Tauranga

Korero (AEWS), Volume 2, Issue 24, 29 January 1945, Page 3

Tauranga

A KORERO Report

One of the first things you will notice on entering Tauranga by car is a street sign which reads “ Fifth Avenue.” It seems a little incongruous, because you immediately think of skyscrapers and penthouses and overhead railways, and see instead pleasant bungalows with lawns and flower-beds and trees, all very tidy and flat and peaceful, and not at all like New York. It makes you think, though, that Tauranga must be a prosperous place. The homes are modern and sit comfortably on large sections. The streets are wide and treelined. The lawns and shrubs, and not only those inside the fences, are well barbered. There is no bustle or hurry ; but an air of comfort and security, of prosperous ease. “ That’s why,” said one of the residents, “ we say that Tauranga is made up of two classes — the tired and the retired.” The weather has a lot to do with the first division. A sultry sub-tropical summer and a mild winter with few frost is not the sort of climate that encourages excessive activity« You want to laze about and take things easily ; to swim in the warm waters below the Mount ; to sunbathe on Ocean Beach or to stroll somewhere in the shade. And it is certainly the climate that attracts the retired people. Just warm sun to sit in and quiet gardens in which to make things grow. There are other classes however : people who go to Tauranga for their holidays and, in a peacetime summer, make the town one of the brightest spots in New

Zealand. And business people who make a good living, and who make it in shorts and shirts for most months of the year. We went to Tauranga just before the beginning of the summer season— season now not quite so hectic because of the war. It was peaceful enough then. You could have held a duel in the main, street of an evening without danger to any one’s life or limb except your own. But when you read the town’s history you found that Tauranga, like many of its residents, had earned a rest ; earned it as long ago as the Maori Wars. For Tauranga has a history that contrasts strongly with its present prosperity and peace. Nowhere is that contrast brought home to you more strongly than at “ The Elms,” a fine old house in wide and well-kept grounds from whose front windows you can look out across the harbour to Mount Maunganui, green against the skyline. Almost one hundred years ago Archdeacon Brown built this house as the central building of his newly established Mission Station, and although the natural beauty of the scene was not impaired in those days by a railway reservoir and a fish-factory, it was apt to be often interrupted by “ wars and rumours of wars.” This house, which was one of the first wooden homes built in New Zealand and which has been as carefully preserved as the grounds surrounding it, has retained inside as well as out the atmosphere of last century. This is because of the care taken of it by Miss Alice Maxwell, niece-in-law of Archdeacon Brown and present owner of the* property.

“ Come inside,” she said. “ Come inside quickly and wipe your feet.” The party of a dozen or so sightseers filed through the door careful to obey instructions. We stood in a little room from one corner of which a narrow staircase wound to the other floor. The walls were hung with oil paintings and watercolours, and the furniture and knickknacks were Victorian, but facing the door, below the painting of a horse’s head, hung poi balls and a carved Maori box. Three doors led from the room, but before we had a chance to explore further Miss Maxwell began to tell us of the history of the house. She told us of how the Station was started in 1838, though Archdeacon Brown had been in the locality off and on from 1834, and how he and his wife lived in rush huts until 1847, when the present house was completed. All the wooden buildings of the Mission —store, library, and chapel—were built from logs brought from as far away as Thames, because there were no forests handy to Tauranga. After being floated round the coast, the kauri

trunks had to be manhandled to the site and pit sawn on the spot. “ Imagine my uncle’s dismay when fire destroyed all the joinery for the new house and all the tools and seasoned timber ! Eighteen months to get new tools from Home and all the work of seasoning the new timber and making the doors and windows again ! Such a disappointment ! It was probably at this time that he asked another station for the loan of three nails to complete an urgent job ! In spite of this disappointment the house is a tribute to its builders. Ninetyseven years have given it the beauty of age and its timbers are as sound as the day Archdeacon Brown completed it. “ That staircase is a gem of the woodworker’s art. It was the first to be built in New Zealand and its hand-rail is carved in only two pieces. Visitors have scarcely believed it possible.” It did seem difficult to imagine any one making this staircase with only the most simple tools. It was slim yet solid ; dainty almost and perfectly proportioned. We went from room to room looking at the furniture, antiques, and curios. Waterford crystal, Sheffield plate, Indian shawls, crazy-work quilts, pieces of needlework, miniatures, china ; anything under a hundred years old seemed young. Some of the items were well into their second century, while the family silver was said to be five hundred years old. In the living-room we saw a table at which, Miss Maxwell told us, some of the officers of the British troops stationed at Tauranga sat down to dinner the night before the Gate Pa fight. “Of those guests,” she said, “one alone survived the next day’s battle.” Only a mile or two from the centre of the town the road dives through a small cutting, and on the left is a park in the concrete gates of which are embedded old muskets and bayonets. A notice tells you that this was the site of the Gate Pa battle. To the right a little church crowns the crest of the low hill, and in its grounds are trenches filled now with long grass and lilies. From these trenches the Natives repelled the British regulars in 1864.

