Casual Impressions of Colonial Life and Character

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 15, 13 April 1907, Page 19

Casual Impressions of Colonial Life and Character

A Visit to the Backblocks.

FIVE o’clock in the streets of the city, steady rain has been falling, and the tramway traffic is, therefore, more than usually overburdened. Having waited perhaps ten minutes, I mn naturally in exceedingly evil temper with the weather, the trams, and life in general. A fourth tram rolls up, is mobbed, and departs. ‘•Deuce take the weather and the trams,” is the not unnatural expletive which escapes me. “What’s the trouble,” queries my companion L——, whom I have just met by the down express. He is large boned and somewhat slack limbed, his dress a bit worn and travel stained, while his gaiters, of the useful rather than ornamental type, betray obviously that he is from the country, while just as obviously his voice proclaims the man of education, and the twinkle in his eye of the person endowed with the inestimable gifts of good temper and a keen sense of humour. “What’s the trouble?” he inquires. “Plain enough,” one answers crossly; “cars all crowded; rain pouring. We shall get wet through if this goes on. “I was soaked five times yesterday,” is the smiling answer. , “How far is it to your place?” : “Four miles from here.” “Hum, and all metal road, too, of course. go further than that to school on a Maori track, and I’m six or more from home when I knock off .work. Betters take a trip to my place, old man. if a bit of a shower makes you growl. Seems to me you want something to growl about, you city fellows. Come, and see us country fellows breaking in the land. Come and see the backblocks which 'give you your prosperity. It’ll do you good —body and soul, take mv word.”

An odd invitation, but withal a piquant one which suggested possibilities. Wherefore, when my friend was ready to return, I caught the train, too. “Second class, of course,” lie instructed as. we entered the ticket office. “Every pound’s a pound when you’re getting your bush down,” he explained. Everyone save millionaires and servants, travels third-class in England (few railways have any second); but in New Zealand few who can afford the double price faces the second. One understands this after the first trial. The NewZealand Railway Department doesn’t believe in making second-class passengers comfortable. It wants the extra money, and gets it, by making second-class passengers think twice before facing it a ‘second time. Wherefore, to this end apparently, it never allots half enough carriages, and sees to it that passengers are overcrowded in a manner not permitted by law, where four-footed anmials are concerned. The solitary smoker is evil in its "ill-ventilated fumes of fifty "pipes, but it is paradise to the mixed odours of sweaty natives, train-sick children, urinating babies, which greet the nostrils at the entrance to the ordinary second. Not overcrowded, and if ample and more ■cleanly lavatory accommodation (were provided, comfort and decency might be achieved. As it is, we’ll drop the veil. Yet it has its compensations. There is good fellowship. - There is amazing good ternp.er,.considering all there is to ruffle temper, apd there is no attempt at the gtpss - .selfishness and - dishonesty s<i fiifte n observable in the first, qviien efforts are made, too often Successfully, to reserve a whole compiritinent with the packages of, say, a pouple of passengers) Small courtesies Of, travel are also exchanged more freely, and amongst the children—who seldom slop eating, save to be siek —parents ex-<snan§?'bm-Mts, appies,' and- peariiitsactfl

