No Colourbars in Music A Tale of Old New Zealand by Arthur Daniel The writer met a prominent visitor from England the other day. He was half Maori and it transpired after much conversation that he was a son, one of four, of the Noti in the story which follows. Some sixty or so years ago, prior to the first World War, Wanganui, known in New Zealand as the River City, was about as cultured a town as could be found from Stewart Island right up to Cape Reinga, the jumping off place for the spirits of those Maoris who had been signalled ‘Kua mutu, Kua mutu’, (enough) by the Great Spirit. Because so many Wanganui citizens had brought Victorian culture from England and also because of the number who with business success knew that a home should be more than a place of rest—that it should display the emblems of success—table grand pianos were as plentiful as the cooking pots at Putiki Pa across the Wanganui River. It was by these splendid, expensive instruments, visitors strolling on a spring morning were enthralled, even more by the streets with a succession of lovely, perfumed, and colourful gardens; by the works of Lizst, Chopin, Mendelssohn, and other masters of the pianoforte. This of course was at a time before young ladies discovered that fingers supple and skilled practising arpeggios, etudes, and exercises, buttered few parsnips; whereas a fraction of the skill applied to a much smaller keyboard, the typewriter, enabled them to preside in and grace business offices, besides bringing home the bacon. It was too in Wanganui in those days that courtship embraced culture, for there on jasmine-scented porches, high contrapuntal ritual with lines by Omar Khayyam and other poets gave poise and form to events which in less favoured localities consisted of uncultured handholdings, embraces, and deep sighs. But the moon danced on the wavelets on the river between the town bridges and romance was in the air. ‘Awake for morning in the bowl of night, has flung the stone that puts the stars to flight.’ On the front verandah the approved and eager chap in the stiff white collar opened the proceedings while the maiden languidly lay on the rattan divan in a Grecian pose. The girl, who knew her onions, at once gracefully arched the splendid column of her neck, and lifting her head murmured soulfully: ‘Here with a loaf of bread beneath the bough, a flask of wine, a book of verse and thou.’ fair words which added flavour to the cream sponge baked in sweet anticipation, to be daintily eaten with the hot cocoa after the spirits of the two lovers had ceased to flutter in the heavenly vistas. While the prelude to mating and propagation of the Pakeha species was thus on the up and up, Maori culture and romance was staggering under the influence of the Pakehas, so that tribal grading based on endurance, bravery, and warrior skill was gone in favour of a scale of values where a stiff white collar gave social standing; and the Maoris were shirtless. While the wahines, dressed only in cotton dresses, nothing more, for all their freedom were unable to get bare feet on a rung of Wanganui's social ladder. So much was this the case that any fond mother, enthralled while daughter drew magic from the piano with Beethoven's ‘Moonlight Sonata’, would have required something stronger than smelling salts had her offspring encouraged a Maori youth onto the front verandah. But on the other hand there were male tangata Pakeha (men) unable to resist Poly-