News of the Dominion.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVI, Issue 9, 1 March 1911, Page 4

News of the Dominion.

OUR WELLINGTON LETTER. WELLINGTON, February 25. Advertising in the Tram-cars. TWy ELLINGTON’S City Council, ■ ■ I usually a very sensible body I I <1 of men, occasionally makes a bad break, and lays itself open to the publie’s annoyance or the public’s ridicule; and then it writhes in sorrow for a week or two, and finally puts matters right by a rescinding resolution. This, I faney, will be the end of the Council's latest freak, which takes the form of plastering the inside of the municipal electrical cars with tradesmens advertisements. The deed was dene at Thursday night’s meeting of the City Council; when it was resolved, on ■tfhe motion of Councillor Hindmarsh, seconded - by the Mayor, Mr. Wilford, "That, considering that nearly £2OOO a year can be made out of letting spaces on and in tram ears for advertising, the right to place neat and suitable advertisements in the cars be sold or let.” Mayor Wilford made some illuminating remarks; the principal one was the statement that anyone who had seen the style of advertising adopted in the Auckland tram ears would say that it was not a detriment but an ornament. Only one councillor —Mr. Thompson—had the courage to give straight-out opposition to the disfiguring of the cars with advertisements. ' The Council seemed dazzled, in feet, by the brilliant prospect of earning £2OOO from the advertisements, to say nothing of the “ornamental” effect of these appeals to the public to buy so-and-so’s boots or pills or corsets or greatly reduced trousers. In committee, after the meeting, the Council decided to invite tenders for the right of advertising on the ears, on such spaces as the Council might deem fit, the advertisements to be standardised and specimens to be submitted, the advertisements to be on the inside of the cars only, the Council to have the right of censorship. Naturally, the Council’s action has brought out many caustic comments from the suffering public. There is, in<i ®ed, something very quaint in Mayor Wi - ford’s idea of .what constitutes an ‘ ornament.” Can anyone wonder that our Wellington standard of artistic taste is a barbarous one, when the whole City Council, headed by the Mayor, approves of this fashion of tramcar decoration’ It is far worse, really, than hanging an advertisement of somebody’s whisky in the art gallery; for everyone must use the tramears, and there will be no escaping the flaring, glaring, staring advertisements there. The worst of it is, too, that they are to be displayed inside the ears, where one’s eye can’t get away from them, and will perforce have to read what it detests, and read and read it again. It is not as If. the Council was in great need of the money, for it isn’t. It is a wealthy corporation, and can very ■well afford to dispense with such an objectionable form of revenue. We’ll all await the Council’s censored advertisements with a good deal of interest. Advertisers won’t pay much for a severely censored puff, one is certain. Wellington streets are hideous with advertisements of the ugliest kind; they stare at one from hoardings and blank walls everywhere; and now we are not to escape from them even when we take refuge in a street-car. The simplest remedy I can see, and one that 1 think will be adopted by many citizens, will be to quietly refrain from buying the goods advertised in the city cars; this wid have its effort in one season. But I hope that that measure of retribution won't be required, and that the force of public opinion and public ridicule will bring the Council to its senses before it begins its work of car-disfigurement, or ornamentation as Mr. Wilford will have it. From Bare Motitl.” Our Wellington water front is not nearly so interesting in the picturesque sense a» that of Auckland. Here every*. thing is severe and hard and practical, reflecting perhaps tin- municipal idea ot the “city beautiful,” tram ears included. There are wharves crowded with stenm•rs, of all kinds, from the big 12,000 ton London liners to the little coasting

hookers, like the venerable Storm Bird, that go wave-punching up and over our oft-times stormy east and west coasts. There is seldom a sail to be seen, except the smoke-grimed jibs and trysails that the little steamers carry to help them on their way. Sailing-craft are becoming rarer and rarer as the years go on; and we have nothing like Auckland’s big fleet of coasting schooners, ketches, and scows. Wellington’s annual inwards and outwards tonnage is greater than Auckland’s, but it is almost exclusively steam.

