WRECKS AND PROGRESS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 33, 8 February 1930, Page 8

WRECKS AND PROGRESS.

It is now sixty-seven years since the wreck of H.M.s. Orpheus on tlie Manukau bar. Although the passing of years lias not seen the abolition of wrecks,- it has witnessed a very great improvement in the means of communication available at such a time. Sixty-seven years ago it took twelve hours for the news of the -wreck to travel from the Manukau Heads to Auckland, whereas to-day it would not take as many minutes. The Orpheus was inward-bound when it struck the bar about half-past one of the afternoon of Saturday, February 7, 1863. The disaster was witnessed by those at the signal station, but they had no means of communicating the news to Onehunga. A small boat was dispatched, but it ,dicl not reach the port until half-past ten that evening. When the news was received on board H.M.s. Harrier, which was lying at Onehunga, a messenger set out for Auckland, to inform the senior naval officer, who was apprised of the wreck about one o'clock on Sunday morning, nearly twelve hours after the warship had struck. It was, of course, even longer before the populace of Auckland learnt the news. The steamer Avon had meanwhile been dispatched to the rescue, but by the time it reached the heads there, was nothing to be seen of the Orpheus. Had help depended solely on the means of communication with Onehunga, there would have been an even greater loss of life than occurred. Fortunately the small coastal steamer Wonga Wonga was outward-bound a short distance inside the heads when the warship took the bar. and was able to pick up about 70 of the crew. The slowness of the means of communication in 1803 as compared with those of the present day was demonstrated 18 months ago when the schooner Isabella de Fraine foundered on the Ilokianga bar. The accident,, which occurred at four o'clock in the afternoon, was observed by the harbourmaster, who at once reported the disaster so that the news was received by telegraph in Auckland, over a hundred miles away, in ample time.for its inclusion in the "Star" the same afternoon. Even thirty years after the wreck of the Orpheus, the means of communication were far from being what they are to-day. When the Wairarapa was wrecked on the Great Barrier Island 6n October 28, 1894, it was not until four days afterwards that the news reached Auckland. The steamer struck shortly before midnight on the Sunday, and the first tidings of the disaster were conveyed to Aucklanders when the steamer Argyle arrived at two o'clock on the following Thursday morning with the survivors whom it had picked up when it had called at the Barrier in the ordinary course of events.. A comparison is provided by the wreck of the Wiltshire at the southern end of the Barrier on the night of May 31, 1922. The ship was.no sooner.aground than the urgent appeal for help was received at the wireless station on the top of the Auckland Post Office. By means of wireless, three ships which were in the vicinity of the Barrier were instructed to go to the rescue. Their were also ascertained and sent'on to the captain of the Wiltshire, so that he might know when to expect assistance. Further-wireless messages from the doomed vessel resulted in the dispatch from Auckland of the necessary life-saving appliances, by means of which the entire crew of the-Wiltshire was eventually rescued. But for the advent of wireless there would doubtlessly have been #reat loss of life. W.M.L.' OUR EARLIEST PORT. A Bay of Islands branch-of the New Zealand] Farmers' Union is urging that the Government should make the Bay a port of entry for overseas vessels and that a Customs officer should be stationed there. It will be news to many people probably that Russell is without a Customs man at present. Certainly the port is increasing in importance with the frequent visits of large overseas steamers to Opua for-refrigerated produce, and there is strong warranty for the Farmers' Union request. After a long period of somnolence the Bay is wide awake and its-value as an outlet for the country at its back now being turned to good account is appreciated by mercantile and shipping interests. Years ago the intercolonial and Island steamers called regularly at Opua for coal from the Hikurangi mines. Coal is railed to the deep-water port still, but besides there are frozen meat and dairy produce and fruit in increasing quantities. . • ; Not so long ago there was a Customs officer stationed at Russell town who covered many jobs besides that concerned with the entering inward and clearing outward shipping. He was inspector of oyster fisheries, he was registrar of births, marriages and deaths, he tended the signal station on historic Maiki Hill above the town,, he kept the weather records, he issued game licenses and generally looked* after most official duties in the old township on the beach. This official, Mr. Stephenson, had lived the.re all his life. It may be that his successor will have to make Opua, at the head of the Bay, his headquarters, for that is where air the large vessels go to-day. , Turning up records of the past, and Casting back in one's memory for tales of the old timers, it is clear that the Customs officer of the early days at Russell had anything but an easy time of it. He had unpopular duties to discharge, and duty to collect under ordinances highly obnoxious to the ships' captains and the local merchants of the day. The large storekeepers of the 'forties could in truth be styled merchants; they did business in a big way and imported a great variety of goods, chiefly for the whaleship traffic and the Maoris. The Customs man had to be on the alert, for one thing, for breaches of the Arms Act, and more than one ship was seized because the captain paid for his sea stock of potatoes and pork with muskets and gunpowder. The late Mr. John Webster, of Opononi, Hokianga, told me that when he first saw the Bay of Islands, in IS4I, there were more than twenty whaleships, mostly American, lying at anchor there. There •was a time, before the Customs duties were imposed and for a little while afterwards, when the receipts at the Bay from furnishing supplies to whalers averaged about £45,000 annually. Even in 1845 there were still seventy or eighty whaleships from America, besides those from other countries, anchoring annually at Kororareka or at Wahapu. The times have vastly changed, but the new era promises to be far more profitable— and certainly more permanent—than when the Bay was in the rowdy glory of its big whaleship trade. —J.C. WHITE POVERTY IN AFRICA. Large numbers of white ,people in the Union 1 of South Africa are living below the poverty line. In the towns poverty among the whites does not obtrude itself, but in the barren backveld a great mass of the population is eking out a pitiful ■ .existence. The problem of white poverty in a. .country' where tlie black man outnumbers the white by nearly seven to one is one of the most Seripus: which faces the South African Govern- . ment,Revelations of the life of the poorest class of white's have been made by Dr. Malherbe, who-has served as a member of the Research Com- . imittee-; to the British Association. He has collected hundreds of biographies, and has examined' about 5000 chjldren in 50 schools. In one of the schools iiot one child, even in the highest classes, couki 'find South Africa on-the map. He. gave many instances of the almost incredible ignorance which prevails in- many of the schools outside the big South African towns. Most of the poor whites are Dutch-speaking, #nd none of them has received any education beyond elementary. ' knowledge in the veld schools. Dr. Malherbe declared that the white;man was resorting to measures which would jeopardise the whole of South Africa's economic future, and that of the white man in particular. "Such measures as are proposed," he said, "will in time rob the dominating race of the virility bred from the buffeting of stern competition, and will render it soft and weak when the nemesis conies. History has shown that Nature selects the coddled, privileged 1 class of any'country for | destruction." A