The Invasion.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 14042, 28 October 1909, Page 2 (Supplement)

The Invasion.

CT. D. Burnett.; The great light iu tho North Sea had been iuugbt, and neither side could claim, tho victory. It had been a firstrat© fight. Could it have- been otherwise, seeing that two great peoples had been educated for a decade to look upon it as inevitable, and it had been a fight almost to a finish. Tho North Sea that day was no place for secondrate men or second-rate ships. For a week the world stopped in its course as if to listen. Her© was war brought between the front doors of two peoples who had done more to mould modern thought anil history than the rest of mankind put together. Left to the statesmen of both countries there was good hope for an honourable understanding after this healthy bloodletting, bat tho peace party allowed some of its sections to become hystecical. There was a revulsion of feeling, the dour fighting spirit- which a softening civilisation had not completely bred out of either people asserted itselt, and on both sides of - 'the North Sea, men descended from a common parent stock, began with tightened jaws to prepare for facing tho next item on the dread programme. One country was self contained, was as near independent of other countries as it is possible for a modern State to be, it had probably a much lower proportion of misfits and wasters than any other country under the sun: and in the present struggle was practically immune from fear of invasion. The other country depended on alien lands for three-fifths to three-fourths of its foodstuffs and raw material. Its agriculture was so choked and smothered by all the world competition and the abuse of wealth, that land was more profitably let as game preserves and shootings 'than to be used for its God-given purposes; in consequence of which the people were becoming divorced from the land and fast becoming town parasites. The disease that had killed democracies in the past and wfll assuredly kill them in the future was also spreading over the country—a disease whose chief symptoms are profound belief in the fallibility of majority rule, and. that all men are of equal value. Moreover the main feature of this nation's strategy was its chief weakness—to keep open the trade routes. AH other considerations were side issues. The mouths of forty-five millions of people, mostly hungry, had to be filled. An Asiatic mail steamer deliberately away on the New South Wales coast, and an angry remonstrance from Asia's dominant Power against the enforcement of the- Alien Act —an Australian Prime Minister beseeching the people of his tenth part occupied island continent to keep their heads and not to be the pawns of Asiatic diplomacy—and that Power coming down in its foB-anned might to see what price Australians were prepared to pay for the exclusive privilege of singing 'f White Australia." The Asiatics over-ran and held the Northern Territory and Queensland, and to give them command of Torres and Bass Straits they occupied New Guinea, and Tasmania. They thus wisely contented themselves with the northern part of Australia, being satisfiedwith rnafcrag good their grip on territory already won, and only attempting a. quasi-blockade of Melbourne and Sydney- So *&» floodgate ß of tne Ea * fc were open and the invasion 6f Australia became a kind of Holy Crusade to all true Orientals. Remembered now and magnified a thousand fold, were all the taunts of race inferiority, of poll taxes and of shipwrecked coloured manners held as criminals," while the lordly white carved with, the point of the bayonet concessions and spheres of influence out of their native Asia. But the invaders were close enough students of modern history to know that no conquest can , he made good nowadays without the goodwill of the invaded. So their aim of conquest was as much moral as national, to fight yet again as they hart done at the beginning of the century, to show that they were fully the equals, in everv way, of the proud Caucasian: to sweeo awav for once and for all time colour distinctions; to fight in all faith for the open door, and let the best man win This was the dominant race of Asia, natural and yet highly trained fighters, equally as well educated as the average Australian and New Zealander, and probably intellectually their superiors. Behind them, m countless thousands! were men of a great neighbouring people, of an inferior fighting caste, perhaps best descrilied as born agriculturists, but. trained as fighters, excellent enough behind cover anil to hold ground already won. There was one of two things, or possibly the two together, that would save Australia from the yellow bar sinister. One was that the European power with the greatest area in Asia would seize the chance for revenge" on the Asiatics and wipe out former defeats. The other, that the great White party in the United States could break down certain bitterly anti-British votes and move to the help of their white kindred in the southern seas. New Zealand was at this time at its most interesting stage of development. It was that stage when a democracy is either mended or ended, when men are persuaded that hy organising poli- . tically they can benefit themselves vastly more than by toil and individual effort. Men looked for too much from the State, and the State expected too much of human nature; expected that men in the mass wonld be so altruistic as to refuse to move on the line of least resistance. So the note that sounded throughout the length and breadth of the land was that of insecurity not over loud perhaps, but all the deeper for its diffidence. Capital was slowly but surely drawing within itself. Sullenly it muttered that if it could not do this and if it must not do that, if it -sras to be roped in and fenced about by restrictions and allowed only the one privilege of being taxed, it would turn away its brains and sinews from the development of the country that gave it life blood. And the most tragic result of it all was that in one of the fairest countries' on earth and with but a handful of people, unemployment was rampant. Manufacturing concerns increased but slowly or languished altogether, and landless men put on the land by the direct efforts of the State were so nervous of the city and labour vote that they were hardly warm in their holdings before an agitation was started to obtain the freehold. If the old property franchise spelt Toryism and class privilege, what • abuses and foolishness arose under the cloak of "the will of the people," by means of the indiscriminate franchise. The greatest gift within tho right of the State to give its people, by which its destiny for good or evil could be controlled, was thrown indiscriminately to all, to worthy and worthless alike —could a lasting fabric bo built on such foundations? The waster, the misfit and the industrial poisoner, who made an open boast that he looked upon the State as something like an orange to be sucked for his especial benefit, was of the same political valne as the honest man and woman who were earnest in their endeavours to benefit the country by their success in life, however small that success mieht be. And here we have the astonishing state of affairs, that so far as State industrial recognition was taken of him, thebrainv finished worker was of no more value than the "lununicky' second and third-rater.

