners opened fire and scored many hits, throwing the column into wild confusion. No further direct attack was made, and the 4th Brigade was able to carry out changed evacuation orders, while the Nazi flag was being hoisted on the Acropolis.

The 6th New Zealand Brigade, after anxious hours of waiting for ships to arrive, was safely embarked, and at about 4 a.m. the last boat-load, with Admiral Baillie-Grohman and General Freyberg aboard, reached the ladders of H.M.S. Ajax, and the cruiser moved off at full speed for Crete.

The last embarkation, planned for the night of April 28th-20,th at Kalamai, was a regrettable tragedy in that most of the 7,000 Imperial troops left there could have been embarked. The naval force, informed that the Germans had occupied the town, withdrew, but small parties of Anzacs had taken matters into their own hands and driven the Germans out. It was here, indeed, that Sergeant J. D. Hinton won the Victoria Cross. He led a crowd of New Zealanders in an attack on German guns, captured and held them until overwhelming enemy forces arrived. Wounded and taken prisoner, he learned of his award in a German prison camp.

The planned evacuation of Greece, despite the contretemps at Kalamai, was a remarkable success. The unflagging energy and enterprise of the Royal Navy was greatly admired by the New Zealanders. Five hundred men were taken from the Kalamata area, although it was in the possession of the enemy. Stragglers were picked up by destroyers and in all 45,000 Imperial troops and R.A.F. personnel were embarked, in addition to many refugees. In the whole evacuation we lost only two destroyers and four transports—only one of which had troops aboard.

Much might be written of this bitter interlude in Greece, but a sentence of the official archivist's account perhaps sums it all up: "The Greeks gave the Anzacs flowers when they came, and they gave them flowers again when they were compelled to go." In 1945 General Freyberg returned to Greece with some of his officers and men to fulfil the promise they made in 1941: "We shall come back."

Of the New Zealand force of 16,532, only 13 officers and 212 men were killed in action or died of wounds. Missing or prisoners of

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war were 95 officers and 1,774 men, but more than 87 per cent of the whole Division was safely evacuated to continue the fight in Crete and the Western Desert. Only the finest discipline could have produced this result after a retreat for hundreds of miles without air cover.

CHAPTER XX

CAMPAIGN IN CRETE

The 4th and sth New Zealand Infantry Brigades, after their ordeal on the mainland of Greece, arrived in the island bastion of Crete weary but undismayed, though the situation in the Middle East was then desperate. General Wavell asked General Freyberg to take command of the British forces on the island, though he knew that the New Zealand commander was anxious to re-form the New Zealand Division in Egypt. The defence of Crete was urgent and had to be undertaken with the forces already there, badly in need of rest as they were.

General Freyberg's survey of the island gave him little encouragement. There is only one main road running the length of the island, which is about 160 miles long and 40 wide. The ports of Suda and Herakleon on the north coast were close to the German occupied Peloponnese. The three airfields at Herakleon, Retimo, and Maleme were extremely vulnerable to attack. The ports and airfields were made the centres of defence sectors and Maleme was assigned to the New Zealanders under Brigadier E. Puttick. Instead of a full quota of guns his improvised division had 19, including French and Italian 75's for which the gunners had to improvise sights with chewing-gum and cardboard. The members of the second contingent of the N.Z.E.F., who had been diverted to England in 1940 on their way to the Middle East and who now found themselves on Crete, saw a remarkable similarity in the two situations. But the defenders of Britain after Dunkirk at least had fighter aircraft sufficient to maintain air parity and plenty of aerodromes for them to work from. In Crete there were six Hurricanes, sixteen obsolete planes, and no safe aerodromes. All supplies and reinforcements for Crete had to run the gauntlet of heavy air attacks, which greatly reduced even the small amount of aid that could be sent.

“Freyberg is not a man easily rattled,” wrote John Hetherington in Airborne Invasion. “He was never cheerful, even at the start, about the prospect of holding Crete. He bluntly told Middle East that his forces were inadequate to defeat an attack on the anticipated scale—

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350 heavy bombers, 160 twin-engined fighters, 240 dive bombers, and 270 single-engined fighters, apart from the aircraft carrying invasion troops. He particularly emphasized the need for more fighter aircraft. But his realization of the difficulty of the fight ahead did not cause him to slacken the energy of his preparations. He plunged into the task with dynamic drive.”

Freyberg’s force as finally organized was composed of some 13,000 United Kingdom, 7,100 New Zealand, and 6,500 Australian troops, with about 12,000 Greeks, who had rifles of five different nationalities.

The first object of the defence in the New Zealand sector was the retention of Maleme airfield, and elaborate dispositions of the forces available were made to this end. By May Ist the sth New Zealand Infantry Brigade (Brigadier James Hargest) was in position between the Plantanias River and the Tavronitis river west of the airfield. The 4th New Zealand Brigade, of which Brigadier L. M. Inglis assumed command on May 17th, was detailed with the Ist Welch Regiment to act as a mobile reserve, and it was concentrated in the olive groves west of Canea. The 10th Infantry Brigade was formed of New Zealand and Greek units under the command of Colonel H. K. Kippenberger. I have had the privilege of knowing all these New Zealand commanders personally and the valour and efficiency of their defence against tremendous odds does not surprise me. The Dominion was fortunate indeed in its choice of officers to lead men whose deeds proclaimed them worthy sons of those who had fought in the First World War.

The 22nd New Zealand Battalion was responsible for the defence of the airfield itself and placed on and near it. The 23rd New Zealand Battalion moved to the high ground immediately east of the airfield. The 21st New Zealand Battalion occupied rising ground to the south. The 28th (Maori) Battalion was to act as brigade reserve from positions east of the Platanias river. Two detachments of New Zealand engineers, under Major F. M. H. Hanson, had a static defence role in the olive grove country between Platanias and the airfield. While the men waited they listened to accounts of the heavy bombing of the Clyde and Mersey areas.

It was on May 20th that the anticipated attack on Crete began. Wave after wave of bombers came in to bomb Maleme with unprecedented fury. They prepared the way for the troop-carrying Junkers 52’s and gliders. “Parachutes were dropping down the sky in the calm sunny Mediterranean morning. Most of them were white. Men swayed in the cords below the white chutes. But there were other colours, too—-red, green, yellow, blue, black. They sailed lightly on the air like blossoms shaken from a tree by a gust of wind. It was unreal, unbelievable.”

It was, in fact, the first full-scale paratroop invasion in history.

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The Germans were testing out a new technique, doubtless with the object of by-passing the British Navy, which gave a grim reminder of its prowess by beating back every attempt to land Germans in Crete by sea. The sky troops spread over Canea, Maleme, and the village of Galatas, south-east of Maleme. Hundreds of them were killed on the way down. One aircraft's quota landed right on the headquarters of the Maori Battalion. Not one survived. One paratroop company dropped near a New Zealand engineers' headquarters. Declining infantry help, the engineers killed 112 of the company of 126. The Germans were prodigal of life and equipment. The first attack on Maleme airfield failed but a dangerous situation arose to the west in the dried-up Tavronitis river-bed, where the surviving paratroops could gain cover and sort themselves out. Here the Germans poured in material and men.

In Galatas fortress area paratroops dropping in front of the 4th New Zealand Infantry Brigade captured the 7th General Hospital and advanced on Galatas behind a protective screen of hospital patients. By noon the hospital was recaptured by the New Zealanders. Near Galatas paratroops began to infiltrate 4th New Zealand and 10th Infantry Brigade positions but were eventually dealt with. The enemy landings near Canea failed completely. King George of Greece was in this area and paratroops were already dropping when a New Zealand escort, under Lieutenant W. H. Ryan of Auckland, began a hazardous march with the King to the south coast and safety.

By the evening of the great attack the 22nd New Zealand Battalion was finding it difficult to maintain itself on the western side of Maleme airfield. A counter-attack by a company of Maoris and one from the 23rd New Zealand Battalion was partially successful in clearing the area, but it did not reach the airfield until midnight, by which time the 22nd Battalion was in danger of being cut off from the rest of the brigade. A withdrawal to higher ground was ordered, but a foothold on the airfield was maintained until midday next day, when the German air assault was intensified to prepare the way for infantry. Then, in the late afternoon, big troop carriers flew in every three minutes bringing troops the Germans had not expected to have to use. But when they made up their minds to use them, they did not let losses worry them. Their hardly-won possession of the airfield was challenged by the 20th New Zealand Battalion (whose place in reserve was to be taken by an Australian battalion) and the Maori Battalion. The Australians were delayed by air attacks and this held up the 20th Battalion for three hours.

They went forward early in the morning to help the Maoris, who had reached the edge of the airfield but could not penetrate farther. They had fought a brilliant fight throughout the night combing fields and olive groves in a ceaseless search for enemy

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nests. "It was all close-quarters fighting," wrote John Hethenngton, "the kind of fighting in which the New Zealander excels and the German is inferior. The Germans would throw their arms away in panic, often dive under the shelter of tables or beds when the attackers had nailed them face to face at a few yards' range. Fourteen Germans surrendered and thirteen were killed in one house when four New Zealanders stormed it with hand grenades." But enough Germans survived when daylight broke to make the hard-won ground untenable by machine-gun and mortar fire, and they were able to summon bombers, fighters and troop-carriers with thousands of fresh troops. No less than 12,000 of these were landed on May 22nd. Counter-attacks postponed retreat for some time, but a strong enemy movement from the south-west of Galatas forced the withdrawal of the sth New Zealand Infantry Brigade. The Germans had Maleme airfield and this was disastrous.

Major F. M. H. Hanson, commanding the New Zealand engineers, had foreseen this situation and asked for authority to mine or crater the aerodrome. As reconnaissance had to be carried on as long as possible authority was not given. The Germans had to have an aerodrome at all costs. They failed to capture Retimo and Herakleon. If Maleme had been made useless, what could they have done?

While the fighting at Maleme was in progress the 10th Infantry Brigade, along the coast towards Galatas, had been holding up troops dropped in the Canea valley. Colonel Kippenberger, with an improvised staff, commanded a brigade consisting of two Greek battalions (one with only three months' training), one composite battalion of New Zealand A.S.C. drivers and artillerymen, without infantry training, and a detachment of cavalrymen. On the evening of May 21st, after some indecisive fighting, the Germans launched a heavy attack along the valley road from the prison. A party of New Zealand A.S.C. drivers pluckily held a bulge, a small Greek force counter-attacked, and the Germans broke and ran.

On May 22nd, while the Germans' second attempt at a sea landing was frustrated with the loss of the cruisers Fiji and Gloucester and the destroyer Greyhound, there was sharp fighting round Galatas. The 10th Infantry Brigade had to hold its position while the sth Infantry Brigade withdrew behind the Platanias river. The enemy established a gun post over the river by 11 a.m. on May 23rd, and there was grave danger of their penetrating the two-mile gap between the sth and 10th Brigades. The Maoris were active in protecting the flank of the sth Brigade, but the men of the brigade itself after being continuously in action for three days were in no state to face concentrated attack. So it was decided to continue the withdrawal, through Galatas positions, reinforced by the 4th New Zealand Infantry Brigade and the 19th Australian brigade, to the Divisional

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Reserve area, west of Ganea. With the defenders in an exhausted state, May 24th was a tense and trying day, as airborne troops continued to arrive at Maleme aerodrome and mass for the inevitable attack, which came the next day after a terrific air and mortar bombardment. The New Zealanders repulsed attacks with determination, holding their line for two hours, until weight of numbers forced withdrawal along a large part of the line east of Galatas, which the Germans entered. For superb coolness and complete disregard of danger during the fighting from May 22nd to May 30th Lieut. Charles Hazlett Upham was awarded the Victoria Gross. Sergt. Alfred Clive Hulme received the same decoration for outstanding exploits during the period from May 20th to May 28th.

To help New Zealand Divisional Cavalry and Petrol Company drivers who had managed to hold their positions in the town, to extricate themselves, two British light tanks made two sweeps through Galatas with good results, while supports from the 20th Battalion rushed to the scene. Men of the 23rd and 20th Battalions j'oined the 18th Battalion, fixed bayonets and charged with the tanks in an irresistible rush which cleared the town of Germans and brought by sheer surprise a lull along the whole front. General Freyberg called this “one of the great efforts in the defence of Crete”. But there are limits to human endurance, and, failing reinforcements of fresh men, there was no way of stemming the German tide, steadily augmented by air, despite R.A.F. efforts to put Maleme airfield out of action.

The 4th New Zealand Infantry Brigade, exhausted by its long efforts, was relieved by the sth Brigade which had had a twelve-hour rest during the battle for Galatas. Strong enemy attacks on May 27th, had been successfully countered with the bayonet by the 19th, 28th (Maori) and 23rd New Zealand Battalions and the 2/Bth Australian Battalions, but the situation was deteriorating everywhere with continuous air attacks numbing the senses of the defender. The order to retreat across the mountains to the south coast was given, and, as in Greece, a difficult operation was made possible only by the finest discipline. A forced march of thirty miles had to be made by men, all exhausted and many wounded, who had fought one of the bitterest battles of the war. They were harassed from the air and very short of water. "Even when their feet became like lumps of lead and their shoulders ached and their eyelids drooped wearily through those long night marches, they kept their columns intact and clung to their weapons as the last possessions with which they would ever part."

A company of Maoris left behind as rearguard fought their way back for 24 miles with the loss of only two killed. They brought back eight wounded with them. The 23rd New Zealand Battalion had only 160 men left of its original 600, but held a waterless ridge north

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of Askipho while the rest of the forces descended 2,000 feet to the plain and sent back water in every possible kind of receptacle to the rearguard, now pressed by motorized pursuit forces. Until the last organized evacuation on May 31st, the New Zealanders lay with their backs to the sea, ready to fight. On that night the Navy once again saved the day for the New Zealanders by embarking the sth Infantry Brigade and the remainder of the 4th Brigade.

But while the main body got away from Crete many men, including several hundred New Zealanders, were left on the island. Some were captured, others succeeded in escaping to the hills and carrying on guerrilla warfare with the Cretans. When I was drafting this chapter I met by coincidence in London Major Patrick Leigh-Fermor, D.5.0., who spent three years on Crete organizing resistance, kidnapping German generals, and generally impeding the Nazi war effort. The group of British officers responsible for this remarkable campaign included also Colonel the Hon. C. M. Woodhouse, D.5.0., Lieut.-Col. T. Dunbabin, D.5.0., and Major Alex Fielding, D.S.O. Major Leigh-Fermor told me:

“The New Zealanders fought wonderfully in Crete, both before and after the evacuation. One of our jobs was to get them away from the south coast by submarine and caique. Some of them were still holding out on the island well into 1943. A few of them had married Cretan girls, and brought them away with them when they left. We must have taken off some 400 men altogether.”

At the end of September, 1945, Lieut.-General Freyberg and Major-General Kippenberger returned with a hundred New Zealand veterans of the Crete campaign for a memorial service at the British military cemetery at Suda Bay, where more than 400 New Zealanders lie buried. They came in Ajax, veteran of the River Plate as well as Greece and Crete. The New Zealand guard of honour came from the Maori Battalion, the band from the sth New Zealand Infantry Brigade. From all parts of the island Cretans flocked to pay tribute to the fallen—and to the survivors who had gone on from defeat to overwhelming victory. General Freyberg said:

“It is fitting that I, who was their commander, should pay tribute to those who fell in this difficult campaign. History will do justice to the part they played. It will be belated justice. Gallantry in failure, no matter how great it may be, has a belated recognition.”

In The Campaign in Greece and Crete, written for the War Office, David Garnett says of the Crete episode:

"The enemy losses were at least 6,000 killed or drowned and 11,000 wounded; and these were all crack troops. He also used in his attack between 1,400 and 1,500 aircraft of all types; and used up many of them with their crews. That was the scale of forces diverted from the

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other campaigns which he was then planning—notably the assault on Russia. The operations which began with the revolt of Jugoslavia against tame capitulation and ended with the defence of Crete may well have destroyed a plan to drive at the Caucasus through Turkey. They certainly delayed the offensive against Russia for many critical weeks. They warded off at least for a whole year the danger of airborne invasions against other bastions in the Middle East. They gained time for the restoration of a very tricky and dangerous situation in Syria, Iraq and Persia. If the enemy had not used up so much in Crete he would certainly have reinforced the rebels in Iraq and the Vichy French in Syria on a most formidable scale. For these reasons, the campaign in Greece and in Crete, though a tactical defeat, may well come to be considered a strategic victory.”

On the credit side also must be placed the fact that the Germans revealed in the restricted theatre of Crete their progress in the art of using airborne troops. Brigadier L. M. Inglis flew home to Whitehall to give first-hand impressions of the campaign and he did not mince his words. At the same time Brigadier J. T. Burrows flew from Crete to Cyprus, where invasion was daily expected. When Brigadier Inglis and I were his guests at Waitaki School for a weekend in April, 1945, Brigadier Burrows recalled the sinking feeling he experienced on leaving one airborne invasion to wait for another in another island. That the second invasion, though undoubtedly planned, was never attempted is some measure of the value of the stand made in Crete.

CHAPTER XXI

BATTLE FOR EGYPT

After their return from Crete the New Zealand Division spent weeks waiting to be re-equipped. Hot, listless summer days were spent in guard duties and internal security tasks. Reinforcements arrived to gaze on veterans of Greece and Crete with respect, and the veterans put all their energy into the new training with a view to getting something of their own back when they next met the Nazis. The New Zealanders left the training areas in September, 1941, and poured into the Western Desert in long road columns and crowded trains. Their first task was to work on defences at a position which a year later was to become famous as the El Alamein line. They became a race of underground dwellers. Scarcely a stitch of canvas could be seen in the training area south of Maaten Baggush.

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Desert supply problems had been mastered, co-operation with the R.A.F. practised, attacks mounted against a dummy fortress built on the lines of Sidi Omar and covered by wire and mines.

At last, in November, the Division advanced for the first time as a complete formation. On November 19th the frontier of Libya was reached. There was no sign of the enemy, who were concentrating, as it later transpired, for Rommel's attack on Tobruk. Later in the day the 22nd Armoured Division knocked out 45 tanks of the Italian 132 nd Ariete Division and took 300 prisoners. British forces rushed the landing ground at Sidi Rezegh. The New Zealand Division moved north on the afternoon of November 19th. The Divisional Cavalry and the sth Brigade Group under Brigadier Hargest were in the forefront. One squadron completely surprised Sidi Azeiz and then the brigade operated eastwards towards Fort Capuzzo, Musaid, and Solium, while the 4th Brigade was directed to dominate the coast road, and the 6th Brigade was held in reserve. The sth Brigade surprised Capuzzo and took 60 German and 140 Italian prisoners without incurring any casualties. The 4th Brigade Group, commanded by Brigadier Inglis, moved north through Sidi Azeiz and pursued startled enemy troops towards Bardia and drove a wedge between the enemy forces near the frontier and those to the west.

Meanwhile Brigadier Barrowclough’s 6th Brigade Group prepared to move on Gambut. The 28th (Maori) Battalion captured Solium barracks, taking 250 German and Italian prisoners for the loss of 20 killed and 23 wounded. The 23rd Battalion took Musaid. But the armoured battle on which so much depended was not going well. The 4th Armoured Brigade suffered a serious reverse on November 22nd, and the defenders of Tobruk who had made a sortie towards Sidi Rezegh were left in an awkward position. General Freyberg was convinced that the New Zealand Division should press on to Tobruk, as a success there would be decisive, but at the same time the Bardia-Halfaya-Sidi Omar line must be maintained.

An enemy column which tried to break through the New Zealand lines on November 23rd was routed by fine marksmanship on the part of the New Zealand gunners and the men of the 25th (Wellington) Battalion. The column proved to be part of the headquarters of the Afrika Korps and valuable documents, including the German code list for the day, fell into New Zealand hands. The New Zealand infantry advanced behind tanks, which soon outdistanced them and neither gave nor received protection. The New Zealand objective, Point 175, was held but casualties were heavy. The 26th (South Island) Battalion held off heavy attacks throughout the day but was withdrawn at night.

Though Gambut airfield was captured and Sidi Rezegh invested, large forces still remained between the New Zealand Division and

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the Tobruk garrison. The Division, moreover, was short of 25pounder ammunition and other supplies. A junction with the Tobruk garrison was essential, so Sidi Rezegh and Belhamed must be taken. The two-brigade attack to achieve this objective began on the evening of November 25th. The 4th Brigade, attacking Belhamed, met fierce opposition, as did the 6th Brigade against Sidi Rezegh. Of the battalions engaged the 21st had perhaps the worst experience, as it failed to find the other battalions at night and passed right through the enemy fines, to meet violent fire from all sides in the morning. They suffered heavily, and only one company succeeded in reaching 24th Battalion headquarters. The position could be retrieved only by seizing the high ground near the mosque of Sidi Rezegh, and the tired troops prepared themselves for another night’s bayonet fighting against odds. It was a tough fight against a well-equipped enemy, but the bayonet succeeded and Sidi Rezegh was won.

Meanwhile the Tobruk garrison had broken out to El Duda, and the 19th Battalion of the New Zealand Division and the 44th Royal Tank Regiment advanced to open the corridor to Tobruk. Their night attack succeeded brilliantly, Tobruk was at last in touch with the outside world by land, though not yet relieved.

J , y During these tense days Rommel’s tanks had been absent on a thrust to the Egyptian frontier. Early on November 27th these raiding Panzers struck at the sth Brigade Headquarters with overwhelming force. Brigadier Hargest, 37 officers and 650 men were taken prisoner. The 23rd Battalion at Capuzzo and the 22nd Battalion at Menastur also had a rough time that day, but they saved themselves by determined resistance until Rommel had to call off his attacks to answer the frantic appeals of the German infantry commander in the Tobruk area. Major-General von Ravenstein, commander of the 21st German Armoured Division, approaching the 21st Battalion position under the impression that Point 175 was in German hands, was captured, with official maps and papers giving the German order of batde and plans. The scale of their planned attack was such as to show General Freyberg that he had little chance of meeting it successfully with his depleted and tired forces.

The final battle for Sidi Rezegh began on November 29th, after Colonel G. H. Clifton had brought in a supply convoy with muchneeded supplies of water, food and ammunition, while the Afrika Korps closed in on every side. German tanks, displaying British colours and with crews in black berets waved greetings to the 2ist Battalion defending Point 175 before closing their turrets and firing on them. In this typical fashion the Germans gained an observation point in the New Zealand rear and the Division’s position became precarious. On the morning of November 30th the New Zealand

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artillery, under Brigadier R. Miles, attacked and pulverized transport of the Ariete Division, which fled.

All the battalions of the 6th Brigade were by now mere skeletons, the 21st Battalion, for example, being reduced to one officer and 91 other ranks. The enemy launched a full-scale attack and his tanks broke through, overrunning the 24th and 26th Battalions and capturing the Sidi Rezegh position. The next day, December 1st, saw Belhamed lost and a wedge driven into the Tobruk corridor. The timely appearance of British tanks saved the 6th Brigade Headquarters from sharing the fate of the 5th, but the tank commander had orders not to become involved in action and retreat was the only course open. The enemy obviously expected the New Zealanders to try to break into Tobruk so it was decided to try to get away south-eastwards. Once again the Division brought off a disengaging movement with remarkable success.

Rommel sent out a mobile column towards Bardia but it ran into a Maori Battalion ambush and lost heavily. Eventually Rommel retired west of Tobruk and the town was relieved. New Zealanders helped to turn the shattered port into a supply base for the Army. The sth Brigade joined with the 4th Indian Division and British armoured forces in harassing Rommel's retirement to the Gazala area. With the Polish Brigade, which came into the line on December 14th, the sth Brigade fired its last shots in the second Libya campaign, causing the Italians to flee from the Gazala line, leaving much of their equipment and guns.

The Divisional Cavalry regiment had meanwhile remained under command of the 3rd South African Brigade and took part in the capture of Bardia on January 2, 1942, with some 8,000 prisoners. The thousand British prisoners-of-war released included 800 New Zealanders, many of them from sth Brigade headquarters. Unfortunately the officers had all been evacuated by submarine to Italy, and were to spend long months devising means of escape. Of the 16,006 casualties in the campaign, 7,132 were from the United Kingdom, 4,594 New Zealanders, 3,536 South Africans and 744 from the Indian Division. Tobruk was relieved and the enemy driven from Cyrenaica. Many lessons had been learned in the art of desert fighting, as the New Zealand Division was to show in the later stages of the struggle for Egypt.

Before the vital battle was resumed the New Zealand Division was sent to Syria to guard communications against attack should the Germans break through the Caucasus or cut through Turkey. This threat did not materialize, but a possibly greater one was looming up in the Western Desert as Rommel took the offensive on May 26, 1942, surrounded Bir Hacheim and won the battle of "the Cauldron", inflicting crippling tank losses on the Eighth Army. Once again the Allied forces had to retreat into Egypt, leaving a garrison in Tobruk.

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Alexandria was menaced and on June 14th, General Freyberg received an order to move forthwith into the Western Desert. Two days later the New Zealand Division began its dramatic dash, then shrouded in secrecy, but since described to me by men who took part in it as a miracle of organization by those in charge and of endurance by the drivers. The German capture of Tobruk on June 20th was a shattering blow, and everyone in the Division knew that a supreme effort was required to delay the enemy. The 4th and sth New Zealand Brigades, with one Indian and one English brigade, manned the Matruh “Box”, while the 6th New Zealand Brigade was stationed near Alexandria as a general reserve. The enemy advanced so swiftly, however, that the 4th and sth Brigades had to be turned into a mobile force to hold the enemy as long as possible south of Matruh while the main forces consolidated on the Alamein line.

As the Division moved out of Matruh on June 25th to the main southern escarpment at Minquar Quaim, the enemy was advancing towards this position. After a heavy artillery duel next day the Germans attacked, at first rather spasmodically, not suspecting they were opposed to a fresh division, but afterwards with great determination. The 4th and sth Brigades repulsed an infantry attack, intended as a feint for the tank attack to come. At 5 p.m. General Freyberg was wounded by a shell splinter while watching the enemy attack from a forward position. Brigadier Inglis, of the 4th Infantry Brigade, took over command, while the General lay on a stretcher until the shelling ceased when night fell.

Tanks of the 21st Panzer Division, supported by the 90th Light Division, pressed attacks from three directions, but were beaten off by the New Zealand field guns and six-pounder anti-tank guns, used for the first time and many of them received only the day before the battle. The arrival of elements of the British Ist Armoured Division

put a complete stop to the enemy efforts. But the New Zealand Division was surrounded and it is now known that an attempt to destroy it was scheduled for the next morning. The 4th Infantry Brigade was given the task of clearing a wide lane through the enemy to allow the remainder of the Division to move east. Here the semiofficial account deserves full quotation;

“Plans were made for an attack with the bayonet by the whole brigade on a narrow front. The 19th (Wellington) Battalion, with one company of the Essex Regiment, was given the task of clearing the narrow neck of high ground to allow the transport to come through. The 29th (South Island) Battalion to the left rear and the 28th (Maori) Battalion on the right rear were given the tasks of protecting the flanks. There could be no artillery support, for the field regiments were down to 30 rounds per gun before dark and there was no possibility of replenishment. During the day enemy fighting vehicles had come in between the sth Brigade and its troop-carrying transport, which had con-

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centrated farther south. As the Brigade was thus grounded, it was ordered to the Divisional Reserve Group area on foot, and there arrangements were made to carry the brigade on its own fighting vehicles, a few borrowed from the 4th Brigade, and artillery and Reserve Group vehicles. The Reserve Group and sth Brigade columns assembled ready to move by 11.30 p.m.

“There was a considerable delay in opening the 4th Brigade’s attack. The Maori Battalion lost its way to the assembly position and arrived late. For this reason the Brigade did not leave the starting fine until 1.15 a.m. on June 28th. Then the assaulting battalions moved silently forward for about 1,000 yards, keeping in tight formation. There was no movement from the enemy positions. The advancing infantry, with bayonets gleaming in the moonlight, reached the edge of a wide shallow wadi, and dispersed over the bottom where they could see the black hulls of enemy transport. Still the enemy was silent.

“Then a thrilling thing happened. To a man the whole brigade broke into a run; no orders were given, there was no urging forward by officers and N.C.O.’s. From somewhere there came a single rifle-shot. It was the signal for pandemonium. With shouting, cheering and warcries, every man charged forward as if he knew exactly what was expected of him. The enemy opened up with everything, it seemed, including a great deal of tracer, which gave away the positions of his machine-guns. The New Zealanders held their rifles loosely, firing fast from hip level, and went in against machine-gun positions with the bayonet. The Maoris swung to the right and made short work of the enemy in their area.

“The 19th Battalion went forward and cleared the high ground, while the 20th Battalion dropped down into a wadi on the left. It was here that some of the fiercest fighting took place and the 19th Battalion was soon down giving a helping hand. Some Germans panicked and ran forward with the New Zealanders, but it was not long before they were shot from behind. Other groups, still half asleep, could be seen leaping from the backs of trucks. Others, still in their blanket rolls, in their slit trenches, were firing aimlessly into the air. Enemy vehicles were parked close together and many were set alight by our hand grenades. Our men, carrying Bren guns and tommy-guns, fired bursts into the engines of all vehicles as they passed. Unfortunately this started fires which gave the enemy light to see us and probably caused us more casualties than we would otherwise have suffered.

“The Germans were most unwilling to leave their trenches to fight and made no attempt to meet our men with the bayonet. Most of them were killed in their trenches or around gun posts. In the wadi on the north flank there was great confusion, with the night full of the sound of enemy trucks in low gear trying to escape north. Many of them were destroyed, some of them full of Germans.

“After the infantry had swarmed forward, hundreds of trucks followed them in close-packed night formation. Engines roared, shells exploded, and machine-gun bullets seemed to be coming from every direction. Some vehicles were hit, some exploded, but the column went on through the gap with our machine-gunners shooting as hard as they

A New Zealand Spitfire Squadron in Britain, 1944

The (lenotaph, Wellingt< n

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could from the tops of their trucks. As the vehicles cleared the gap the infantry of the 4th Brigade and the Maoris reorganized, and with very little difficulty or confusion embussed. They had accomplished their breakthrough. Fire from the flanks was still considerable, but most of it was high and ineffective.”

The delay in starting the attack had caused Brigadier Inglis to order another break-through by the rest of the force. This was carried through successfully, even though the column ran straight into a German tank harbour. By dawn the New Zealanders had moved into desert square formation, with all-round protection, ready and willing to fight again if necessary. They had turned the tables on the Afrika Korps during one eventful night, which incidentally vindicated the contention of Brigadier Inglis, when he came to London from Crete, that the bayonet was by no means outmoded in modern warfare. For his leadership and personal courage in this “difficult operation” Lieut.-Col. J. T. Burrows received the D.S.O. The Germans, incidentally, complained in their reports that they had been attacked by “thousands of drunken New Zealanders!”