It is fi relief to the eye, therefore, to occasionally see a sailing-craft at the wharves. Our white-winged visitors are mostly timber or grain carriers from the South; there are juet two or three schooners and ketches still in these trades. But just now there is a little visitor from the warm Bay of Plenty, where the maize and tne kumara grow. She is the auxiliary screw schooner, Waiapu, with a cargo of maize from Motiti Island, off Tauranga. I just mention her because it is rather curious to find Motiti given as a departure-place. You very seldom hear Motiti mentioned nowadays, but it was a famous islet in the days of the long ago. The long flat island, bare of bush—“Motiti wahiekore,” or “firewood-less Motiti”—was celebrated amongst the Maoris long before the first European trader anchored there to barter for pork and dried “eds.” It was a great battle ground; you will find a sanguinary story or two about it in Maning’s “Old New Zealand.” In these days of peace it grows big crops of maize, and that’s why we find the handsome little schooner Waiapu lying at the Wellington breastwork just now. The Early Days of Wellington. If the City Council went sadly astray when it tackled the subject of advertisements in tram-cars, it at least showed some sense of the fitness of things the other night in a discussion on the desirability of preserving records and other treasures relating to he early days of the Wellington Settlement. The Council decided that an Early Settlers’ section should be started at the Municipal Museum, which lies out Newtown way, not very far from the new Government House, and it resolved to ask the cooperation of citizens. The idea is a good one, so long as eare is taken not to clash with the Dominion Museum, of which Mr. Hamilton has charge. An excellent Early New Zealand section is being got together by Mr. Hamilton, but the present antiquated building is inadequate for its purposes, and prevents any decent display of the great collection of antiquities that is stored in its precincts. However, the new National Museum to be established in the Ing briek barracks building on the hill locally known as Mt. Cook, to which the present Museum is to be transferred as soon as possible, there should be ample space to show the historic relies that have accumulated during Sir James Hector’s and Mr. Hamilton’s periods of control at the Museum. Early Memories. In the meantime, old settlers and their descendants will do a national service if they will assist in this matter of the collection of Early-Wellington relics and records. I see many ways in which a section of this kind could be made interesting. For instance, we ought to have pictures of the “Tory” and the “Cuba” and “Aurora” and other pioneer ships of the New Zealand Company of the 1830-40 era; Hea phy’s and Bree’s early pictures of Wellington, and pictures, also, of the celebrated Maori chiefs, such as Wharepouri and To Puni, who welcomed the founders of Wellington. and so assisted the white man to get his footing in Port "Nicholson. Ngarimu and the Jew's-harp. Talking about the early days of Wellington, I remember six years ago having a talk with a fine old Maori lady who witnessed the arrival of the first ships of the New Zealand Company in Wellington Harbour, ami the landing of the pioneer settlers on the Petone (properly Pito-one) beach. She was a Ngati-Awa woman, old Ngarimu, of the Lower Hutt. Ngarimu was a young girl at the time, and Ivor tribespeople lived in populous villages all round the shores of this harbour—'the ancient Whanga-nuia-Tara.

She told how the Maoris gathered on the beach and danced hakas and sang songs, of welcome, as the boatloads of wondering (and perhaps a little scared) newcomers came ashore on the beach where they built their short-lived township called Britannia. “Toia nrai te waka” (“Haul up the canoe”), Was their great song, and they chanted it all together and waved their mats and green branches. The previous day it was, I think, that the goods given in exchange for the site of Wellington, were distributed amongst the Maoris. Ngarimu was there, and as a share of the spoil she received a jews’ harp—“roria” w*as what the Maoris called that primitive instrument of music and for many days and weeks thereafter the Maori population of the Whanga-nui-a-Tara could have been seen suqatting in tlie sun for hours practising the “roria,” and adapting the love-songs of the race to its twanging music. “That was the first time we ever saw that music thing, roria of the pakeha,” said old Ngarimu. “It gave us great delight. We got other presents from the first white men, cloth with moons and other devices on it, and seal-ing-wax, and pots, and muskets and gun powder; but what I liked best was the new roria.” In fact, the payment to the Maori chiefs for the land in which the city of Wellington now stands consisted in part of jews’-harps—several gross of them, I think, speaking from memory of that historic document the deed of sale. How many jews’-harps and barrels of gunpowder, and sticks of sealing-wax would it take to buy up Wellington now? There’s a little problem in high finance! A Splendid Swim. News comes from across Cook Strait of a fine swimming exploit in that part by’ a young schoolmaster, the Dominie at Ocean Bay, in Port Underwood. 1 give the story as it appears in a Marlborough paper; it is worth recording, particularly as the local papers don’t seem to have noticed the par:— “Something of an unusual swim was performed by the schoolmaster, Mr. Skelley, of the Ocean Bay School, and D. V. Hosking, the school champion. A boat took the swimmers across Port Underwood and into Cutter’s Bay. Schoolmaster and pupil entered the water in Cutter’s Bay, swam out of the Bay, and made for Osehn Bay across the Port. A strong tide took the swimmers well up the 'Port, and towards the end of the distance caused a very hard swim against it in qider to enter Ocean Bay. The cold caused young Hosking to enSm the boat as he reached Ocean Bay point. This youthful swimmer had covered two miles. Mr. Skelley continued and swam into Ocean Bay beach, a total distance of two and three-quarter miles. Thd whole distance from beach to beach was done in 1 hour 20 minutes. Taking into account the strong and unfavourable tide, this time is very good indeed. As far as it is known, Port Undebwood has never been swum before.” .