The voter was supreme. There was not a representative of the people, not a civil servant, not a Defence officer, but knew what it was 10 depart from his fixed line of duty for fear <>S the people. The frieiuls of the people were in hopes that education would help them in finding truer verdicts in all national questions, hut it was deeply significant that from the public libraries and booksellers came the warning that the public taste in reading was becoming shallower and trashier year by year, ami into this democracy was" launched an Asiatic expedition," an off-shoot- from the Australian invasion. There was a man hrod and reared nn the Mesopotamia country, at the head of the Rangitata. He was of Scots-Celtic descent. Through long sojourn in the gorges, living by himself -in lonely out-hut.-;, he came to be troubled so much with self-conscioiis-ness that it was perfect misery for him to mix with ihe coastal people. Yet he read Nature, and his whole being was saturated with the mystery of the ranges. Among his many weaknesses, hero-worship was the chief. In the highest niche was placed Holer the Tyrolean Patriot, then Kitchener, and after him the Boer Generals. Yet all that he knew of strategy was that the great snow storms had taughthim: al! that he knew of tactics was from his experiences in checkmating the half wild mountain merino at mustering time. His name was McAundy. MacAundy learned from years of bitter experience and semi-Arctic winters what fate hefel a flock of sheep scattered over a large stretch of treacherous mountain country; how the efforts of a station staff was weakened and wasted : how the losses were fifty and a hundred greater through lack ( of concentration. So he saw the great weakness of New Zealand's defence lay in her four centres, how each would put up its own little defence: how each would he taken in detail: how each lay within the zone of a ships gun-fire: and how the v hole strategy of the country's defence would be distracted and weakened by holding on to the centres when the snle reason for doing so disappeared the moment Britain lost command of the seas. For the centres to offer a determined resistance to a first-rate expedition intent upon serious invasion was, MacAundy reasoned, an utterly useless sacrifice of state and private property of an enormous valne. and the more lamentable would it be. if done with the object of defending harbour, coal, and docking accommodation, for a fleet that was out of being. Nor was this all. Men of Anglo-Celtic stock, no matter how loose their military organisation, will become seasoned veterans even if for months falling back before a. superior enemy, but it is not. complete wisdom to give such men their baptism of fire in a pitched battle on the enemy's own terms. So the back-countryman's idea was a base in the interior of each island, where tho whole resources, strength and energy of either island could be concentrated to some advantage. MacAundy reasoned that- with Britian's sea-power gone, so too had gone the j stragetical value of the centres, but sooner than submit tamely to occupation or to follow the suggestion of a Chief Justice that we should hoist the Stars and Stripes, he protested that it would be more in keeping with British traditions to fight it out to a finish and that tpo, if possible, on ground of our own choosing. Of course it wasn't to he thought for a moment that a civilian would he listened to in such matters, especially one ignorant of military technique, and phraseology, but when the North Island centres slipped conveniently into the grasp of the invaders the cry went up, "to tiie hills! to the hills, Canterbury!"