The Division moved on to the Alamein line, where its task was to defend the Qattara fortress. The 6th Brigade held the fortress itself, while the others formed mobile support columns. The battle for the Nile Valley opened on July ist with an attack on the ist South African Division which was repulsed but which revealed the weakness of the Allied defences, notably the all-important Ruweisat Ridge. Elements of the Ariete Division who attacked in the southern sector on July 3rd were met by a New Zealand mobile column and later attacked in the flank by the 19th Battalion. The routed Italians left behind 300 prisoners, and 44 field guns, which robbed Rommel of an important part of the artillery needed for any offensive thrust. This may well be regarded as the turning-point of the battle for, on the next day, July 4th, the Allied forces regained the initiative, knocking out 20 German tanks and capturing 600 exhausted Germans, who surrendered readily.

Though they withdrew their main forces the Germans still held the western end of Ruweisat Ridge and were consolidating their position there with a view to another attack. General Auchinleck, instead of sticking to his prepared positions in the south, abandoned them in order to counter-attack the main Axis forces in the north with the 13th Corps, comprised of the New Zealand Division, the sth Indian Division, and the 7th Motor Brigade. The New Zealanders were soon poised to attack from the Qattara Box, but the enemy recaptured the initiative by threatening to outflank the Allied salient and forcing the destruction of the stores in the Box, on July 9th. Then the front became more or less static as the

I

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enemy faced serious supply problems resulting from his long advance.

The Ruweisat Ridge dominated the northern front and its capture became a primary objective of the Eighth Army. The New Zealand Division, with the sth Indian Division, attacked the western end of the ridge on the dark moonless night of July 14th. The infantry established themselves with some difficulty but German tanks came into action in the morning. They overran the 22nd (Wellington) Battalion's rifle companies, and prevented most of the New Zealand anti-tank and other supporting weapons from being brought up. When the enemy attacked in force the infantry fought magnificently, climbing on to tanks to throw hand grenades inside. Sergeant Keith Elliott, although wounded in four places, led his men with such valour that he was later awarded the Victoria Cross.

It was in this desperate action, too, that Captain Charles Upham, V.C., became the first soldier of the war and the first combatant soldier of any war to win a bar to the Cross. The citation of this historic feat, published more than three years later, stated:

"In spite of being twice wounded, once when crossing open ground swept by enemy fire to inspect his forward sections guarding our minefields and again when he completely destroyed an entire truck-load of German soldiers with hand grenades, Captain Upham insisted on remaining with his men to take part in the final assault. During the opening stages of the attack on the ridge Captain Upham's Company formed part of the reserve battalion, but, when communications with the forward troops broke down and he was instructed to send up an officer to report on the progress of the attack, he went out himself armed with a Spandau gun and, after several sharp encounters with enemy machine-gun posts, succeeded in bringing back the required information. Just before dawn the reserve battalion was ordered forward, but, when it had almost reached its objective, very heavy fire was encountered from a strongly defended enemy locality, consisting of four machinegun posts and a number of tanks.

"Captain Upham, without hesitation, at once led his Company in a determined attack on the two nearest strong-points on the left flank of the sector. His voice could be heard above the din of battle cheering on his men and, in spite of the fierce resistance of the enemy and the heavy casualties on both sides, the objective was captured. Captain Upham, during the engagement, himself destroyed a German tank and several guns and vehicles with grenades, and although he was shot through the elbow by a machine-gun bullet and had his arm broken, he went on again to a forward position and brought back some of his men who had become isolated. He continued to dominate the situation until his men had beaten off a violent enemy counter-attack and consolidated the vital position which they had won under his inspiring leadership. Exhausted by pain from his wound and weak from loss of blood Captain Upham was then removed to the Regimental Aid Post, but immediately his wound had been dressed he returned to his men,

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remaining with them all day long under heavy enemy artillery and mortar fire, until he was again severely wounded and being now unable to move fell into the hands of the enemy when, his gallant Company having been reduced to only six survivors, his position was finally over-run by superior enemy forces, in spite of the outstanding gallantry and magnificent leadership shown by Captain Upham.”

The struggle was indeed unequal. The 19th and 20th Battalions suffered heavily and a withdrawal was ordered. The Eighth Army retained the initiative, however, and made a general attack a week later with the object of cutting the enemy forces in half.

The New Zealanders were given the task of capturing the eastern tongue of the El Mreir Depression. The 6th Brigade's assault was preceded by a heavy bombardment carried out by the New Zealand Divisional Artillery. The 24th (Auckland) and 26th (South Island) Battalions cleared gun positions with the bayonet in pitch darkness, but with the dawn enemy armour approached and superb gallantry was again of no avail against it. The enemy overran the 24th and 25th (Wellington) Battalions but did not follow up his attack. The New Zealand objectives had not been attained, but at least the enemy had lost the initiative. It was decided to save the Eighth Army's strength for a decisive effort later. The Army's battle casualties in July were about 750 officers and 12,500 men. Of these 4,000 belonged to the New Zealand Division.

The next few weeks were spent in reorganization in blistering heat, with plagues of flies and mosquitoes. The R.A.F. gradually gained air supremacy. Lieut.-General B. L. Montgomery took over command of the Eighth Army, and General Sir Harold Alexander became Commander-in-chief of all Middle East Forces. Mr. Winston Churchill visited the New Zealand sector on August 20th, and said to the Division:

“You have played a magnificent, a notable, even a decisive part in stemming a great retreat which would have been most detrimental to the cause of the United Nations.”

General Montgomery issued his order:

“We will fight the enemy where we now stand; there will be no withdrawal and no surrender.”

On August 30th, Rommel resumed his drive for possession of Egypt and the Suez Canal. His order of the day envisaged “the final annihilation of the enemy”. He threw in the whole of the Afrika Korps, and at first made considerable progress. But his transport columns were battered by artillery and the R. A. F. and the attack petered out by September 3rd, when the Axis forces began to withdraw. The New Zealand Division, assigned a waiting role, had

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harassed the enemy by artillery and successful raids. On September 3rd a night bayonet attack was made on the Trieste Division, and there was very heavy fighting as the enemy reacted to the threat to his flank. But Rommel had to keep on withdrawing and rechristen his attack a “reconnaissance in force”.

He still had about 108,000 men and 600 tanks, and the job of the Eighth Army was to build up its forces to such an extent that an all-out offensive could be maintained for a long period and the possibility of stalemate through exhaustion of supplies averted. Superior equipment, including new Sherman tanks, was arriving in great quantities and men were being trained for mobile desert warfare. But before the warfare could become mobile the problem of Alamein had to be solved. With both sides firmly established behind extensively mined positions, there was no alternative but to break through with infantry. The plan decided upon was to make the main attack against the enemy's strongest position in the northern sector and simultaneously carry out a diversionary attack in the south in the hope of drawing off some of the enemy's then widely dispersed armour.

The New Zealand Division was placed under the command of the 30th Corps for the first task of making gaps in the northern defences, after which it was to revert to the 10th Corps. It was withdrawn from the central sector on September 10th, and after four days' leave began intensive rehearsal with tanks for its second task of exploiting a successful break-through. When it moved it left behind a dummy camp, completely deceiving the enemy.

The decisive battle of Alamein was launched with dramatic suddenness on the night of October 23, 1942. At 9.40 p.m. eight hundred guns crashed into action simultaneously and in an hour the 30th Corps —9th Australian, 51st Highland, 2nd New Zealand and Ist South African Divisions —began to move forward in brilliant moonlight, preceded by the creeping barrage. Lieut-Col. H. Murray Reid, who was in command of the Bth Field Company of New Zealand Engineers, writes in The Turning Point:

"It was a great sight to see them (the infantry) going ahead with so much confidence and determination. They were well spread out, and with fixed bayonets glistening in the light of the guns must have created a panic among any of the enemy left to dispute their passage."

The job of the engineers was to breach two enemy minefields, and this vital operation proved quite as perilous as it sounds. One shell knocked out sixteen out of thirty-six men in No 2 Section of the Bth Field Company very early in the advance, but the gaps were made.

The sth and 6th New Zealand brigades, under Brigadiers Kippenberger and Gentry, pressed forward, taking strong-point

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after strong-point with the bayonet. By 7 a.m. on October 24th, Miteiriya Ridge was in their hands, but the attack generally had not quite realized all the hopes placed on it, though there had been an advance of about 7,000 yards on a six-mile front. Enemy counterattacks were broken up, but the Allied armour had still to break through. Rommel re-grouped his forces but Desert Bomber Command shattered his hopes of staging another attack with the sun behind his tanks.

On the coast the 9th Australian Division was pushing forward with great valour and Rommel apparently concluded that the Eighth Army was planning its break-through down the main road. He moved his troops accordingly, and the Allied Command then planned a blow by the New Zealand Division south of the Australian sector to make a breach through which the 10th Corps would thrust to divide the enemy in two. This operation, called "Supercharge", was led by General Freyberg himself in his tank.

The attack was launched at 1 a.m. on November 2nd, with 400 guns firing 150,000 rounds on a front of only 4,000 yards in hours. The sappers marked lanes through the mines and by 4 a.m. the first objectives had been taken. The Maori Battalion cleared an enemy pocket with the bayonet and linked up with the Australians.

From his office-truck General Freyberg wrote this account of the final stage of the tremendous battle:

"Our infantry went forward with great dash admirably supported by our engineers, machine-gunners, signalmen, and the whole divisional organization, and captured all objectives. Despite heavy casualties, tanks of the gth Armoured Brigade and the Divisional Cavalry broke through the enemy gun line. It was this attack following so quickly on the first series of attacks that finally made the breach through which the 10th Corps, comprising two armoured divisions and the mobile Second New Zealand Division, was passed on November 4th.

"The role of the Armoured Divisions was to seek out and destroy the Panzer divisions while the Second New Zealand Division and the British 4th Light Armoured Brigade, comprising tanks and armoured cars under our orders, were to move west avoiding the armoured battle to the north and cut the enemy communications at Fuka, 60 miles behind the enemy line. It was a difficult manoeuvre, especially as the majority of our battalions had to embus from positions in the front line. Congestion and shelling at the gap and the armoured battle en route delayed progress, and when darkness came the brigades were still miles apart. Concentration by night in unknown enemy country 25 miles behind his line is a difficult operation, and it was not till two hours before dawn on the sth that all units had concentrated, using as an assembly beacon a blazing ammunition lorry hit by enemy fire in night skirmish.

"Before dawn on the sth our advance continued, the force moving in desert formation over the open desert with armoured cars and tanks

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ahead. At daylight we encountered a column of the latest type of German Mark 3 and 4 tanks, eight of which the 4th Light Armoured Brigade surprised and disposed of in as many minutes. Fires and explosions from enemy dumps on the coast could be seen during the day as we moved westwards and reports of precipitate retreat were received. Later in the day our tanks and artillery drove off the rearguard covering the Fuka position. On November 6th we were directed on Bagush, where, unfortunately, a heavy storm turned the desert into a morass, and all the wheeled transport not using the coastal road was bogged. The enemy made full use of the respite, but had to leave behind many guns and trucks caught in the mud. On the Bth the weather improved and we pushed on, passing within sight of our June battlefield at Minqar Qa'im. The enemy at this stage had evacuated Matruh fortress and the division and attached troops were directed on Sidi Barrani.

“Sidi Barrani was occupied on November 9th and 10th, and we advanced on the heavily-defended escarpment at Halfaya. The pursuit continued along roads strewn with all manner of wreckage and abandoned vehicles, an eloquent tribute to the R.A.F., whose fighters and bombers had given the Army magnificent support throughout the battle. Below Halfaya escarpment our light armoured advance guard was held up by the enemy covered by a minefield, but as we deployed to attack the enemy withdrew. By dark, on the 10th, the sth Brigade moved forward through the minefield to the support of the 4th Light Armoured Brigade. Halfaya, last of the Axis fortresses to fall last year, is a formidable defensive position. A surprise attack was decided on, and just before daylight on Armistice Day, no men of the 21st Battalion went in with Bren guns and bayonets. It was a complete success. We had one killed and one wounded and took 612 prisoners, some German, but mainly Italians of the Pistoia Division, whose motto is ‘Valiant Even Unto Death!’ Solium fell automatically, and Egypt was clear of the enemy.”

Summing up the Victory of Alamein, Winston Churchill said in the House of Commons that the New Zealand Division had been described to him by those who saw it in action as "A ball of fire". With the two British Armoured divisions it formed the "thunderbolt hurled through the gaps which finished Rommel and his arrogant army".

The New Zealanders rested on the escarpment south of Bardia until early in December, when they moved across the desert towards Agheila while the Highland Division and British armoured divisions prepared for a frontal attack which was made on December 12th. The New Zealanders, in a brilliant encircling move, advanced through the desert far south of Agheila with great secrecy and speed. They succeeded in reaching a point near the roadway about 60 miles west of Agheila, close on the heels of the main body of Rommel's retreating forces.

“In the semi-light of an obscure moon,” wrote an official war correspondent, “New Zealand forces occupied high ground south of the road, clearing the hill-tops at bayonet points. Prisoners and much

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equipment were captured and the road was dominated by our artillery. Rommel escaped from this trap with most of his forces, but ‘the enemy was bruised’. In reaching the positions which outflanked Rommel, heavy transport of the New Zealanders traversed many miles of rough scrub-covered country, for even a jeep to negotiate. Steep boulder-strewn hillsides and deeply scoured water-courses were crossed, but the columns pushed on trucli, tanks, guns and bulldozers to prepare gun positions. The last steps of this remarkable move took place through desert which at times was without one relieving feature. It was through this country that lights and hand-painted diamond signs were so useful in directing the advance.

"After bruising Rommel's armoured rearguard, the New Zealanders moved on to Nofilia,'where they spent Christmas and New Year. They were now the mobile left flank of the Eighth Army, ready to sweep out and envelop the enemy wherever they might stand and fight. Then it appeared that he would make another stand at Buerat. On the 14th the New Zealanders again struck south into the desert. They travelled self-contained in ammunition, petrol, water and food. In the first cold light of January 15th the battle between the New Zealand fighting columns and Germans holding defence lines in Tripolitania began, while the Highlanders, with armoured support, pressed along the coast. New Zealanders, with British armoured force advancing ahead of their main columns of guns and artillery, crossed the sandy ridges to meet the German troops in the Wadi Zem Zem area, while sweep after sweep of R.A.F. fighters watched overhead the tank battle which raged across country as arid and as rocky as any in North Africa. New Zealand guns raced forward to support the armour, and gradually the German forces withdrew to the west. The Buerat position was turned and the enemy showed no inclination to stand and fight. Nevertheless, the enemy manoeuvred with skill behind a series of rearguards, and several brisk actions took place between tanks and artillery on both sides, but the enemy always withdrew when the New Zealanders deployed. On through the desert in a mighty circular sweep, the New Zealanders moved towards Tripoli. The chief obstacle to their progress was the broken nature of the country, precipitous wadis, soft hummocky desert and narrow defiles through the Jebel Ranges. The enemy impeded the advance with demolitions and minefields. Engineers, however, cleared the mines, by-passed demolitions, and improved mountain roads.

"At one stage it seemed that the enemy had chosen Beni Ulid, an Italian colonial outpost, as the point where he would make a stand. The armour pushed forward, and after a brief engagement forced the enemy to retreat. It was not until the New Zealanders had reached the outskirts of Tarhuna, a village on the outskirts of the green Jebel country, that they met any organized opposition. A pocket of German guns set on the hills about Tarhuna was effectively by-passed, but out in a small sand-sea beyond the road the New Zealand columns were temporarily halted by tanks lined across their path. Tanks and guns swept forward to engage the enemy, and German armour withdrew to appear again near Azizia. Patrols of Maoris crept ahead and watched the Germans as they prepared to meet the New Zealand attack on the last defence line before Tripoli, but they did not need to attack. By first light on the

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next day the remnants of the 15th Panzer Division had fled. A few shells and mortars landing amongst our transport on the night of the 22nd was the only opposition met in the final stages of the advance on Tripoli.

“On January 23rd, New Zealand Divisional Cavalry and troops of the 5th New Zealand Brigade entered Tripoli This completed a phase of successful fighting which the New Zealanders started just three months before. They were then in pleasant surroundings taking advantage of unlimited water supply to clean up after a tiring three months’ campaign in the desert with short allowance of brackish water and hard battle rations. Their spirits were high. They knew that they had played a vital part in capturing Mussolini’s empire, for so long a goal of the Eighth Army. Their parade for the British Prime Minister, Mr. Winston Churchill, was a fitting climax, and his‘words to the men of New Zealand were a tribute which made them feel well satisfied with their achievements:—

“ ‘ Far away in New Zealand homes at the other side of the globe, all hearts are swelling with pride at your deeds. It is the same throughout our small island of Britain, which stood alone for a year, championed only by its children from overseas and against dire odds. All are filled with admiration for the Desert Army, all are full of gratitude to the people of New Zealand who have sent their splendid division to win fame and honour across the oceans.

“ ‘The enemy has been driven out of Egypt, out of Cyrenaica, out of Tripolitania. He is now coming towards the end of his means of retreat, and in the corner of Tunisia a decisive battle has presently to be fought. Other great forces are coming in from the west, but I am sure the Desert Army and the New Z ea l an d Division will play a prime part.’ ”

With already 1,400 miles of campaigning behind them and a considerable share in the Eighth Army’s successes between El Alamein and Tripolitania, the 2nd New Zealand Division, as the official war correspondent states, set out after a short rest near Tripoli to take part in the battles which were to end three years of war in Africa.

“Rommel’s forces were massing for the first major attack since their last attempt to reach the Nile Delta in August, 1942. Hurriedly the New Zealanders moved up to take their positions on the Eighth Army’s battlefront. Through early morning mist over the hills to the south of the Mareth Line the Panzers of the Afrika Korps struck at our line on March 6th. Until at dusk, when they withdrew severely shattered, the Germans launched attack after attack against our heavy artillery concentrations. Each attack was thrown back with heavy losses in men and armour. Not once did they penetrate the Eighth Army’s line.

“It then became evident that the enemy intended to make full use of the Mareth defences —a line of strong-points built by French military engineers on lines of the Maginot Line. All approaches to the defences were covered by strongly held points. Against this formidable chain the Eighth Army prepared a two-pronged offensive. British infantry were to make a frontal attack, and 80 miles to the south the New Zealanders,

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with supporting tanks, guns, and anti-tank guns made ready for yet another great outflanking sweep. Although the country was ill suited for a flanking movement the enemy, working on his experience between Agheila and Tripoli, prepared for just such a thrust in the south. Our force therefore concentrated on delivering a sudden violent blow. It relied for its striking power on a large force of tanks and an extremely powerful artillery group. Two comparatively weak points in the enemy’s defences, one on the higher ground at Matmata and the other a gap further west between Djebel and the Matmata hills, were the areas on which the ‘left hook’ force was to concentrate.

"With enough petrol, water and ammunition for a 350-mile advance and food for 11 days, the New Zealanders' outflanking force set out on the night of March 19th. Until dawn and on through the daylight hours they raced forward in desert formation towards El Hamma and Gabes. Still further miles the next day brought them within striking distance of the enemy. With only three hours of daylight remaining they prepared a strong night attack. In full moonlight and supported by heavy tanks, New Zealander's infantrymen struck through the minefields and on to a hill feature, where they took 1,500 Italian prisoners.

"The bridgehead into the Mareth positions having been lost in less bitter fighting the Eighth Army's main thrust was switched to the south, and further tanks, guns and mobile infantry forces joined the New Zealand columns. Then began the series of daring attacks that took El Hamma and drove Rommel's remaining forces still farther into Tunisia. Late in the afternoon of March 26th the assault began. Squadrons of bombers roared overhead as 200 field and medium guns opened their bombardment on a front of only 5,000 yards. In an instant the attack developed and scores of tanks rumbled forward through the dust. Moving steadily forward beside them were three battalions of New Zealand infantrymen. Without set-back our tanks swept forward about three miles to the final objective, overrunning enemy anti-tank guns and artillery. In fierce hand-to-hand fighting the New Zealanders accounted for most of the remaining strong-points.

“Previously, every major attack the New Zealanders had made had been at night. A daylight assault caught enemy defences by surprise and was so successful that within 24 hours the entire armoured force had cut through the New Zealanders’ bridgehead and was on the outskirts of El Hamma village. The German infantry, however, fought on bitterly through March 27th, until after a fierce exchange with the Maori Battalion they were forced to surrender. The capture of the defile was a decisive defeat for the enemy and a triumph for our co-ordinated attack by land and air. Between 5,000 and 6,000 prisoners were taken, and many hundreds of German and Italian wounded and killed were left on the battlefield. But by far the most important result of the battle was that the Mareth Line had become untenable. The casualties which further attacks would have caused had been avoided. For the New Zealanders it had been a period of the hardest fighting since El Alamein. Turning then to a new defensive line the enemy deeply entrenched himself in positions along the Wadi Akarit. In naturally strong defences between the great salt marshes and the sea, Rommel stood between the Eighth Army and the American forces advancing towards the coast

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from Gafsa. The Eighth Army's plan was a large-scale frontal attack again to cut an opening for our fast mobile pursuit force. "Back in the role which they played so successfully after the El Alamein break-through, the New Zealanders raced through an opening which Indian and Scottish troops had made in the defences. Out in the open country beyond Wadi Akarit they spread to desert formation and began harassing the retreating enemy. Groups of prisoners, including what remained of the Italian Saharan Corps, were taken. Every day the grip on the Axis bridgehead around Tunis was tightening. To drive Rommel's men still farther north another 'left hook' was planned. Anticipating this threat, the enemy moved back rapidly, leaving the harbour towns of Sfax and Sousse to be occupied easily.

"Beyond Sousse the New Zealanders found themselves faced for the first time in Africa by a high formidable mountain chain. In these natural defences to Tunis the Axis forces were preparing with heavy reinforcements to meet the Allied assault. Joining with other forces under General Sir Harold Alexander's command, the Eighth Army deployed inland from Enfidaville to hold down in the south as much as possible of the enemy forces while the main Allied drive was made farther to the north. Opposite the New Zealanders were great ridges which commanded observation of all the surrounding countryside. Surprise in any attack from our positions on the flat could only be gained by moving the whole attacking force and its artillery at night.

"At midnight on April 19th, the Eighth Army began a general offensive which raged along the front for three weeks. Then began the New Zealanders' amazing struggle for Takrouna—a rocky crag which had become the enemy's bastion of the Enfidaville Line. While a small group of Maoris fought their way up steep cliff faces to gain a foothold in Takrouna village, battalions of South Island and Auckland infantrymen held firm to either side of the hill. Throughout the next day the Maoris fought their way from house to house to improve their grip on the shell-raked village. Only one enemy pocket holding out obstinately in a small high building remained to be sniped by a New Zealand 25-pounder gun the next morning. Finally New Zealand infantrymen stormed the lower village to take the remainder of the German garrison prisoner.

“In a short period of fighting as hard as any experienced in the whole campaign two field-guns, 10 smaller guns, 72 machine-guns and 732 German and Italian prisoners were captured. With Takrouna in our hands the Eighth Army’s position could be firmly established on a line which threatened the whole of the enemy’s positions beyond Enfidaville. Then, a week after the offensive had opened, the New Zealand Division was taken to support the French operations towards Pont du Fahs. Shortly afterwards, under continued pressure along the entire Allied front, the Axis forces collapsed and became completely disorganized. New Zealand infantry continued until the end to make short night attacks under fire of our artillery.”

So ended the North African campaign and almost a year of continuous campaigning for the New Zealand Division, first to

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defend the Nile Delta, then to outflank the Afrika Korps over more than 2,000 miles of the North African coast until its final destruction in the hills of Tunisia. “The Division has never faltered or failed in any of the difficult or hazardous missions it has been set,” said Freyberg, to whom one memorable afternoon Marshal Messe came in to surrender. The conflict between the New Zealanders and the German 90th Light Division was over at last.

“These two divisions,” wrote Alan Moorehead on the last page of his African Trilogy, “were the 61ite of the British and German armies. For two years they had mauled one another across the desert. We had killed two of the Ninetieth Light’s commanders. The Ninetieth Light had almost killed Freyberg. They had charged up to the gates of Egypt in the previous summer, and it was the New Zealanders who broke the German division’s heart outside Mersa Matruh. There is hardly a major battlefield in the desert where you will not find the intermingled graves of the New Zealanders and the men of the Ninetieth Light. And now at last it was all over. . . . All Africa was ours.”

CHAPTER XXII

BATTLE FOR ITALY

The New Zealand Division crossed from Africa to Taranto in Italy in November, 1943, and soon proved their worth against the German Winter line in very different conditions from those prevailing in the desert. General Freyberg wrote:

“The preliminary fighting in the advance to the Sangro River was carried out across difficult country in very bad weather by an Indian brigade under our command, supported by New Zealand tanks and artillery. Fighting rearguard actions to which the German army is now well accustomed, the Division contested each river valley and hill-top village through which the Italian roads wend their way. Not only had the enemy rearguards to be dislodged, but demolitions on a grand scale had to be bridged; in some places vehicles were winched through one by one until firm ground was reached. Trucks slipped and got bogged in a sea of mud, and at times it seemed impossible that such a large mass of transport would be cleared. Neither the weather nor the enemy rearguard, however, stopped the advance, and our whole force with all its transport, tanks, and guns was brought forward over the narrow mountain roads.

“The enemy resistance stiffened at the approaches to the Sangro River. British and Indian Infantry of the Indian Infantry Brigade, supported by tanks of our 19th Armoured Regiment and by our artillery, carried out a most gallant attack. They crossed the upper reaches of

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the river and captured the high ground from which the enemy had been able to observe our movements and bring down artillery fire. “South of the Sangro River our sth and 6th Infantry Brigades, under Brigadiers Kippenberger and Parkinson, deployed for the next phase in the battle. Then heavy rain fell again, brought the river to flood level, and delayed our attack. Quite apart from the weather, the operation was most difficult as the wide river-bed is dominated by all the heights of the north shore. The plan was to carry out a night attack and the troops were waiting ready for the river to fall. On November 26th the weather improved. Battle exchanges opened along the Eighth Army front on the night of the 27th, with the New Zealand Division on the left flank.

“Moving forward in pitch dark, our infantry crossed the river with the aid of troops formed up on the north bank at two in the morning, and assaulted the heights. This attack by the sth and 6th Brigades under an artillery barrage on a front of 6,000 yards was brilliantly carried out. The enemy was driven from all our objectives, leaving many dead and over 300 prisoners behind. In the river-bed itself, the engineers worked all night and next day under intense shell fire, making tracks through and building bridges to set supporting arms and tanks across to secure the bridgehead. Until the bridges were completed only a few tanks could be got across owing to mud and quicksands, but before the enemy recovered from the initial surprise artillery was brought forward and the infantry again advanced.

“A daylight infantry attack on high ground took the enemy by surprise and Castelfrentano was occupied. By the capture of this hill town —on the highest ridge overlooking the Sangro River—both the sth and 6th Brigades established themselves astride Kesselring’s muchvaunted Winter line. There can be no doubt that the enemy intended to hold his defensive system covering the line of the River Sangro. It was very strong, consisting of deep reinforced trenches and dug-outs and complete communication trench system and electrically lit living quarters and the whole system was covered by extensive minefields and barbed wire. The men who stormed it would look back with satisfaction from this fortress of hills and skilfully planned defences and realize what they had achieved. While the New Zealand Division collected along the high ground, other formations advanced on the coastal sector. Supported by powerful Allied air forces, the Eighth Army broke through the German line on a wide front.

“The battle of Sangro is an important step forward, but the enemy is still fighting back hard, and I must warn the New Zealand Government that heavy fighting lies ahead before the enemy is driven north of Rome.”

General Montgomery wrote to General Freyberg:

“I would like to congratulate the New Zealand Division on the splendid achievement of the last few days. Since the Division came into the battle line of the Eighth Army after a long absence it has been faced with forces of Nature and by a determined enemy in stronglyprepared positions. The Division has dealt with the forces of Nature

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and with the enemy in a manner that is beyond all praise. The part played by New Zealand troops in the battle of Sangro should make all those in the home country very proud of their soldiers serving in Italy. Please tell your officers and men how pleased I am with what they have done. Further tasks lie ahead, but having smashed through the enemy’s Winter line, we are now well placed to tackle the enemy in the open. Good luck to you all.”

The road to Rome was to prove a difficult one indeed and it was decided to switch the New Zealand Division to the Fifth Army front.

“One morning at the beginning of February, when a biting wind was whistling down from snowy Apennines,” wrote Edwin Tetlow in the Daily Mail, “convoys of field guns and trucks crammed with mystery troops streamed along the roads leading to Gassino and the Rapido River Valley. There was great speculation among all soldiers who saw them pass through, for it was impossible to identify them. Every soldier had taken the badge off his cap. Soldiers had no telltale flashes on their shoulders. The very trucks and cars had no regimental or divisional signs on their bumpers or mudguards; instead they had just a jumble of figures and letters written in chalk on their windscreens. Everything had been done to make sure that nobody should be able to tell that some of the finest fighting troops in the world had joined the Fifth Army. That was how the New Zealanders came into the line.”

Almost as soon as the New Zealanders were in position a strong patrol from the Fifteenth German Panzer Grenadier Division clashed with Auckland infantry and experienced once again the fighting vigour which had impressed their predecessors in the Afrika Korps. On the night of February 17th, the New Zealanders staged their first direct assault on the Germans on this front, to precipitate the Battle of Gassino which was to hold the world’s attention for weeks. The Maori Battalion crossed the Rapido River and fought their way up the railway to Gassino Station, some hundreds of yards from the town.

Fully alive to the threat to Number Ten Highway and his main escape route from the Gassino area, the enemy resisted strongly. An official war correspondent on the spot wrote:

“The Maoris actually gained possession of a house at the entrance road leading from the station to Gassino as the last remaining Germans were making a hurried escape in a truck which they had standing by with the engine running. Meanwhile the engineers wasted no time in bridging and filling in enemy demolitions. There were twelve of these—one less than every hundred yards—and they ranged in width from sixty to eighty feet. The Rapido was bridged by a structure previously constructed at a place farther back and dragged forward into position by a tractor which earlier had crossed to the other side of the river.

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Nearer the station sappers found themselves under machine-gun fire from positions held by the Germans to the left of the railway embankment and mortar and machine-gun fire from the direction of the Cassino. The fire was so severe that the sappers were unable to complete work on the last two demolitions before daylight. During the day the infantry and engineers received some protection from smoke shells which our guns sent over unceasingly. It was vital that the enemy shouldn’t be able to see the bridges, but it was a two-edged sword for it made difficult observation of any moves by the enemy. Early in the afternoon enemy infantry had infiltrated to ground obscured from the Maoris’ view, but only about two hundred yards away —-too close to risk any artillery concentration. Soon afterwards tanks appeared from the direction of Cassino; having used a sunken track behind the main road from the station they opened up at fifty yards’ range and the combination of this and heavy machine-gun fire forced the Maoris to withdraw shortly after four o’clock.”

A ground attack on Cassino and the heights beyond was wanted and the New Zcalanders formed its spearhead. When the military historians have done their work we shall no doubt have a final verdict on the battle plan which produced this frontal attack on so strong a position, but until that verdict is given I propose merely to report the progress of the battle as it was seen by war correspondents on the spot.

