WITHOUT DEFEAT

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 247, 16 July 1935, Page 13

WITHOUT DEFEAT

A Story with a Call to a Nation

By

OLIVER BLACK

Oliver Worried. Oliver reached his hotel in a disturbed state of mind. The calmness of spirit which the mountains had brought him had been broken by Tanner’s talk. Odd, worrying' little ideas kept running- through his brain. “Dash it!” he thought, "I’ve only been here a day or two. It would be a piece of impertinence for me to try to find out what’s wrong with a country I’ve only just set foot in. I can’t possibly.” But the troublesome little ideas kept coming. Oliver tidied himself for dinner and sat iu the lounge opposite an oleograph of the late King Edward. Two men. obviously farmers, and a large lady in a magenta dress sat at a table behind him. The men had loud, cheerful voices. “Hear about Joe?” said one. "Frank gave him 10/- to put on Terangi the third race and Joe goes and puts it on Terahini —aud Terangi won; tote paid £lB, too.” . "That’s Joe all over,” replied the other. “Ought to be in Parliament; then he could make proper mistakes. Well, it wasn’t a bad day’s racing, eh, Mother?”

“Don’t make me laugh,” answered the lady, “I can’t talk on top of a cocktail. Anyway, I’m for my tea.” They rose and went in to the diningroom.

Oliver followed and was put by the waitress at a table in the window which commanded an excellent view of. a large lorry filled with drainpipes. He ate absently, his mind full of Tanner and Marshall and the notions which they had put into his head. The trio at the other side of the room confined their conversation to desultory remarks. Clearly, eating was a serious business with them. Oliver finished his meal and went into the lounge. “To-night,” said a voice, “we are broadcasting the first act of the ‘Gondoliers: Marco and Guiseppe—.’ ” Oliver, in no mood for Gilbertian artificialities, put on his hat and went out again. The Victory of Death. A considerable wind was blowing, but the night was fine. Dark clouds were hurrying before the full moon, which hung above the hills. Oliver felt the wind on his face and his spirits rose. The hotel had been very depressing. He turned to the left and walked down the road away from the village. Beyond the railway line, at the very foot of the hills, he saw a tiny chapel. The tombstones round it stood out against the dark background like an army of ghosts on parade. “I will go.” thought Oliver, “to that chapel. Am I to adopt Tanner’s suggestion, which appears to me less and less absurd every moment? I will go for my answer to the tombstones.”

He crossed the railway and walked

up to the chapel. It was locked ; Oliver sat on the roots of a giant macrocarpa tree and looked round him. There were no marble monstrosities, no carved angels, no opulent vaults — only plain headstones and simple crosses. He bent forward to read tbe inscription on a little cross. "Mary Ann Death. 1886, aged 83. George Death, 1890. aged 91.” He stood staring into the night. The only monument, but the perfect monument to what must have been two of the original settlers. Probably they arrived long before old Marshall. What worlds lav behind the simple letters set above their last resting place? What lives of work and endeavour and mutual trust they must have led, these two! What great lives must have ended on this spot! Big—they must have been big all right. And was the spirit of New Zealand buried with them? It couldn’t be, not possibly. And it was wrong to say that this was their only monument: New Zealand itself remained an everlasting monument to George Death and his Mary Ann. and to their fellows. . . Heard in a Churchyard.

Oliver sat up as he heard voices approaching on the other side of the hedge. Peeping through the branches he could make out the figures of three men. They came up the hillside and leant over a gate a few yards from where Oliver was sitting. He could just hear their conversation. “And it iss always the same, look you,” said one. “ ‘Jones, lift that great rock’; ‘Jones, you are idling’; ‘Jones, hurry up.’ And for it, all we get is ten shillings. The next time he should speak to me I will knock his face in!” “Aw, shut your gob, Jonesy,” replied the man in the middle. “If you worked like you talk there wouldn’t be trouble.” “And I suppose I come out to this country that I may work upon the roads, good gracious!” “If you worked below the ground at Home, like proper men worked, instead of skulking about the pithead waiting for the next strike you wouldn’t complain so much at working a bit on top of it,” said the third man. “And should I not stand up for my rights? Are we not all free men in a free country? Look you, is there not money about you everywhere? Fat farmers living on the best of the land, and rich business men riding about In their fine cars—oh. there’s food enough and money enough in the country, I shouldn’t wonder, and a lot of it we get. Let them take some of the money that’s lying round before the workers get up and take for themselves.” Oliver nodded his head slowly; he knew that type well enough—North Wales. Probably from the slate auar-

ries before he drifted down to Cardiff by way of the South Wales coal mines ... a uerfeet curse all his life to everyone, himself and his trade union leaders included . . . the real unemploy able wastrel. Oliver wondered how and why he had ever arrived iu New Zealand; he hoped it was not under any organised emigration scheme. The man in the middle of the three was speaking again. “That’s right; it’s funny when there's so much food in a country; they don’t let us see a bit more of it.” “Take what you can get, ami be thankful, that’s my motto, Alf.” said the third man. “And a ... lot we’ve to be thankful for,” said Jones. “You can be thankful you live in the country and not in the back alleys of Durham,” replied the previous speaker, “and -that you don’t have to work in a coal mine; and that yon don’t have to keep a wife and family on five bob a week strike pay for a month, and then on nothing for a couple of weeks, ami all on account of someone rise’s quarrel.” “Oh hell, Willie,” said Alt, “you’ve done that —I don’t think!” “I have, lad. In the big coal strike after the war, up in Durham we were out seven weeks for the South Wales miners—your lot, Jones. And that wasn’t the only time. We had plenty of strikes in those days, and strikes mean empty bellies. You don’t know what that’s like, Alf, and'you just pray you never will.” Dictatorsliip of the Proletariat. “It iss people like you that is everywhere hindering the dictatorship of the proletariat,” said Jones vehemently. “How can we expect victory unless all the workers believe in the cause and unite?” “Believe . .. and unite,” thought Oliver, “faith . . . and discipline ....’’ “Come off the soap box, Jonesy,” said Alf, “we don’t want no dictatorship, not proletarian or any other kind. What we want is our own Labour Government so as we can all get a job of work.” “And a lot of good your Labour Government will do,” said Willie.

“About as much good as it did in England, or Germany or New South Wales —pretty well mess up the country. You want to do like me; keep clear of politics and be glad you aren’t worse off than what you are.” “And what sort of an idea iss that, indeed?” asked Jones. “Are we hot to better ourselves by seeking a Government that will give us more? And it iss only by the people taking the reins of Government that we will get more."

“I don’t know,” said Alf, “things were good enough here a while ago. There was work for everyone. Maybe we’ll get back there again with Labour in." “That iss what you think, eh?” said Jones. "Well now let me tell you. You will not get anywhere, no, nowhere at all till the workers themselves lead. What good are the Labour leaders? The rich men’s flunkeys, we call them at Home, and indeed they are so. If the people had taken control at home when the general strike was on they could have marched to victory. But they trusted the Labour leaders aud tbe trust of the workingman was betrayed. But for that anything might have been done, wfith the Government frightened out of its sense and the soldiers shooting innocent women and children in the street—murdering them." (To be continued.)