Mercifully, neither Auckland nor Wellington suffered an indiscriminate shelling. Again the Asiatics were determined to show a world's stage they were the moral equals of the Caucasian. But "with feverish energy they began to turn Wellington into the Port- Arthur of the South Pacific.

Tlie invader's whole plan of campaign was coloured throughout by extreme caution. No fresh movement was made until that- already won was made secure. So it came about that the subjection of the South Island was not taken in hand, until the centres and the sub-centres of the Sister Island were completely in the grasp of tho enemy. It was this caution that saved the South.

The defence that was planned for the South was briefly this—a great base in the middle of the Island, partly amidst the Alps, and protected by successions of lines of defences somewhat resembling the famous lines of Torres Vedras. That for defence purposes the main centres. Christchurch, Dunedin and Invereargill, lie abandoned, and that on no pretence whatever should hositilities take place in them or their environs, ,but that they be strictly looked/upon as places, for noncombatants. That the people, as many as possible, be removed to these centres from the intervening country andtowns. That all harbours be destroyed and that the locomotives and roiling stock of the Hu'ranui-Bluff section be gradually concentrated at Fairlie; and at all costs, antt by working night and day, the line be pushed through to the Takapo, which was to become the political centre and military base for the whole of the Sooth Island. (For upwards of forty years South Canterbury has mis-spelt the name of the most beautiful of her fine hikes. It is time we made good ' the oror.) And it was laid down as a first essential that the artificial harbours at Timaru and Oamaru be destroyed, so that no enemy's fleet of transports could find shelter along the Cantcr-bury-Otago coast, from Akaroa to Port Chalmers. So Canterbury's plains, Otago's downs, and Southland's flats, were to be the stage on which would he played out the contest for possession of the South. An utterance of MaeAundy's at this time may be worth recording. "In a way," said he, "it's God's blessSng the North Island has messed up things, for now we'll have the cream of New Zealand around us."

It was the Union Company that showed up to particular advantage at this particular period, by transporting from the North Island to the South Island the wrecks of the Northern Volunteer forces; remnants of battalions, odds and ends of mounted rifle companies, who showed their splendid morale by being as keen as ever for the fight, notwithstanding the terrible punishment they had received outside Auckland and Wellington. This was a kind of blockade running that the Union Coy's crews suddenly developed a peculiar aptitude for. From littleknown inlets and sounds on the coasts of either island hitherto undreamed of for such uses, they mysteriously sailed backwards and forwards, conveying the pick of the Northern fighters along with whatever war material could he saved from tho geueral ruin.

New Zealand had on the eve of war begun eo envolvo a defence organistion suited to her own needs, and one of its fundamental principles was, iu the event of an invasion, to make the most use of the local governing bodies and their administrative machinery. It proved extraordinarily successful, as the whole of each county's, r.-ich borough's resources lat at the instant- uisposal of-the military commanders, and that too, in a way that left the latter entirely free to devote their whole mind and energy to the purely fighting departments. Each county chairman, each mayor, then became automatically a district adjutant in his own county or borough, and he and his council" were vested with arhitary

though entirely constitutional powers for requisitioning those supplies necessary to keep a military in the field. Teams for' transport, reams for entrenching work, supplies of timber for overhead shelters, food supplies, horse feed, and a score of other needs were to bo levied on a rateable property basis, and it was discovered too, that many of the local bodies' engineers and surveyors had for years past quietly been making a study of military engineering. In the light of these new powers with which the Jocal bodies were vested, when war was seen to he inevitable, a general municipal and county election was held throughout the Dominion. The people wero plainly told by the Defence authorities what was expected of them, and what was likely to happen, and tho elections were made on a manhood, vote.