On March 15, 1944, one New Zealand correspondent wrote:

“As great clouds of smoke and dust lifted across the mountains from the rubble of Cassino village after its four-hour bombardment, New Zealand troops to-day began one of the hardest tasks they’ve been given in three years of hard campaigning. Their job of attacking key-points in deep defences was even more formidable than the German Winter line they fought through a few weeks ago on the Adriatic front. On the New Zealanders’ success against the network of strong-points which held out against several determined Allied assaults depends largely the progress that can be made in this important new phase of the Fifth Army’s advance towards Rome. It was clear when they were taken from the Eighth Army front that they had been chosen for an important role, but it was not until to-day, after the greatest prelude of heavy bombing they’ve ever seen, that the New Zealanders’ striking force was unleashed against the German line.

Christopher Buckley in his book Road to Rome (1945) wrote:

“It gladdened everyone’s heart to see the old Crusader badges of the desert appearing once more in an active role after their long and dreary winter in a straight cul-de-sac on the east coast of Italy. The New Zealanders and Seventy-Eighth were by common consent regarded as the finest Divisions of the old Eighth and First Armies of Africa days. They were now united for the sternest trial in their experience.”

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The fighting was bitter in the extreme, but by March 20 Reuter’s correspondent thought that the final break-through at Cassino was only a matter of hours. Perhaps the most spectacular feat of the battle had been the storming and capture by the Wellington Battalion of the rocky fortress known as Castle Hill (Point 193)— a feat performed without the support of tanks owing to the complete obliteration and blocking of roads by the pulverizing air bombardment which incidentally was far from accurate. Christopher Buckley notes that many bombs fell far from their target, one load flattening the caravan of General Leese, the Eighth Army commander. One entire formation of heavy bombers attacked Venapro instead of Cassino, twelve miles away, and Venapro was the headquarters of a French Corps. Despite the bombs that did fall on their targets, the enemy parachutists filtered back time and again after they seemed defeated and the Battle of Cassino dragged on. General Freyberg said: “ ‘Blitz’ bombing proved a double-edged weapon and produced obstacles which made the speedy deployment of our forces impossible. . . . We have however broken into the main defensive system; caused the enemy heavy casualties; won and now hold part of our objective; have a bridgehead over the main Rapido River; and hold Castle Hill and the bulk of the town and railway station.” Buckley’s verdict is: “We attacked with too few troops, using a Brigade to do the work of a Division and a Division where a Corps was necessary.”

Crouched in the shattered ruins of Cassino, little farther from the enemy than the wing-length of the planes passing overhead, and therefore scarcely able to move in daylight, the New Zealanders hung grimly on. The nightmare hand-to-hand struggle cannot adequately be summarized. Relief came on May 18th when New Zealand tanks, closely supported by battalions of British infantry, swept into the town and all the main German strong-points from which most of the garrison of paratroops had escaped during the the night. The New Zealanders swept on against considerable opposition all the way, capturing Alvito, Vicalvi and Sora by June Ist, reaching at last, after the snows of winter and the blasted barrenness of Cassino in spring, the “greener fields” promised them by Winston Churchill at Tripoli.

High praise for what he called “the quite magnificent way” the New Zealand tanks of the Wellington Armoured Regiment supported his men in the five days’ continuous offensive fighting in the Liri Valley was expressed by the commander of a British infantry division in a personal message to the commander of the New Zealand Armoured Brigade. “Everything we asked of them they did in full measure and more, and all my soldiers are loud in their praises,” the General said. “I am so glad that part of the New Zealand Division was in at the end of Cassino.”

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It was indeed a consolation that the armoured regiments had been in at the end of so bitter a struggle, one that certainly sapped some of the energy of the whole enemy war machine, now confronted with the crisis of D-Day invasion and unable to disengage from the stranglehold in Italy. The fall of Rome was an important milestone on Hitler's path to destruction.

After taking Arezzano early in June the New Zealand Division disappeared from the news. It came back towards the end of July to be the spearhead of another major attack—the drive on Arezzo and Florence. German counter-attacks on the key village of San Michele, held valiantly by an Auckland company, were beaten off. By August 3rd the New Zealand forward troops were in sight of Florence and the Germans were streaming back to hold up the Arno River crossing. Florence was soon a city divided between Germans and Allies with partisan Italian activity on both sides. The New Zealanders saw little of the city before they were switched once more some 225 miles to the Adriatic coast. They began a steady but not spectacular advance up the coast. The Rubicon delayed them only a few hours but torrential rains were more effective. Winter set in early and swelled the Fiumecino River into a formidable barrier, but it was at last surmounted and a broad westerly sweep took the New Zealanders to the Savio River. A period of rest in small mountain towns was followed by fierce fighting for Faenza, with hand-to-hand combat around the houses. The German 90th Panzer Grenadier Division was severely defeated, losing 300 men as prisoners. The New Zealanders forced their way to the banks of the Savio three miles beyond Faenza. Here they were halted for some weeks by heavy snowfalls, and monotonous patrolling in bitter cold was the order of the day and night. A month of rest and training near Matelica followed.

Then on April 10, 1945, the New Zealand infantry were the spearhead of the Eighth Army's greatest Italian attack. Their return to the front was carried out with great secrecy. Flamethrowers scorched the opposite bank and then black clouds of smoke signalled the infantry to advance.

They crossed the narrow Senio and were among the Germans before they had time to realize that a full-scale attack was intended. The Maori Battalion had eighty and the 21st Battalion a hundred prisoners within an hour. The engineers behind the infantry performed the great feat of throwing six bridges across the river to allow tanks to cross before daylight. The Maoris did not wait for the bridges. They took their first anti-tank gun through the river. As the advance gained momentum enemy armour was eliminated by a remarkable concentration of Allied force. Infantry, tanks, artillery, and fighter-bombers all took their toll. By April 21st, wrote the New Zealand war correspondents, the New Zealand infantry had

{New Zealand Government) In the Routeburn River, South Island

I.akc Taupo through gum trees

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seized bridgeheads across the Idice River and was thrusting solidly across the line of enemy retreat. They had surprised not only the Germans but the Eighth Army and changed the pattern of the whole advance. It was a company of the 23rd Battalion which waded the river at midnight and completely surprised the German reinforcements, sleeping after two days of hard marching.

The advance accelerated. The New Zealanders crossed the Po River and only forty-three hours later were the first Eighth Army troops to cross the Adige. By May Ist, they had crossed the Isonzo, reached Monfalcone and made contact with Marshal Tito's Yugoslav troops. General Freyberg wrote of this magnificent finish to the long-sustained efforts of the New Zealand forces:

“In the original plan it had never been intended that our thrust should break the enemy line. It was assumed that the main breakthrough would occur to the north through the marshland of the Argenta Gap. So successful, however, were the operations of the New Zealand Division and the troops on our immediate flanks that the five rivers south of the Po and Adige were crossed more quickly than was estimated, and operations which started as subsidiary ones finished up by smashing the enemy line and enabling the New Zealand Division to break through to Venice. We are, as I start writing this cable, across the rivers Piave Tagliamento, and Isonzo, and we move forward to-morrow towards the capture of Trieste. We have joined up with the forces of Marshal Tito.

“In all, your Division fought five major battles against the pick of the German Army. These battles were those of the rivers Senio, Santerno, Sillaro, Gaiana, and Idice. Our plan of attack on each of these obstacles was not merely to secure a crossing or drive the enemy back, but to destroy his forces. In this way alone could his divisions be broken and prevented from re-forming a line farther back. Our policy has been as always to hit the enemy a tremendous blow with every available offensive weapon —often with from 250 to 300 guns and 400 to 500 planes, supported by 150 tanks. During the four-hour bombardment supporting each of the main battles our guns fired up to a quarter of a million rounds. These terrific bombardments enabled the infantry to advance and crush the enemy on our front and then to push through the gap we had made to the next defended river line. We always attacked at night on a broad front with two brigades forward and one brigade in reserve. Later, to ease the hardworked New Zealand infantry, we were given the 43rd Gurkha Lorried Infantry Brigade. This enabled us to carry on delivering blow after blow by relieving the forward brigades after each operation.

“It was battles such as these which paved the way to victory. On the Senio and the Santerno we smashed completely the 98th Division. On the Sillaro we broke the back of the 278 th Division. On the Gaiana and the Idice we paid off finally our old scores against 4 Para Division and part of 1 Para Division; 4 Para Division, fully confident that they could hold rivers where less fanatical divisions had failed, dug

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themselves in on the west stop-bank of the Gaiana. The bombardment on the Parachute Division was the heaviest of the war, estimated at 100 rounds for every man holding the river line, and in support of this bombardment forty-four flame-throwing tanks attacked the line of the stop-bank with flame. It was little wonder that our success was complete. On the Idice, the next obstacle, we were not faced with organized resistance and were able to rush the river banks without difficulty.

"The destruction of the enemy divisions which were against us was a big factor in smashing German resistance here in Italy. No divisions that opposed us could stand up to the methods employed. During the early stages of the offensive the fighting was bitter. We captured between 2,000 and 3,000 infantry, all part of Germany's finest fighting infantry. The enemy was well beaten and could put up only half-hearted resistance on the formidable river barriers of the Po and Adige. These were crossed with the greatest skill in assault boats and bridged with folding-boat equipment for our light transport, and 40-ton rafts for our tanks and heavy artillery. In this way 150 heavy tanks and the 5,000 vehicles and guns of the Division were passed over and we were able to commence a successful advance to Padua and beyond.

"It is fair to say that the speed of our advance was only possible because of the engineering work of our Divisional Engineers under command of Colonel Hanson, whose work was of a very high order.

"Once the crust of enemy resistance was broken just south of Padua we carried out the advance through Padua itself on to the river Piave, including the capture of Venice. In two successful day moves we had advanced 80 miles, capturing many thousands of prisoners. As the bridges over the river Piave had all been destroyed some months back by our own air forces, a halt of 24 hours became necessary to bridge the gap, and the Division took advantage of this to do maintenance, service tanks, and gather up and evacuate the huge number of enemy prisoners who were by now becoming an embarrassment.

"The last stage of our advance to join up with Marshal Tito's forces showed the Division again in its traditional role —a Left Hook—carried out magnificently. I wish you could have seen the triumphal move of this highly trained force along the coast over the Piave and Isonzo, in places fighting hard, and as opposition broke down moving long distances through towns and villages full of cheering and happy people with all our vehicles, tanks, and guns garlanded with flowers. The last part of the advance was a sustained attack to free Trieste. It will always be a proud moment for the New Zealand Division that we were able to be of assistance to the Yugoslav Army in helping to free Trieste.

"I cannot say how many German prisoners were taken during the move from the Po. I can only estimate the numbers at between 30,000 and 40,000. Our casualties, I am glad to say, have not been unduly heavy for the scope of the operations.

"I hope that this will be the last report that I shall have to send you of active operations. I write this one on the outskirts of Trieste. As in the past, I do so from my office-truck which has served me as a battle headquarters during all past campaigns. Now that we have reached

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the conclusion of the European war I hope that I may be permitted to tell the people of New Zealand what a great force this Division of theirs is. No tribute I can pay does justice to the individuals whose work has contributed to our great successes. A divisional commander depends in battle upon his subordinates. No praise can be sufficiently high for our Commanders and Staff. I wish especially to mention Brigadier Parkinson, commanding the 6th New Zealand Infantry Brigade, Brigadier Bonifant, commanding the sth New Zealand Infantry Brigade, and Brigadier Gentry, commanding the newly-formed 9th New Zealand Infantry Brigade, which distinguished itself so greatly during the battle of the Gaiana river and the advance to Trieste.

“Outstanding work has been done by Colonel Hanson commanding the Divisional Engineers, and by Colonel Campbell commanding the 4th New Zealand Armoured Brigade. The work of Brigadier Queree, commanding the Divisional Artillery during the five battles from the Senio to the Gaiana and beyond, has been well up to that high standard which has always been the characteristic of the New Zealand artillery. The work of the Army Service Corps, under Brigadier Crump, in keeping us fed and maintained over difficult obstacles and long lines of communication, has been up to the highest traditions of desert days. On my own staff. Colonels Gilbert, Elliott, and Cook, and Major Cox, the Intelligence Officer, have been of the greatest assistance and help. Their work has been of a high order.

“But it is not of these senior officers, good as they have been, that one thinks of most after battles such as we have been through. No division, no matter how good the commanders and staff may be, could achieve such results during the last years of heavy fighting unless the rank and file of the force were of the highest class. Our New Zealand troops have gone into these battles day after day and night after night with a quiet steady determination and a spirit which I have not seen equalled elsewhere in my experience of warfare. In the New Zealander you have qualities of heart and mind that place him high among men. It is to the resolute courage of the junior officers and men that this Division owes its fighting record. No men could have done more than they have done. Never daunted, always calm no matter how great the odds against them have been. No commander has been served as I have been during these difficult five-and-a-half years. I have been the most fortunate and privileged of commanders to have led such a division.”

It was indeed a great Division and it gave the enemy no rest. Even when captured, New Zealanders did all they could to keep enemy forces occupied in guarding them. Sergeant Jack Denvir (Christchurch), captured by the Germans in Greece, jumped off a train with two Australians, but was recaptured. A second attempt succeeded and he joined Marshal Tito’s Guerrillas, wrecking German communications, and ending up as a brigade commander. Captain Charles Upham, V.C. and Bar, made desperate attempts to escape. Brigadier George H. Clifton, D.S.O. and Bar, made seven escapes and was recaptured seven times. Brigadier James

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Hargest, D.S.O. and Bar, in his Farewell Campo 12, published posthumously in 1945, described one of the greatest escapes of all time. To read it is to understand something of the secret of the New Zealand Division.

CHAPTER XXIII

WAR IN THE AIR

The Royal New Zealand Air Force, which became a separate force in November, 1937, comprised at the outbreak of war in September, 1939, 91 officers and 665 airmen, while the Territorial Air Force consisted of 79 officers and 325 airmen. Hundreds of other New Zealanders, however, were already serving with the Royal Air Force on short service commissions. By May, 1945, some 45,000 New Zealanders had joined the Air Force, and there were still a great number of New Zealanders in the R.A.F. The two forces, in fact, differed little, except in conditions covering pay. In operations overseas the Royal New Zealand Air Force sustained 3,998 casualties, of whom 2,875 were killed or presumed dead.

By the middle of 1944 six R.N.Z.A.F. squadrons, which were not exclusively New Zealand in personnel, were operating in Great Britain, one in West Africa, and eighteen in the Pacific. Many thousands of New Zealanders were scattered through the Royal Air Force and other Dominion forces.

The New Zealand Government, seeing war approaching, had ordered thirty Wellington bombers, and six of these were being prepared for the flight to New Zealand from Britain when war broke out. The Government, realizing that the Dominion’s fate depended on the survival of Britain, presented the bombers to the British Government. Thanks to the pertinacity of Squadron Leader M. W. Buckley in keeping the New Zealand personnel together No. 75 (New Zealand) Squadron eventually emerged. Its first operational flight was made on March 27, 1940, when three Wellingtons, captained by Squadron Leader C. E. Kay (Auckland), Flight Lieutenant John Adams (Christchurch) and Pilot Officer J. N. Collins (Christchurch) made a leaflet raid in bad weather over Brunswick, Ulzen, and Luneberg. They returned safely after a ninehour flight. On April 12, 1940, an elderly Wellington Mark I, as the official account of the Squadron’s career, by Hilary St. George Saunders, states, took off for Norway, which the Germans had attacked in force three days before. Flying Officer A. A. N. Breckon’s mission was to find out what enemy shipping there was in the fiord of Narvik. A long and arduous flight, the longest flown up to that

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date by any aircraft of Bomber Command, produced the required information. A second reconnaissance ten days later discovered a first-class target in twenty-two enemy aircraft spread over the surface of a frozen lake near Trondheim. Three aircraft of the Squadron took part in the attack of Stavanger aerodrome on April 17th, and three more in the attack on the Danish aerodrome at Aalberg on April 21st.

When the Germans attacked the Dutch airfields in force on May ioth and captured the four major aerodromes, three New Zealand Squadron Wellingtons raided one of them, Rotterdam's airport, the same night. As the German army's advance developed and attacks on its communications were intensified, the New Zealand Squadron found itself heavily engaged, with attacks on KrefeldUrdingen, Turnhout, Givet and Fumay. From an attack on Dinant on May 21st Flying Officer J. N. Collins and his crew failed to return. It was the squadron's first operational loss.

Six aircraft of the squadron were detailed for special duty in the south of France to bomb Milan after Italy's entry into the war. They were obstructed by the French authorities, motor lorries being driven on to the airfield as Squadron Leader Kay was about to take off, and the New Zealanders returned to Britain with very uncomplimentary views on the leadership of France.

The squadron took its full share in Bomber Command's plan to weaken the Luftwaffe by raids on aircraft factories and similar targets. Hamm was visited seven times. Docks at Wilhelmshaven,

Emden and Bremen were bombed with varying results. On September 23, 1940, Berlin was attacked for the first time. In another attack on October 23rd, an aircraft was lost. From December, 1940, mass raids became the rule as Bomber Command gained strength. In a raid on Munster on the night of July 7-8, 1941, an aircraft piloted by Squadron Leader R. P. Widdowson was set on fire by an enemy fighter. All other efforts having failed to subdue the fire, the second pilot, Sergeant J. A. Ward, announced his intention of going out on the wing to smother the fire with an engine covering. With a half-inch rope tied round him he climbed through the Astro hatch on to the wing and kicked holes in the fabric to secure some sort of foothold. “Gradually he got face downwards on to the wing, where he lay spread-eagled within a yard of the flames. Then he crawled forward, fighting his way inch by inch against the wall of wind till his own body partly covered the flaming patch. With the engine cover, which was soon torn from his grasp, then with his hands he beat out those flames.” Thus Sergeant Ward frustrated one enemy fighter, saved the aircraft, and won the Victoria Gross. Nobody could have worn this supreme honour more modestly, and the news that he was missing after a raid not many weeks later deeply affected many people in a year charged to the full with momentous events.

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It was a night-fighter that got Sergeant Ward's aircraft during a raid on Hamburg, according to one of his crew who landed safely by parachute and was taken prisoner. It was only seven months since James Allen Ward (he was always "Jimmy" to his friends in England though "Allen" to his family) left Wanganui for England, but it was ample time for him to write a page in New Zealand's fighting history that will never be forgotten. I remember him most vividly when he came to London on August 25th, with his commanding officer, Wing Commander Kay, to be one of the guests at a luncheon I had arranged in honour of Lord Nuffield. We went afterwards to see the Australian film, Forty Thousand Horsemen, commemorating daring deeds of the previous war—before Ward, who died at twenty-two, was born.

No. 75 Squadron kept up its attacks_on German centres of production and early in 1942 was equipped with more powerful Wellingtons. It took part in the first thousand-bomber raid on Cologne in May, the second against the Ruhr in June, and the third against Bremen in July. In between these massive raids it took part in many others and also in daylight attacks on Germany for the first time. One of the most important earlier daylight exploits of the squadron had been in the big attacks on the Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen in Brest on July 24, 1941. Another attack was made when the warships were fleeing up the Channel on February 12, 1942, but low cloud prevented it being pressed home.

Expeditions to Hamburg cost the squadron several aircratt in the autumn of 1942 when its attacks were maintained. The squadron converted to Stirlings and used them for the first time against Turin. Three successful raids on Berlin in March 1943 were made without loss. In August, Peenemunde, the flying bomb research centre, was successfully bombed and excellent photographs taken. From one Berlin raid in the same month Flight-Sergeant O. H. White (Christchurch) brought his heavily damaged aircraft home with only two of the crew left. Early in 1944 the squadron converted to Lancasters and in seven raids on Laon, Rouen, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Essex, and Friedrichshaven in the great pre-invasion offensive lost only one aircraft. On six of the first seven nights after the actual invasion of Normandy the squadron operated successfully and later attacked flying-bomb bases in the Pas dc Calais. It took a full share in the start of General Montgomery's final push, with Wing Commander C. Baigent, D.F.C. and Bar (Nelson), in command. In three weeks of April, 1945, more than 400 sorties were flown and 20,000 tons of bombs dropped, mainly in daylight. One attack preceded the 21st Army Group's capture of Wesel. Another, in Dresden, was intended to help the Russians, then seventy miles from the city.

New Zealand's first Spitfire squadron, No. 485, was formed in April, 1941, with Squadron Leader M. W. B. Knight (Dannevirke)

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as commanding officer. He opened the Squadron's account in June by shooting down a Junkers 88. E. P. Wells, whose career was to be meteoric, won the first D.F.C. for the squadron and soon made his personal total of enemy aircraft nine. In March, 1942, Wells, now commanding officer, led the squadron to engage the fighters screening the Gneisenau and Scharnhorst as they escaped from Brest and made for a safer anchorage. Four New Zealanders found themselves surrounded at one stage by some thirty Focke Wulf 1 go's but emerged without loss and with two more enemy aircraft on the squadron's scoreboard. The squadron was not so lucky when against odds of fifty to twelve it lost two Spitfires, in combat with Focke Wulfs. One of the pilots was picked up safely. In this action Wells, with Pilot Officer L. M. Ralph (Takapuna), was attacked by eight Focke Wulfs. They met every attack head-on and returned safely. Wells was promoted Wing Commander shortly afterwards, at the age of 25, and was succeeded as commanding officer by R. J. C. Grant, who had risen from the rank of sergeant pilot in about nine months. Escort duties and intruder patrols were the main task of the squadron. It operated four times over Dieppe when the Canadians' raid was made, and flew as escort for the convoy carrying the Allied forces for the momentous landing in North Africa. I saw something of the squadron at this period and felt for myself the inspiration given by Squadron Leader Grant, whose pride in his men was more than justified by their record. After completing 150 operations he was posted to Canada and later led a wing of Mustangs. He met his death when his engine failed during an operation —a grievous loss to New Zealand and the Empire.

In June 1943 the squadron was equipped with Spitfire IX B's and under Squadron Leader J. M. Checketts (Invercargill) raised its score of Germans from 41 to 65, of which eleven represented the leader's own score. In a ten seconds' action at 400 m.p.h. in August the squadron wiped out four Messerschmitts, Checketts accounting for three and being awarded the D.S.O. He was shot down early in September after exhausting all his ammunition in a conflict with fourteen Focke Wulfs, one of which he destroyed. He escaped from France within a few weeks.

On the morning of June 6, 1944, the squadron began its patrol of the invasion beaches and had a great view of the landings, but no opposition until at 3 p.m. they saw two Junkers 88's and destroyed them —the first enemy aircraft shot down over the bridge-head. By June 12th the squadron was refuelling at landing strips near the beaches and later it was the first New Zealand squadron to be based in France. In seven days the squadron shot down nine enemy aircraft and brought its total to 75.

No. 486 (New Zealand) Squadron flew Hurricanes when it was

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formed in March, 1942, and was engaged in night-fighting in association with Havocs. After converting to Typhoons it enjoyed considerable success against South Coast raiders, shooting down seven in one period of six days. In April, 1943, it came under the command of Squadron Leader D. J. Scott (Hokitika), D.F.C. and Bar, who had risen from Flight-Sergeant in nine months and was to go on to become Group Captain at 26, two years after being commissioned. He was as brilliant an organizer as he was a pilot, and I can remember the great impression his dispersal huts in their neat setting of lawns and flower-beds made on me when I visited the squadron at one of its busy periods. Sweeps over the Channel and Northern France were then its daily, and often its twice-daily, fare. Nearly fifty German ships were put out of action. By August Scott had won the D.5.0., and by September had become commander of 486's wing. He was awarded the Croix de Guerre for his work in commanding the wing in the Caen beach-head. He was succeeded as squadron leader by lan Waddy (Blenheim).

The squadron was soon afterwards equipped with Tempests and it inflicted much damage on German communications in the preinvasion period. After patrolling invasion beach-heads it was given the task of chasing flying-bombs, accounting for 241 before the Pas de Calais area was cleared of Germans. Then it began to operate on the Continent, playing a great part in the Allied advance. It gave constant relays of air support to the 21st Army Group's drive into Germany in March, 1945. Operating from a forward fighter field in Holland, with Squadron Leader K. G. Taylor-Cannon, D.F.C. (Alexandra) in command, it pulverized enemy transport, accounting for as many as 38 vehicles in one morning.

No. 487 New Zealand Squadron followed No. 75 in occupation of its East Anglian station. In its first attack, on December 6, 1942, on the Phillip radio works at Eindhoven it lost its first commanding officer, Wing Commander F. C. Seavill (Hamilton). The attack, by Venturas, at low level, was highly successful. In the sustained offensive of 1943 the squadron won congratulations for its attacks on Rotterdam and Dunkirk. Then followed a disastrous attack on the power station at Amsterdam when only one of eleven aircraft returned. Forty men were lost and two out of the four who came back were badly wounded.

It was not till nearly three years later that the full story was told with the announcement of the award of the Victoria Cross to the leader of the attack, Squadron Leader L. H. Trent, D.F.C., R.N.Z.A.F. of Nelson, who was taken prisoner.

“The operation,” the official citation stated, “was intended to encourage the Dutch workmen in their resistance to enemy pressure. The target was known to be heavily defended. The importance of

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bombing it, regardless of enemy fighters or anti-aircraft fire, was strongly impressed on the air crews taking part in the operation. Before taking off, Squadron Leader Trent told the deputy leader that he was going over the target, whatever happened. All went well until the eleven Venturas and their fighter escort were nearing the Dutch coast.”

Then the fighters were hotly engaged by enemy fighters and lost touch with the bombers. Other fighters detailed to meet the force over the target had arrived too early and were forced to return. One by one the Venturas were shot down by Messerschmitts which dived on them incessantly, until only two were left.

“Heedless of the murderous attacks and of the heavy anti-aircraft fire which was now encountered, Squadron Leader Trent completed an accurate bombing run and even shot down a Messerschmitt at point-blank range. On this, his twenty-fourth sortie, Squadron Leader Trent showed outstanding leadership. His cool unflinching courage and devotion to duty in the face of overwhelming odds rank with the finest examples of these virtues.”

After a few months the squadron converted to Mosquitos. It played a vital part in the memorable operation to breach the wall of Amiens prison to release French patriots under sentence of death. As the day of invasion approached the squadron was engaged in intruder work, and on the fateful night of June 5-6 it maintained a standing patrol over the roads round Caen, Lisieux and Saint-Lo, without, however, getting any targets. It got plenty in the next few weeks when it harassed enemy communications and lived up to the squadron's motto Kite matunga (True to the end).

No. 488 New Zealand Night-Fighter Squadron began with Beaufighters. It was stationed in Scotland but sent crews south every full-moon period. After converting to Mosquitos the squadron had many successes against enemy aircraft, shooting down twenty before the Normandy invasion, another nine in the following month, 24 more by mid-August, and a further nine by the end of the'year. In one period of nine nights twenty Germans were destroyed, Flight Lieutenant G. E. Jameson shooting down four in one night and winning the D.S.O.

No. 489 New Zealand Torpedo-bomber Squadron began to train in August, 1941, on Beauforts but transferred to Hampdens before beginning anti-submarine patrols in April, 1942. In July it was detailed to harry German shipping off Norway. Its first confirmed success was the sinking of the 5,000 ton ship Karpfanger and this was quickly followed by others. Converted to Beaufighters, its hunting-ground became the coast of Holland and contributed to the heavy pressure on the Germans which forced them to provide three flak-ships for|every merchantman. In June 1944, with Australian,

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Canadian and English squadrons, No. 489 attacked a convoy consisting of an E-boat depot ship, a cargo ship of 8,000 tons, and 12 escort vessels. Of the whole convoy only two escort vessels reached port. Up to that time No. 489 had attacked 248,000 tons of shipping and achieved results which paid eloquent tribute to its leaders.

Last of the New Zealand Squadrons to be formed was No. 490, flying Sunderlands of Coastal Command, in April, 1943. Most of its time was spent in West Africa and its record of hours in search of U-boats was remarkable.

These glimpses of the history of the New Zealand squadrons, which included personnel from other countries, scarcely begin to give the complete picture of New Zealand’s share in the air effort which contributed so much to the downfall of Germany and Japan. Alan W. Mitchell, in New Zealanders in the Air War (1945), regretted his inability in a volume of nearly 200 pages to cover the most important personalities. His book, however, illustrates vividly the variety of service in the air and on the ground performed by New Zealanders from the planning stage to the operational and from the testing of machines to their maintenance in all weathers and many climates.

Air Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham, famous head of the Tactical Air Force, though born in Queensland, rates himself as a New Zealander, as he is by upbringing, and the Dominion is naturally delighted to claim him. He was described by Philip Guedalla in Middle East 1940-42 (1944), as “a New Zealander of immense energy and rare powers of leadership, in whose sound belief the war of machines depended ultimately upon men.” He succeeded Air Vice-Marshal Collishaw in command of the Desert Air Force in August, 1941, and had at his disposal “a formidable array of modern aircraft with Hurricanes predominating and a wing of Tomahawks”. By December his pilots had practically blinded Rommel in the air and then played a vital part in the tank battle. General Freyberg thanked them for a timely and successful attack on an armoured column that threatened his force. Again in June, 1942, as the New Zealanders retreated to Egypt, the New Zealand commander sent this message;

"Thank God you didn't let the Huns stuka us, because we were an appalling target."

Coningham perfected collaboration with the ground forces, and the massive attacks of his light-bombers, fighter-bombers and fighters reduced the Axis forces to “nerve-shattered misery” and stopped the drive to Alexandria. Disaster was averted. Now Victory had to be fashioned. Nobody was better equipped by temperament and training to lead the air attack than Coningham. When the

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Germans broke in the final battle of Alamein, he issued these direc tions for the pursuit:

“There they go. The enemy ground forces have cracked on the eleventh day, and are starting to run. When this occurred previously, the German fighter force acted as rearguard and was most effective when we were rash or careless. With our air force we can pulverize the enemy, but it must be controlled power. I shall call on you for every effort by officers and airmen, and that includes cooks, postmen, orderlies, and the padre and M.O.’s. But pilots and air crews must rigidly conform to the tactical rules of their present exacting work, and, though working at an exhausting pace, they must not relax or show any fighting undiscipline. My orders for ground attack are to be given careful attention and obeyed. I want this job done efficiently and with a minimum wastage. Be calm and ruthless but respect the Red Cross. Avoid capture. Good luck.”

"This was a rousing send-off," commented Guedalla, "and all down the Desert road they meted out to German transport what the Luftwaffe had once inflicted on civilian traffic in the dust of 1940 down the crowded roads of France." To Tripoli and Tunis the pursuit went on. The technique perfected by Air Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder and Sir Arthur Coningham and the Army chiefs stood the Allied cause in good stead in Italy and again in the battles of France and Germany. Sir Arthur Coningham, who was Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Second Tactical Air Force, throughout the liberation campaign, was appointed Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief Flying Training Command in August, 1945.

One of the great figures of the Air War, Air Marshal Sir Keith Park, was born at Thames, New Zealand, in 1892. After leaving school he joined the staff of the Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand. On the outbreak of war in 1914 he became a gunner in the New Zealand Artillery and served at Gallipoli under Major (later Brigadier) N. S. Falla, who became managing director of the Union Steam Ship Company. After service in the Royal Artillery he was seconded to the Royal Flying Corps and served in France with No. 48 Squadron, which he later commanded.

