STORIES OF NEW ZEALAND.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 84, 10 April 1937, Page 7 (Supplement)

STORIES OF NEW ZEALAND.

By JAMES COWAN.

THE WATCH ON THE FR°OTIER— THE MILITARY ROADMAKERS—SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS AND THE MAORI COUNTRY.

HISTORY has a way of repeating itself, and the old lessons are often taught again. Roads are the first thing needed in the conquest of a country, and many roads first made by an army long ago have become the motor highways of today. The methods of Caesar and his Roman legions in Britain are the present methods of the British troops on the North-West front'vr of India in keeping the wild tribes under control. The best way to subdue a wild, rough country is to make roads through it. That rough condition is the best defence of a primitive race. General Wade, who made the famous road through the Highlands of Scotland, more than 200 years ago, was strongly opposed by the chiefs of the clans. They foresaw that peaceful penetration by this means was more to be dreaded than actual war. Exactly in the same way the military forces in New Zealand made their conquest sure. Exactly in the spirit of the proud Highland chieftains, the Maori leaders expressed their dread and hatred of the road that wheels could travel. Our sympathy usually goes to the people whose country is invaded. They have justice on their side, as a rule, lor they are defending their native land. But we must admire the wisdom of the invading roadmakers. In New Zealand the man who finally subdued the Hauhaus was Sir Donald Maclean, the great Native Minister and Defence Minister. In 1870 he began a plan of road-making in the interior, which crowned hi& peacemaking efforts. He used the Armed Constabulary and some of the friendly Maoris for this work. He showed the hostile Maoris that every part of their country could be reached sooner or later by roads, and ' that they would be wise to make peace and join the pakeha in making use of those roads. There was still a little war in the " Urewera Country, but at last (in May, 1872) Te Kooti escaped across

| the Kaingaroa Plain and reached the shelter of the King Country. Maclean wisely left him alone. Peace was his aim, a peace that would never be broken. He sent the Arawa Contingent to join the white Constabulary in road-making, and in this way the places that were dangerous backblocks at that period were opened up to travellers and pioneer settlers. Maclean had in mind from the first the lessons of history in his native land. "The New Road." There is a great historical novel, "The New Road," written by the late Neil Munro. It should be read by New Zealanders for its description of General Wade's road-making, which Maclean took as his pattern. Tn a more recent book, Mr. H. V. Morton s "In Scotland Again," rhere is an, account of Wade's work aid of the Highland chiefs' helpless indignation. In the year 1724, when he was appointed Commander-in-Chief in - Scotland, he considered carefully the measures he should take to prevent another rebellion like the Jacobite rising in 1715. First of all he made a . survey of the Highlands and reported to his Government. Nothing could be done, he believed, without roads. He therefore formed a road-making regiment of 500 soldiers, nicknaqied by him in m joking moment, his "highwayman." These redcoats received an extra sixpence a day for their labour. Naturally the survey and the highway making were resented by the olan chiefs. The historian Edward Burt, who was on the scene when the road works began, wrote that "the chiefs

1 and other gentlemen" complained of the opening up of their country for strangers. These strangers, they argued, would destroy or weaken the attachment of the clansmen to their chiefs. They said also that, their fastnesses being laid open, tliey were deprived of security from invasion. The bridges in particular, they said, "will render the ordinary people, effeminate and less fit to pass the waters in other places where there are none." Moreover, many poor Highlanders had no shoes, and the gravel of the Government road would hurt their bare feet. They therefore were often forced to leave the road and travel "in very incommodious ways." And even the black cattle (the principal wealth of the Highlands) had to do the same thing, "for the ease of their feet." Certainly tliose Highland chiefs mustered all possible arguments against the road. You may remember, in one of our stories on this page it was narrated that the Waikato chiefs strongly opposed the military road to the Waikato (just before the war of 1867). They said the tribes did not want it: they could drive their pigs to market along a narrow track. Our Military Roads are Used To-day. The historians tell us that General Wade's road never became more than a military highway. "It is a dead road now," wrote Mr. Morton, who travelled a part of that twisting mountain road. But our New Zealand roads are different. The Great South Road, which wag carried on by the soldiers from Papakura and Drury to the Upper Waikato, is our motor highway to-day, with a few deviations. In many places the old'

Maori tracks and roads were followed by the pakeha soldier-navvies. The later period of military roadmaking, from about 1870 to the early 'eighties, gave us many useful permanent routes of travel. These roads were made chiefly by the Armed Constabulary Field Force and the Maori Contingent. Among them are the roads from Tauranga to Rotorua, thence to Atiamuri and Taupo, and across the high ranges to Napier. The road along the east coast of Lake *faupo was another. The road from Wairoa (Hawke's Bay) to the great mountain lake Waikaremoana was made in the first place as one of these strategic military routes. In the Upper Waikato much of the pioneer road-making was done by the Armed Constabulary. The present road from Cambridge to Tirau and over the Mamaku Range to Rotorua was first formed by the same force. So was the difficult swamp road between the Waipa settlements and Cambridge. The road across to Kawhia from Alexandra township (now called Pirongia, from the mountains of that name that overlook it) was made by the A.C. men in blue in the 'eighties.

That road to Kawhia, one of the last made by the Force, was a true strategic route, as well as a commercial one. It opened up the last retreat of the conservative Kingites. They regarded Kawhia Harbour as King Tawhiao's own seaport, not to be entered without his permission, and they were downcast and angry when it was made easy of access by the guiding beacons erected at the Heads for shipping and by the road carried across the wooded ranges from Alexandra.

In Taranaki Province, too, many frontier and pioneer roads were made by the Armed Constabulary. There were redoubts and stockades in many places, as in the South Auckland country. The Constabulary, for all their navvying toil, weTe ready to drop pick and shovel and axe and take up the rifle again at a moment's notice. We saw much of that Constabulary life on the old frontier of Waikato, where redoubt* and blockhouses stood like sentries along the pakeha side of the border.

(Continued on page 261.)