lollies, with gargantuan large-handed-ness, and a truly awful disregard for th-j inevitable results of overloading the juvenile stomach. At Frankton there is amongst no inconsiderable portion of the males a frenzied rush to the bar of ths hotel. “Last chance of a drink,” comments my companion. “Feel like one.” “No.” “Well, as you like; but no pubs in the King Country.” A few bottles of beer and an odd flask or so are brought back into the Te Kuiti section, and not a little being spilt with the slinking of the train, add more odours to the carriage, the heat of which becomes appalling »s the afternoon wears on. The platform between the carriages suggests itself as a relief, but is. already fully occupied by a gentleman whose liquor has disagreed with him—a fact painfully apparent when the door is opened. Te Kuiti at last, and once out of the evil-smelling carriages—good temper returns. The station is well filled to see us arrive, and those going on, make a busy dart for the refreshment room, where tea, soft drinks, etc., etc., are served by a Maori and assistant girls. Having secured a room —or rather a bed at Kerr’s hoarding-house, there is time to look round, and I realise that in the last few years Te Kuiti has grown out of knowledge. Whether it will occupy the position of the most important city on this section of the main Trunk line, and become another Palmerston North in the Upper Waikato, is not for me to say, but that the chances are in that direction cannot be doubted. For here, you have the centre of VAST BLOCKS OF LAND OF WHOSE RICHNESS, FERTILITY, AND EXTENT, 1 AUCKLANDERS SEEM STRANGELY IGNORANT. From Taranaki, Hawke’s Bay, and Gisborne, settlers who have sold their holdings at’, the ruinously high "prices ruling in those districts have".bought and are still buying the choicest areas in this favoured region. The cry is “still they come,” moreover,' j and each and all tell the same story, the land is equal to the richest in the older settled quarters of the colony, and is destined to furnish dairy produce, wool, mutton, and beef in enormous and almost boundless profusion. So convinced is one, a Taranaki farmer whose name is a household word in the self christened of New Zealand,” that not only is he about to invest in a huge block here, but also is busy buying up Auckland city properties. He realises that all the potential wealth of these splendid blocks of bush and fern land, must eventually reach the world through the northern port, making it in a very few decades, one of the largest and wealthiest cities in Australasia, and easily supreme so far as New Zealand is concerned. It is not long before one receives the first of_many eloquent eye-openers as to the business that is being done inland from this peaceful little_ township. “Hey, you, ' sings out my friend, hailing an obese Maori, “When are you going to get that timber of mine out.” Next week,"p’raps,” is the uncoilcorner! answer. “Next week, be giggejed, it’s been coming next week since before Christmas, there’s two loads of wire too, and the weather may break any time now, and I’ve not got an ounce of any winter stores yet.” The Maori makes no excuse, but repeats with lazy affability “All right, p'raps I come next week,”, and turns his team up a side street. When he has gone on T> swears, volubly and heatedly: “It’s too bad, that firm have got 40 teams on the road, but the/, are so busy and independent they don't-care a button. It's ah absolute fact that I’ve been waiting since before'Christmas for that timber and can't get a half-built barn finished because of it; but ills no usfe growling, they’ve got ! heaps and

heaps more than they can do before th# weather breaks, and if 1 told them what I think of them they'd simply tell me to go to Topliet, and 1 wouldn’t even get my winter stores. I expect as it is I better make a few trips with the buggy during the next ’fortnight and get them in piecemeal.” “What do you mean by winter stores?” “Just what I said, stores for the winter. The roads close up as soon as the weather breaks, and you can’t get in or out with a buggy, at least not unless you are prepared to dig it out once or twice onithe trip.” “It’s all very well for you to grin,” he goes ou, “you think I’m trying to fill you up, but its solid fact, and deuced unpleasant too. Fancy knowing you're wife is to all intents and purposes a close prisoner 25 miles or more from the railway, and no qualified medical man in the district either. However, I dare say you’ll see something of it for yourself before you go down, that’s why I wanted you to come up when I heard you swear at having to wait ten minutes for a tram car.” To a townsman's idea five o’clock—or shortly after —seems rather early for tea, or, rather, dinner, but it evidently, suits the guests at Kerr’s, ami the very large dining-room is packed directly the gong goes. Simple fare, but plenty of it, is obviously the tradition rft the house, as the appetites of the very large Maori contingent are of an order to break the heart of any town restaurant-keeper. Here, however, they pass unnoticed. Conversation, both here and in the smoking-rooms afterwards, is confined almost entirely to the roads, the prospects of rain, so-and-so’s crop of bush turnips, the grass on such-and-such a clearing, and, most general and prolific of all, the sins of omission on the part of the Government- with regard to funds for the township and district. In this all hands join, quite irrespective of party. We townspeople read perhaps—or more probably we don’t —of such-and-such a grant for such-and-such a road, and straightway forgot so commonplace a matter. But the backblocker never has a chance of forgetting. To him the grants and the manner of their application are of the most vital importance. It may literally be a question of life and death to him’ and one is not astonished at the strength of opinion against waste in the city and starvation grants to the land, but amazed that almost revolutionary bitterness is not imported into the question. Two or three thousand pounds were spent a year back or so in planting in Parnell —a suburb of Auckland —a brick post office. To say that this expenditure was utterly wasteful and ridiculously extravagant is to put the matter mildly. The said structure is within seven minutes bv tram of the G.P.0., arid all the necessary work and accommodation could easilv have been done for years to come in the small building previously used for the purpose. But in order that the Government member might be able to say at the general elections. “ Look, here is a fine post office I grabbed the money for. That’s what you get by voting for me!” this folly was committed. It is but a small instance, but this is going on all over the colony, and the money thus wasted cannot, of course, go to the roads, where every load of metal makes a difference to the wealth and comfort of those who are the backbone of t he colony. An early start was projected for the morrow, but the Pakeha may propose as much us he chooses, be will find that the Maori disposes. Half a dozen trifles .have to be collected and in not one case yifliero a native is concerned are they ready. Then there is an endless argriment over the question of carting. An advance on the contracted price is offered in the hope of getting that afore-men-tioned timber soon, and it is finally pro-