In this war he early became a key figure as commander of No. 11 Group of Fighter command, which took a leading part in protecting the evacuation from Dunkirk and in the subsequent Battle of Britain. “My most lasting and most vivid impressions of that period,” he told Alan Mitchell, “were those enormous raids of four to five hundred enemy aircraft being plotted on No. n Group operations table. All were converging on our air-fields around London. I will never forget that nor the magnificent show the fighter-pilots put up. They met odds of four and five to one with great dash and bravery. I think the reason why we all kept up our high morale was

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because we had done so well at Dunkirk. We felt confident that we could beat the enemy over England if we kept on long enough, that we would smash his morale by sheer weight of casualties inflicted week after week. Another fact which kept us going was that we knew we had to win that battle or bust. We knew very well from our reconnaissance that the enemy had massed barges along the coasts of Holland, Belgium, and France, and that if he could land in England there would be nothing to prevent his Panzers from overrunning Kent in very quick time. The Hun lost the Battle of Britain when he switched from bombing my fighter-stations to bombing London on September 7th.” Speaking at Kandy on the fifth anniversary of the Battle of Britain Sir Keith recalled an afternoon at Uxbridge when the Prime Minister asked him how many squadrons he had in reserve, and he had to reply; “None.”

Sir Keith was given an almost tougher task in July, 1942, when he arrived in Malta, then terribly battered, with the job of turning it into a base for attack against Rommel’s communications, as he faced the Eighth Army sixty miles from Alexandria. Guedalla wrote:

“If Malta, where Park succeeded Lloyd in July, could maintain its striking-power, the island’s contribution to the war in Africa might be decisive. For where Nelson had once seen ‘a most important outwork to India’, Malta was now the foremost bastion of Egypt.”

Reinforced by Spitfires the defences of Malta accounted for 95 Axis aircraft in July, but its supplies were maintained by the Navy only at the cost of heavy sacrifices. Of fourteen merchantmen who set out in August with an escort of two battleships, 4 aircraft carriers, 7 cruisers, and 24 destroyers, only four arrived, followed by the famous tanker Ohio towed in by destroyers. It was three long months before another convoy arrived. In October the Germans made a great effort to subdue “the limestone aircraft carrier” but lost 255 aircraft. By November Malta was again provisioned and now the home of Wellington bombers as well as a liberal number of Beaufighters, Beauforts and Fleet Air Arm machines. A German torpedo-bomber force in Sardinia was destroyed before it could interfere with the Allied landings in North Africa. When the Germans landed aircraft at Tunis Sir Keith harried them relentlessly. He directed from Malta the fighter and tactical air operations for the invasion of Sicily. When the war air effort of the R.A.F. was switched against Japan he became Commander-in-chief in South-East Asia Command where, in his own picturesque phrase, “the army of the Jungle advanced on the wings of the Air Force”.

Many New Zealanders serving with the R.A.F. squadrons had exciting experiences when towing gliders and dropping paratroopers

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and supplies not only to the invasion armies but to the men of the Resistance movements in France, Belgium, and Holland.

New Zealand's top-scoring fighter ace of the war was Wing Commander Colin Falkland Gray, D.5.0., D.F.C, who received a second bar to the D.F.C. in November, 1943, when his toll of enemy aircraft was 27. He had shot down 16 of these in the Battle of Britain. On July 25, 1940, 40 Junkers 87's and 50 Messerschmitts 109's were sighted and attacked by Gray's section of five Spitfires. He returned safely and soon began to score rapidly. Between August 24th and September 3rd he shot down eight Germans, flying as many as five sorties in a day. In Tunisia in January, 1942, he shot down Von Muller, the German ace who was credited by the Germans with 114 victims.

Wing Commander Alan Deere, D.5.0., D.F.C. and Bar, also shot down 16 Germans in the Battle of Britain. He had been shot down himself at Dunkirk and escaped in a destroyer which ran the gauntlet of intensive bombing. He had other narrow escapes but kept flying and played a big part not only in the defensive period but in the preparations for attack on the continent.

The Empire's first ace and New Zealand's second highest scorer of the war was Flying Officer E. J. Kain, D.F.C., of whom Air Commodore L. E. 0. Charlton wrote, in Deeds that held the Empire: By Air:

“He was the first pilot in France to shoot down an enemy aircraft, and this he did soon after the commencement of hostilities by bagging a Dornier high up over the Siegfried Line. The following week he got another of similar type, a unique feat in that the combat resulting in the enemy’s defeat took place at the record height of 27,000 feet.”

His score reached 25 before he was posted to the Home Establishment for instructional duty. On a farewell flight the wing-tip of his Hurricane touched the ground and he was killed.

Wing Commander W. V. Crawford-Compton, D.S.O. and Bar, D.F.C. and Bar, who joined the R.A.F. as a ground mechanic when he landed in England two days after war was declared, led the first French Fighter Squadrons of 2nd T.A.F., R.A.F., when they touched down on their native soil after D-Day. He flew also with Norwegian, Dutch, and Polish Pilots, had Belgian and Czech squadrons under his command, and flew more than 250 missions escorting American bomber formations. He was awarded the French Croix de Guerre with palm, United States Silver Star, and Czech and French Flying Bars. In four operational tours he destroyed at least twenty enemy aircraft.

Among the pilots who flew Spitfires into Malta on March 7, 1942, from the flight-deck of an aircraft carrier was R. B. Hesselyn, a sergeant pilot from Invercargill and Christchurch, who was to write

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his name high among New Zealand aces. By May Bth, he had been awarded the D.F.M. for shooting down six enemy aircraft. Between May 10th and 14th, he shot down five more and received the only bar to the D.F.M. awarded to a New Zealander in the war. He got one more enemy aircraft on Malta, and increased his total to 21J in operations from Britain before being shot down and made prisoner. By then he was Flight Lieutenant and had won the D.F.C. In Spitfires over Malta, of which he was part-author, the vital battles over the island are described in detail and the names of a number of other New Zealanders who took part are given. Hesselyn received the M.B.E. for his services while a prisoner of war.

When Russia was attacked by Germany, and the R.A.F. sent a wing to introduce Hurricanes to the Red Air Force, it was a New Zealander, Wing Commander H. N. G. Isherwood, who was selected to lead it. So well did he and his men perform their task under considerable difficulties that the Presidium of the Soviet Union awarded him and three of his officers the Order of Lenin for "exemplary fulfilment of duty and valour shown". I was at the Soviet Embassy in London when the orders were presented by the Ambassador, Mr. Maisky, at a ceremony in March, 1942, followed by a party which brightened considerably a grim period of the war.

Many New Zealanders served in escort and anti-submarine duties which played a vital part in the Battle of the Atlantic. One of them, Flying Officer Lloyd Allan Trigg, D.F.C, after 46 operational sorties went out in August 1943 as Captain and pilot of a Liberator—his first experience in that type of aircraft. A surfaced U-boat was sighted and he immediately prepared to attack. The Liberator was hit by anti-aircraft fire and burst into flames. Flying Officer Trigg could have broken ofF the attack and increased his chances of survival, but he maintained his course and executed a masterly attack. The U-boat was sunk and some of her crew were picked up in a rubber dinghy that had broken loose from the Liberator. Their account of the action led to the award of the Victoria Cross to Flying Officer Trigg, who perished with his crew, for "grim determination and high courage".

Among many New Zealanders who played a prominent part in Coastal Command's widespread activities were Wing Commanders M. A. Ensor, D.S.O. and Bar, D.F.C. and bar, E. H. McHardy, D.5.0., D.F.C. and Bar, E. D. Sise, D.S.O. and Bar, D.F.C. and Bar, and E. W. Tacon, D.5.0., D.F.C. and Bar, A.F.C. Wing Commander Tacon was captured after many successful anti-shipping strikes with Beaufighters.

Group Captain A. E. Clouston, after a distinguished civil flying record, became a test pilot for the Air Ministry, flew 183 types, and not only tested the early Spitfires, but provided valuable data for balloon barrage construction by apparently suicidal experiments

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flying into wire. When the war broke out he was recalled to the R.A.F. and continued his test pilot work in charge of an experimental unit developing radar devices for night-fighters. Transferring to Coastal Command, Clouston commanded a Liberator squadron and made several attacks on submarines, winning the D.F.C. and later the D.S.O.

One of New Zealander’s most distinguished bomber pilots was Wing Commander J. Fraser Barron, D.S.O. and Bar, D.F.C., D.F.M. He flew one of the first four-engined bombers to attack Genoa and arrived back, after being hit by flak, with petrol sufficient only to land on the first airfield on the south coast. In one period of 48 hours he and his crew attacked Essen three times. He was in operation after operation including the attack on Leipzig when 79 bombers were lost. On his 79th sortie, in May 19, 1944, when attacking marshalling yards at Le Mans, his bomber apparently collided with another and he and his crew were killed.

The Virtuti Militari, Poland’s highest military decoration, was awarded to Flight Lieutenant S. G. Gulliford, who landed (two miles from a Luftwaffe camp) in a paddock near Tarnow, where he took on board leaders of the Polish underground movement and plans of the German flying bombs V-i and V-2 captured by members of the movement.

To give anything like a complete picture of New Zealand’s contribution to the air war in Europe and North Africa is unfortunately impossible. A film, Maximum Effort, was made to illustrate the activities of No. 75 Squadron, and in New Zealand Was There an attempt was made in a twenty-minute documentary to cover New Zealand activities in the air war in Europe. But even if complete records had been available and special correspondents and cameramen assigned to the R.N.Z.A.F.—which they were not—it is doubtful if justice could be done to so varied an effort in which so many men contributed in so many different ways. Of some 10,000 air crew personnel who came to Britain from New Zealand, more than 2,000 were killed. It was a heavy price and, paid as it was largely in the grim days when Britain’s only means of defence was to attack German centres of production, it left memories of sacrifice which time will not efface. These young men were so obviously giving their lives that others might live that for many long and bitter months, when casualty lists were running to columns, I for one could scarcely move freely among them. They seemed a race apart, free though they were from any pretentious estimates of their own importance. They could not escape, however, the reflection of their destiny as avengers of a world tortured by Hitlerism.

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CHAPTER XXIV

WITH THE NAVY IN EUROPE

New Zealand can scarcely fail to be sea-minded. Its coast-line is deeply indented and there is a lighthouse for every 3,000 inhabitants. Thousands of small craft are in regular use and it is said that the proportion of men and women who can sail or row a boat is the highest in the world. The men who sailed the small craft enlisted in the Navy in large numbers, the total eventually reaching 9,000, 3,000 of whom joined the Royal Navy in Britain. In 1941, the designation of the New Zealand Naval Forces was changed to "Royal New Zealand Navy". At this time, besides the cruisers Achilles and Leander, the Dominion had the armed merchant cruiser Monowai, and a mobile fast flotilla of minesweepers and patrol vessels. Three specially-designed mine-sweeping and antisubmarine vessels, Kiwi, Moa and Tui, were being built in Britain and nine steel mine-sweepers in New Zealand.

H.M.N.Z.S. Achilles figured in the first great naval action of the war when, with Exeter and Ajar, she engaged the Graf Spee in the River Plate encounter which ended in the scuttling of the pocketbattleship. Captain Parry reported:

“Very few people in the ship had been under fire before, yet every one carried out his duty with complete unconcern.”

In her first war cruise, Achilles travelled 52,323 miles, 168 days at sea, 10 in harbour.

The success of New Zealanders in gaining Royal Navy commissions was phenomenal—-about 95 per cent of those entered at H.M.S. King Alfred. Many New Zealanders took part in the Battle of the Channel in the critical days of anticipated invasion. Lieut. J. Mason, D.S.C., made eight trips across the Channel at the time of the evacuation of Dunkirk in the 73-ton yacht Chico. John Masefield, in his book The Nine Days' Wonder, thanks him for the information he gave about the Dunkirk episode.

Lieut. H. J. George, R.N.V.R. (Auckland), was Senior Flotilla Officer during the raid on the Lofoten Islands and brought back some good pictures which I was able to publish in The New Zealand News. In the destroyer Mashona, which took part in the fight with the Bismarck, New Zealand was represented by Ordinary Seaman Dudley F. Davis (Invercargill), who was picked up from the water after afbombing attack had sunk the destroyer.

Early in 1941 it was decided to allocate the light cruiser H.M.S. Neptune for service on the New Zealand station, the ship to be manned

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progressively by New Zealand ratings. Exigencies of war prevented this, but when the Neptune joined a cruiser squadron two of her officers and 148 ratings were New Zealanders—more than half her complement. Neptune took part in three bombardments of enemy positions at Bardia before the successful attack by New Zealand troops on November 22, 1941. Less than a month later Neptune was sunk in a minefield with the loss of all but one of her company, who was captured.

An article in Empire Digest (October, 1945) said:

“The Vosper motor torpedo boats, seventy feet of plywood and power, were much to the liking of New Zealanders. A North Canterbury farmer boy reported after a fast and furious action —almost within gun-range of Venice—‘Five engaged, five sunk’. His experience had ranged from Murmansk to Pantellaria and he was twice on vessels sunk by air action. Strangest of all was the grim little fleet known as the ‘Kiwi’ flotilla which dared the seas for the convoy to reach Tripoli. The first and second in command were New Zealanders, and General Montgomery, inspecting them after the job was done, said: ‘You know I am very fond of the Kiwis; they have been the backbone of this campaign’.”

Lieut. W. A. E. Leonard, R.N.Z.N.V.R. (Auckland), was commodore of the fleet of small ships, officially described as motor fishing vessels, which completed an adventurous voyage of 2,000 miles from Great Britain to the Mediterranean. These diesel-engined 60-footers were said to be the only vessels in the Royal Navy still to use sails for steadying purposes. Many New Zealanders were in ships which took part in the final battle with the Scharnhorst.

The R.N.Z.N.V.R. was well represented in the invasion of Sicily. After taking their landing craft from the United States to the Mediterranean they landed at various points on the coast and emerged unscathed. Lieut. K. Chute received the D.S.C. for his work in this connection. Many New Zealanders took part in D-Day operations in tank-landing and other craft —the "Channel Ferry Service" as it was christened.

Lieut. G. J. Mac Donald (Wellington) promoted to Lieut.Commander at 23, achieved an astonishing record in actions with the enemy in light coastal craft, winning the D.S.C. with two Bars and finally the D.S.O. He was regarded as an ideal M.T.B. Captain, daring and resolute in action, and won the unofficial title “New Zealand Coastal Forces Ace”.

The mark he made is well seen by the many references to him in The Battle of the Narrow Seas (1945) by Lieut.-Commander Peter Scott, M.8.E., D.S.C. and Bar, R.N.V.R., which so brilliantly brings to life the story behind the matter-of fact communiques about the work of the coastal forces. Scott’s first introduction to M.T.B. work was in March, 1942, when he went out to help in the

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rescue of a boat in trouble with the escort of a German tanker which had been torpedoed, and had his first meeting with Mac Donald, “afterwards to become one of the great M.T.B. leaders of the war”:

“Mac Donald, the First Lieutenant, an imperturbable New Zealander, had placed the wounded, including the Commanding Officer, in the Carley Raft, while he and the able-bodied members of the crew had abandoned ship by holding on to the splinter mattresses, which had been cut adrift to act as additional rafts. For some time they had lain off, but then the boat did not blow up and the fire seemed if anything to be abating. So Mac Donald, who was a great swimmer, swam back and climbed aboard, and finally got some more of the crew back, and began to tackle the fire. It was at this stage that we had put in our most welcome appearance.”

Mac Donald received the D.S.C. for that night's work.

On May 13, 1943, four M.T.B.'s under Lieut. P. G. C. Dickens were patrolling on the enemy convoy route off the coast of Holland. One was commanded by Mac Donald, described by Dickens as "a stout-hearted New Zealander and veteran of about a dozen actions who has an uncanny knack of always doing the right thing". They encountered a force of "M" Class mine-sweepers surrounded by R-boats. "In a moment everything happened at once. The enemy challenged Mac Donald, who was separated according to plan, and he, while flashing a phoney letter back which confused the Hun, let drive with all his guns at the nearest R-boat. This was a splendid move, as the enemy fire, spluttering into life from all along the line, was chiefly directed at him, leaving Hartley and I more or less free to do our torpedo attack in peace." Two enemy ships were sunk, and the British force returned with superficial damage to three of the four boats and one man slightly wounded.

Mac Donald became Senior Officer of the 21st M.T.B. Flotilla and, as Scott says, carried on the traditions laid down by Dickens on the East Coast, leading his flotilla into action time after time and taking his full share in frustrating the human torpedoes, explosive motor-boats and new midget submarines which figured in the last convulsive effort of the German Navy.

He was among the Senior Officers who, after the surrender of the German forces, met the German Admiral Brauning off the Thames estuary when he brought the charts of the enemy’s minefields to the Commander-in-chief, Nore. In 464 battles in home waters the M.T.B.’s had sunk or probably sunk 269 enemy vessels for the loss of 76. In this signal achievement New Zealand, thanks to Mac Donald and other officers, was well represented.

New Zealanders enlisted in the Fleet Air Arm in large numbers and bore their full share of the burden of maintaining naval air

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power in machines which at first were scarcely fast enough for their purpose. On July 15, 1940, the first draft of naval airmen, second class, left New Zealand under what was known as Scheme F. for service in the Royal Navy. In three years 700 men came to England and 480 had received commissions in the Air Branch, R.N.Z.N.V.R., while 117 were still undergoing training for commissioned rank. Only 98 of the 700 failed to qualify as pilot or observer and of these 53 were transferred to general naval service, a good proportion subsequently gaining commissions in the executive branch of the R.N.Z.N.V.R.

Service in the Fleet Air Arm as an integral part of the Royal Navy was world-wide, and New Zealanders operated aircraft over many seas. They had done duty over the Arctic, Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, over the North Sea, the English channel, and the Mediterranean, as well as the shores of North Africa, East Africa, India and Ceylon.

By far the greater number of them were the fighter pilots serving aircraft-carriers or from land bases. Others again operated torpedobombers and mine-laying aircraft, on anti-submarine duties, and in striking forces and reconnaissance patrols. There was service, too, in amphibious aircraft, mainly cruiser-based and employed on reconnaissance and screening duties as well as spotting gunfire from capital ships and cruisers. Aircraft of the Fleet Air Arm co-operated with the North African armies in the operations against Pantellaria, Sicily, Sardinia, and Italy.

Describing the four great Fleet Air Arm attacks on the Tirpitz, Renter's correspondent wrote:

“Hero of the attacks, which were spread over seven days, was Lieut.-Commander H. Richardson, R.N.Z.N.V.R., of Gisborne, New Zealand. Three times he led his squadron of Hellcat fighters in daring low-level sweeps over the battleship, diving down through intense flak to reach his target. Major V. B. G. Cheesman, R.M., whose fighters accompanied Richardson’s squadron, said: ‘His courage and determination were beyond all praise. The way that chap pressed home his attack in all that awful flak was staggering’.

“In the second strike, after attacking the Tirpitz , Richardson went on to strafe German wireless stations. When his ammunition gave out, he lowered his arrestor hook—used for landing on carriers —dived down almost to zero feet, and tore away the aerials of one station.

“The third strike was his last. Again he led his Hellcats through a hail of flak from the shore and from the snow-clad mountains around to sweep in at a fantastically low level over the Tirpitz. This time a shell hit his plane and disintegrated it. Angered at the loss of their leader, the remainder of his squadron—-mainly Dutchman—roared in to pound the Tirpitz, and then broke away to use up their ammunition on shooting up whatever came into their sights.”

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When Southern France was invaded, New Zealand naval pilots participated. Lieuts. (A) C. St. George (Auckland) and R. J. Harrison, D.S.C. (Christchurch), flew with the carrier-borne Fleet Air Arm Squadrons which did much valuable work in bombing, spotting, and shooting-up enemy transport, railways, bridges and coastal forts. Lieut. Harrison had won the D.S.C. for his part in one of the attacks on the Tirpitz . The Admiralty Press Division described one episode in the Southern France landing in which Sub-Lieutenants (A) V. H. Martin (Timaru) and N. Perrett (Wellington) were among the pilots who worked from dawn to dusk in support of the troops:

"At first the weather was unfavourable, with thick cloud over the mainland, but later in the day it cleared and some pilots were able to find targets, while others reported German withdrawals from the coastal area. Ships and guns directed by the Fleet Air Arm Reconnaissance aircraft poured salvoes of shells among the retreating Germans, smashing their transport, stampeding their horses and inflicting heavy losses upon enemy troops. The two New Zealanders flew with a dusk fighter-bomber patrol. They bombed a gun emplacement, all the bombs falling in the target area. Then they went on a 'strafing' expedition from Cannes to West Toulon. They shot up railway trucks, signal boxes, cars, barges and everything they could find. Near Toulon they encountered heavy flak, their first that day. Three aircraft were damaged, but all returned safely to the parent ship.

"The carrier group cruised off the coast all day and was actually within sight of the shore when bombarding cruisers, with guns flashing methodically, could be seen through haze. Yet no 'enemy alarms' were sounded at all during the day and the operations were a spectacular success."

In the invasion of Normandy New Zealand naval pilots again figured prominently. Lieut. (A) H. Lang (Palmerston North) was shot down while spotting for H.M.S. War spite, in which the senior radar officer was another New Zealander, Lieut. G. E. Bisson. Lang was attacked by three Focke-Wulfes, and got one before he himself had to crash-land and escape back to England.

New Zealanders flying Wildcat fighter-bombers did good work strafing German motor transport convoys and railway sidings. When the full story of New Zealanders in the Fleet Air Arm is written it will be seen that they added one of the finest pages to the Dominion's story.

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CHAPTER XXV

WAR AGAINST JAPAN

(i) Working with the United States

Vice-admiral robert l. ghormley, first Commander-in-chief of the South Pacific Area, established his headquarters in Auckland on May 21, 1942. A large force of United States Marines disembarked at Wellington for final training for the assault on the Solomons carried out with so much heroism a few months later. On June 12th, another large force of American troops arrived at Auckland. The presence of so many men threw considerable strain on a country which had at the same time to support large forces overseas, but the double burden was shouldered and superhuman efforts by members of the Government, military and civilian administrators and workers turned the country, which in 1939 had a mere 3,000 men spread over the three forces, into a base for offensive action.

New Zealand had accepted the creation of a separate South Pacific command with some reluctance, as it meant separation from Australia, included in General Douglas MacArthur’s South-West Pacific Command, but there was a distinction between the two commands, which j'ustified separation.

In Australia large land forces were involved in defence against invasion, whereas the South Pacific Command was essentially naval.

“New Zealand,” writes Walter Nash, “after having fully and frankly stated her views, accepted the arrangements made and pledged her utmost co-operation and support in carrying them out. On October 26th, it was officially announced by the New Zealand Minister of Defence that the Dominions’ armed forces in the Pacific Area were under American command which would be exercised through the existing New Zealand Chiefs of Staff, whose direct responsibilities for the defence of New Zealand remained unchanged. The agreement that had been reached between the two governments concerned also provided that the movement of New Zealand forces of all three services out of the Dominion for any new commitment would require the approval of the New Zealand Government before any measure was given effect.”

Admiral William F. Halsey succeeded Admiral Ghormley in October. The entire building potential of New Zealand was concentrated on the establishment and defence requirements of the American forces. Fortunately the Public Works Department, under its energetic Minister, Robert Semple, and able departmental heads, had been largely mechanized before the war and was able to tackle jobs which would have been far beyond its scope only a few years before. Construction by the Department between September, 1939,

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and March, 1945, cost £45,046,508, of which the Army and the Air Force received about 14 millions each, and the United States forces 6 millions. The Housing Construction department spent another million on buildings for the United States forces.

One of the first defence requirements was the construction of military camps for the training of troops. New camps covered 17,104 acres; new metalled and sealed roads measured 290 miles; 159 miles offences were erected, 300 miles of water piping and 166 miles of sewerage piping were laid. Fortifications, oil tanks, magazines, observation posts, air-raid shelters, operational centres and military hospitals were also built. A hospital at Cornwall Park, Auckland, to accommodate 1,500 patients was completed in every detail in 3! months. It comprised 122 buildings, covering 8 acres. At Hobson Park a thousand-patient hospital covering 6 acres and containing 68 buildings was built in one month.

Altogether military hospitals with a floor area of 1,863,285 square feet and a total bed capacity of 9,400 were erected—--8,000 beds for U.S. Forces and 1,400 for New Zealand Forces. The total number of defence buildings erected was 33,060 (4,764 on aerodromes), covering 20,380,226 square feet. In addition 28,885 prefabricated huts and warehouses totalling 3,506,240 square feet were manufactured for use in New Zealand and overseas. The timber used for defence buildings, 382,147,000 super feet, would have been sufficient to build 37,241 houses.

Aerodrome construction by the Government had begun on a large scale in 1937, and by 1939 much had been done to meet the immediate requirements of the R.N.Z.A.F. By 1945 there were 96 aerodromes covering approximately 11,000 acres and six airstrips in the Pacific totalling 700 acres. The total length of runways on the 96 New Zealand aerodromes was 175 miles. There were 65 hangars. The provision of accommodation for New Zealand and Allied forces involved a construction programme equivalent to the building of 17 new towns, complete with all services, each with a population of some 10,000.

£,„£.— ——~~ ~- —, . For the operation of Lend-Lease it is logical to cite the words of the Minister of Finance in his own book:

“Under the Lend-Lease Act of March 11, 1941, the President of the United States was authorized to make supplies of war and essential materials available to the United Nations and to receive in return similar aid from other countries. The system of Lend-Lease and reverse Lend-Lease that has since been evolved has, without question, done more to weld together those nations in the anti-Axis camp, and to promote the most effective possible use and disposition of combined resources in the interests of the continued war effort, than any single development since the war commenced. New Zealand, in common with the other nations of the British Commonwealth, began early to

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benefit under the Lend-Lease arrangement by securing equipment and materials urgently needed for repairing the major deficiencies in the defence preparations. From the United States there came finished war materials, military equipment, munitions, naval stores, as well as raw materials for war industries and for the maintenance of essential civilian services. This flow of Lend-Lease goods to New Zealand commenced about the middle of 1941, and although the volume in the earlier months was relatively small, it constituted an addition of the utmost importance to the meagre and altogether inadequate war supplies available to the Dominion at that time. Throughout 1941 this traffic was almost wholly one way, but early in 1944, as American forces moved down into the South Pacific, Lend-Lease assistance in the reverse direction gradually came into being, growing rapidly in volume and in value as the months passed. These arrangements for reciprocal aid between the United States and New Zealand were confirmed by an exchange of notes at the State Department, Washington, on September 3, 1942, when similar agreements were conducted at the same time between the United States and the nations who had been receiving and returning Lend-Lease assistance. The object of these reciprocal-aid agreements was to ensure that supplies were drawn from the countries best able to furnish them with a minimum wastage of shipping space and a maximum pooling of all United Nations resources for the most effective use against the enemy.”

At this time in 1942, as Edward R. Stettinius, jr., stated in a review of reciprocal Lend-Lease, New Zealand had provided for the American forces 1,500,000 dozen eggs, 2,000,000 lbs. of butter, 3,000,000 lbs. of sugar, and 16,000,000 lbs. of beef. Within twelve months she was supplying butter at the rate of 12,000,000 lbs. a year, and meat at the rate of 100,000,000 lbs. Some 48,000,000 lbs. of potatoes were required and other vegetables in vast quantities were treated at the canning and dehydrating plants. Fruit, biscuits, and soap were other goods required in quantity. Shortage of supply of many lines in the shops was inevitable and some were unobtainable for long periods.

(2) Military operations

On December 7, 1941, when news arrived of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, New Zealand was not taken unawares. Though the main strength of her war effort had been directed towards Europe, the defence authorities had decided early in the war that the best insurance against possible Japanese attack was to strengthen the defences of strategic islands far from the Dominion. Accordingly on October 28, 1940, the Rangatira left Wellington with 949 officers and men who disembarked at Suva on November Ist. By November 30th, the whole Bth Brigade Group, totalling 3,053 all ranks, had arrived. They were to garrison Viti Levu, the largest of the 250

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islands in the Fiji group. Maps captured later at Guadalcanal revealed that the Japanese had planned to attack Fiji. The landing points they selected on Viti Levu had all been anticipated by the defence scheme which involved an immense amount of work in a climate the New Zealanders found trying. Training required hours of route marching, "arduous tactical exercises over rolling country covered with thick shrubs and tall native grasses, and struggling along the foreshore negotiating stinking muddy mangrove swamps."

Naval representatives and a small air force equipped with de Havillands supplemented the Bth Brigade Group and protection was given to incoming and outgoing vessels. A devastating hurricane struck Fiji in February, 194.1. Camp buildings were wrecked and convoys marooned.

A scheme to send wireless operators with two soldier companions each to establish coast-watching stations in many islands of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands required elaborate organization. Ten of the 22 men who set off on this lonely assignment met their death at the hands of the Japanese.

Tunnelling was carried out on a large scale to store 150,000 gallons of reserve petrol for the R.N.Z.A.F. and house an underground hospital, provided with thoughtful anticipation of what warfare by the Japanese would be like.

In Pacific Story, a survey published by the N.Z. Army Board, we read:

“History may record that the troops of the Bth Brigade Group were the only ones occupying their defensive posts in the Pacific when war was declared with Japan. As part of the training programme, a general alarm had been given at 11 p.m. on December 7th, and all defence positions occupied in readiness to repel an imaginary attack from the sea. While broadcasters dramatically announced the bombing and destruction of American warships and aircraft in the Hawaiian fortress of Pearl Harbour, New Zealand troops were breakfasting from bully beef, biscuits, and smoking tea in their trenches facing the Suva waterfront. They remained there till December 10th. The following day our coastwatchers in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands reported the presence of Japanese air and surface craft in those waters. On December 9th, Ocean and Nauru Islands were bombed by enemy aircraft.

“December, from then on, was a period of renewed activity, beginning with the immediate arrest of all Japanese residents of Fiji and Tonga and their despatch to New Zealand for internment. Five Hudson aircraft had arrived from New Zealand and were stationed at Nandi airfield. Many others came later, to build up the strength of the R.N.Z.A.F. there. . . . Nine ships loaded with American troops and supplies called at Suva on their way to the Philippines and Malaya. Reinforcements arriving from New Zealand brought existing units of the Brigade Group up to full strength and staffs were increased. By the end of December it

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was known that 'B' Force would become a Division and the Pacific, despite its name, a vast setting for a drama of" death and destruction."

Brigadier W. H. Cunningham, chief of the B Force, was gazetted Major-General and G.O.C. Fiji Forces, the command of the Bth Brigade passing to Brigadier L. G. Goss until the arrival of Brigadier R. A. Row. Brigadier L. Potter commanded the newly formed 14th Brigade which had to defend about 1,000 square miles. Three new battalions and artillery and anti-aircraft batteries arrived. Another battalion was added to the Fijian Defence Force, which continued its close co-operation with the New Zealanders. Wing Commander G. N. Roberts was appointed to command the augmented R.N.Z.A. F. Small naval craft from New Zealand kept constant watch. The 47th American Pursuit Squadron, flying Aerocobras, arrived. An enemy submarine attacked H.M.S. Monowai not far from Suva but failed to damage her.

Major-General O. H. Mead relieved Major-General Cunningham on March 9th. Watchers’ reports indicated Japanese readiness to move south from their bases in the Marshalls and the Ardines. Guerrilla troops were recruited from native villages and put under the command of New Zealanders.