To protect (heir main base at Takapo, the New Zoalandors had three great covering lines. The first accupied the crest of Oraigmore, Mount Misery, the Cave end of the Brothers Range; from thence along the Tengawai Terraces. through the broken Waitohi Country, and finally their !< ftrested secure on Waitohi Hill. The flanks were absolutely secure. No enemy could turn them for fear of an enveloping movement coming out of the hills. To cover this first- line. Bluecliffs-Cavo-Waitohi, there was an outer series of trenches lighter and more temporary in character, occupying the tops of the Lammer Hills, and the Claremont heights, its left at Sutherlands, securely overlapped by the main trenches across the river on the Tengawai Terraces, its right resting on Mount Horrible. And this was tho most terrible feature of South Canterbury's defence, that an enemy had to advance over smooth beautifully rolling English grass paddocks to attack the trenches placed a little way up tho gently swelling paddock ridges. In fact, the main front defence line, Blnecliffs-Cave-Waitohi. was but the unturnnhlo base of a huge blunt-point-ed triangle of defence works, whose apex rested at Timaru, and whoso sides were represented by Timaru-Bln-' l clifTs. and Timaru-Waitohi. The object of tho position being thus pushed out ■to Timaru, was that it would act as something like a wedge driven through the Island cutting all movements of the enemy when the mounted troops were driven off tho plains. To find guns for the main line, Lyttelton and PortChalmers were stripped of their now useless gups of position, and the Australasian squadron, hopelessly outnumbered and badly crippled in an engagement in Cook's Straits, and having put into Lyttelton, tho serviceable guns were taken out and the vessels sunk nt. the entrance to Port Lyttelton. The entrance to tho gorge at the Cai'e was protected by two sets of 'planted guns'—Fort Robertson, fourteen hundred feet high, on the Cave end of ihe Brothers Range to sweep the Tengawai Valley to Sutherlands, and Fort Wall, fifteen hundred feet up on the crest of Mount Misery to command with its fire both the Tengawai and Levels Valleys. The Lower Pareora gorge was overlooked by three forts, Forfc MacPhersop. perched on the highest peak of Mount Misery range, 1.700 feet; Fort MacFarlane, on Mount Horrible; and Forfc Elworthy, hidden in the limestone bluffs of Craigmore. Fort MacPherson was the main work in the whole line, and in it were placed the two 9.2 guns taken out of H.M.S. Powerful, which, firing over the top of Mount Horrible, could drop their shells into Caroline Bay. 'These positions were styled forts for convenience sake, but it would have taken a tme bred tussock man to have noticed anything uncommon in their appearance at two hundred yards. To all tho gun positions on the interior slopes of the ranges, ran along easy grade tramlines down which the guns were to he run if the first line was being carried hv the enemy.

Tho second line of works had its right on the Upper Pareora gorge and Mount Smith, and then ran along the ridges and cliffs bordering Coal Creek from Mona Vale to Wreford's. Its chief weakness lay in the assumption that we could hold the Brothers Range against all assaults, for if the Brothers was lost the whole line could be enfiladed. Indeed the Brothers Range was the key to the whole position. As MacAundy described it, it was "a sword-bayonet guarding the town of Fairlie and the Passes leading into the Mackenzie, its ]xiint thrust out to the Cave, its cutting edge facing coastwise --tho Brothers lost, then Fairlio was lost, and the invasion wonld be lapping up to the foot of the Mackenzie front ranges." On too of Mount Smith were several skilfully planted guns, to effect with those in Fort Robertson a cross-fire over the Cave and Albury districts. The third defence line was represented hy the Mackenzie front ranges —the Dalgety, Rollesby and Albury, and the Two Thumb ranges. As outworks to this line were the Waratah ridges, the foothills of Albury, Strathconan, and Ashwick, protecting the entrances to the Passes, while the Rollesby Valley served as a natural covered way between Mackenzie and Burke's Passes. Right in the heart of tho Mackenzio Country, behind the curtain of tho front ranges, was a fourth position, its back to the wildest gorge country, while its front and flanks were protected by Lakes Takapo and Pukaki, and the swift heavy volumed rivers running out- of those lakes.

And tho men who were to hold the lines? The mounted rifle companies were to form tho nucleus of a mounted force who wero to operate on the plains. Tho majority were farmers and farmers' sons. nicknamed the "Cockies." and with an ear of wheat for a hat badge. The.v were to be tho finest mounted force in the world, the most intelligent, the best mounted, and the most mobile, seeing that not a vehicle was to accompany any portion of it. Every sixth or seventh man was to lead a pack horse, and this was the more easily done as minor bases were made at nearly all the gorge mouths debouching on to the Canterbury and. Otago plains. The tactics to be employed wore those thought best for such a force, and against an enemy, magnificent in infantry and artillery, but extremely weak in mounteds. "Shepherding" and "mustering" tactics were to be used — "never close with your enemy —envelope him;" Their equipment was of the simplest, and copied closely the old pioneer style, a half chain tether rope, a light warm waterproof sleeping hag, and a small "hilly" strapped to the bow of the saddle, and carried in a felt-lined pouch to deaden the rattle. The aim was to make every man a mounted scout, who could, if need ho, move independent of his base and his fellows for days on end. MacAundy argued thus about the Cockies: "What is the chief characteristic of the New Zealand farmer? fn his inmost heart he believes himself the salt, of New Zealand, and that it is entirely through his own brains and efforts that he has been so successful of late years. Accordingly, he is confoundedly selfopinionated. And what else has he? As a class on intense but unspoken love for his farm." How will these qualities affect the coming struggle? He will be a dour-fighter, and the chances are. when the old homestead is threatened two or three brothers, and perbans a cousin or so. will let discipline to the winds, throw themselves into the old place, and account for three or four "apiece of tho enemy before the rush takes place." To hold the Bluecliff-Cave-Waitohi line and outer works the Volunteer in-