The Maoris had issued a challenge to the troops to come out and fight, even naming the day ; and when the British refused to be drawn the anxious Natives built eight miles of road up to their encampment so as to lessen the strain on the Queen’s soldiers. When this courteous act failed to bring about the battle, the Maoris marched down to within three miles of the Mission Station and threw up trenches on the ridge now known as Gate Pa. This position was stormed by some three hundred troops, but the Maoris held their ground with great courage and the troops retired with heavy casualties. Ten officers were killed or died of wounds, twenty-five other ranks were killed and seventy-three wounded. The Maoris lost about forty-five killed, but there is no record of the number of their wounded. During the night the Natives retired from the position in spite of the fact that a large party had moved in behind them to cut off their retreat. Several days later, at a battle at Te Ranga, the Maoris were heavily defeated, losing more than a hundred killed. Within a month most of

them had surrendered their arms to the British Forces. Of particular note were the bravery and chivalry of the Maoris in these engagements. The description of the Gate Pa fight in the D.Q.M.G.’s journal says of the Maoris : “ The manner in which they defended this position proves them to be an enemy anything but despicable in intelligence and courage. The readiness with with they stood to their posts and met the assault, as well as their endurance during the bombardment, would reflect credit on disciplined troops. As to Te Ranga, the C.O. of the troops engaged says : ‘ I must not conclude without remarking on the gallant stand made by the Maoris at their rifle pits ; they stood the charge without flinching and did not retire until forced out at the point of the bayonet.' ” Their chivalry is best illustrated by a letter sent to Colonel Greer at the time of their first challenge : — ", Friend, salutations to you. The end of that, friend, do you give heed to our laws for regulating the fight. “ Rule i : If wounded or (captured) whole and the butt end of the musket or hilt of the sword be turned to me, (he) will be saved. " Rule 2 : If any pakeha being a soldier by name shall be unarmed travelling and meet me, he will be captured and handed over to the direction of the law. " Rule 3 : The soldier who flies, being carried away by his fears and goes to the house of the priest even though

carrying arms will be saved ; I will not go there. “ Rule 4 : The unarmed pakehas, women and children, will be spared. The end. These are the binding laws for Tauranga.” Throughout the fighting the Natives adhered strictly to these rules. The Catholic Mission was established in 1840 soon after a visit by Bishop Pompallier to the Bay of Plenty. Father Viard was the first parish priest, and was later appointed first Bishop of Wellington. The first cottage built for

the priest at Otumoetai about 1842 was afterwards brought to Tauranga and combined with another building to make a presbytery, which was used until 1935, when it was turned into a parish hall. This building has completed more than a century of usefulness and is still in a fair state of repair. After the Maori Wars many of the soldiers took up allotments round Tauranga, but title and other difficulties forced many of them to leave the area. However, by 1873 the Bay of Plenty Times was able to say ; — “ Within the last twelve months Tauranga has emerged from the happy-go-lucky aspect it formerly bore, and now presents the appearance of an orderly and well-regulated country town. New streets and new stores have been and are being erected on all sides . On the whole we have great cause for rejoicing and anticipating a great future for this favoured locality," In that year the Town Board’s income was ios. 6d. By 1939 it had risen to Rural land in 1873 was offered for about /i an acre. To-day land suitable for growing citrus fruit is worth many times that price. For citrus farming is one of the sources of Tauranga’s present prosperity. Not all the land is suitable for citrus growing, but what is not is usually good dairying land. In any case, the orange and lemon groves do not cover hundreds of acres. They are dotted over the areas where the soil is suitable and frosts rare, but the acreage of most of them is below double figures. . This is because oranges and lemons are a paying proposition on 2 or 3 acres if you have any luck and are prepared to put the work in. But for large farms battalions of men would be required to do the skilled and intensive work of caring for the trees and handling the fruit. There are also some splendid dairy farms handy to Tauranga. The rolling countryside that sends out long arms

into the harbour all along the road to Katikati is like the rich land out on the Rotorua road to Te Puke and beyond, some of the best dairying country in New Zealand. Tauranga’s tourist trade is, in peacetime, a source of income for the townspeople. Big-game fishermen who chase the shark and swordfish out in the bay charter their launches here, and thousands of holiday makers come to the beaches that stretch out to the south-east below the Mount. There is still a large Maori population most of whom are working on Native land - development schemes in the vicinity. Running from the Mount north to the Katikati entrance to the harbour is a long slim island called Matakana, which is wholly settled by Maoris who are either dairying or growing potatoes, kumaras, and maize for the Auckland markets. Normal access is by launch, but at low tide the cream-cans are carried across by dray from the northern tip. On Matakana the Native Department has encouraged and assisted the Maoris to grow crops for which there has been a wartime demand, and it is hoped that they will take to vegetable growing when the war is over. When milling begins in the Pinus insignis forests that cover the seaward side of the island, plenty of labour will be required, but the problem here, as elsewhere, is to find as much useful employment as possible for the Natives on the lands that are left to them.

Dairying cannot support the growing population of the island. Cropping has already proved profitable, and with a change of emphasis and wise planning may continue to be so. Perhaps the town’s most impressive landmark is a giant aspen in a little park below the Government buildings. According to tradition, it grew from a switch stuck into the ground by a drover some seventy years ago. Though odd limbs have been lopped off, it is a magnificent tree. It was young in 1875 when the town was young ; so it has presided over Tauranga’s growth from its days of war and poverty to its present security and peace.