These troops developed into the Fijian commandos who won fame as jungle fighters in the Solomons. Combined exercises of all troops in the Suva area with New Zealand and United States aircraft operating in realistic dive-bombing and attacks startled the Indian and Fijian population. Leave was cancelled when the Japanese moved into the Gilbert Islands, but the menace did not materialize —no doubt because the Japanese had good information of the strengthened defences. Between May 4th, and Bth, the battle of the Coral Sea —fought entirely by aircraft—turned back the Japanese tide, but by June landings were being made in Guadalcanal in the Solomons. It was just at this time that the 2nd New Zealand Division was being rushed from Syria to check Rommel’s advance on Alexandria.

On May 30th the first American forces landed in New Zealand, while a few days later advance elements of the 37th American Division reached Fiji, foreshadowing the departure home of the New Zealanders. Operational command was handed over to the American General Beightler on July 18th.

The New Zealand Third Division, now under Major-General H. E. Barrowclough, who had distinguished himself in the heavy fighting at Sidi Rezegh and in the campaign in Greece, was given the role of Army reserve in New Zealand, ready to operate anywhere should the Japanese land. In October it occupied an immense triangle in the Waikato, with Divisional Headquarters at Claudelands racecourse. The 36th Battalion was detached temporarily for

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service on Norfolk Island—midway between New Caledonia and New Zealand—and the 34th Battalion went to Tonga to co-operate with American troops. For divisional exercises General Barrowclough staged "the Battle of the Kaimai Ranges", based on the situation in New Guinea. It was the nearest approach to real warfare New Zealand had seen since the Maori Wars and the valuable lessons it taught stood the Division in good stead later.

The Division began to move in November to New Caledonia, its base for operations in the Solomons. General Barrowclough and his Senior Staff officers arrived on November 7th by air. The Division was distributed over a large part of the island and was augmented by a third brigade under Brigadier Goss. New Zealanders, for the first time in their history, were now under the command of Americans, the official account states. They were paid in dollars, ate United States food for the most part, and, as time went on, wore American Army clothing. Strenuous training and ordeal by mosquito made the Division's lot by no means easy, though there was provision for recreation and fruit was at first plentiful. A total strength of 17,800 was reached and the first W.A.A.C.'s arrived.

After jungle training the Division began on amphibious operations. Combat teams learned to embark to and from selected beaches.

“Each soldier carried one-half of a small ‘pup’ tent, the idea being that once ashore he joined up with a companion and between them they erected a protection against tropical rain. A mosquito-net was first priority. Each man carried jungle rations —usually three small cardboard boxes sealed against moisture and each containing a compact meal made up of a beverage in powder form, tinned meat or cheese, biscuits, concentrated sweets and cigarettes. He might carry up to three days’ supply of these rations. He wore his jungle suit, plain green or spotted, and jungle boots. He had his tin hat, his gas mask, and his mess tin. He carried extra clothing and boots because the climate is such that he could never remain dry for long; if it did not rain he was soon soaked in sweat. His rifle and ammunition, full water-bottle and perhaps some small shovel or special item of equipment left him with little desire to ask for more.”

Advanced amphibious training was completed at Vila, in the New Hebrides, and as August drew to a close the Division set out for Guadalcanal. “Those long, long months of training and garrison duty were over, and the men in the stifling, blacked-out transports were glad of it. All the trials and discomforts of the jungle lay ahead in heat which was already thrown back from the glassy sea as convoys steamed north. No force was ever more suitably trained to meet them.”

The 14th Brigade disembarked at Guadalcanal on August 27, 1943, and the Bth Brigade on September 14th. Some 3,700 troops of the 14th under Brigadier L. Potter arrived off Vella Lavella on September 18th. The island is clothed with dense jungle from the

i7i

water edge to mountain crests, and this type of country is perhaps the worst of all in which to be forced to wage war. Visibility is restricted to a few yards; the earth is never dry; noise, when night falls, is incredible. The jungle seethes with insect life.

“Every creeping and crawling thing,” the official account of the New Zealand expedition states, “finds a home there, from crabs, millepedes, and myriads of ants of various sizes and colours to bright green, blue and brown lizards, including one fellow some feet in length, rather like a prehistoric dragon in miniature. By day brilliant butterflies with inches of wing-spread hover among the trees like large snippets of coloured paper; spiders, swinging their strong webs among the undergrowth, are almost as brightly decorated. At night fireflies flicker like tiny street lamps in the velvet gloom, and the phosphorescent light from chips of one particular tree is so strong that a newspaper may be read in its glow. To this exotic land thunderstorms of great violence bring frequent torrents of rain, adding to the discomfort and depression which are born of a feeling of imprisonment under a canopy of leafy growth. In the plantation areas, of course, there is more freedom and space, though fallen nuts have taken root and grown in thickets to a height of several feet during the war years. That was the setting for the 14th Brigade’s first action and, with few exceptions, a background for all jungle action in the Solomons.

“At dawn on September 18th, the landing craft lay off the beaches, with Jap-held Kolombangara, looking rather like a larger and bluer edition of Rangitoto, behind them across the narrow channel. High overhead an umbrella of fighters, many of them flown by New Zealand airmen, buzzed comfortingly in the clear morning sunshine as the craft came in.”

By the time attacking Japanese planes arrived disembarkation was completed. General Barrowclough took over command of the island and its defences as “Commanding General Northern Landing Force”. He, in turn, was under command of the American 14th Corps, commanded by General Griswold, on New Georgia. Brigadier Potter, in command of the 14th Brigade, used two combat teams, the 35th Battalion under Lieut.-Col. F. Seaward and the 37th under Lieut.-Col. A. H. L. Sugden, with the 30th under Lieut.Col. F. G. Cornwall in reserve. His pincer movement to trap the Japanese garrison inched its way through the drenched jungle, the men straining eyes and ears in the darkness to detect the hidden foe. There were some desperate encounters, with many individual acts of bravery, before the threatening envelopment of the garrison led to its evacuation in barges, many of which were sunk by three American destroyers. By October 9th Japanese resistance was considered at an end. Michael Carter, of the Washington Post , noted that the New Zealanders, who included veterans from the Middle East, played the major role in the Vella Lavella action. Some of them did not taste hot food for a month. They showed themselves resourceful

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in warfare which strained their every nerve. By October 25th, there were 17,000 New Zealanders and Americans on Vella Lavella, and the way was paved by air operations for the thrust seventy-three miles north to the Treasury Islands.

The Eighth Brigade, under Brigadier R. A. Row, had rehearsed its plan of attack on beaches on the island of Florida, facing Guadalcanal across Sealark Channel. It was to be the first opposed landing of New Zealand troops since Gallipoli and no pains were spared to perfect the plan. The first landing craft were loaded and despatched with their destroyer escort on October 23rd, the final and faster ones on October 26th, all being timed to meet off the islands before dawn on the morning of the attack. The strength of the Japanese garrison had been ascertained through the efforts of Sergeant W. A. Cowan and other intelligence personnel who had made a daring preliminary landing on October 22nd. The Brigadier's plan was to land on beaches near the Japanese headquarters at Falamai, while a separate force under Major G. W. Logan was to land on the northern coast and establish a radar station, needed for the pending assault on Bougainville. On October 26th, Sergeant Cowan again landed with a small patrol and was ready to cut the Japanese telephone lines. The next morning, amid rain squalls, landing craft carrying 7,700 New Zealand and American troops entered Blanche Harbour behind gunboats which bombarded Japanese emplacements. As the troops leaped ashore they met severe Japanese fire from strong-points, most of which, however, were quickly silenced. One Japanese group which went to earth and later took advancing troops in the rear was dealt with by a driver who used his bulldozer as a tank. By 10.30 a.m., four hours and four minutes after the landing, the 29th Battalion had penetrated 350 yards into the jungle behind Falamai despite effective Japanese mortar fire. A platoon of the 36th Battalion under 2nd Lieut. L. T. G. Booth, fighting its way through heavy undergrowth, captured two 75 mm. mountain guns and a 90 mm. mortar. By the third day the enemy had been forced to retreat to the high country in the middle of the island, from which he was slowly probed out in a series of small but exciting actions. One enterprising Japanese, clad in a New Zealand uniform, attended picture shows and concerts and was finally caught when attempting to rob a cookhouse.

Final D-day for New Zealand forces in the Pacific was February 15, 1944, and the target the Green Islands, of which Nissan is the largest. A reconnaissance in strength was carried out a fortnight before with valuable results. The official account of the main operation states:

“In the opalescent light of early dawn the assault troops entered the lagoon, landing craft moving in single file as the raiders had done a

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fortnight before. The Brigadier and his staff went with them so that air and naval support could be called up by wireless if the assaulting troops were held up. In less than two hours the landing was complete. There was no opposition. Patrols declared their areas clear and established their defence lines from coast to coast. It was all rather like a perfect battle practice. The Japanese garrison had gone to earth. . . . Bulldozers went into immediate action, shearing off trees and palms and improving the landing beaches. Earth which had not known the sun for unnumbered years reeked as it dried in the heat. Seven miles of rough roads had been completed by nightfall in the two plantation areas.”

After a sharp action a nest of Japanese on Sirot island at the entrance to the lagoon was destroyed, Corporal P. Anzac Davidson killing seven of the enemy and putting a machine-gun out of action with a grenade. On February 20th, another 4,715 officers and men arrived and on the same day the last of the Japanese garrison was uncovered and wiped out in a bitter engagement which began with startling suddenness. Tanks were brought up, and when the fight was over fifty-one Japanese lay dead.

Two airfields were swiftly constructed and by March 6th, sixteen planes piloted by New Zealanders from Bougainville landed before going on to attack Rabaul. The "model landing" at Nissan brought the New Zealanders within 135 miles of Rabaul and 230 miles of Kavieng, the remaining two Japanese strong-points in the South Pacific. It also completed the encirclement of the Bougainville and Buka Island group, effectively cutting off the Japanese there from help.

At the end of May, 1944, American units took over from the New Zealanders and the Third Division moved back first to New Caledonia and then to New Zealand. It ceased to exist on October 20, 1944.

The increasing seriousness of the man-power situation in New Zealand, which was required to provide immense quantities of food for the Allied Forces and for Britain, was responsible for this. The Division was, in any event, due for relief, while both it and the island garrisons had been intended to fill a gap until the United States forces could be deployed. New Zealand's defence dispositions had been based on the belief that it was sounder to have large air forces rather than large land forces in the Pacific, as they could more readily be withdrawn to the Dominion if any disaster occurred.

New Zealanders took part in all phases of the Pacific war. Early in 1942, Captain F. T. Quayle, a New Zealander engaged in tinmining on Siam before the war, was sent into the Palang Jungle in Malaya to disrupt Japanese communications. He became instructor at a School for Chinese Guerrillas and wrote all the textbooks on arms, weapon-training, and demolition used by guerrilla fighters

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throughout Malaya. He evaded capture throughout the war, and when 4,000 Japanese of the 29th Army formally laid down their arms on September 18, 1945, Brigadier N. P. H. Tapp, of the 25th Indian Division, presented him with the sword of the Japanese Commander and the walking-stick of the Japanese Governor of Perak.

(3) Air Effort

Four weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941, heavy United Sates bombers were able to use an island base built by a New Zealand aerodrome construction unit. An R.N.Z.A.F. bomber reconnaissance unit of De Havillands was in the Pacific a year before Japan attacked. A New Zealand fighter squadron, No. 488, had arrived in Singapore in October, 1941, and taken over 21 Brewster Buffalo aircraft from the R.A.F. They fought well against machines in superior numbers with better guns and greater speed. They shot down four Japanese planes for the loss of one pilot killed and three missing before they were evacuated in February, 1942, at the same time as a New Zealand aerodrome construction unit. No. 488 Squadron, equipped with Hurricanes, fought for a few days in Java, suffering many casualties and being forced to leave some of their number behind.

After the vital Coral Sea Battle of May 4-8, 1942, the MidwayIsland Battle of June 4-6, and the United States landings in the Solomons in August, the R.N.Z.A.F. began to move up into the Pacific. No. 9 General Reconnaissance Squadron was sent from New Zealand to New Caledonia and later transferred to Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides. The first echelon of No. 3 Bomber Squadron began operations from Henderson Field, Guadalcanal, on November 24, 1942. No. 14 Fighter Squadron left on March 26, 1943, for the New Hebrides. No. 15 Squadron was the first New Zealand fighter unit to reach the combat zone, leaving the New Hebrides for Guadalcanal at the end of April.

In December, 1943, the Minister of Defence, the Hon. F. Jones, reviewing operations against the Japanese, said that the Government had increased the number of squadrons in the islands on the principle that the best defence was offence. He added:

“Our bomber-reconnaissance squadrons in the islands have been engaged in the exacting duties of extended reconnaissance over strategic areas between and beyond the belt of islands to the north. It is a matter of gratification for our air force and of pride in New Zealand, that we have news that our airmen have been engaged in action against the Japanese.”

In engagements over Guadalcanal and the Russell Islands New Zealand fighter pilots, flying Curtiss Kittyhawks alongside American

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pilots, shot down sixteen Japanese planes in four days. An official war correspondent wrote:

“Long before Japan entered the war, New Zealand pioneered air reconnaissance and patrol activity in the central South Pacific area to guard against possible attacks by German raiding forces. Equipment shortages were so acute in 1940 that she had to take venerable passenger planes from her civil airlines, convert them into patrol-bombers, and ship them to the Fiji Islands to inaugurate regular coastal searches and the escorting of ocean traffic. Expansion of the Pacific wing of New Zealand’s air force was accelerated after Pearl Harbour. New squadrons, flying Lockheed-Hudson patrol bombers, began to fan out over vital links in the Pacific supply line. As American forces drove northward to meet the Japanese, New Zealand patrol squadrons followed closely behind in a role of protective vigilance. Their sphere of influence spread over thousands of miles of ocean, until one day last November the Hudsons of one of their squadrons touched down on the most coveted base of all—the battle-tom Henderson Field on Guadalcanal.

"With the spice of danger and excitement now enlivening the tedious routine of patrol flying, the New Zealanders immediately went into business against the Japanese. They became 'the eyes of Guadalcanal'. They flew far out over enemy-dominated waters and enemyoccupied islands to watch for suspicious signs and movements. They dived on submarines and blew interfering Japanese reconnaissance planes out of the sky. They sighted task forces and other likely targets, reporting them to base and whistling up the United States fleets of strike bombers. In this fashion the New Zealanders played an important part in the frustration of Japan's efforts to strengthen her forces on Guadalcanal. Since the Japanese lost their foothold on the island, their operations have been hardly less strenuous and hazardous. Their patrols still take them deep into enemy-occupied territory, and the risk of interference by Japanese aircraft has by no means diminished.

"The air command of the United States Navy, under which the New Zealand squadrons serve, has paid lavish tribute to the New Zealanders' skill, reliability and thoroughness. But confined to patrol rather than combat tasks, the New Zealanders' crews have long been envious of United States squadrons going out almost every day to hit the enemy rather than merely watch what he is up to. Those days of wishful envy are passing. Now that air power has proved itself the mainstay of the United Nations' armed strength in the Pacific, New Zealand is following a logical direction in her fighting partnership with the United States—the development of the strongest front-line air force she can muster, with New Zealand supplying her own flying crews and ground organization from her own training schools, and with America supplying the planes.

“The two New Zealand fighter squadrons whose Curtiss Kittyhawks accounted for 16 Japanese planes in the Solomons skies are a token of things to come, and a promise of the day when fighters and bombers in hard-hitting and growing numbers will carry the insignia of the Royal New Zealand Air Force into battle against the Japanese.”

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The first New Zealand fighter actions took place when Guadalcanal was being hard pressed and subjected to many daylight bombing attacks. Nos. 14 and 15 New Zealand squadrons took part in many interception attacks. It was during the New Zealand landing operations at Vella Lavella that No. 15 Squadron had its best day. Seven Japanese aircraft attempting to interfere with the landing operations were shot down. In an Allied engagement with 40 Zeros over the Russell Islands on June 7, 1943, 23 were shot down for the loss of seven Allied aircraft. Twelve machines from No. 15 Squadron took part and four Zeros were credited to them. Four New Zealand Warhawks led by Squadron Leader M. Herrick (Hawkes Bay) sighted 70 enemy aircraft between the Treasury Island and Bougainville. The Warhawks attacked nine near them and shot down two.

Though two New Zealand fighter squadrons operated from Ondonga, New Georgia, as a wing from the end of October, they were not officially recognized as such until Wing Commander T. O. Freeman, D.5.0., D.F.C. and Bar was appointed O.C. R.N.Z.A.F. Fighter Wing on December 8, 1943. He had been made commanding officer of air operations at Ondonga on November 20th, and that was the first occasion on which an R.N.Z.A.F. commanding officer had American forces under his control. Wing Commander Freeman was reported missing after he had shot down one Zero in the first R.N.Z.A.F. attack over Rabaul on December 17th. He was succeeded by Squadron Leader J. S. Nelson in command of the wing.

A week later their biggest action in the Pacific war was fought by R.N.Z.A.F. fighters over the same grimly defended base —Rabaul. New Zealand Squadrons Nos. 16 and 17 each had twelve aircraft and in addition there were 20 American Hellcats. The engagement started at about 18,000 feet over Rabaul Harbour and finished at sea-level. An official account states:

“A general dogfight developed with everyone working around in some piece of the sky, and while they were following their adversaries down, the New Zealanders ran into another batch of Zeros and flew straight through them. The R.N.Z.A.F. fighters became heavily outnumbered and fought themselves clear of the enemy some 40 miles from Rabaul.”

In the action three officers—Squadron Leader P. G. H. Newton, Flying Officer D. L. Jones, Flying Officer G. R. B. Highet—shot down two Zeros each while Squadron Leader J. H. Arkwright, Flight Lieutenant J. H. Mills, Flying Officer A. G. S. George, Flying Officer A. G. Mitchell, and Flight-sergeants I. P. Speedy and P. A. Tilyard each scored one, making a total of 12. As Rabaul became completely nullified as a Japanese base

(New Zealand Government) State Houses, New Plymouth, With Mount Egmont in background

(Nerr Zealand Cnrrrnment) Wellington from Khandallah, with State Houses in foreground

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attention was turned to Bougainville, a scheme being instituted whereby almost every enemy position there was covered by two fighter-bombers every thirty minutes. The lack of enemy fighter opposition had caused the squadrons to be converted to fighterbombers.

Altogether seven New Zealand fighter squadrons, Nos. 14 to 20 inclusive, served in the South Pacific, but only the first five actually encountered the enemy in the sky there. Nos. 19 and 20, did valuable strafing and patrol work.

The New Zealand No. 6 Flying-Boat Squadron was formed with Catalinas in 1943, effecting its first sea rescue on May 2nd, when eight survivors of a torpedoed ship were picked up from a raft. In two days of January, 1944, nineteen survivors of American aircraft were rescued.

An idea of New Zealand's varied air effort in the Pacific is conveyed by a summary of the work of No. 25, a Dauntless squadron of the R.N.Z.A.F., which returned to New Zealand in May, 1944, and was disbanded. The only dive-bomber squadron of the R.N.Z.A.F., its function was to cover the enemy guns and allow the torpedobombers through, and in the role of an anti-tank escort for the Avengers it performed well.

The squadron had its first taste of real action at Bougainville, where the Japanese were beginning to make trouble around the perimeter. Once established there, after the servicing unit had prepared the way—digging themselves in under constant fire from Japanese artillery —the squadron lost no time in getting into action. They arrived at their base at midday on March 22nd, and at 5.30 the next morning they carried out their first operation.

The squadron's tent lines were close to the front line and shelling was going on all the time, being particularly heavy while the ground crews were starting up the aircraft. Usually the shelling would begin at dawn and the squadron would go up above the enemy positions in an endeavour to pick up the gun flashes so as to pinpoint the guns. For the first two days the squadron did local work, attacking the gun positions around the perimeter. From then on their job was to supply twelve aircraft each day for the major strike on Rabaul. From an average strength of 15 aircraft, the squadron sent up twelve every day but one for nine weeks—a particularly fine record. On that day there were eleven aircraft available, several having been shot up the previous day.

—j- j — — ,- Interviewed on his return to New Zealand, Squadron Leader T. J. Mac Lean de Lange (Auckland), Commanding Officer of the R.N.Z.A.F. Squadron, described the bombing strikes on Rabaul. "The target was usually an aerodrome," he said, "and the strike would consist of 60 Allied Dauntless dive-bombers and 30 torpedocarrying Avengers. The task of the Dauntlesses was to cover the

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gun positions defending the field, and each aircraft was allotted a gun to cover. This was done earlier, at the briefing, when the crews were shown photographs of the target, which were studied carefully."

In a series of intense and deliberately-planned assaults on enemy airfields, the flying crews did their job well, and left behind them strips whose surfaces were pitted and scarred through merciless pounding. Just how accurate was their bombing is shown by the following confirmed report: Official results of three bombing attacks on Japanese airfields by Dauntless and Avenger aircraft disclosed that 254 hits had been scored on the runways. At Vunakanau 96 hits were scored, at Lakunia 84, and—in a second attack there —74. All these hits were confirmed, but there were other occasions when the bombers were successful, but no confirmed results obtained.

“The rear gunners did a great job of work too,” said Squadron Leader de Lange. “While the bombers were coming out of a dive the gunners would strafe the guns on the ground like fury. Very often they silenced them for the period of the attack. It was also their responsibility to maintain radio communication, and by being always on the job and getting messages through they were more than once instrumental in saving lives. There is certainly nothing wrong with the Dauntless as a dive-bomber. They did a great job, and stood up to the heavy stuff admirably. Naturally, we would have liked them to be faster. The fighterbombers had that advantage; they were fast.”

Nos. 30 and 31 R.N.Z.A.F. Squadrons were equipped with Avenger TBF aircraft. No. 30, which carried out advanced operational training at Gisborne in New Zealand, began offensive action from Piva airfield, Bougainville, on March 25, 1944, making nine strikes on various targets during its first five days. The Japanese targets included gun positions on the Torokina perimeter, pillboxes on the Jaba river, supply areas on the Reini river and at Vunapopo (New Britain) and the airfields at Kavieng and Lukunai. The Avengers also attacked Rabaul airfields and provided support for ground forces. The second torpedo bomber squadron, No. 31, moved into the combat area in May to relieve No. 30 and was also disbanded on completion of its tour of duty.

High praise for the flying and ground personnel of the R.N.Z.A.F. in the Pacific was contained in an article in the American aeronautical magazine Flying. It recalled that R.N.Z.A.F. flying and ground personnel arrived in the combat zone in November, 1942, moving into the fighting on Guadalcanal. The writer explained how the system of high, medium, low, and close cover for bombers developed, entailing four layers of fighters above each formation of bombers to prevent interception by Zeros.

The R.N.Z.A.F. provided the close cover for many months. This was the most difficult and most dangerous work of the lot,

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because the fighters remained with the bombers as they went right across the target and were exposed to the fiercest attacks of the enemy fighters and the full intensity of anti-aircraft fire. In addition, the article pointed out, the New Zealanders took part in numerous fighting sweeps over enemy territory and fought many combats with the Zeros. They did that with so much success that by the time enemy air power in the Solomons-Bismarck area was neutralized, 99 of the' enemy aircraft shot down went to the credit of the R.N.Z.A.F. fighter squadrons.

The article quoted several instances to show that New Zealand Warhawks, even though heavily outnumbered, outfought formations of Zeros. It also emphasized the less spectacular but equally valuable work done by the R.N.Z.A.F. dive-bomber and medium-bomber crews. Discussing the New Zealanders as individuals, the article said:

“Tough, knotty, good-natured, they seem to make a fetish of taking on impossible jobs with cheery unconcern. All through the Solomons they are favourites. An outstanding characteristic is their extreme modesty. In the face of compliments your average New Zealander will probably turn red, hem and haw, splutter and gurgle, and then desperately attempt to steer the conversation into some other channel.”

Elaborate tribute was paid to the maintenance staffs of the R.N.Z.A.F. Commenting on the New Zealand characteristic of skilful improvisation, the article says:

“Any stray metal on Bougainville magically disappears and turns up next day on a plane of the R.N.Z.A.F. . . . Whenever one of their planes crashes within measurable distance of their headquarters, the New Zealanders lug it home, no matter how bad its condition. . . . The sight of a group of these cheerful men dragging pieces of unidentifiable wreckage out of the jungle no longer causes any amazement in the Solomons. Everybody realizes the smashed-up aeroplane will somehow rise again like a Phoenix.”

Another example of improvisation was a timber mill in Guadalcanal manned by New Zealanders, producing timber for the American forces with a captured Japanese tank running a German power-plant. The mill, from the West Coast of the South Island, was erected under difficulties and had a hard task in keeping up with the colossal demand and coping with bullets embedded in the trees.

In May, 1944, Air Vice-Marshal L. M. Isitt, Chief of the New Zealand Air Staff, visited the forward Pacific area and paid a tribute to the work of Admiral Halsey, Commander of the South Pacific Forces, and his staff, He said the command, including units of the United States Navy, Army, and Marine Corps, N.Z. Division,

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R.N.Z.A.F., and other Allied units, was one of the most compact and hard-hitting in any war front.

“R.N.Z.A.F. fighter pilots have been well to the fore in recent operations in the northern Solomons and Rabaul areas,” he said. “They have been engaged chiefly in the close escort of American bombers, but many of them expressed the desire for more varied fighter duties. This, I am glad to say, may be possible in the near future, as we shall be re-equipping our fighter squadrons with Corsair aircraft.”

After a second tour of duty embracing six months’ operations in the New Hebrides, Solomons and Bismarck area, the R.N.Z.A.F. Ventura Squadron returned to New Zealand at the end of 1944. Under Wing Commander I. G. Morrison (Gisborne) it participated in highly important searches over hundreds of miles of ocean north of the Equator, a task which hitherto had been carried out exclusively by United States aircraft. The objective was to cover Japanese supply lines from Truk down to New Ireland. They were succeeded by another Ventura Squadron which operated on targets in New Britain, New Ireland and other areas.

Squadrons of the New Zealand Air Task Force played a prominent part in the operations on Bougainville in the early part of 1945. Their work drew high praise from the Australian Command. A typical operation was one in which the R.A.A.F., R.N.Z.A.F., and Australian infantry were associated together for the first time—the bombing of an enemy position on the Numa Numa trail. Australian markers dropped smoke bombs at either end of the target line and the New Zealand Corsairs darted in to bomb with devastating effect.

Airmen of the R.N.Z.A.F. Corsair Squadron flew from their own base to Leyte to deliver United States Marine Corsairs for use by the Americans in their offensive on Mindoro.

The first all-New Zealand fighter and bomber combined strike at the Japanese was made in New Ireland in February, 1945. Corsairs machine-gunned a dense bivouac area, after dropping 1,000- and 500-lb. bombs. The Venturas completed the job. On March 2nd, New Zealand Corsairs, searching near Buka Passage, found the first Japanese tanks located in Bougainville and attacked them, diverting their intended surprise attack on the Australians. In July, well-equipped Japanese troops made a determined attack on Australian positions on the Nivo River. While the Australians withstood the shock and checked the enemy, nearly fifty New Zealand Corsairs were switched from other targets to attack the enemy's forming-up point, which they did very effectively under Squadron Leader M. R. Clarke, D.F.C.

Seven of 15 New Zealand Corsairs were lost in a thunder-storm after a vain attempt to save the life of the pilot of an eighth

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Corsair when he baled out after attacking Japanese positions in New Britain.

When New Zealand No. 1 Bomber Reconnaisance Squadron completed a further tour of operations in July, 1945, it was commanded by Wing Commander A. A. N. Breckon, D.F.C. (Auckland), an original member of No. 75 Squadron in England. The squadron harried the Japanese in New Britain and New Ireland and flew a variety of missions—anti-submarine, photographic, and escort as well as bombing strikes.

The New Zealand squadrons moved to a new base at Jacquinot Bay in New Britain, less than 100 miles from Rabaul, to effect close co-operation with the Australian ground forces like that established previously at Bougainville. The No. 3 Bomber Reconnaissance

Squadron was the first heavy squadron to operate from Jacquinot Bay. It had already been New Zealand's first squadron to operate against the Japanese on Guadalcanal, the first to drop bombs on the enemy, the first to shoot down a Japanese aircraft, the first to sink an enemy submarine, and the first to land at the northernmost base of Emirau.

New Zealand pilots in R.A.F. squadrons played a part in almost every phase of the air war against Japan. One New Zealander of a squadron of cannon-firing Hurricanes thus described an attack in a Japanese convoy of twenty-four trucks carrying reinforcements and led by a staff car which was travelling through the winding Taungu Pass in Burma early in 1943. “We caught them just at the right moment. They were rounding the top loop. . . . The cannon shells simply tore the trucks to pieces. Most of them burst into flames. As for the staff car—it was almost blown to powder.”

An air-gunner, Warrant Officer J. Horan (Manurewa), though wounded, held off eight Japanese fighters and saved his pilot and navigator at the cost of his own life while on patrol on the Akyab Coast.

In supplying the “Forgotten” Fourteenth Army, which fought its way to fame in Burma, New Zealanders played a prominent part.

(4) Naval Tasks

The New Zealand Navy was given by the King during the war the right to call itself "Royal", and the honour was well deserved, Its strength rose from 82 officers, and 1,257 men m r 939 to 1,886 officers and 8,511 men in 1945 —plus 500 women. A New Zealand ship, Achilles, took part not only, as we have seen, in the first naval action of the war with Germany, but also in the final operations of the British Fleet against Japan. H.M.N.Z.S. Gambia, after sharing in these latter tasks, was with the Allied Fleets when they entered Tokio Bay to receive the surrender of Japan.

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On July 25, 1944, Gambia, with H.M.S. Kenya, had the task of neutralizing enemy shore batteries while battleships of the Eastern Fleet bombarded Sabang. In 1945 she joined the Fourth Cruiser Squadron, Bridsh Pacific Fleet, and was with the carriers when aircraft carried out strikes on enemy airfields in Sakishima Gunto in March, April, and May.

Achilles, Leander and Monowai engaged in extensive patrol and escort operations in the Pacific. On one occasion, when escorting American troops to the Solomons, Achilles was hit in a gun turret, thirteen men being killed. Leander, which had previously sunk the Italian armed cruiser Ramb I and, with H.M.A.S. Canberra, two German supply vessels, was also damaged in a fierce engagement in the Solomons known as the Battle of Kolobangara. Her casualty list was 28 missing, 15 injured.

New Zealand's hordes of little ships —fishing trawlers, coastal traders, and the like—were supplemented for naval purposes by a highly successful building programme. A convoy of small ships was sent to help Australia in August, 1943. On one day in Auckland eight little ships were launched simultaneously and named after early Maori voyagers across the Pacific. Extensive German minefields in New Zealand waters had to be dealt with, and thanks to constant vigilance and arduous work the loss of the Niagara, bound from Auckland to Vancouver on June 19, 1940, was not duplicated, though one of the mine-sweepers, Puriri, was sunk by a mine and another, South Sea, in a collision.