fantrv and artillery were spread along its entire front, hut these were to act as ■«- stiffening' > foree-vto. perhaps- the quaintest boilv of lighting men the world has ever seen. MacAundy invited all the labour unions to take part, in the country's defence. The response was immediate and almost to a man. Mauv of course gravely questioned tho wisdom of such a course :—"What ! recognise as a fighting unit- tho hotbeds and nurseries of Socialism, a creed j whose first article of faith is that oxmy man is a law unto himself, that- breeds a deep hatred of all discipline. Whoever heard of a-"Radical or a Socialist making a good soldier! Without doubt it was either to he a colossal blunder, or the master-stroke of a genius. As Pitt saw the magnificent military possibilities in the turbulent Highland clans, and the French officers conceived the idea of drilling and organising the Sepoy into regiments on the European model, so MacAundy reasoned that here to.hand was the best lighting raw material in ihe Dominion. He saw, or fancied lie saw, three-fourths of Ihe difficulty in ,organising got over by the splendid esprit do corps which most unions already possessed. Tie asked himself, '•Where' is Ihe most, desperate fighting to take place?" In the treeches. Who will fudit- the most, wickedly there? The Unionists, Why? Because they have a dcen distrust, akin almost to hatred, of all Asiatics; for to them an Asiatic is one and the same idea as wnges cutting, the most heinous and blackest sin in the calendar to a Unionist." And it is noteworthy that of all the hastily raised bodies of fighters whicli helped to repel the invasion, those of the labour unions had the best discipline. Once their whim of preference to unionists in the trenches was conceded, and hy a wise appointment of officers in sympathy with eacli craft, discipline seemed to spring from within. This was the cecsoloss refrain that rose from their ranks from start to finish of the struggle: "This is our light, and by God we'll see it through." Behind the front lines and stationed at A 1 bury was a skeleton force of mounteds'to be filled up from the Cockies when the latter were driven behind the lines. The hat badge of this force was a hare's ear, and their nickname. "The Hare Lugs." Behind the curtain of the Mackenzie frontal ranges and camped along Gray's Hills Creek — a point equi-distant from all three Mackenzie Country passes —was another mounted force, to be sent to any threatened point, either down the Rangitata (via Coal saddle, Richmond) or by Fairlie, Albury, or Hakatnramoa, or across the rivers to the Ot.ngo side. Their hat badge was an ear of snowgrass seed, and they were known as the "Grass-Hoppers." Again there was another force, one that was intended, if necessary, to make the last glorious stand in the heart of the Alps. These were holding the Takapo-Pnkaki forts, and tho mountain gorges at its hack, and were also stretched out along the outer horns, on one side the Tekapo flanks of the Two '■Thumb range; on the other Ben Ohau and Ben Venue. This force was composed entirely of high country shepherds and niusterers, called in from all the gorges of the Southern Alps. They were busy dotting all the alpine basins and heads of gorges with "caches" (plants) of stores and ammunition. They went by the name of the "Rock Lizards," and their hat badge was the. bonniest of all, the little mountain edelweiss flower on a background of three brilliant rod underwing feathers of the Kea.

And the invasion meant a new heroic age for New Zealand: it meant a fresh lease of life to the race: a red stream of hot blood through a people who were fast losing the measure of their capabilities through a surfeit of prosperous times. The pre-war days were casy-ozy days for them; prosperity was taken as a matter of course, and the original dash and vigour of the stock was fast giving place to an outlook on life of sickly indifl'orentism. The invasion' proved a huge conciliation'process that effectually stopped for years the drifting of New Zealand into two hostile camps. Capital and Labour. Can an income man and a wnges man work side by side in a trench, and mingle their sweat in common? Can they crawl side by side on their stomachs through a fire-swept zone with the momentary expectation of being blown into eternity?-Ca. nthey come through such, n- two years' struggle, anil not see eye to eye on most of life's points? Put a man from the oldest Tory family in the Dominion into a mustering camp, on a threshing mill, or on n shearing lioiird,.aud iu three months' time bis politics will be distinctly coloured by Radical sympathies. Put the chosen elect of the workers into power, give him Cabinet rank, and in three months' time he will be so sobered hv power, and he will see such new lights on old subjects that the men who almost broke their bncks hoisting him into power will be ready politically to tear him to pieces as a turncoat and a betrayer of their party. - Lord, how the people worked! How the erv went up from the length and breadth' of the land. "Bury yourselves! , : Burv yourselves! Bury yourselves!" 'How men fell fainting in the trenches! How ready they were to jump one another's shifts! And the Takapo railway was pushed on by day and night, sweeping over Burke's Pass by i> detour and easy grade through Sawdon. How to supply motive power to riile and ammunition factories, in u country absolutely bare of fuel, the Takaqo River was harnessed hy a riile and rubble weir a quarter o fa mile below ,the bridge; how the hushmen's unions from north and south swept South Canterbury of hundreds of her planted acres, and the results were sent up to Fairlie, and Takapo to swell into immense stacks of fuel: how the carpenters' unions stripped hundreds of houses on the plains to supply material for shelter huts and sheds for the men behind the ranges; what impossibilities were dared; what obstacles overcome that in cold blood would never have been looked at! New Zealand was getting into its stride for its place in the race of nations.

Of the union battalions, the shearers of Canterhury-Otngo, 120(1 strong, were given the post of honour in defending the Cave end of the Brothers Range. Sandwiched in with them were a number of regular Volunteer companies. They had made four tiers of shrapnelproof trenches op the slopes of Walker's and Clolland's farms: they had turned the Tengawai facing of The Brothers into a rabbit warren of rifle pits; they had swept the Cave flat bare of buildings and trees, had slashed and burned the riverbed gorse, had battered and splayed the river banks, so that, not even a hare could find cover on the riverbed. High above them on the tussock slopes, Fort Robertson, held hy a detachment of bluejackets to "-ork the naval guns; on the other side of the river, Shepherd's, Kerr's, Sorenson'e, and Flyn's ridges, tier upon tier of trenches; the traverse gullies filled by riflemen with zig-zag escape trenches running over each gully's saddle into Burnett's valley. Word had come that the enemy wore leaving Wellington in force. The crucial moment, the suspense of the invasion, had arrived. No- one could tell how himself or his mate would stand; everyone was raw and untried; everyone wished that ho was "bogged to the neck in the business and get it, over," and then wondered when the Yankees would have a look in. And it was here that MacAundy, although ready to sink into the friendly earth, came to make his first and last attempt at a speech. Addressing himself directly

to the shearers he told them that "for years past all hands had been overprone to-belittle tlio Asiatics, and talk big about what wo could and would do to them. The opportunity had now come for us all to make good our word." He took them into his confidence, and showed what was reposed inthern hy the key of the whole position being given them to hold. "Let there, bo, no mistake about it. It should never be said that tho men were never told what was expected of them—and it was this: that if.nced.be thoso trenches would have to be their graves. The invasion might reach as far as Fairlie and tho Mackenzie Passes, but in that ease the Canterbury and Otago Shearers' Unions had ceased to exist.'" Hoarse with earnestness and suppressed Highland excitement, he was gradually lifting himself above tho commonplace. Then letting himself go entirely he sprang on to the crest of a. finished trench, and all unconsciously .made, use of the Chief Hanpokoha's words to his. followers at the siege of Ohacawao — "The parent who maintains us is the land. Die for tho land! Din for the land!" If MacAundy .so far forget himself as to rise ahovo tho commonplace, his hearer wore so far self-for-getting as to. allow themselves to he stirred to tho heroic. In half-an-hour they might ho anathematising one another for such a lapse, but for this one half-an-hour they reached up to the heroic, as surely as tho Old Guard had ever done. It may have been the land nationalist spirit responding to the loud appeal. They caught up the cry again and again, then they cheered' tlie Ensign, then the Cause, and then their unions. Again it came in volleving hursts, spreading out to right and 'left along the crests of Mount Misery and tho Tengawai Terraces, and back again, "Die for the Land! Die. for the Land!"