IN THE KING COUNTRY.

Waikato Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6446, 20 June 1904, Page 2

IN THE KING COUNTRY.

A JOURNALIST'S JAUNT

11.-" TO THE FRONT."

It was, as I ohservH'l before, a fine morning when we set out to visit the railway works beyond Taumarunni, or, as local parlance has it, to go to the front. The sun never winked from Irs rising to his going down, but the air wa3 several degrees culder than it usually is in the Waikato on such a typical fine winter's day. Soon after leaving Taumarunui we had to ford the Wanganui River, an operation which owing to the fine large boulders of the bed is somewhat severe on beast, vehicle and man. Close by us the railway bridge only wanted decking to enable it to carry horse traffic, lacking which convenience Taumarunui has, almost ever since my visit, been cut off from the south, :s far as the road is concerned,the rains having swollen the river and made the ford impassable. Our sturdy horse dragged us through, and up the bank into the province of Wellington, and we sped on towards Piriaka. Road and railway both keep close to the Wanganui River, which here runs in a north-westerly direction, so that, although we were travelling towards Wellington, we were going up the river. The surface of the road is good —in most parts very good. It was, of course, made by co-operative labour, primarily for use in the construction of the railway, and it wiuds its way through difficult c -untry in a manner that shows good engineering. SCENERY AND ARCHITECTURE. At most points, the view is hemmed in with bush-clad hills. Sometimes through an opMiing you see more distant heights, still cuvered with primeval forest almost to their summits. Once as we rounded a corner the great white summit of Ruapehu itself appeared straight before us, standing out sharply against the biue, with the one small cloud in all the firmament clinging to its tugged northern slope. Often, as we came out on some shoulder of the hills, we saw the river stretching out beneath us, blue and sparkling, as it flowed beneath white pumice cliffs or great headlands only less steep, but carrying on their slopes huge trees and all the crowding profusion of the bush, whose gloom was kindled at the tips by the transfiguring sunshine and passed into gloom again in the brooding inviolate mystery of its shadowed interspaces. It cannot be said that the grandeur of nature has any counterpart in the dwellings of men in these regions. Sacks are a favourite building material. I hardly know what to call some of the erections. They are partly tents, partly cottages, partly slab huts and wholly nondescript, original and miscellaneous. At every turn of the road, as you get near Piriaka, and on beyond, you come across something new in architecture. Here are boards three feet up from the ground and a tent clapped on the top of them. Here are walls of punga, a chimney of the same and a roof of sacks. Here is a frame house with canvas window, and here a tent with a galvanised iron chimney. Here a cutting in the hillside makes two walls and a floor, to which are added an iron roof and two other walls of just anything. These are the temporary homes of the co-operative labourers working on the railway. Most of the residences are shut up and empty at this time of day, but sometimes we passed a larger one, containing apparently two or three rooms and always a superior chimney. Outside some of these houses might be seen a tired-look-ing woman sitting sewing in the doorway, or chopping wood, or fetching water, and maybe two or three children would be playing near by. ALLEGED PROHIBITION. Now and again, as we passed some wooden hut, my companion would observe, pointing to it with the diminishing manuka stick which he used to encourage the horse, " That's one of the hotels." Everybody in the King Country knows where the sly-grog shanties are. In fact, there is nothing sly about them, except when the police are about, or a stranger who is suspected as every stranger is—of being an informer. Just before our visit the police had raided nearly all the hotels from Taumarunui to" the front." They captured a lot of liquor at the first, but the news of their doings travelled fast, and at the other places the stuff was " planted " before they arrived. At the accommodation house at Piriaka, where we stopped for luuch, the talk was all about the raid, and the two policamen who had been working an navvies among the " co-ops" Jfor several months and getting evidence. They were both big muscular fellows, looked typical navvies, and worked as though to the manner born. One at least was quite a favourite with his mates before his real business was known and when they were playing " two-up " they used to put him to watch for the local constable, which he did very faithfully. Informers are not liked in the King Country, and the methods used to enforce the law make it more unpopular. VARIOUS SUGGESTIONS. I do not say that better methods are practicable. It was suggested that the Kailway Department ought riot to carry liquor into the prohibited area, but in the present state of the law one may keep intoxicants for one's own use, but not sell them, and the railway officials caunot be supposed to know whether Mr So-and-so intends to sell the cask of beer consigned to him or drink the lot himself. If the famous " no-license, no grog " clause of last session's Licensing Bill were to become law, prohibition would stand a better chance in the King Country, but there would still be illicit selling and there would also be illicit stills. The section in the Maori Councils Act forbidding the introduction of liquor into Maori kaingas is beginning to be enforced, and this will be interesting to watch, but it is not yet clear what are, and what are not, Maori kaingas in the eye of the law. I did not meet anybody in the King Country who considered prohibition there a success. The general opinion seemed to be that more liquor was consumed than if there were licensed houses, and most of the persons whose views I ascertained favoured the Gothenburg system or some form of public or State control. Mr Alexander Bell, Taumarunni's only old identity, was of this opinion; so was the Rev. E.Ward, the genial Presbyterian missionary; Mr Louch, the Public Works Department's resident engineer, a strong foe to intemperance, longed for some such measure ; and Father O'Connor, whom I met at Taumarunui, thought the Government ought to " take shteps " in that direction. Nobody with whom 1 had any conversation on the subject—and it was the most frequent topic everywhere believed in Prohibition. Those who did not want public control wanted licensed houses on the usual system. PROGRESS OF THE RAILWAY. We did not reach " the front " that day. The sun began to fall behind the high woods, and at a place called Takapuua we had to turn back. The men whom we had saeu toiling iu the cuttings with pick and shovel, and adding load by load to the high embankments, were now returning from work, and the light was becoming subdued as we drove into Piriaka again on our return journey. Here Mr J. D. Louch, the Resident Engineer in charge of the railway works, very courteously gave me all the information I asked, and even more, completing and supplementing my own observations. The rails were laid, as I had seen, up to the Waitea viaduct, nine miles from Tauraaiunui, and th« great concrete piers were ready to receive the girders and some of the ironwork, was already delivered at the site. Mr Louch anticipated that it would be finished within a fortnight, and more than that time has now elapsed since my visit, but the continuous bad weather has probably caused some delay, which will especially affect the pick and shovel work further on. This viaduct is two miles beyond Piriaka, which is seven from Taumarunui. Most of the formation and excavation is done for another two miles, that is to say, as far as the Kakahi viaduct. This is another iron structure with concrete pier 3, two of which were built and the third was under construction. Mr Louch estimated the whole structure would be finished in three months. Just here the Public Works Department is putting up a sawmill to cutout the valuable timber, chiefly totara, on a Goveranient reserve of 1200 acres, and half a mile or more of tramway is laid. Most of the navvies, the engineer said,were working about two miles further on, where there is a big cutting, sixty-two feet deep. From this on to within a couple of miles of Ohango, which is seventeen from Taumarunui, there is a lot of heavy work still to be done. Ohango is 1500 feet above the sea. The formation of the sta- j tirn yard there is completed, and three Go- ; verument houses are built. Beyond that point, as far as Oio, twenty-one miles from j Taumarunui, the men are at work forming the road, which, of course, has to pre- j cede the railway, and bush parties are pre-1 paring the way in advanoe of them as fai

Turangue. It now requires only twenty miles of road to con met Auckland with Wollin-lon, and that section could be done during the four summer months,if iOU men are put on. As for the date when connection by rail will be established, that is not to be estimated so easily. It is intended that the northern works will meet the southern at the Makatote viaduct, which, according to the map appears to be nearly forty miles from Taumarunni. The heavy work ends about fifteen miles from Taumarunni and then follows a comparatively easy section reaching to Oio. 1 hereabouts the line will have to climb on the Waiiuarino Plains,j26Ooft above the sea, and this will involve some of the heaviest work on the route, although a change in the plans has considerably reduced it. As we re-entered Taurnarunui under a starry sky and a tired horse, I wondered whether on my next visit I should travel by the Auckland-Wellington express. I hoped I should not have to wsit so long before returning to a district where I had seen and learnt enough to make me wish to see and learn a great deal more. Time and tide wait for no man, and trains are usually no more obliging, so I had to retire that night with a mind made up for an early departure for Te Kuiti—whereof more anon.