On January 29,1943, the mine-sweepers Kiwi and .V/oa with 4-inch guns engaged a large Japanese submarine armed with five 5-inch guns. In a fierce action lasting more than an hour Kiwi rammed the submarine three times and wrecked it, only one survivor being picked up. The next night Moa and Tui sank two enemy landing craft, but Moa was sunk herself in a heavy enemy air attack at Tulagi, Solomon Islands, on April 7th. Five of her crew were killed. Tui, which had been launched by Countess Jellicoe in 1941 and served for a long time in British waters, took part with aircraft in the sinking of another large Japanese submarine in August, 1943. This submarine had a normal displacement of 2,563 tons and carried a crew of 97 officers and men. Six survivors were picked up. The Commander of the Tui, Lieut.-Commander J. G. N. Hilliard, D.S.C. (Auckland), wore in action a korowai mat given him by Princess Te Puea Herangi. Like Sir Lionel Halsey, who wore a similar mat in H.M.S. New Zealand, he came through unscathed.

In the Royal Navy's attack on the Japanese-held island of Car Nicobar several New Zealand Fleet Air Arm pilots participated. They shot up barges, huts, anti-aircraft positions, groups of Japanese soldiers, machine-gun nests, and other targets. One flight wis ordered to intercept a force of ten Japanese fighters over the island.

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It shot four of them down without loss. In the Japanese, as in the European, war New Zealand Fleet Air Arm pilots repeatedly distinguished themselves.

When the Japanese forces in the Solomons, New Britain, and New Ireland formally surrendered, General Hitahi Imamura, commander of the Japanese South-east Army, was brought by an Australian sloop to the British aircraft carrier Glory. New Zealand was represented by Air Commodore G. N. Roberts and Wing Commander P. A. Matheson, of the New Zealand Air Task Force, which had done so much to frustrate the Japanese. Corsair fighters of the R.N.Z.A.F. “Ghost Squadron” gave air cover while the Japanese envoy went on board H.M.A.S. Lithgow in Buin Bay to negotiate for the surrender of the Japanese forces in Bougainville.

PART V

NEW ZEALAND —Present and Future

CHAPTER XXVI

AFTERMATH II

While the Government of New Zealand made its supreme objective the earliest possible winning of the war, it did not ignore the experience of the first world conflict. At a very early date its rehabilitation programme was framed, and as the tide of war turned Major C. F. Skinner, who had won the M.C. in North Africa, was brought back in August, 1943, to become Minister in charge of it. This was a happy appointment, for Major Skinner had the necessary knowledge and ability for the task in addition to the vigour of comparative youth —a great consideration when all members of the Cabinet were beginning to show the strain of long hours and heavy work.

When the first meeting of the Rehabilitation Council was held on February 12, 1942, the Prime Minister said that there was "nothing within our means and the bounds of common sense" that the country ought not to do for the men who had served in the forces. By 1946 it was clear that the Government was determined to fulfil this implicit undertaking. The administration of the scheme is under a Director, Lieut.-Colonel F. Baker, D.5.0., who at one time commanded the Maori Battalion. So far as possible the work is decentralized, district officers being permitted to deal with all but the most difficult individual cases.

Considerable imagination was employed in devising training schemes for returned men, their need for congenial work being matched by the country’s paramount need for housing. Many men who had worked in offices before the war could not bear, after years of campaigning, to be cooped up all day. So when I visited the training centres for carpenters and bricklayers at Petone I found both officers and men equally keen on qualifying themselves as builders, many with the idea of going into business on their own. These concentrated training courses seemed to have far more value than the apprenticeship system—where so much time is spent bringing tea for the men and so much depends on the employer whether the apprentice gets any adequate experience. During training the servicemen received an adequate wage, beginning at five guineas weekly. Cost of tradesmen’s tools was advanced, and

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certificates of proficiency issued to qualified candidates who must agree to remain three years in the trade after completion of their training.

For men who wanted to be farmers equally liberal provision was made on training farms, with facilities for courses at the two agricultural colleges at Palmerston North and Lincoln. For men already experienced in farming advances up to £3,000 were made available for the purchase of farms. Men who had embarked on University courses before the war were given assistance to complete them. The schemes worked well as the men returned gradually during the war. With the influx following the sudden end of the war with Japan there was inevitably congestion, but the long-prepared organization stood up reasonably well to the strain.

Housing, as in most other countries, was a principal problem of post-war reconstruction in New Zealand, but here again benefit accrued from a long-standing organization. The State had built 20,000 homes between 1937 and January, 1946, and all things considered, had made a good job of them. The experience gained was utilized to carry out a three-year programme of 30,000 State houses between 1946 and 1948, with 12,000 more to be built by private enterprise. A further programme is based on an estimated need for 500,000 houses for a population of 1,850,000 in 1958. Land has been bought to provide for requirements some years ahead. Contracts are let to builders subject to rigid specifications ensuring uniformly good quality of work. Rentals range from 245. for a four-roomed single-unit house to 425. 6d. for one of eight rooms. In the cities well-designed small flats are let at from 14s. to 19s. weekly. Government experts search the United States and Britain for the latest ideas and developments in standard fittings and materials. New Zealand architects and builders have been very ingenious in devising methods and materials specially suited for local use. As a means of increasing production, reducing costs and relieving the demand for timber, the Department of Housing Construction erected a number of experimental houses of three types: (1) prefabricated wood units; (2) prefabricated concrete units; (3) concrete in situ and block units. State housing is financed through the Reserve Bank at a low rate of interest.

The Labour Party had always maintained that the deflationary policy of the banks had been responsible largely for the worst effects of the economic depression of the ’3o’s. The Reserve Bank became State-owned and controlled in 1936, the Finance Minister, Walter Nash declaring:

“The members of the present Government of New Zealand have never believed that Utopia can be ushered in merely by monetary magic, but they do believe that when there are idle men on the one hand and

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unused resources on the other, it is both safe and sensible to use the people’s credit for bringing these men and these resources together in useful employment.”

With the end of the war and the possibility of another depression, the Government, urged by its left wing, decided to acquire all private shares in the Bank of New Zealand. The bill for this purpose stated:

“It is desirable that there should be a State trading bank for the purpose of facilitating post-war reconstruction and the development of New Zealand, the rehabilitation of the returning Service men, the provision of reliable, prompt and economical banking services, and, generally, for the purpose of assisting to promote the economic welfare of New Zealand.”

The bill was passed and the shares acquired at a reasonable price. This measure and the equally controversial decision by the Government to eliminate the "country quota"—-a long standing weighting of the electorates in favour of the rural areas—incensed the farmers, who called for drastic measures to show their disapproval. The final decision rested with the voters at the General Election on November 27, 1946, when the Government won by the narrow majority of 42 seats to 38.

The monetary policy of the Labour Party as set out at its annual conference in 1945 envisaged "a managed credit and currency system with a view to preventing inflation or deflation; maintaining purchasing power according to the availability of commodities and services; providing for the repayment and reduction of public debts, internal and external; progressively reducing interest rates to the lowest economic level; guaranteeing prices for primary products to cover costs of production, with a reasonable margin for producers; maintaining and expanding living standards; and providing full employment with a guaranteed minimum wage."

To cushion the shock of transfer to a peace economy after the impact of war the Minister of Public Works, Robert Semple, announced a long-term programme of development involving expenditure of £NZ 250,000,000. Loss of much valuable equipment sent overseas for war purposes hindered immediate work on many schemes but plans for them were ready. Hydro-electric development was a first consideration, the existing large schemes having proved inadequate to the demands made by the war on industry. The great Karapiro project on the Waikato River will, it is hoped, convert shortage of power into plenty for all purposes.

The forty-hour five-day week is an ideal approaching realization in New Zealand. It will depend on the workers whether it can be

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maintained or not. The problem of leisure time, partially solved by the vogue of outdoor sport, is likely to occupy the attention of education authorities to an increasing extent.

CHAPTER XXVII

TRENDS IN EDUCATION

I n recent years there has been much controversy about education in New Zealand—controversy conducted for the most part with a genuine desire to see that the system evolved shall be the best possible for a young remote country dependent almost entirely on its pastures. Many books have been published by experts on the subject and it is appropriate perhaps to glance first at them. A. E. Campbell, in the volume of Centennial Surveys entitled Educating New Zealand (194 1 ), begins;

“The education system of New Zealand as it stands to-day is incomprehensible unless one bears ever in mind that it originated and developed in a British Colony in the nineteenth century. England during this period was building up a national school system which provided an obvious model for Britons overseas; but although the English and the New Zealand systems still show strong resemblances they are now in some ways very different. Neither the resemblances nor the differences can be fully understood apart from the fundamental fact that New Zealand was a colony. The psychology of colonization has yet to be written, but anyone who has lived in a colony knows that life, instead of being, as one might expect, simpler than in the homeland, is in some respects more complex. There are, within any colony, certain internal strains that an old and culturally self-sufficient land is spared, strains that exist both in its group life and in the minds of its individual citizens. Nowhere do these strains and consequent lines of cleavage show more clearly than in the education system.”

Campbell argues cogently that the colonist is “less interested in adapting himself to his new environment than in surrounding himself with the institutions and ideas that formed the background of existence in the homeland”. This desire for cultural continuity is, he says, the key to the understanding of colonial life. In New Zealand, Scottish tradition as well as English had much influence, and based as it was on concentration on the brighter pupils it posed a difficult problem for New Zealand reformers who wanted every child to have a fair chance.

Education in New Zealand was necessarily decentralized in the early days, as communications between settlements were very

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meagre. The first schools had been mission schools and the first pupils Maoris. When the New Zealand Company's settlers arrived the need for more schools was met by subsidizing the work of the churches. Sir George Grey gave generous grants of land in addition to money from public funds. His deep personal interest in education was shown by private benefactions in addition, and he even took classes himself at St. Stephen's College, Auckland. It was he, also, who induced the Rev. Samuel Williams to begin his great work in Hawkes Bay by promising a grant of 4,000 acres of land for educational purposes. From this beginning sprang Te Aute College, and therefore, indirectly, that regeneration of the Maori race which would have rejoiced the Governor's heart.

Specific provision for education was included in the Wakefield plan of colonization, and Otago and Canterbury received large educational endowments. Until 1876 education was a provincial concern and it bore the stamp of the leading men in each community. In Nelson one dominating influence was that of Alfred Domett, intimate friend of Robert Browning, who went to New Zealand in 1842 after being educated at Rugby and Cambridge. He opposed the policy of subsidizing denominational schools and was soon convinced that a national system was desirable. The Nelson School Society organized the first system of public elementary schools. In Auckland the system was predominantly denominational; in Wellington, private. In Otago the Presbyterian character of the schools was at first strictly safeguarded. In Canterbury the Association's plan for a public school with an upper department had a chequered career before Christ's College established itself; and, at a much later date, College House, thanks to the energy of the Rev. J. Russell Wilford, was extended to provide for those in search of residential college life on the model of Oxford and Cambridge.

The debates on the Education Bill of 1877 were long and animated, 28 members averaging 3,000 words each on the Second Reading. Religious partisanship was carried to such an extent that even the simplest form of Bible reading was banned as being purely Protestant. The result was that the Act, when it at last emerged, provided for free, secular and compulsory education. Though "congenitally defective" it did put the key of knowledge, as its author, Sir Charles Bowen, claimed, within the reach of every child.

With the appointment in 1899 of George Hogben, “a man of far-seeing vision, strong will, and indomitable perseverance”, as Inspector-General a new era began. He borrowed freely from overseas experience and enlarged the whole scope of education, notably in the field of manual and technical training, nature study and science. He aligned himself with the reformers all over the world who were pleading for a scheme of education that would be closer to life, throwing himself into the task of reforms, as Campbell

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remarks, "in the spirit of the Opposition leader who is at last given a chance to govern". He thought of education as a continuous process with no artificial divisions. He instituted the system of free places in secondary schools, and the demand for these proved to be something like seven times as great as had been anticipated. Free secondary education for all burst upon New Zealand almost by accident nearly a generation before it became a universally accepted ideal. If Hogben's sound ideas of a curriculum not heavily biassed in the academic direction had been fully carried out, we should have been pioneers indeed. The Inspector-General did free inspectors and teachers from many shackling restrictions in accordance with his belief that "an atmosphere of liberty is the only one in which true teaching can thrive". The new primary school syllabus he produced in 1904 was a great advance, but the teachers were as yet insufficiently equipped by training to cope with it. Not even Hogben's enthusiasm could overcome entirely the New Zealand primary school's "pronounced tendency to rigidity and inertia".

When technical high schools were set up to provide courses in agriculture, carpentry, cookery, and similar subjects for which the secondary schools were slow to provide, they too fell into the all-pefVading net of the matriculation examination, perverted from its proper function as a test for University entrance into a sort of general certificate of ability to enter almost any urban occupation.

In Education To-day and To-morrow (1944) the Hon. H. G. R. Mason, Minister of Education, provided a convenient review of the subject. Its text was a passage from the 1939 report of the Right Hon. Peter Fraser, then Minister of Education:

“The Government’s objective, broadly expressed, is that every person, whatever his level of academic ability, whether he be rich or poor, whether he live in town or country, has a right, as a citizen, to a free education of the kind for which he is best fitted, and to the fullest extent of his powers. So far is this from being a mere pious platitude that the full acceptance of the principle will involve the reorientation of the education system.”

After referring to the principle of selection of pupils as almost universal, the Minister asserted that the principle of equal rights for all demanded more than the mere provision of more places in the older type schools devised originally for the education of the gifted few:

“Schools that are to cater for the whole population must offer courses that are as rich and varied as are the needs and abilities of the children who enter them: this means generous equipment, more and better-trained teachers, and some system of guidance to help pupils select the schools and courses that will best cater for their abilities. It means, also, if there

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is to be true equality of' opportunity, that, by one method or another, the country child must be given access to the facilities from which he has always tended to be barred by the mere accident of location. Most important of all, perhaps, it means that the system of administrative control must be such that the whole school system is a unit within which there is free movement.”

Three fundamental tendencies in recent New Zealand educational development were thus described in Education To-day and To-morrow.

(i) The movement to give free education to all who desire it. (Examples—abolition of the proficiency examination; introduction of accrediting for entrance to the University and the consequent introduction of new post-primary courses; raising of the school leaving age, institution of a system of vocational guidance, development of technical high schools, growth of adult education, growth of special facilities for country children.)

(2) The movement to broaden the content of education at each stage. (Examples—development in the primary school of physical education and sport, art and crafts, music, home management and practical work generally; growth of school clubs, school councils, group projects, and other methods by which children learn to govern themselves and run their own affairs; increased contacts between the school and the home through such agencies as home and school associations, parents' days and visiting teachers; increased contacts with the world of industry and commerce, through visits to factories, school journeys, inter-school visits, development of school farms and small industries, and the activities of careers teachers and vocational guidance officers; introduction of free milk and apples and, in places, of school cafeterias; preparation of school meals; provision of buildings, playing fields, and equipment better suited to an active type of education; growth of intermediate schools; movement to reduce the size of classes; special efforts to train teachers in the new methods.)

(3) The growing recognition of differences between children. (Examples—most of those under the first two headings and in addition: increase in the number of special classes for backward children; starting of occupation classes for those “ineducable by ordinary standards;” increased facilities for the deaf and the blind and the crippled; opening of speech clinics; appointment of visiting teachers; developments in child-welfare work, starting of remedial classes for children with a specific subject difficulty; hospital classes.)

It is among the youngest children that most remains to be done. There are not enough free kindergartens, nursery schools, and nursery play centres, though there has been much progress in recent

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PRESENT AND FUTURE

years. When they are developed fully the Minister envisages the possibility of the detachment of infant classes from the primary schools and the establishment of new infant schools taking children from three to seven.

By broadening the curriculum almost without limit the Department of Education, under its Director, Dr. C. E. Beeby, whose own appointment from outside the ranks of the teaching profession was itself a sign of the new spirit in education, has run the risk of lowering standards in what are usually regarded as the basic subjects of education. The subject has attracted so much attention that the official view merits full quotation:

"It must be conceded that the increased freedom that has been given to both teacher and child does increase the tendency for some to relax their standards in certain ways. It is part of the eternal price of freedom. Many use it to do work far more rich and fruitful than would be possible within a rigid system: it is inevitable that a few should try to take advantage of it. The business of the administrator is by no means easy. He must encourage those who are worthy of it to use their freedom to the full, whilst preventing the lazy and the ineffectual from falling below a minimum standard of efficiency. It is a process that takes time as well as judgment.

“Before we press the matter further it is necessary to be clear about what we mean by reasonable standards. Standards in what? When the primary school concentrated almost solely upon the three R’s there was a time when as much as one-third of the school day was given to the study of arithmetic. I doubt if there is a person who would advocate such a time allotment now. The time devoted to the subject was reduced to enable more time to be devoted to other subjects no less essential. It was inevitable that the standard in arithmetic should fall: but the standard of education, taken as a whole, rose.

“It is important to remember, too, that there is such a thing as an artificial standard. It is relatively easy by concentrated drill on a narrow range of skills to raise the standard of a class in such subjects as spelling and arithmetic to a level where the pupils can pass a relatively stiff examination conducted on formal lines. It is even easier when the test is passed for the pupils to slough their thin skin of knowledge. All of us know people who passed the old Proficiency examination in its stiffest days and who to-day show little evidence of the grounding they received, nor have they any of that capacity for hard work on intellectual tasks which the apologist for the older system might claim as a permanent result of their toil. All that remains is a life-long distaste for everything that smacks of the school. Standards, in brief, have no value unless they are the measure of something—skills, knowledge, aptitudes —that persists into later life and can be used for purposes beyond the class-room.

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"Yet the need for standards in education remains, however broadly they are conceived; and the Department has long been aware that the abolition of the Proficiency examination and the granting of greater freedom to the individual teacher call for increased vigilance on the part of all who are concerned with the maintenance of standards. It would have been possible in 1936 to substitute for Proficiency some other kind of test of minimum standards in the tool subjects, but I am convinced that it would not have been wise. Many teachers were, and to some extent still are, chary of using the new freedom offered to them. Timidity, inertia, some distrust of the open gate, and a lack of knowledge of any other system, all tended to keep teachers within the four walls of established practice. The majority had to be tempted to use the new freedom, not restrained from its abuse, and the premature introduction of standardized tests or other rigid measures of standard would have seemed to them merely the substituting of one set of shackles for another which had become not unpleasantly familiar. Time was necessary for them to realize both the value and the price of freedom.

"But a close watch was kept on the situation. Inspectors were required to report regularly upon standards, and periodically a conference of Senior Inspectors was held where the situation was carefully reviewed. The general opinion until quite recently was that the time was not ripe for the introduction of a set of fixed minimum standards. Experience varied a little from district to district. Some districts reported no appreciable decline in any subjects; others were of the opinion that there had been a slight loss in arithmetic and spelling. All Inspectors reported improved work in composition, oral expression, and practical work of all kinds, and they were unanimous that the average child leaving the primary school to-day is, over all, a better person and potentially a better citizen than ever before in their experience. They were unanimously opposed to the reintroduction of the Proficiency examination."

The Minister said that a growing feeling that it would be well to lay down more definitely the standards that are required was partlydue to the war, leading to the absence of about 70 per cent of the men teachers and the substitution of married women or young inexperienced teachers in their place. To ensure satisfactory standards the syllabus was being systematically reviewed, new text-books were being prepared to cover the new courses, inspectors were instructed to require nothing less than the best of which a child was capable, teachers were being more highly trained, and the school leaving age raised.

An important development of recent years has been the provision of intermediate schools to combine the top classes of a number of primary schools and thus permit more adequate provision of workshops, equipment, books, and specialist teachers.

{.4. /. Harrop) By the Parry Fall in the "Donald Sutherland", Mil ford Sound

Auckland W.n Memorial Museum

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PRESENT AND FUTURE

Technical high schools have played an important part in New Zealand education, though the lack of any large industries has tended to make them less specialized than in some other countries. The average length of stay of pupils is only two years and two months and this sets a number of problems which the Department of Education has not yet solved to its own satisfaction.

There was a remarkable growth in the number of pupils taking advantage of free secondary education while it was optional, and it is possible that, even without the raising of the school leaving age in 1945, it would in time have approximated to 100 per cent. Since only a relatively small number of pupils intend to go the University, emancipation from the domination of matriculation requirements has been a primary problem for the administration, just as it has been in England, as the Spens report indicated. It is being solved by the introduction of accrediting for admission to the University of candidates recommended by principals of recognized schools after taking a four-year course. Admission by examination is still provided for, but it will be at a higher level than the old entrance examination and will therefore be taken only by those intending to go to University, leaving the School Certificate examination to fulfil its proper function as a testimony to the fact that the holder has reached a satisfactory standard during his school career.

The view, adumbrated in the Spens report that the studies of the secondary school “should be brought into closer contact with the practical affairs of life”, has been held for many years by a number of leaders of educational thought in New Zealand, among them, fortunately, many heads of schools. My own head master, Frank Milner, throughout his long regime at Waitaki from 1906 to 1944, consistently aimed at vocational training, and in the Spens Report we find a description applying remarkably well to his system; “For the majority of pupils we think that the school itself should adopt a unifying principle in its curriculum, and we recommend that it be found in the teaching of English and that assembly of subjects which are often loosely spoken of as the English subjects. Chief among them is the training in clear and precise expression of ideas in English, both orally and in writing.”

Our participation in debates may not always have been voluntary, but most of us, I think, are grateful that English and history were made the basis of all courses. Roaming through the fields of English literature out of school hours and with no set examination in view, gave me the greatest mental pleasure of my schooldays, and far surpassed in value the mastering of some of the lower flights of trigonometry which was necessary for examination purposes. “A belief in the value of English literature for its own sake, and a real love of its finest manifestations” certainly animated Frank Milner, and this belief we caught rather than were taught. New Zealand

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owes much to the many great head masters whose influence has to some extent counteracted the disadvantages of a secondary school system under which until recently comparatively few of the teachers had been specially trained in secondary work.

At the Feilding Agricultural High School, L. J. Wild, head master from its foundation in 1922 until 1946, solved the problem of grafting really valuable courses in applied science and agriculture on to the ordinary curriculum, while at the same time giving the pupils a useful insight into the technique of government by allowing them to run their own affairs. This is done not by the prefect system, which allows only a few to take part, but by form meetings and a general council elected in much the same way as a town council.

The experiment has worked well and shows that even before recent enlightened advances in administration there was scope for head masters with progressive ideas. It is described in An Experiment in Self Government, by L. J. Wild, one of the publications of the New Zealand Council for Educational Research which was inaugurated with funds provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and has played a useful part in recent progress.

In another of its publications, The School Looks at Life, the story of Rangiora High School is told by its head master, J. E. Strachan. F. Milner wrote in a foreword:

“This is a record of bold experimentation in a hitherto well-regi-mented province of New Zealand education. It is the testimony of a brave and rebellious soul. . . . His gift to his fellow-teachers is, above all, courage—courage to reject traditional criteria and to jettison junk. He has faced up to great odds-—the static weight of conventions, local prejudice of Boards, parental snobbery, disfavour or at least apathy of the educational hierarchy, and finally the inexorable glacial pressure of the examination system. He organized his school in frank realism to meet the vocational demands of a rural community which he had scientifically surveyed. He did not stop at that. His was the cult of the thinking, the sceptical mind. All his work in personal sociology and social studies generally was devised to give pupils the background of social knowledge and the independence of mind which alone equip for useful vital citizenship.”

Another pioneer of the new education was H. C. D. Somerset, who carried out the first scientific study of a rural community at Oxford in Canterbury and published the results in Littledene. Though the picture drawn of rural households was rather grim, the story of the coming of the Workers’ Educational Association, of the Little Theatre, the Women’s Division of the Farmers’ Union, and the travelling library leaves us with the feeling that where there are even two or three people with faith and vision a country township may develop a vigorous community spirit and surpass even the

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towns in supplying the means of self-expression. The composite picture Somerset draws is convincing and not unattractive:

“The farmer does not wear his heart on his sleeve; he is apt to regard the stranger with some suspicion. He is engaged in the difficult and uncertain business of farming, and experience has taught him not to make friends too easily and to keep his thoughts to himself. On closer acquaintance, however, the average farmer is seen as a power in the community. He owns a motor-car and is a member of the Working Men’s Club, which he visits at least once a week; he is also a member of a Friendly Society or Lodge. He is a sportsman, interested in games and horse-racing; he reads the newspaper every day. He is a member of at least one local farmers’ organization and is a supporter of a Church. In the cosmic scheme, for him at least, Littledene comes first. Every two or three weeks he goes to a community-owned cinema. Through the winter he spares an evening now and then for a progressive euchre party, a dance, or a social. It is his custom to give something from the farm every time a Church is organizing a bazaar. Every sale day at least one member of his family supports the afternoon tea in aid of this and that. He doesn’t inquire very closely what the charity is, provided it is for a local need. He believes in ‘keeping money in the district’.”

War has widened the farmer's horizon in more ways than one. He has seen what a vital part has been played by scientific research in food as well as munitions production. The work of the two agricultural colleges, at Palmerston North and Lincoln, brought under unified control, should be correspondingly relieved from financial worry, while there is some hope that the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research may ultimately be able to pay graduates in science something remotely comparable to the value of their services in other parts of the world.

After their experience at Oxford, Somerset and his wife moved in 1938 to Fielding where they established a community centre which may well become a model. It was described in a volume by A. E. Campbell published by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research in 1945.

Though access to the University in New Zealand is relatively easy, it cannot be said that the problem of providing real University education in the Dominion has been completely solved.

“The University,” writes the Minister in Education To-day and To-morrow, “is faced with several serious problems of policy. Not the least difficult of these is the problem of providing for a total population of 1,600,000 people, four separate institutions of University rank that can compare in buildings, equipment, and staffing with overseas universities. Scarcely less thorny is the task of reconciling the claims of the four

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colleges for special schools and for facilities to teach all subjects at all stages. A third major problem arises from New Zealand's desire to give educational opportunities to all, irrespective of their wealth or the location of their homes: the system of part-time students and exempted students is admirable from this point of view, but it makes very difficult the maintenance of standards and the creation of a true university spirit."

The University of New Zealand, a central examining body with constituent teaching colleges, is modelled to some extent on the University of London. Its history is strewn with controversies and its future is by no means clearly defined. The controlling authority is the Senate, composed of the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor, members appointed by the Governor-General, the Director of Education, and representatives of the University College Councils, the General Court of Convocation, and the Academic Board. This Board, composed of representatives of the professorial boards of the colleges, has secured after a long struggle virtual control of academic matters like the award of scholarships, appointment of examiners, and drawing up of courses of study. The Senate, however, can still exercise a great influence over the University. Its members tend to be elderly, with ideas fixed in a previous generation. On relinquishing the office of University Agent in London, I suggested that it might be made incumbent on members of the Senate to retire at the age of eighty. I find there are universities in Britain where some such rule would also be welcomed.

I am not at all sure, however, whether the best solution of New Zealand’s University problem would not be to abolish the Senate altogether, giving the colleges full self-government subject to a small University Grants Committee which would decide on such matters as the addition of special schools and the allocation of Government grants. If the existing colleges were thus raised in status they would probably command much greater local support and could attract the best men of their districts to the governing bodies. The legal problem of securing powers to the present colleges to grant degrees is not beyond solution. As one real University in one place in New Zealand is probably impracticable, the next best thing seems to be four Universities in friendly co-operation and competition. Each one could build round it a fellowship of men and women returned from study overseas who could give the benefit of their experience to younger students. At present the system of travelling scholarships yields little benefit except to those who actually secure them.

When agent of the University, and afterwards as representative of Canterbury University College, I have been a member of many London Committees charged with the selection of professors and lecturers for New Zealand. Preference is usually given, other things

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being equal, to New Zealanders, and it has been gratifying to find how often New Zealanders, resident in Britain or otherwise, have won the recommendation of the distinguished professors to whom the selection is largely entrusted. Lord Rutherford was one of those who found time to serve on these committees, as he was always grateful to New Zealand for the opportunities given him at his school, Nelson College, and at Canterbury University College, where he carried out the first of that long series of experiments which did so much to chart a new world of knowledge.

One aspect of New Zealand education which has caused great concern has been the tendency of many of its best products to go abroad and stay there. Doctors, engineers, scientists are lost in large numbers, and there has been no method of getting them back, even when suitable vacancies for them occur. A long correspondence in The New Zealand News (London) produced abundant evidence that many men would like to go back to New Zealand if they could earn something comparable with their earnings overseas. The idea of a register in the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research of men wishing to be considered for appointments was put forward and it seems to offer some hope of arresting the drift abroad.

Enough has been written to show, I hope, that there is a lively interest in education in New Zealand that bodes well for its future. There is comparatively little snobbery and even the pupils of the few private schools (to which free text-books, milk, apples, and similar benefits are available) start off the same mark with the rest when it comes to making their careers.

CHAPTER XXVIII

WRITERS AND ARTISTS

The one great figure in literature we have so far produced is Katherine Mansfield, who was born in Wellington in 1888, on a stormy day which symbolized much of her brief career. “New Zealand is in my very bones,” she once wrote, and E. H. McCormick, in Letters and Art in New (1940), says that the remark has a deeper meaning than she herself may have realized: “New Zealand, the idealized New Zealand of her childhood, became a refuge into which she withdrew from surroundings that, with sickness of mind and body, became more and more distasteful. With ‘a kind of possession’, an almost religious self-dedication that distinguishes her later New Zealand stories from those written before the war, she set about

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re-creating in minute detail the scenes and figures of her life in Wellington. Perhaps only one of her contemporaries or a member of her family can appreciate fully the exactitude of her descriptions and the superb way in which she recalled a Wellington in the awkward stage of transition from small town to city."

J. B. Priestley wrote of Katherine Mansfield: "In all her stories you may say the air tingles. She was one of the few writers of our time who made life seem as rich, exciting, and significant at every turn as it does in our best moments." Her style, according to Edith Sitwell, was "pellucid beyond measure—like a clear shallow water through which you can see something shining and lovely, impalpable and beyond your reach". We have come to appreciate that style as we have developed a literature of our own. Katherine wrote because she wanted to pay a sacred debt to New Zealand and to the memory of her brother, killed in the War of 1914-18 at the age of twenty-one. In poetry and what she called "a kind of special prose" she paid that debt. As lan Gordon has written: "Katherine Mansfield belongs to England and to Europe. But in a very real sense she belongs to New Zealand."

Jessie Mackay, champion of women's rights, spent much of her inspiration on intractable themes but she wrote much that will live. Her lament on the death of Sir John McKenzie has been called the finest occasional poem in our literature. Her "poetical heir" is Eileen Duggan, possibly the most promising poet to appear in the years following the war of 1914-18. Walter de la Mare, in an introduction to a volume of her work, says that it contains many examples of "pure poetic impulse". Here is "The Song of the Kingfisher" from New Zealand Bird Songs:

Why do you sit, so dreamily, dreamily,

Kingfisher over the stream,

Silent your beak, and silent the water,

What is your dream?

A falling, a flashing of blue and of silver,

Child he is deep in the stream,

Prey in his beak, and fear in the water —

That was his dream!

“Robin Hyde” (Iris Wilkinson) published in her brief life an astounding volume of work in poetry, biography and fiction. In Check to Your King she told the story of Charles, Baron de Thierry, and his luckless attempt to found a kingdom in New Zealand in chapters that really live. I will always regret that I did not meet her when she came to London after grim experiences in China which she described in Dragon Rampant and which led to her death. The music of words overflowed from her:

PRESENT AND FUTURE

Take from the bird Thy gift

Whereby she sings,

Still will she keep her swift

Treasure of wings.

