Herald's Part in Revealing the Potentialities of the Province

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21647, 13 November 1933, Page 41 (Supplement)

Herald's Part in Revealing the Potentialities of the Province

IKN the Hkrat.d's first number saw the light of day all settlement, outside the main centres whore military protection was available, was hampored' by fear of Maqfi hostility. Toward the end of 1863, tho Waikato War was in full swing and a week after tho first number of tho paper was issued tho Battle of Rangiriri was fought. With the suppression of the warlike natives the opening-HP of the Auckland Province, which had been delayed largely by the prevailing nervousness, commenced in real earnest and the burning 0 f the fern ami tho cutting out of the forests proceeded apace. 'j'ho Hiitai.d's first issue did not penetrato to the four corners of the province as it docs to-day. The interior was difficult of access. Tho first steamer had only just travelled down tho Waikato K:\er, there was no railway, regular steamer sor' ices hail not been established, there were no telegraph lines, and bridle-tracks had jiot been replaced by roads. Hamilton was a Maori village, Kirikiriroa, settled some months later bv military, naval and militia men on land confiscated from the defeated tribes. Cambridge was still a military outpost and the goldfield at Thames was a fortune yet to be discovered. 15nt placing military settlers 011 virgin lands, far from the main centre of population and with but the scantiest means of communication, was n very dillerent tiling to colonisation on a scale expansive enough for the healthy development of a marvellously fertile country. In framing and directing that future development no influence was more potent than that of the Nkw Zealand Hkkai.h, whose voice on the leading questions of

Hp//£ faith which the late Mr. F. Carr 5 ; *■ Rollelt had in the possibilities of farming j? the gnm-land of North Auckland had the tangible base of personal experience. In the !$ intervals of touring and writing of the $ province, Mr. Rollett acquired and personally $ supervised the conversion of a small section S; of gum-land into a profitable area. Mr. Rollett 5 ?: was wont to affirm that the plot was as white J as newsprint when he took it over and that, 5 5- by proper cultivation and fertilising, if was $ > not long before he had rich soil for over a $ 5 spade's depth. That section was in itself an J answer to sceptics concerning the gam-lands.

tlif day was inspired by vision, imagination and a dear umler.-tanding of the problems confrontin;: tlu' individual settler. Not only was its editoiial stall well versed in the literary tradition, but each writer had a first-hand knowledge of the province and the infant industries it then supported. Moreover, in furthering tlicir policy of keeping abreast of the times, the proprietors despatched commissioners into every corner of the province, carefully investigating the course of industrial, pastoral and agricultural development and exploring every reasonable avenue for the future exploitation of the wealth of the land. The reports of these commissioners—so descriptive, informative and pertinent—make highlyinteresting reading to-day. The transfer of the capital from Auckland to Wellington in ISCS, was vigorously opposed by the Herald, which foresaw (what actually transpired) the consequent neglect of the development of the Auckland Province at the expense of more-favoured Wellington and the South Island. The "neglected North" thus became a very vital political issue, which has not entirely disappeared from the political arena even to this day. Its true significance in those early times, however, can only be properly appreciated when it is remembered that Auckland's isolation from the new seat of government was a very real grievance (the sole means of communication was by sea) and that the Ministers of those days were not entirely innocent of charges of parochialism and favouritism. Only its unquenchable faith in the untapped resources

INFLUENCE OF VIGORO

of the province, the fertility of the land and the suitability of the climate, strengthened the Herald in its ceaseless struggle for the recognition of the claims of the North for an adequate share of governmental expenditure. Ono consequence of the removal of the capital to Wellington was a lagging railway policy for the Auckland Province. Auckland was far from the centra of government and its hilly terrain, requiring tho construction of expensive tunnels and cuttings, its vast stretches of heavy bush, requiring extensive felling, and its treacherous swamps, necessitating drainage on a large scale, all combined to make railway construction costly compared, for instance, with the case with which tho railway lino was laid across tho plains of Canterbury. Thus, while the first sod of the first North Island railway, Maungatawhiri to Moremere, was turned on March 29, 18(54, it was 1885

before the main trunk railway was commenced and the work was not completed until November G, 1908. It was not until 1898, too, that the line from Auckland to Thames, via the Waikato and Te Aroha, was completed. In the prosecution of these lines the Hkkai.d was a staunch advocate and fearless critic. It saw clearly the hopelessness of profitable development without the railway to serve the struggling settlers and through its jjersistent watchword, " settlement follows the railway," public sentiment was magnetised into a powerful demand for the recognition of the immediate needs of the province. In no respect was the Hkrai.d's keen foresight more justified in the light of events than its prediction of a great dairying future for the province. Such a belief seems axiomatic to-day, but 40 years ago it appeared to many people to be the height of absurdity. Taranaki was the great home of dairying in New Zealand and Auckland was thought by the majority to be totally unsuited to the milch cow, Southerners claiming the climate was far too hot. Par.ticu-

larly was this tho then current view of North Auckland, which to-day is making greater strides in dairying than any other part of New Zealand. The riso of dairying in the province came opportunely at a time when industry was approaching a period of stalemate. Especiallj' was this bo in North Auckland where, 25 years ago, the great kauri forests, the prolific: source of the timber industry, had been largely worked out. The timber ships, which used to load cargo in the Northern Wairoa River direct for Melbourne, came no more and the great timber mills were closing down. Tho time was ripe for a change, and the change came quietly, unobtrusively and smoothly. The bush gave way to grassland and dairy cows and sheep grazed where once great forests stood. In 1900 the first conference of dairy factory managers was held in Auckland —an occasion momentous in the history of the dairying indus-

try. An address by Mr. A. T. Thornton, dairy produce grader, who convened the meeting, showed the farmers for the iirst time the immense future before them and the importance of grading butter for export. This conference, deemed at first of not much importance outside the limited ranks of the dairy factory managers, was featured by the Herald to the extent of two columns and the next morning all Auckland was talking about it. For the first time public attention was focussed seriously upon the embryo industry and the Herald boldly suggested that the Waikato might yet surpass Taranaki as the dairy farm of New Zealand —a prediction which, although laughed at by many people at the time, came true less than 20 years afterwards. In the forefront of the great protagonists of dairying in the Auckland Province was the date Mr.'F. Carr Rollett, agricultural editor of the Herald and Auckland Weekly News for 33 years. As the Herald's special commissioner he travelled through every part of the province

from 1898 to tho time of his death in 1931, and his articles, breathing a fine spirit of hope and faith in the dairying future, did much to spur oil sluggish settlement and buttress the hopes of a farming community which had suffered from the slump of the early nineties. As a direct result of the Herald's enthusiasm for dairying, Mr. Rollett's reasoned optimism, and the persuasive photographs of the healthy dairying industry published in the Wkkkly Nkws, all eyes in the Dominion were turned upon the Auckland Province, especially the budding dairy cldorado in the Waikato and the fertile Thames Valley. Attracted by the prospects opened up by the new industry, "settlers started to pour into the province from all parts of the Dominion, particularly from Taranaki. In tho early years of the' present century farmers arrived daily from tho south, eager to acquire land in the new dairying province. Many of the new settlers were younger sons of well-established Canterbury and Otago farmers and there was also a leaven of Australians. Simultaneously, the Herald carried on a vigorous campaign for the opening up of native lands in the King Country and other territory. For weeks on end the caption, " Native Land," in heavy type, impressed upon the public tho possibilities of further settlement on lands then going to waste for lack of a vigorous policy, and many of the farming districts along the main trunk line owe their present advancement to the Hkkai.d's untiring advocacy. Tho utilisation of certain areas of pumice country was also urged bv the H niiALi), with results that have fallen short of complete success only through lack of adequate Government support and the intervention of low prices for produce. One of the Herald's proudest achievements was the part it played in settling and developing the North Auckland Peninsula. The " Roadless North," as it was known until very recent

II JQESIDES investigating areas for new settle- j| 5: LJ ment, the Herald has always taken a Very 5; keen interest in farmers who have become || established on their holdings. Many volumes || S: would be required to record the questions on husbandry that have been sent to the Herald s investigators lor answer. It has always been a matter of pride that no trouble was too jj JI great to obtain the right answer for the man who was assisting in developing the province. JI These answers have had a greater circulation than to the man who had ashed them, for on 5: many a farm to-day they will be found incorporaled in scrap-books containing items of i: useful information. ij>

years, was for generations tlio most neglected part, of the Dominion and an unknown territory to most, people. Its timber had been cut out, its kauri gum provided only a precarious living for a landless population and the greater part of it could only be reached by sea. Into this forgotten territory the llkiiai.l) sent its farming experts to map out the land, investigate its soils and advise as to their best employment. As a result, the myth of North Auckland's excessive heat and total unsuitability for dairying was thoroughly exploded, a new vista opened up before the eyes of the public, and roads and railways were pushed ahead in an effort to cope with the growing productivity of the new dairying lands. Settlement drifted northward, to Whangarei, Dargaville, the Bay of Islands, the Victoria and Oruru Valleys, until the Northland is iio longer the " Roadless North," but one of the best-cultivated dairying districts in the Dominion. The story was the same in the Bay of Plenty. A long and tedious coach journey 30 years ago revealed the scantiest of settlement, chiefly round Te Puke. In this case it was the llkhai.d's revelations of what might be accomplished by the reclamation of the swamp hinds that led to the draining of the Rangitaiki Swamp and the conversion of immense tracts of waste lands round Whakatane into dairy farms. Swamp drainage in the Thames Valley also bore fruit and gradually the Hkkald's dream of a once-neglected province, transformed by man's faith and energy into the richest dairying land in the Dominion, faithfully served by its largest port and city, crystallised into reality. On no part of the Dominion do hopes of returning prosperity now so trustfully turn than upon this northern province which at last has com© into its own.