mised for next week certain, a promise which was, by the way, never kept. Backing the buggy into the station L requests my help with three sacks of grass seed, which we proceed to load in scientific fashion, on the back of the waggon buggy. The shed is literally packed with seed, and all manner ol merchandise, but no one takes the smallest notice of us. Two Maoris are load, ing at another door, but they make no remark as we remove the seed and other packages. How does anyone know this is our lot? one questions, “or that we are not stealing.” They don’t. There is no station master though at least one is promised. “But isn’t there pilfering?" “Of course, but no notice was taken of it for years, though we complained and complained and complained. It was uo use. Only the elections got up ths promise in the end. You townsfolk get all you want, and we suffer for it,” he concluded, with the good natured laugh with which country people accept all their troubles. The waggon buggy is not an imposing turn-out, but the amount of stowageroom it possesses is miraculous. Thro# sacks of seed arc but an item. There is meat, there are stores, my bag, a case of whiskey (brought up as personal luggage), sheep dip, and half -a-scoro ol other packages. The horses are not handsome either, but soon show they are up to the work. As for the harness, well, Providence must keep special watch over back-blockers. For the first mile and a-half the road mounts tile range at the back of Te Kuiti, which looks picturesque enough as one winds up the ascent. The road here and for four miles is admirable, being metalled. Evon when we first leave the metal things seem well enough for the first mile or so. Then suddenly comes a revelation. A bullock cart is just ahead of us. Just as it rounds a bond in the road, one side goes over what seems like a shallow innocent pool. Instantaneously the cart takes a violent cant Io one side, there is a volley of shouts from the apparently infuriated drover, whose whip cracks lika a battalion of sharp snooters, and then with a wrench the waggon settles down, the left wheels being almost submerged. A carter who is on ahead with a team of horses, tilin'- back, we approach from the rear, and ail hands descend to take stock of the trouble. Nobody appears upset or surprised, or makes any comment, but in the most natural manner, help unload the cart. When about hal’ has been removed, an attempt is made to shift the waggon. The bullocks strain patiently, the drover yells to each by name, and works his whip like a devil possessed. No result. Two then proceed to further unload, and L and the other driver go into the bush to bring out a log, which they arrange in a manner calculated, as 1 presume, to help matters. Another effort and at last the cart is free. Half an hour is employed in load ing the heaviest of the articles, and then asking the driver of bullocks if he is all right, and being assured “all right,” we drive on after a delay, say, of about an hour.” "Is that sort of thing common.” “Oh, yes, is the answer, “And do you always stop and lend a hand?” “Naturally, of course we all do. Ho could not have managed by himself.” “And is everyone equally good natu red?” “Of course, they aye. How on earth could we live up hero unless we gave each other a hand?” And that, as 1 was to see in a hundred other cases, is the key note of life and character in the back-blocks. It makes a townsman feel a little small if lie has a conscience.

(To be continued next week.)