Steal from the rose its scent,

Still is its hue

Splendour made innocent

Softened with dew.

William Pember Reeves, Alan Mulgan and his son John Mulgan I did know. They span between them virtually the whole story of New Zealand's literature. Reeves, in his historical writing and occasional poetry, gave the rising generation signposts for the future. Alan Mulgan followed in his footsteps. His son John was at the beginning of what would have been a notable career in literature when he died on active service in 1944 after attaining the rank of lieutenant-colonel. His novel, Man Alone (1939), has been warmly praised. E. H. McCormick writes of it: "With a detachment gained by living in England and an insight unclouded by the expatriate's nostalgia, John Mulgan has discerned a pattern in the events of the last twenty-five years. He has seen that the easy-going post-war New Zealand was moulded into something different—something older and more sober —under the pressure of economic collapse and approaching war. His choice of theme and protagonists is too significant to be mistaken, and in the introduction and the close of the novel he has suggested the wider framework within which the New Zealand development has taken place. It is a mark of John Mulgan's skill as a novelist that his broad social theme is not imposed upon the novel, but arises imperceptibly from the telling in clear-cut idiomatic prose of a highly dramatic story."

Frank Sargeson is a figure of similar stature. In Conversation with my Uncle (1936) and A Man and his Wife (1940) he evolved a technique which has had and will have a great influence on New Zealand writing.

Walter D’Arcy Cresswell has made a distinctive mark in our literary history with The Poet's Progress (1930) and Present Without Leave (1939) and his poems. His Lyttelton Harbour (1936) was described by The Times Literary Supplement reviewer as “a notable sequence of sonnets” summoning his countrymen “from sentimental romance to spiritual reality.” Cresswell outraged many New Zealand conventions by his disregard of the profit motive and his eagerness to elude the bonds of an orthodox profession. Writing—apart from journalism —was unthinkable as a sole means of livelihood in the New Zealand of Cresswell’s boyhood, and he came to England to make that precarious pilgrimage which produced The Poet's Progress.

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Others were equally independent, and the birth of a new school, interested in social rather than scenic ideas, may perhaps be traced to the economic depression of the ’3o’s which profoundly influenced the whole course of New Zealand’s development. Men like A. R. D. Fairburn, R. A. K. Mason, Allen Curnow, Douglas Stewart, Charles Brasch, and Denis Glover wrote with burning conviction and little by little they created a public for their work. It was even possible for the Department of Internal Affairs to commission Curnow to write a poem (as preface to the splendid volume commemorating the tercentenary of Tasman’s discovery of New Zealand) without raising questions in Parliament about the misuse of public funds. This poem, Landfall in Unknown Seas, concludes:

But now there are no more islands to be found

And the eye scans risky horizons of its own

In unsettled weather, and murmurs of the drowned

Haunt their familiar beaches —-

Who navigates us towards what unknown

But not improbable provinces? Who reaches

A future down for us from the high shelf

Of spiritual daring? Not those speeches

Pinning on the Past like a decoration

For merit that congratulates itself.

0 not the self-important celebration

Or most painstaking history, can release

The current of a discoverer's elation

And silence the voices saying,

'Here is the world's end where wonders cease'.

Only by a more faithful memory, laying

On him the half-light of a diffident glory,

The Sailor lives, and stands beside us, paying

Out into our time's wave

The stain of blood that writes an island story,

The volume also contains a brilliant essay On the place ofTasman's Voyage in History by J. C. Beaglehole who, as historian, poet, and editor, has had a considerable influence on New Zealand thinking.

A Book of New Zealand Verse, chosen by Curnow and published by the Caxton Press, Christchurch, which has done so much for New Zealand literature, was praised in The Times Literary Supplement. The reviewer described the work of the sixteen poets included —from my old professor, Arnold Wall, to James Baxter, aged nineteen —as perhaps tentative and transitional but never trite or trivial.

While the war of 1914-18 stimulated literature in New Zealand by increasing contacts with the outside world, the war of 1939-45

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stimulated it by cutting off many contacts with the outside world. The difficulties of communication with Britain and the scarcity of paper there encouraged local publishers and there was a spate of book production, much of it of an ephemeral character but some bearing the hall-mark of literature. To roam through the bookshops, as I did in 1945, was to realize that at long last New Zealand had attained her majority. A periodical, New Zealand New Writing, had established itself, and to me, at least, seemed equal in standard to similar productions in Britain. Its list of authors incidentally bore witness to the impact of writers who had come to New Zealand from other lands and made their own distinctive contribution to the hard fight to establish a New Zealand literature.

No doubt the latest and greatest war will see an extension of authorship among men made articulate by strange experiences in foreign lands and seas and skies. By 1945 there were already stories of escape like Brigadier James Hargest’s Farewell Campo 12, and of life as a prisoner-of-war like Gunner Inglorious by J. H. Henderson (first published in Wellington in March, 1945, and twice reprinted in the next two months). Men of the New Zealand Division abroad were encouraged to write, and experience shows that it takes very little encouragement to induce New Zealanders to continue writing.

There is not yet a distinctive New Zealand school of painting though it may not be long before one emerges. Perhaps the impact of war may hasten the process. The opportunity to portray war scenes was eagerly taken and much of the work done was of a high standard. The weird warfare in Crete was vividly conveyed to canvas by Peter Mclntyre, while Austin Deans, before being taken prisoner after the battle for that island, painted many desert scenes.

In the Dominion the war made little obvious impression on the work of artists, judging by what I saw in 1945, but it may have some ultimate effect. New Zealand is a superb and challenging field for landscape artists. John Moore, who has devoted years of study to our trees and birds, wrote for “My New Zealand” this account of the country from the artist’s point of view:

“I found in England and abroad that I didn’t feel much inclined to paint, I saw pictures ready-made everywhere, whereas in New Zealand, real untouched New Zealand, I always want to paint but seldom find pictures ready-made. Nature here seems to say: ‘Here I am with my own characteristics, and if you want to make pictures, you must approach me. I cannot help you, but if you like to take the trouble you will find in me unlimited possibilities’. I think you will catch the feeling I am trying to describe. That austere, rather gloomy and uninviting, to some people almost frightening bush, which is at the same time throbbing with vitality and life-giving forces, must be painted somehow —and not through

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English or any other spectacles. The task of painting is to communicate feelings rather than thoughts, and so one must feel, almost live, into the bush, birds and lands before anything but the outer forms of Nature can be painted. There is something of which Nature can be said to be the body, and that is what I want to paint, and usually don’t! You may object that the same can be said of all countries. Yes, but in the very long civilized ones there is little of real Nature left, and landscape has come into being with the aid of human thinking and action, so that when you come to paint it, you recognize an acquaintance, as it were. Whereas real New Zealand is entirely un-human and you have to go unaided all the way.”

Many of our artists, like many of our scientists, doctors, engineers, and journalists, have gone abroad and stayed there. They include Oswald Birley, Frances Hodgkins, Eleanor Hughes, and, in a different field, David Low. Others have returned, like Sydney Thompson, after a long absence. Among well-known artists whose work has won recognition by experts are J. C. Richmond, his daughter Miss D. K. Richmond, and his grandson, Esmond Atkinson; Nugent Welch, Miss M. O. Stoddart, Alfred W. Walsh, A. E. Baxter, Archibald Nicoll, Elizabeth Kelly, Cecil Kelly, C. F. Goldie and H. Linley Richardson. The “greatest individual achievement of recent New Zealand art”, according to E. H. McCormick, is the work of T. A. McCormack, whose water-colours “imply that there are values beyond those of the world of business and politics and that an artist may best serve the community by upholding those values in his work, and, not less uncompromisingly, in his life”. In a different way, Christopher Perkins, who arrived in New Zealand in 1929, had exerted an invigorating influence “by pointing out new bearings which young artists might take up, though with perhaps more caution than their mentor”. Another progressive influence has been the work of John Weeks, with its “masterly sense of form” and “bold, but unerring use of colour”.

The files of that courageous periodical, Art in New Zealand, founded in 1928, and unfortunately temporarily suspended in 1946, offer abundant evidence of the remarkable amount of painting by New Zealand artists. The Government of recent years has been less unresponsive to the claims of art, and by commissioning murals for the Centennial Exhibition, for example, was responsible for some excellent work by F. H. Coventry, depicting four stages of New Zealand history. Exhibitions of work from abroad, organized by the late Murray Fuller and his wife, have also been a wholesome influence.

In music New Zealand, considering its small population, has produced a goodly number of able performers. Rosina Buckman and Oscar Natzka are perhaps our most famous singers. Colin Horsley, whose first concert in war-time London was a great success,

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soon achieved fame as a pianist. Douglas Lilburn is our most promising young composer, and Warwick Braithwaite our bestknown conductor. Perhaps the best augury for the future is the Music in Schools movement which has achieved spectacular success, notably under E. Douglas Tayler and Vernon Griffiths, now Professor of Music at Canterbury University College. A National Symphony Orchestra was formed in 1946.

CHAPTER XXIX

POPULATION PROBLEM

The population of New Zealand is increasing steadily but very slowly. The census of 1945 showed a total, including some 40,000 troops still abroad, of 1,746,000. Between 1926 and 1936 the annual rate of increase was only rO5 per cent, the lowest in the Dominion's history. From 1936 to 1945 the annual increase was about fa per cent. Between 1936 and 1945 a definite drift to the towns was shown by the population returns. The urban areas of Auckland increased from 206,992 to 256,426, Wellington from 148,429 to 169,770, Christchurch from 115,369 to 128,884, and Dunedin from 78,787 to 79,781, a total increase for the four centres of 85,284. In 1881 three-fifths of the population lived in rural and two-fifths in urban areas. Fifty years later the position was exactly reversed. Now the urban population is 63-1 per cent of the whole.

The density of population in New Zealand is under 16 persons per square mile, Australia under 3, India 247, Japan 434, and Java 945. The Dominion's rate of natural increase per 1,000 population, which was 21*30 in 1886-90, was only 9-16 in 1936-40. This rate is as high as it is largely owing to the very low death-rate in New Zealand, where expectation of life, according to Sir John Boyd Orr, is, at 65 - 6 years, the highest in the world. Infant mortality is exceptionally low. Of 30,311 babies born in 1943, only 936 died. Much further improvement on this record cannot be expected.

Dealing with these and other facts in Population: New Zealand's Problem (1944), H. I. Sinclair observes: "For the future it is difficult to believe that immigration will be an effective long-term answer to our population problem in New Zealand. This does not mean that we should not encourage immigration from desirable sources. On the contrary, we should lay down a varied policy which will attract the maximum number of people possible, but at best immigration can be only a temporary expedient." Sinclair's argument is that if conditions leading to race suicide exist in New Zealand they will equally affect new settlers. Examining the possibility of getting

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suitable people to migrate to New Zealand, he quotes Sir Walter Layton's view that the number in Britain thinking of settling overseas will not be measured in millions or in hundreds of thousands. The rush of inquiries at New Zealand House and Australia House in London immediately after the war might be regarded as proving this view wrong, but as neither Australia nor New Zealand had any immediate encouragement to offer intending settlers the real test of numbers willing to migrate did not come till later. n • 1 ■ i* j-l : U:i; <-.. t« I «-«■ r-o *-1 (-»n frrtm P. 11 rnnp

Sinclair discusses the possibility of migration trom burope, especially from Balkan countries and from among the "millions of war orphans" in Europe: "Plans designed by the Dominion Settlement Association in Wellington are already available, and literally hundreds of homes could be found for these children with practically no delay." He goes on: "No doubt strenuous objections will be raised in some quarters if any attempt is made to allow entry of any Mediterranean peoples into New Zealand on a large scale. In a country where 98 per cent of the white population is of British stock there is a natural desire that the greatest possible percentage of immigrants should be of British origin. We are not likely to forget that the history of the present war has shown the damage that can be done in fifth column activities on the part of foreigners during international strife. Nor shall we forget that the presence of many foreigners in well-defined communities in any nation can lead to international friction ... or that local friction can easily be created by the presence of strong foreign groups, as Australia has found to her cost in the Italian settlements there. As against this, however, there is a body of opinion in New Zealand suggesting that we should not object to the immigration of Chinese on a large scale. They are a likeable, friendly, industrious and trustworthy people. When one considers the possibilities arising out of the present Japanese radio attempt to change the Chinese over to their way thinking against the Western peoples, and when one considers the future possibilities of radio propaganda in this connection, one can only conclude that it would be suicidal policy for our people to agree to such a course. The Chinese national conscience is only beginning to be aroused, but when it is finally aroused there is no telling what forces good or evil may shape the destiny of that land and of the world." This was written a vear before the defeat of Japan, but the complete change in the Pacific outlook scarcely invalidates the reasoning.

Inquiries by an Australian delegation in 1945 suggest that there are more potential migrants to the Antipodes in Holland and Scandinavia than one would expect, but it seems to me that NewZealand's main source of sealers must continue to be Britain, in spite of her own great need of man-power and very low rate of natural increase. Ft is estimated that New Zealand's capacity for absorption will not exceed 20,000 settlers yearly, and in my view

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we should return to the days of systematic colonization to find a plan to attract them. In recent years new railways have been constructed at vast expense through comparatively unpopulated areas. Why should we not have one or two new towns on the South Island Main Trunk between Christchurch and Picton, opened at last in 1945? If the technique used to build great camps at high speed during the war were applied to the problem of erecting new community centres, where men and women of different trades and professions could be transplanted to New Zealand, I see no reason why the experiment should not succeed. At the worst you have built a centre available for holiday or military purposes, should the settlement not take root; at the best you have a new and flourishing community established in a healthy climate and providing both passenger and freight revenue for railway lines in need of both.

Should New Zealand receive a moderate number of settlers, she will still be faced with the problem of population presented by childless and almost childless marriages. About 24 per cent of marriages in the Dominion are childless, and where there are children the average number per family is 2-30 —instead of at least 3, the minimum necessary to maintain the population. Though there has been little research on the subject in the Dominion, it may safely be assumed that, as in other countries, the fall in fertility in recent years is due mainly to birth control. Abortion reached such alarming proportions that a special committee was set up to consider it. To bring about a change of mind on this vital subject, everything possible should be done to encourage parenthood, not only by family allowances —already initiated —but by building houses of a size suitable for families of three or four children, instead of one or two as the State has been inclined to do.

The New Zealand Five-Million Club, in its publication After the First 100 Years (1939), sought to discover the cause for the decline in the size of families. It regarded "feminine emancipation" as one important influence and the spread of education as another, asserting that "pride of home and of family seems to be outside the modern school curriculum". Perhaps the emancipation of the schools from the tvrannv of examinations will allow this defect to be remedied.

Ill' L V 1 n 1 1 1 1 T V*. v«i»iii"»«"""" ...„_ -. While migration has been attacked in the past as a menace to the trade union movement, a more enlightened opinion now seems to be gaining ground among its leaders, though those who are in a position to do something constructive are still very wary. A. Leigh Hunt, the energetic chairman of the Dominion Settlement Association, who has done much to educate public opinion on population problems, asserted in 1936 that migration (of men and money) was the only permanent solution of New Zealand's unemployment problem. It does seem that an enlightened policy of encouraging secondary industries that are capable of production at a reasonable

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price should be adopted. The transfer of factories and workers to New Zealand is capable of benefiting both Britain and the Dominion, and there is good reason to suppose that in some cases it will be undertaken. New factories, built in accordance with the most modern standards of lighting, ventilation, sanitation, medical supervision and feeding arrangements, would set an example to many manufacturers, who have taken insufficient advantage in the past of the fresh air and sunshine so freely available in all parts of New Zealand.

A visiting expert, Dr. J. M. Davidson, took away an impression of “bad housekeeping” after visiting some 200 factories in 1945, though he did see “several well-planned, clean and obviously wellmanaged factories”. I saw several myself in the same year, notably the Ford munitions plant at Lower Hutt and Coull, Somerville, and Wilkie’s printing works at Dunedin. But it is generally admitted that there is room for improvement even in the minimum standards required by legislation. Rapid expansion due to war exigencies partly explains the unsatisfactory state of many factories, but does not wholly excuse it.

CHAPTER XXX

MAORI RENAISSANCE

While the white people of New Zealand are faced with a complex population problem, the Maori people, for whom complete extinction was confidently predicted fifty years ago, are increasing in numbers. The Maori population in 1945 was 97,263 —18 per cent more than in 1936. This happy result must be placed almost entirely to the credit of the Maoris’ own leaders, though some part of it is due to the devoted work of some administrators who took the trouble to study and understand the Maori mind.

The warriors who retreated to the King Country in the middle of the North Island after the Maori Wars were not defeated. They simply left off fighting. They retired to their central fastness while the tide of white settlement flowed over their confiscated lands. Their mana destroyed by the loss of their most prized possession, their will to live declined. What land did not vanish with the war disappeared equally effectively by legal processes. Many judges of the Native Land Court were friendly to the Maoris, but the Court did for twenty years separate the native race from the land with a thoroughness which the Royal Commission of 1892 condemned in scathing words: “A few more years of the Native Land Court under the present system and a few amended laws for free trade in native lands, and

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the Maoris will be a landless people.” The money that came from the sales was distributed among the tribes and spent largely on liquor. Only just in time came a realization by the Government that action was called for.

No measures of reform would have been effective if the Young Maori Party had not emerged to regenerate the race by bringing fresh hope and supplying a rallying-point for some form of national renaissance. The Party consisted at first of some twenty former students of Te Aute Maori College. Their first crusade was directed towards improvement of health and morals, and this foundered owing to the youth of the instructors. The Maoris were accustomed to looking to their elders for guidance—not to the young. But the young were not to be put off. One of them, Apirana Ngata, a University graduate, gave up what would have been a successful legal career to organize the new movement. It was helped by other brilliant men like Sir James Carroll, of Irish and Maori parentage, whose great powers of oratory swept away obstacles to the co-opera-tion of the two races. Dr. Peter Buck, now head of the Bishop Museum, Honolulu, and one of the world's leading ethnologists, was another leader in the campaign. His mental powers were as notable as his lineage and he did much to break down Maori antipathy to development and closer settlement. Sir Maui Pomare completed a quartette of personalities of which any race in the world might well be proud. It is not too much to say that they and their followers won for New Zealand the reputation she enjoys as the one country where the native race is not disappearing when largely outnumbered by Europeans.

One great obstacle to Maori progress was the holding of land in common. Many owners had interests scattered in various districts. By patient negotiation, "involving," as Sir Apirana Ngata has said, "endless meetings, conferences, groupings and re-groupings, the breaking down of long-standing ties and overcoming of sentimental opposition", compact farms were secured and the way was open to try dairying on a co-operative basis. The elders having approved the idea, a factory was built at Ruatoria, cows were brought from Taranaki, and the company's three hundred suppliers were soon getting top price on the London market for their product. The co-operative system fits in well with Maori communal ideas, and the Ngatiporou tribe has made a great success of it.

When Sir Apirana Ngata became Minister of Native Affairs, he prepared schemes to extend the system to other tribes, and he was given large powers to promote farming by Maoris. One of the first of the farm schemes at Waiuku was in the charge of the wellknown chieftainess, Te Puea Herangi, who organized her people into a working bee and in thirty-five working days cleared and ploughed 262 acres. The land was divided into five dairy farms, and

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the owners paid back the money advanced for equipment by deductions from their milk cheques. More than forty other schemes were carried through, despite the severe economic depression of the time.

Te Puea Herangi is one of New Zealand’s most remarkable women. She is a granddaughter of Tawhiao, the second Maori King, and it fell to her lot to buy back, at Ngaruawahia, the old Maori capital, some of the land that had been confiscated from Tawhiao. There she built a Maori village for her homeless and landless followers, and a carved meeting-house for the Waikato people, whom she brought into the scheme despite strong opposition by the diehards in her tribe.

To the Maoris the meeting-house of the tribe is more important and more significant than the cottage of the individual. Their life is centred on the meeting-place, and they have begun once more to lavish on these buildings all the talents of their best craftsmen. In a white township the settlers spend their leisure beautifying their homes. Their "town hall" is usually a featureless creation embellished by little more than a few faded photographs and what remains of the decorations of last month's ball. The difference is a fundamental one, and nobody should base judgments of Maori ability or industry on impressions gained of native houses as seen from passing trains or cars. To measure the Maori mind it is necessary to study the great meeting-houses at Kaiti (Gisborne), Waitangi, Tokomaru Bay, or Ngaruawahia, and see what they represent in the lives of the tribes who use them. The Maoris are no nation of shopkeepers. The virtues of competition in trade or industry leave them cold. They think in terms of the tribe and not of the family. Plant them far apart from each other on model farms and they will fail. Plant them in groups round the marae and they will thrive.

Though much has been done to provide adequate health and education services for the Maoris, there is still much room for improvement. Teachers in Maori schools need to be men and women endowed with resource and a sense of humour. Hamilton Grieve, a head master's wife and assistant, has recounted in Sketches from Maoriland something of the trials and compensations of teaching the young Maori. There are not enough native schools to cover all the Maoris, and half of them attend the same schools as white children, being thus deprived of the special curriculum suited to their needs. Teaching of all Maoris is in English, partly because of the difficulty of getting teachers who understand Maori. If more teachers had to learn the Maori language, which is well worthy of preservation, more people would be equipped to study Maori culture properly. Without a knowledge of the language this is impossible. R. L. Meek, in Maori Problems To-day, says that at least half the instruction in native schools should be in Maori, that

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the number of native schools should be increased, and that a greater proportion of teachers should be Maoris.

Special efforts have been made in recent years to instruct Maori children in the culture and traditions of their race. The boys learn to carve in the ancient Maori manner. "Maori design in painting is also studied and practised in both the drawing and handwork periods," states T. A. Fletcher, an inspector. "The girls receive instruction in taniko, by which differently coloured threads are plaited into a design for a belt or head-band. They also learn to make the piu-piu or Maori kilt of reeds, and to make the pois for their beautiful poi dances. . . . Self-government has been strongly encouraged in all phases of the school life and has abundantly proved its wonderful power of developing the personality of the children and bringing out what would otherwise be latent talents."

It is customary to say that there is no colour problem in New Zealand. Respect felt for the Maori character has certainly preserved the country from the worst forms of racial strife but there was visible between the two world wars a tendency among certain sections of the European population to attempt to segregate the Maori by refusing him admission to hotels, and in other ways. It can only be hoped that the demonstration in the fate of Germany of where such doctrines can lead a nation will save New Zealand from further manifestations in this direction. The Maori record in the second war against Germany, proudly set out by Sir Apirana Ngata, in The Price of Citizenship, should convince even the most ignorant that it is a privilege to live in the same country as such people. The immediate purpose of the volume was to commemorate the award of the Victoria Cross to Lieutenant Te Moana Ngarimu. When requested by Sir Apirana to supply genealogical tables, an elder of his tribe, Timutimu Tawhai, wrote:

“My own feeling in this matter is, that we should exercise all humility for the honour bestowed by God on our young relative. Although I have so constructed the genealogical tables as to converge on him only, that is as it should be, for he is the occasion of the sentiment which convulses the country. They are for the eyes of those who understand; for there are men who have eyes with which to see, but do not see. This youth, Moana, was like an axe in the hands of one who felled a tree. Who should have the honour? The axe, or the man? Was he not indeed an axe in the hands of his Maker? It is true that the axe should have honour, a little honour, but the glory belongs to our Father in heaven. That should not be dimmed by the fame of the axe.”

In their progress through North Africa and Europe, their retreats and their victories, the men of the Maori Battalion discovered in strange lands their Maori-tanga —something more and something deeper than pride in their race. They returned to their own land prepared to work together for the common good.

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They found themselves faced with many problems, some common to both races, some specially pressing on their own. The Maori loves his land. When he lost much of it after the Maori Wars he lost interest in his future. How is he to retain and work what land remains to him—about a quarter of what he needs—to the best advantage in modern conditions ? How far will “social security” and a guaranteed family income undermine Maori institutions and promote the drift to towns? These are questions which only the future can answer, but which nevertheless deserve consideration by legislators who may tend to overlook differences in racial characteristics when drawing up joint plans for both peoples. The fact that victory in the four Maori seats kept the Labour Government in power in 1946, should secure special consideration for the native race. The Prime Minister took over the portfolio of Native Affairs himself and this should assist the solution of some of the chief problems facing the Maoris.

CHAPTER XXXI

SOCIAL SECURITY TO-DAY

Since New Zealand introduced her "Social Security" plan in 1938 the phrase has become something of a slogan to sum up the economic aims of the democracies. Passed immediately before the General Election of 1938 New Zealand's Society Security Act probably had some influence on the confirmation of the Labour Party in power by an absolute majority of the votes polled, but it made no really revolutionary change in a country where old age pensions and other benefits were already on a liberal scale. Moreover, it was a contributory scheme, most of the benefits being financed by a five per cent tax on all salaries and wages.

In 1946 the scale of benefits was as follows

Age: Single man or woman, £2 a week at 60. Married couple £4, even if wife is under 60. Extra income allowed £1 per week.

Universal superannuation: An alternative age benefit, starting at 65 and paid irrespective of income or property. In 1946 it stood at £25 a year and is increasing by £2 ios. annually until it reaches a maximum of £lO4 per year.

Widows' benefit: £2 a week for widowed mothers, plus ios. for each child For childless widows, 30s. a week.

Sickness, unemployment: Married man £4; single person £2. Invalids: Married man £4; married woman or single adult £2; under 2o's, £1 ios.

Family benefit: Every family gets ios. a week for each child under 16, irrespective of income.

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The Social Security Act also provided for liberal medical assistance for everybody requiring it. The operation of these provisions has not proved so simple as that of the other part of the Act, as the co-operation of the medical profession was not readily forthcoming. The Minister of Health, A. H. Nordmeyer, with whom I talked in 1945, gave me the impression that he regarded a State Medical Service as the logical solution of the problem. The Government’s intentions are undoubtedly good, but they are in serious danger of being defeated by those who, finding medical treatment free, insist on having it whether they need it or not. There is also some temptation for doctors paid by the visit to over-visit, though this evil is counteracted by an extreme shortage of doctors. But overworked doctors faced by persistent patients may perhaps be forgiven for prescribing spa treatment at the safe distance of Rotorua or Hanmer Springs. With treatment at these valuable resorts included in social security benefits there is serious danger of overcrowding, with resulting neglect of serious cases.

CHAPTER XXXII

NOTE ON SPORT

NewZealanders are a sport-loving people and their country is almost ideally adapted for a great range of sport —from mountaineering to deep-sea fishing. Rugby football is almost a national religion, and some of my own most vivid experiences have been in watching New Zealand teams playing in six countries. In the Second World War, as in the First, the New Zealand soldier played football at every opportunity. The New Zealand Division, though under strength and with many of its men returned to the Dominion, sent a team from Italy to Britain for the season 1945-46 which was strong enough to beat England at Twickenham 18-3, and Wales at Cardiff 11-3, losing only to Scotland 11-6. I still remember vividly great moments of the last two All Black tours of 1924 and 1935 and a pilgrimage I made with the 1924 team to the grave of Dave Gallaher, captain of the 1905 team, who was killed in action.

In cricket also New Zealand has produced good teams —and a champion bowler, C. V. Grimmett, who migrated to Australia to gain Test fame. Anthony Wilding remains New Zealand's only world tennis champion, but in the years before the war with Hitler the Dominion produced a few players capable of extending the world's best. In athletics, J. E. Lovelock raised the New Zealand flag at the Olympic Games in Berlin after a mile race which will be remembered by all who saw or listened to it.

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Racing and trotting are among the most popular New Zealand sports, as is shown by the vast sums which pass through the totalizator. Book-making is illegal but rampant.

A remarkable development in recent years has been the development of winter sports and mountaineering. Ski-ing facilities at Mount Cook, Arthur's Pass, National Park, and Mount Egmont have been greeted with enthusiasm. A vivid portrayal of mountaineering delights in the Dominion is given by John Pascoe in Unclimbed New Zealand, which tells the story of exploration in the back country of Canterbury.

Angling is the New Zealand sport which attracts most visitors from abroad. Rainbow and brown trout are very widely distributed. Atlantic salmon are found in Lake Te Anau and quinnat salmon in the rivers of Canterbury. The season covers most of the summer and autumn. Licence fees are low and there are no private preserves. Deep-sea big-game fishing is claimed to be "the best in the world".

Deer have flourished so greatly that they are now a pest, comparable to the rabbit in its worst days. The deer-stalker is a national benefactor and is given every encouragement. Duck-shooting, pighunting, and many other varieties of sport are available.

The popularity of flying as a sport served New Zealand in good stead when war broke out in 1939. The exploits of Kingsford-Smith, the great Australian airman, Jean Batten, F. C. Chichester and A. E. Clouston were partly responsible tor the vogue of civil flying.

CHAPTER XXXIII

NEWS SERVICES

Despite many casualties in recent years there are still a large number of newspapers in New Zealand. But the elimination of competition and the growth of the influence of the commercial side of the newspapers brought about a regrettable state of affairs. Salaries of journalists were laughable in comparison with those in vogue in Australia and Britain. Consequently there was a steady drift of competent young men to newpapers overseas. Reviewing the situation in 1939, I wrote:

“There is now no centre with two morning or two evening newspapers. Directors rather than editors formulate policy. Advertising revenue tends to be the chief criterion of success. The advent of a Labour Government had produced the remarkable situation of a country with more than forty daily papers, of which only one, and that in the small town of Greymouth, supports the Government. That

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is, in itself, a commentary on the decline of newspaper influence on political ideas, but the Labour Party hopes soon to establish papers in the main centres. . . . These will stand or fall by virtue of their news services, and if these are good, circulation and advertising will automatically follow.”

War held up the scheme, but the first Labour Party daily, the Southern Cross, was published at Wellington on March 4, 1946, with an experienced Australian journalist as editor. The Opposition morning paper is the Dominion, which has distinguished itself by the one-sidedness of its assaults on the Government and is now engaged in a hard fight to survive without too great a strain on the pockets of its proprietors.

The daily newspaper with the highest circulation is the New Zealand Herald, largely owned by the Wilson and Horton families. I have elsewhere traversed some of the Herald's achievements in economy, but a rising generation and competition on the horizon may bring about a change, so I content myself with hoping for the best. I did note when in Auckland in 1945 that the Herald had actually introduced real criticism of films, which, if maintained, means a great advance in daily journalism in the Dominion.

The Auckland Star is more liberal in politics than the Herald, which has been prophesying Red Ruin in New Zealand ever since Seddon's "Utopian" legislation of 1893. The Star is less pontifical and more lively. It is, in fact, a good evening paper, and will be better when restrictions and restraints on news gathering imposed by years of co-operative monopoly are removed.

The Evening Post, Wellington, like the Herald a. family newspaper, was once a good paper and may be so again. But its 1945 standard was poor indeed. Here again the influence of the commercial side is only too obvious, and here also competition may produce a welcome improvement.

The Press, Christchurch, with a literary tradition inherited from men like James Edward FitzGerald, Samuel Butler, G. S. Sale, O. T. J. Alpers and M. C. Keane, found the war period, with a much reduced staff, very heavy going, but will doubtless recover its old vigour rapidly. The Christchurch Star-Sun, lineal descendant of the Lyttelton Times, read by the Pilgrims shortly after their arrival in the First Four Ships, now runs in double harness with the Auckland Star.

The Otago Daily Times, Dunedin, edited for many years by the late Sir James Hutchison, still gives considerable space to books and looks well beyond the local scene. The Dunedin Evening Star completes the list of papers in the four centres. I found excellent papers of their kind in other towns. M. H. Holcroft, whose essay The Deepening Stream ably reviewed the cultural influences that have moulded New Zealand, edits one of them in Invercargill, lan

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214

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WITH THE UNITED NATIONS

lfierences of opinion in the Dom: on inter:, there can be no iprniiw that the cotmtrv as a riurinl pol baaed on a whole-hearted acceptance of the ideak anirr fadiinw the new form of intemati - Deration New Zealand thanks to the statesmannut of aO proportion to the size • her nments,aDh Zealand

But . -noaesiueii arc mere Zealand had a leader in Peter Fraser ■ His -.faencr on Intr when he was chairman of

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PRESENT AND FUTURE

the committee on trusteeship, drew warm tributes not only from the leader of the Australian delegation, Dr. Evatt, and representatives of other countries, but from the New York Times correspondent who described him as “one of the leading intellectual figures of the conference”. His main speech, broadcast to New Zealand while I was there, made a profound impression, and Mr. Fraser was welcomed back to Wellington with an address signed by citizens of all parties and creeds which said:

“You never faltered in the effort to secure justice for all nations. . . . You fought for principle with the same ardent thoroughness that has marked the achievements of our Armed Forces. . . . We shall always remember your service with gratitude. . . .”

Reviewing the results of the conference the Prime Minister said that under the terms of the Charter it would be incumbent on New Zealand to provide whatever armed force was considered proper after consultation and agreement with the Security Council. Another important pledge under the charter was that the supervision of mandated territories would be passed to the Trusteeship Council which would be set up to replace the Mandates Commission of the League of Nations. For New Zealand this would mean the transfer of Western Samoa, not as far as administration was concerned but in respect to general international supervision. The third responsibility was to carry out a policy ensuring full employment or the equivalent maximum family income and New Zealand intended to take steps in this direction in the 1945 session. "For permanent peace the world requires to be seized with the conception that it can stop war, and it then depends upon the honesty and sincerity of the Great Powers. Peace demands that every country should subordinate itself to the interests of the world as a whole. It means that, or it means nothing. One reason why I am optimistic about the future is that this is the first time that all the nations have agreed to the use of military sanctions." The New Zealand delegation opposed the principle of veto by the Great Powers but agreed to play their full part in helping to make the world organization work efficiently. Tin . 1 y—l 11 11 r.l TT". 1 AT .' ._../*_.!

When the General Assembly of the United Nations met for the first time in London on January io, 1946, the Prime Minister showed his appreciation of the importance of the deliberations by leading the New Zealand delegation himself. He was elected chairman of the "Social, Humanitarian and Cultural" Committee. When New Zealand tied with Yugoslavia for election to the Economic and Social Council he made the statesmanlike gesture of giving way. In his formal speech to the Assembly he said that the veto remained, in his opinion, a blot on the Charter. The New Zealand delegation considered that better account would be taken of the

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NEW ZEALAND AFTER FIVE WARS

many-sided nature of the problem of atomic energy if the proposed commission for dealing with that problem were to work under the Assembly, “the only body with general competence over the whole sphere of action of the United Nations.” The Prime Minister concluded by pledging to the Assembly, to the Security Council and to the United Nations Organization as a whole the assistance of New Zealand to the limit of her resources.

New Zealand’s policy, like Britain’s, is to be shaped largely by the United Nations, if the leaders of the two countries bring their people with them, as seems highly probable. This new outlook on world affairs must have a profound effect on the development of the British Commonwealth and Empire. It will render largely academic some of the questions about the direction of British foreign policy which threatened to cause trouble both before and during the war with Germany and Japan. There had grown up in some at least of the Dominions a distrust of the British Foreign Office, which seemed at times to be quite out of step with the march of public opinion. How far permanent officials were responsible for this is a quesdon difficult to determine. From what I have heard from Lord Vansittart of the scope allowed him I should think it was not so great as I imagined at one time. But it still seems to me that the Foreign Office is recruited from too narrow a field to represent adequately the Commonwealth, for which in practice it often speaks. It will be all to the good if a solution to this difficult problem is found by the merging of British and Dominion views in a policy evolved by, and for, the United Nations.

CHAPTER XXXV

RECENT JOURNEY

From the flying-boat I looked down on the curving coast-fine and as we flew across the narrow isthmus to Auckland Harbour marvelled at the green beauty below —contrasting so vividly with the brownness of then drought-stricken Australia. Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city, with a population of some 256,000, seemed tranquil by comparison with Sydney. The climate and the beauty of the islandstudded harbour incline Aucklanders to open-air pursuits. Yachting, fishing, and camping are very popular, and for excursions there are such ideal places as Kawau Island, Sir George Grey’s old home, Opononi, on Hokianga Harbour, the Ninety Mile Beach, principal home of the toheroa, a shellfish larger than the oyster, and the great kauri forests of Waipoua and Trounson Park. Auckland needs good

217

PRESENT AND FUTURE

hotels, and as private enterprise has not provided them the State may have to do so in the interests of the tourist traffic and in view of the city's important position on the Pacific air routes.

Flying within New Zealand is highly organized and efficient, but, as there was much pressure on the few available aeroplanes and I had no real excuse for asking for priority, I stuck to the railways and savoured once more the delights of the all-night Main Trunk journey to Wellington, with the regular stops for "refreshments"—the übiquitous cup of tea and ham sandwich —the ghostly crawl up the Spiral, and the moonlit view of the snow-capped volcanoes which stand sentinel in the middle of the North Island. Ruapehu was smoking after a long period of quiescence and was soon to become really active.

The express arrived, after more than fifteen hours, at Wellington, the capital, with its population of 176,000 spread over the hills and around the bays of the fine harbour. Both Wellington and Auckland have modern railway stations surpassing anything London can boast. Wellington has the additional advantage of good hotels. The most modern are the Waterloo and the St. George.

Another overnight journey, by "steamer express" this time, brought me to Lyttelton in the South Island, and, after a short journey by train, to Christchurch, the city of the Canterbury Plains where the planning of the founders a century ago is obvious. The Central Square and Cathedral, the two departments of Christ's College, the profusion of parks and reserves remind, or should remind, the fortunate generation of to-day of the vision of Wakefield, Godley, FitzGerald, and the other founders of the Canterbury Settlement. The public and private gardens of Christchurch are notable even in a land where a large proportion of homes have enough room for growing both flowers and vegetables. Like the northern cities, Christchurch has a large number of factories, and as there is a general tendency to expand secondary industries careful planning will be necessary to preserve the city's amenities.

Travelling south from Christchurch across the Canterbury rivers fed by the snows of the Southern Alps, a thrilling spectacle to the west, and through Timaru, with well-remembered Caroline Bay, I broke the journey at Oamaru to renew acquaintances at Waitaki School. I saw again also the begonia and gloxinia house at the Oamaru public gardens—a sight vividly remembered through the eleven years since my last visit. Then on to Dunedin, sedate centre of Otago, whence Scots migrate to good appointments everywhere and whence comes much of the capital which has contributed to the more spectacular development of the North Island. Dunedin itself has little more than maintained its population (about 79,000) since 1936, and some of its more enterprising business men are trying to do something about it. By encouraging new enterprises

218

NEW ZEALAND AFTER FIVE WARS

and by an energedc publicity campaign they hope to arrest the northward drift of population.

I had hurried south because I wanted to make sure of getting to Milford Sound by the new Homer Tunnel route, destined to be one of the world's great tourist drives of the future. When I asked to be allowed to go through the uncompleted tunnel I did not realize just how incomplete it was, nor what formalities had to be gone through before permission could be granted. But the difficulties were removed and I was soon on my way by train to Lumsden and thence by service car to Lake Te Anau through picturesque country. Opposite Mararoa station the mountains formed a magnificent back-drop as for a Wagnerian drama which might have been played out on the slate-grey, brown and green platform in front. Through this bold panorama our driver kept steadily at his task of delivering to the settlers their newspapers, bread, and other stores. He was the only regular link between them and the towns. Little more than two hours driving brings us to lovely Manapouri, Lake of the Many Isles, and thirteen miles farther on we come to Te Anau, the largest lake in the South Island.

It is from here that the famous three-day walk to Milford Sound begins. During the war the track was largely overgrown and the huts fell into disrepair, necessitating much work before the restoration of the regular tourist route could be contemplated. The walk, in any case, would not now be so freely undertaken, since the Eglinton Valley motor route saves much dme. But it is certain that "the finest walk in the world", with its glorious views of mountains, lakes, and above all the Sutherland Falls (1904 feet), will be preserved.

The distance from Lake Te Anau to Milford Sound by the Eglinton Valley route is 74 miles. More than 54 miles of the road were completed as long ago as 1934, but the last twenty miles were difficult and the culminating obstacle was the blasting of a tunnel through three-quarters of a mile of solid rock. Avalanches held up work and war caused the desertion of ghost towns, through which we passed. Men left their tent-and-timber settlements for battlefields in other lands. The manager at Milford Sound, Mr. Berendtson, met the Te Anau manager, Mr. Bayfield and myself, at Marion with a Public Works truck. In this we traversed the rocky road through the long hole in the rock, with water splashing down from above and the possibility of an odd boulder coming down too. When I looked back at the steep face over which the discoverers of this "pass" came I could only gasp at the optimism of those who conceived the plan of putting a tunnel through. From 3,000 feet we descended by a series of sharp turns across narrow bridges and past more ghost towns until at last we drove up to the hostel. Visibility was poor but I caught a glimpse of famed Mitre Peak (5,555 feet) —a sight for

2ig

PRESENT AND FUTURE

which visitors have sometimes waited long periods in vain. My luck was in, for the next two days were the only two consecutive rainless ones at Milford in two months.

I awoke on the first morning to see the sun shining in a cloudless sky against which was outlined the great view of Mitre Peak, the Lion, Mount Pembroke, and the Bowen Falls above the blue waters of the Sound. In that vast expanse and to see that wonderful sight there were only five people. To be so far from crowds in such surroundings was for anyone coming from a city a memorable experience. Words to describe it are beyond me and even illustrations used in this book cannot adequately depict the wonder of New Zealand scenery seen after long absence.

After breakfast we went out fishing in the launch Donald Sutherland, named after the pioneer who first lived at Milford some seventy years ago. The scene was idyllic, with bell-birds calling and native pigeons fluttering among the trees. There was good fishing. My second bite was from a shark, which got away. Later I landed one, and the others accounted for trumpeter, crayfish and a skate. But our main bag was nearly sixty blue cod, one of the best of New Zealand fish. We took the launch out beyond the sound to the open sea, where the fishing was also good. As we came back with the sun still shining in a cloudless sky the shadow of Mitre Peak was sharply outlined on the side near the Bowen Falls.

We were to see these beautiful falls from many angles next day, when we were taken by launch up the Arthur River and left with the dinghy for our return. We walked up the Milford Track a mile or so to Gamp Oven bridge and beyond, noting its overgrown state and noting also in the river one or two good trout. We rowed down again to the mouth of the Cleddau, where we landed, built a fire from driftwood and boiled the billy for tea. As we rowed back to meet the launch, we saw many native pigeons, Paradise and grey duck, and had wonderful views of the falls. The only drawback to this excursion were the sandflies, which do not worry you on the water or in the hostel but are very persistent elsewhere on land. In other places both mosquitoes and sandflies plague the visitor, but even with these handicaps I would say that there are few greater pleasures to be had than a New Zealand holiday by sea, lake, or sound where the native trees and birds remain.

I climbed up behind the hostel to get an all-round view of a scene I shall never forget. After the majesty of the Sound even the glories of the Eglinton Valley seemed a little tame as we drove back reluctantly to civilization, leaving our blue cod at roadmen's huts and taking letters to be posted.

Time did not permit me on this visit to see Queenstown on Lake Wakatipu or take once more the trail to Paradise. Nor could 1 stay again at the hotel at Lake Wanaka, which remains a pleasant memory

220

NEW ZEALAND AFTER FIVE WARS

of my last tour. Mount Cook and the West Coast glaciers, Franz Josef and Fox, had likewise to be omitted, but in any case space would not permit of adequate notice of their many attractions in this volume. I tried to see what was new in travel developments and accordingly travelled up the east coast by the South Island Main Trunk to Picton. A gap of 15 miles between Oara and Kaikoura was covered by car but shortly afterwards the railway was completed. The line runs through magnificent scenery for a great part of the way, but interest on its immense cost cannot be paid without a great increase in population along the route.

Picton is on Queen Charlotte Sound and within a few days of my launch expedition on Milford I was sailing down this other famous inlet where Cook refreshed himself and where fleets could anchor in safety. The Marlborough sounds are a great pleasure resort, especially for people from Wellington, on the other side of Cook Strait, to which the Tamahine runs in a couple of hours.

Back in Wellington again I saw some of the State housing schemes and the re-establishment centre for disabled soldiers in Lloyd Street before making a hurried visit to Wanganui and New Plymouth. The weather favoured me once more with great views of Mount Egmont as we approached New Plymouth in the "Flyer" train, so named because, though it stops at every station, it does not shunt! But next day pouring rain prevented me seeing glorious Pukekura Park with its tree ferns and vistas towards "the mountain".

My next expedition from Wellington was to the other coast — to Napier, and Wairoa—on the recently opened line to Gisborne, and thence across to Waikaremoana and Rotorua. It was a comlortable journey with the routine refreshment stops at Paekakariki, Palmerston North and Waipukurau. After a night at Wairoa we motored through the Wairoa river valley with its geometrical hills and brilliant autumn tints. Near Waikaremoana, “Sea of Rippling Waters”, we saw the power-houses which harness the great lake and then for mile after mile we had glorious views of the lake itself, with the giant bluff, Panekiri, dominating the scene. Lake House has been open only for limited seasons in recent years, owing to labour shortage, but one has not fully seen the wonders of New Zealand until one has gazed at a sunset through the great window that looks out across the lake.

We motor on through the Urewera country, scene of many Maori War expeditions, and through many miles of State forest, flaming autumn tints of larch contrasting with the more common green. We see the Rainbow mountain and are soon in Rotorua.

Rotorua used to mean only one thing to New Zealanders—hot springs. Now it means much more, but I had promised myself some treatment at the spa and indulged in Aix massages and Rachel baths with very soothing effects. The Blue Baths, too, soon exercised

PRESENT AND FUTURE

221

their old attraction. This warm swimming pool, 100 feet by 40, is among the finest in the world and has for neighbour a smaller pool for children, 70 feet by 36.

The regular tours at Rotorua are through the extensive thermal reserves at Whakarewarewa and Tikitere, the "Government Round Trip", and the Six Lakes Trip. Recently opened up is the thermal wonderland of Orakei-Korako, south of Rotorua, and I went there with a Tourist Department officer to see its attractions, which are certainly remarkable. The first main sight is Te Koro Koro o te Taipo (Devil's Throat Geyser), which is forming a terrace. There follow the Oyster Pool, the Flounder Pool and the Cardinal Pool, coloured by a reddish mud from which the Maoris derived paint for their meeting-places. The guide said this was the same as that used by Red Indians for their totem poles. In the Ladies' Beauty Parlour are various coloured muds from which lipstick and other cosmetics can be made. Then we came to Mimi, "the largest geyser in New Zealand", the Golden and Emerald Terraces; the Cascade Geyser which plays over its terrace for forty minutes until the Diamond Geyser starts; the aquamarine Hochstetter Pool, commemorating the well-known scientist who many years ago foretold the future of Orakei-Korako as a thermal wonderland; and as a climax, the White Terrace or Frozen Niagara —200 feet wide, 25 feet high, and 6 feet through. The geyser which formed it has finished its work—and what a work! From an outlook above we see a great panorama with the noble Waikato River sweeping by. By the White Terrace play two geysers, Dreadnought and Samson's Cauldron, and a new geyser is beginning its career, while beside the terrace runs a petrifying stream.

Then we are escorted with due ceremony to a great cave, 160 feet from top to bottom, called in Maori “The Place of Adorning” and in English, more prosaically, Aladdin’s cave. Here a thousand people could stand and gaze at an emerald green pool of alum water below—-the wishing pool of the Maoris, which is tapu, and before which only women can wish. In this perfect natural amphitheatre, with no echo, we are told stories of wishes fulfilled and of one man who wished, had his wish fulfilled, and then died. On the walls are these words of a South African poet:

There is a spirit haunts the place,

All other lands must lack

A speaking voice, a living grace

That beckons fancy back.

True it is that this cave, where clay has been baked into china by intense heat, captures the imagination and compels it to return to look once more with the mind’s eye on the emerald pool which was mirror to Maori maidens centuries ago.

222

NEW ZEALAND AFTER FIVE WARS

Returning, we see the Artist’s Palette, beautiful pools of colour, where the former track was. Orakei-Korako is no set piece, and a close watch has to be made for over-night developments. Going back along the track, so new that some of its attractions were as yet unnamed, I was asked to christen one small but beautiful terrace — a rather difficult thing on the spur of the moment. But the Jade Terrace, with its dominant dark greens, may still mark a visit I am not likely to forget. Hydro-electric developments which will raise the river level threaten to overwhelm much of this remarkable area.

Rotorua has too many wonderful sights ever to lose its place as a tourist centre, but its attraction for overseas visitors is menaced by two things—the vastly increased local patronage of the spa treatments as a result of the Social Security scheme and the consequently greater strain on the already inadequate hotels in the thermal area. New spa buildings are planned and new hotels are an urgent necessity. All sufferers from rheumatic ailments get some relief at least at Rotorua, and with air travel developments there is no reason why thousands from many lands should not share the benefits of the spa. But they must be offered reasonably good accommodation.

Rotorua is destined to become a great agricultural and timber centre. The State Forest mill at Waipa is by far the largest in the country and the modern methods in use there constitute a challenge to private millers, who apparently wish to carry over to exotic forests the methods they used with native trees. This is held by the State experts to be wasteful in the extreme, and I must say their case seems convincingly presented. The final test of the Waipa method must be price in open competition abroad, and the New Zealand State product enjoys a liberal premium in Australia. Oregon pine and Canadian redwoods are prominent in the Whakarewarewa forest. As we drive down from a summit we have good views of Tarawera and stay for a while by the Green Lake, with its green wall of forest.

Almost as impressive to the eye as Rotorua’s forests are the land development projects in the area. I drove down a road where the fields on one side were beautifully grassed, while on the other side was a ti-tree wilderness. The miracle of the regeneration of the pumice lands is wrought largely by the use of cobalt from Australia. The treatment was devised by the Department of Agriculture, in association with the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, while the Cawthron Institute at Nelson had a prominent share in the ground-work. Young stock still tend to get a wasting disease even on cobalt-treated land, so a complete survey has been inaugurated by the Dominion’s experts to discover a final solution of the problem of redeeming large areas of wilderness.

223

PRESENT AND FUTURE

From Rotorua I went to the Waikato, principal seat of the Dominion’s great dairying industry, where I talked with farmers about some of the problems they see ahead of them. They were anxious about the course of prices after the agreements with Britain expired in 1948. Some of the farmers recognized that much had been done for them by the system of guaranteed prices, but the majority could see no virtue in State Control at all. There would be more force in their contention if it could be conclusively shown that New Zealand farmers as a whole are efficient and able to work together in unity. I have heard some of them admit that a fairly high proportion of the Dominion’s farms are farmed in a makeshift manner even when labour is plentiful. This will not be good enough when the era of intensive competition sets in after the world’s vast demands in the reconstruction period are satisfied and European agriculture is properly on its feet again. A close watch on farming costs will have to be kept, particularly if the projected forty-hour week for farm labour becomes general. Costs will have to be kept as low as possible, and some system of sharing expensive farm machinery, often used for only a few days a year, would seem to be called for.

The problem of securing seasonal labour has been intensified by the social security schemes, notably among the Maoris, who used to help materially. It was obviously not the intention of the Legislature that Maori or Pakeha should refuse work because they could live on their allowances. Nor presumably was it the intention that men should decline to pay wages tax and insist on their employers paying it for them. But I was assured that this was a common practice.

The gulf between employer and employee in New Zealand seems to be growing wider, and the growth of class prejudice is to be deplored. It is traditional in the Dominion, as in most other places, to put the blame for everything wrong on the Government and forget all the things that are right. Many of the innovations of the Labour Government which attained power in 1935 are now accepted and incorporated in the programme of its opponents. When dissatisfaction legitimately arises it is in large part due to the failure of Cabinet and Administrative machinery to change quickly enough for the enormous demands on it made first by war and then by reconstruction problems. There are not enough trained men for the complicated tasks that face the country both at home and abroad. We should encourage men of experience to join the Civil Service instead of relying almost entirely on those who join it at an early age and have no knowledge of any other occupation.

These are a few of the impressions I formed in my travels through New Zealand. From the Waikato I went south once more by the Main Trunk, saw the volcanoes again, and spent a last week

224

NEW ZEALAND AFTER FIVE WARS

in Wellington talking to heads of Departments, and comparing impressions with old friends like Alan Mulgan and Oliver Duff. Back again to Auckland, in a sleeping-car this time, for a taste of school Rugby (Auckland Grammar School v. Sacred Heart College), a week-end at Takapuna, and a glorious drive round the water front to Mission Bay and the memorial to M. J. Savage, first Labour Prime Minister.

Auckland was a picture as the tug took our ship out, the War Memorial Museum standing out in its Grecian beauty. In brilliant sunshine we passed Rangitoto and the Little and Great Barrier Islands. Later, as the land vanished, the sun set in a sea of glory. I felt it was a fitting end to a memorable journey.

INDEX

Abyssinia, 98 Acclimatization problems, 69 Achilles, H.M.N.Z.S., 160, 181-

Conscription, 85, 102

Cook, Captain James, 20

Country quota, 186

182

Crete, 116, 117-123

Curnow, Allen, 200

Air aces, 148-159

Air Force, Royal N.Z., 102-105, 148-159, 166, 169, 174-181

Airborne invasion, Crete, 117-123

Dairy industry, 70

, , t "—j Alamein, 127, 129, 131-134

Depression (1886-91), 71; (193033). 94 de Thierry, Baron Charles, 2Q

j' *O * *Jt American troops in New Zealand, 169

Anzac, 86-89

Douglas, C. E., 65-66

*-^""5 A "°) *-*• -*-'•) V J Durham, Lord, 28, 31

Arbitration Act, 72

Arbitration Court, 91

Artists, 201-203

Auckland, 36, 44, 48, 49, 58

Education, 18, 187-197

Australians, 109, 112, 114, 115, 116, 119-121, 132-133, 180

Egypt, Battle for, 123-139

— OJft — " » '~D 'D3 Elliott, Sergeant Keith, V.C., 130

Explorers, 59-61

Bank of New Zealand, 74-75, 185-186

Faenza, 144

Banking crisis, 73-74

Fiji, 167-169

Fitzßoy, Captain, 39, 43

Barrowclough, Major-Gen. H. E., 124, 169, 170, 171

/7 f ~" J JJ) TJ Fleet Air Arm, 162-164, 182

Beeby, Dr. C. E., 191

Forbes, G. W., 93-95

_ » —■ •* 't 3D 3J Foreign policy, 78-82, 99-100, 214-216

Bir Hacheim, 126

Bougainville, 173, 177, 181

~""E>~ ~> * lOt 'lit Bowen, Sir George, 56

Forest destruction, 69

Buck, Sir Peter, 207

Fox, William, 53, 58, 60, 78, 79

Burrows, Brigadier J. T., 123, 129

Busby, James, 25-26

France and New Zealand, 26-33

_._.. , jj Fraser, P., 101, 189, 214

Freyberg, Lt.-General Sir B., 106, 112, n6, 117-118, 121, 122, 124, 127, 133-134, 139, 1 45-i 47

Cameron, General, 47-55

Campbell, A. E., 187-188, 195

Capuzzo, captured, 124

Cassino, 141-144

Churchill, Winston, 88, 131, 136

Gabriel's Gully, 61

Gallipoli, 86-89 '

Chute, General, 55-58

Gambia, FI.M.N.Z.S., 181

Coates, J. G., 93-95

Colonial Office, dispute with Grey, 55-58

Gate Pa, British defeat, 51-52

Gladstone, W. E., 29

, ... —., _-, Gold rushes, 59-64

Condliffe, Dr. J. 8., 70, 96-97

, —. . —, /-* *j- ui Coningham, Air Marshal Sir A., 154-155

Godley, John Robert, 41

Gore Browne, Colonel, 43-47

Confiscation policy, 51

Gorst, J. E., 48

225

226

INDEX

Granville, Lord, 57-58

Lend-Lease, 166-167

Long Range Desert Group, 108111

Greece, 111-117

Green Islands, 172-173

Grey, Sir George, 39-42, 46-56, 75-76. 78-79, 81, 187-188

Guadalcanal, 170-171, 174-175

Mac Donald, Lieut. G. J., 161-162

Guaranteed Prices, 97-98

Mansfield, Katherine, 197

Maori problems, 206-210, 223

Maoris, 21-26

Haig, Lord, on N.Z. Division, 90

—, Maori King movement, 43

Hamilton, General Sir lan, 83, 87

Maori Wars, 39, 43-57

Hargest, Brigadier J., 107, 118, 124, 147-148, 201

Mareth Line, 136-137

Harper, A. P., 65-66

Mason, H. G. R., 189-192

Hauhau fanatics, 52, 56

Marsden, Samuel, 22-25

Hetherington, John, 15, 117-118, 120

Massey, W. F., 85, 93

Migration, 203-205

Milford Sound, 218-219

Hinton, Sergeant J. D., V.C., 116

»■■■■ '"> O " %I * ' Hobson, Captain William, 32-36

Milner, F., 193, 194

Minquar Quaim, 127

Hogben, George, 188-189

Hone Heke, 39

Missionaries, 21-26

Housing, 185

Montgomery, General Sir 8., 131 140-141

Hulme, Sergeant A. C, V.C., 121

"Moore's March," iio-m

Hydro-electric development, 186

Munich Agreement, 99-100

Imperial defence, 81-82

Imperial federation, 79-80

N.Z.E.F. (First), 85-91; (Second), 102-148

Inglis, Brigadier L. M., 118, 123, 124, 129

N.Z. Naval Division, 101, 102105, 160-164, 181-182

Import control, 97

Italy, Battle for, 139-147

Nash, W., 165, 166-167, 185-186

Native affairs, control, 40, 52-53

Navy, Royal, 115, 116, 119, 120, 122

Japan, 99, 100, 164-183

Navy, Royal New Zealand, 160164, 181-182

Jones, F., 174

_ —-y, New Zealand Association, 30

Newspapers, 212-214

Kippenberoer, Major-General H. K., 118, 120, 122, 132

Ngarimu, Lieut. Te Moana, V.C., 209

Kiwi, sinks Japanese submarine, 182

Ngaruawahia, 49

Ngata, Sir Apirana, 207, 209

Kufra, 108-111

Labour Party, 73, 91-92, 94, 95~9 8 , „

Old Age Pensions Act, 73

Olympus, 112-114

—•/ *"f —--j - - t Orakau, siege of, 50

Land titles, disputed, 38-39

257

INDEX

Orakei-Korako, S2l-222

Sport, 211-212

Otago settlement, 40-41

State Socialism, 95

Stout, Robert, 76, 79, 81

Strachan, J. E., 194

Surveyors, 65-66

Pacific policy, 75-77, 215

Park, Air Marshal Sir K., 155156

Population, 67, 203-206

Takrouna, 138

Provinces, established, 40; abolished, 68

Tamihana, Wiremu, 46-47, 50, 55

Tasman, Abel, 19, 200

Public Works policy, 67-68

, _ , -j, Te Kooti, 56-57

Te Puea Herangi, 182, 207-208

Thermopylae, 114-115

Times, The, 31, 78

R.N.Z.A.F., 102-105, 148-159, 166, 169, 174-181

Tito, Marshal, 145, 146, 147

Tobruk, 124-127

Rabaul, 176, 177-178

Trent, Squadron Leader L. H., V.C, 152-153

Rangiriri, captured, 49

Reeves, W. Pember, 67, 72

Trieste, 146

Reform Party, 92-93

Refrigeration, 70

Rehabilitation, 184-185

United Nations, 214-216

Reserve Bank, 96

Responsible Government, 42

United States, co-operation with, 164-167, 169, 170, 175

Retrenchment, 93, 185

Roberts, Air Commodore G. N., 169, 183

University policy, 195-197

Upham, Lieut. C. H., V.C. and Bar, 120, 130-131, 147

Rommel, 124, 126, 131-136

Rotorua, 221-222

Rutherford, Lord, 45, 197

Ruweisat Ridge, 129-130

Vella Lavella, 170-171, 175

Victoria Cross, won, 116, iai, 130-131, HCJ-'SO. 152-153. 209

Vogel, Sir Julius, 67-68, 75, 80

Samoa, 75-77, 85, 100, 215

Savage, M. J., 99, 100, 101-102

Seddon, R. J., 18, 64, 72-74, 76-77, 82-83, 95

Wairau massacre, 38

"Self-reliance," 51-58

Waitangi, Treaty of, 34-35, 43, 46

Semple, R., 186

, . o _, j ] jt J*JJ f ~ Wakefield, Edward Gibbon, and family, 26-34, 41-42

Senio River, battle, 144

Sheep industry, 68-70, 71

Ward, Sergeant J. A., V.C., 149-150

Sidi Rezcgh, 125-126

Skinner, C. F., 184

Ward, Sir Joseph, 73-74, 93, 95

Social Security, 210-2 11

W< stland, 17-20, 59-64, 65-67

Solium, Maoris capture, 124

~. , ~ —, U:J — r , „j „ 7 Wild, L. J., 194

Women's Services, 102-105, '7°

Somerset, H. C. D., 194-195

South African War, 82-83

Wi rid War, First, 85-91

Southern Alps, 19

Writers, 197-201

READ ALSO

Merchant of Alphabets

REGINALD ORCUTT

rTlRAVEL, ADVENTURE, THE SPELL OF FARdistant places and alien peoples merge with business in this personal story of an American who sold the Linotype around the world. Armed with this wonderful type-setting machine with its many alphabets and infinite variety of type faces, Reginald Orcutt moved always in unusual circles: newspapermen, publishers, kings, bartenders, adventurers, those intimately associated with their native culture, connoisseurs of life as well as livelihood. Lowell Thomas has said of Mr. Orcutt: “Nobody else ever heard of is familiar with so many lands, so many peoples.” Besides all the forty-eight United States and its dependencies, Mr. Orcutt has visited and lived in no fewer than seventy-seven different countries. From Iceland to Patagonia, from Borneo to Lapland, he has travelled as a merchant of alphabets, selling the world its ABC’s. Merchant of Alphabets is the informal record of a brilliant businessman possessed of an itching foot and an insatiable curiosity, of his countless human contacts, of his adventures in remote parts of the world as a “missionary for civilization”.

LARGE DEMY 8VO

18s.

JAHROLDS

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN