Chapter XXIV: Australasian Journalism 258 (4)

That, however, was but the beginning of his labours. In proposing some healths and responding for others he made four more speeches of about a quarter of an hour each before the meeting broke up, and then descended to the winter garden, where a reception had been arranged, the guests to which had been waiting for over an hour for the great man's appearance. He was greeted with rapturous applause again, and proceeded to make another long speech which I only heard the echoes of afar off, for I fled to a restful corner and meditated. But it lasted fully three-quarters of an hour. Yet I learn that he has come over here for a rest from his arduous official labours in order to avoid a breakdown! Curiously enough, this man on his vacation literally dominated the Australian politicians, talked to them as if they were well-meaning but ignorant beginners, and was _fêted_ to the highest point. He got no rest, but that seemed to trouble him not at all. I was fain to ask some of his New Zealanders if they could tell me the secret of his power, and without exception their replies resolved themselves into this: that he never forgot a friend, however humble, and had a rare art of first browbeating and then conciliating his opponents; that he always had his ear to the ground to find out what the people wanted, and when he knew he bent his whole strength to give it to the party that was strong enough to demand it. This and his genius in being hail-fellow-well-met with even the raggedest loafer whom he had ever been friendly with, and that in any place, however public; gave him a popularity, in a land where men and women have adult suffrage, that nothing could shake. And on top of it all he had, like Mr. Gladstone, a beautiful and sympathetic home-life, lived in the open air of public scrutiny. There were no skeletons in his family cupboards, and this feature has always been and will always be an immense factor in any public man's success in Britain or a British Colony.

I have said enough for the present about Mr. R. J. Seddon, although just now he seems to be the one force which counts out here, all the other political personages being but pigmies beside him, although the whole country which he rules so successfully has not nearly double the population of either Melbourne or Sydney. He certainly is a portent, a man whom even his bitterest opponents are bound to admire and respect for his many wonderful qualities, and perhaps most of all for his amazing vigour at a time of life--sixty-one--when, especially with his corpulent figure, he might reasonably be expected to slow down a bit. Instead of which he is making a triumphal tour of the Australasian States, being everywhere received with the honours usually accorded to a great potentate.

The day arrives when I am due to leave Sydney for Auckland, and reluctantly I tear myself away from all the delights of this most beautiful and hospitable spot; only to find that the fine steamer of the Huddart Parker Line, which divides with the Union Company of New Zealand the monopoly of the Australasia-New Zealand trade, in which I was to sail, has been suddenly held back a day for no other reason obvious but the pleasure of the managers. Oh, they carry matters with a high hand out here, and if you object, well, you can so amuse yourself if you will, but it comes to nothing! I went down and had a look at the vessel though, and was filled with admiration at her fine proportions and splendid passenger accommodation. She is quite as large and far more finely fitted than the ocean liner of a quarter of a century ago, being nearly 3,000 tons register, and having all her appointments for the comfort of passengers up to date. But this business of Inter-colonial shipping has grown to stupendous proportions and cannot be dealt with casually at the fag end of a chapter, so it must stand over.

XII

TOWARDS MAORILAND

As I mentioned in a previous chapter, your Australasian is essentially a wanderer, and the huge distances involved have no terrors for him. Land travel, except where the railways run, is slow, painful, difficult, and often dangerous, although essentially romantic. But where business is concerned romance has little scope, and delay is to be avoided at all costs. Consequently, from the very earliest days of the Colonies there was an attempt made to satisfy the needs of the travelling public by making communication by sea as safe and easy as could be. The efforts of the pioneers in this direction met with great and well-deserved success, but side by side with their growth in power and wealth came the demands of the seamen and firemen to share. These demands were favoured by successive Colonial Governments, which have always had the interests of the workers at heart, being usually composed of men who had been hand-workers themselves. Of course, in the result the workers always won, amid the plaints of the shipowners who predicted ruin to their enterprises if such wages and such food were made compulsory. But the lugubrious prophecies of evil have not been fulfilled, even in the remotest sense, for to-day the coastal trade of Australasia is without a parallel in the world.

Indeed it seems almost miraculous, remembering the paucity of the population, how so immense a fleet can be maintained. Take, for instance, the Union Company, which, when I was in New Zealand thirty-three years ago, was just a babe in swaddling clothes with four or five small steamers. To-day it has a fleet of fifty-five fine steamships, including a veritable ocean flyer, the turbine _Maheno_--a pioneer, really, in ocean navigation for this part of the world. The headquarters of this giant Company are at Dunedin, a city of less than 60,000 inhabitants or one-fifth of the population of the Borough of Camberwell, in London. Yet, great as this Company is and splendid as are the services it renders, it has not been able to keep the whole of the coasting trade of these islands, with their population of less than 900,000, in its own hands. It has to share the trade with another growing firm, that of Huddart, Parker & Co., and smaller local firms like the Northern Steamship Company. Of course, the efforts of these firms are not alone confined to New Zealand. They maintain a constant communication between Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand, and the Union Company sends its ships farther afield with great success to China, Japan, San Francisco, and Vancouver. It would not, I think, need a very great stretch of their energies for them to compete for the home trade (to Britain, I mean) with such giants as the Shaw, Savill, and Albion Company, the New Zealand Shipping Company, and Messrs. Tyser & Co. But I do not think they will bother about that as yet, since the Intercolonial trade is in so prosperous a condition, in spite of the high wages and good conditions of life accorded to the sailors and firemen.

In Australia, while there is no such phenomenally large Company working as the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand, we have wonderful evidences of the virility and enterprise of the seafaring element. Not only in the Australasian United Steam Navigation Company, and Howard Smith & Co., with several minor Companies to serve the coast, but there are such Companies as Messrs. Gibbs, Bright & Co. and Messrs. Currie & Co., who devote themselves to trade with India, China, and Malaysia, and, of course, possess steamers capable of holding their own with any deep-water ships owned by any other nation. I only mention this to show how, in spite of the short-sightedness of the rulers of this wonderful country in keeping the population down, the breed holds true and the mercantile fleet of Australasia is, in proportion, far greater than that of Great Britain--in proportion, that is, to population; any other comparison would be manifestly unfair. It is really difficult to realise how, in a city with a population of less than 60,000 inhabitants Dunedin, not by any means the first, but the fourth, in point of population in a land that numbers less than 900,000 all told, there should be owned a fleet of steamships worthy to take its place with those of any great Company in the world.

It is, I think, a portent of considerable magnitude that these Antipodean States are reaching out so vigorously after the oversea trade, as distinguished from the Intercolonial business. Messrs. Archibald Currie & Co., of Melbourne, trade with India, and are building ever larger and larger steamers to sustain the bulk of their rapidly growing business. Messrs. Gibbs, Bright & Co., and Messrs. Burns, Philp & Co., reach out after the Polynesian trade and the immense business that is being done in the Eastern Archipelago, Singapore, Malaysia, and China. The Union Company goes even farther afield, connecting the Northern Island up with Australasia _viâ_ Vancouver, and straining every nerve to make the mail service in this direction as effective, despite the increased distance, as that carried on by the jerry-built ships of the American O.S.S. Company. By the utter short-sightedness and supineness of our rulers at home, the beautiful Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands became the property of the United States, who, in pursuance of their fixed policy, immediately declared them to be a portion of the United States coast, and excluded foreign--that is British--trade, between them and San Francisco or any other Yankee port. Is it any wonder that everybody out here grows restive at the unaccountable oscillations and vacillations of British policy, if the treatment of the Society Islands, Navigator Islands, New Hebrides, and New Guinea questions could be called a policy of anything else but drift and relinquish? It seems impossible for our rulers to realise that every port annexed by a foreign power means its being practically closed to British trade whether home or colonial. But these things are fully and practically realised here, and are bitterly resented.

At present, however, I am principally concerned with my departure from Sydney in this fine ship _Zealandia_, which is as perfect in her equipment, as up-to-date in every respect as any ocean liner, and, as I before mentioned, fully as large as the early ships of the Orient Line, such as the _Garonne_, _John Elder_, _Lusitania_, or _Cuzco_. As she slips away from her wharf and we glide quietly seawards, my mind flies back to the days of thirty-five years ago when I used to make the trip we are now on twice a month in a ship that, although only about one-third the size of this, was one of the finest coasters in the whole of Australasia, the _Wentworth_. I look somewhat wistfully at the beautiful panorama, wondering whether I shall ever behold it again, but thankful that I have once more been privileged to renew my acquaintance with one of the most beautiful spots on earth.

My almost invariable luck still holds, for the sea is like a mill-pond, this stretch of ocean between Australia and New Zealand not being a _Mare Serenitatis_ by any means, as a rule. We have a fairly large number of passengers, many of whom belong to a theatrical company on tour, my first introduction to a travelling troupe. As there are only two classes in these ships, first and steerage, we have a curious gathering in saloon and smoke-room of scene-shifters, actors, and all the rest of the extraordinary "push" that goes to make up a theatrical company. But it is a typical little democracy, the manager of the whole show being on the best and most intimate possible terms with every member of his company down to the least important. To my mind, however, the most remarkable feature of this business is that there is a company of thirty children, of ages ranging from eight to fourteen, who are a study in themselves. They are the most precocious small people I have ever met, and yet not offensively so, like that terror in miniature, the American child. They are evidently as happy as it is possible for children to be, and every grown-up member of the company without exception is devoted to them, although they really seem to be unspoilable. They have, of course, a matron and a doctor in attendance upon them, and I understand that when they are ashore they attend school every forenoon. Healthier, happier, brighter children I never saw, their very business being a supreme delight. But glad as one must feel at seeing a lot of small folks having such a manifestly good time, the thought would persistently obtrude itself--what about their future? This gadding about from place to place in the company of people who, however kind, are not notable for a sense of responsibility, is most unsettling, and few indeed of these youngsters, either boys or girls, will be able to settle down again until middle age; while what is going to become of them during that awkward interregnum during which they are too old for their present business and not old enough, assuming they have the talent, for ordinary actors and actresses nobody seems to know or care. At present they are certainly living up to the letter of the Gospel injunction to take no thought for to-morrow, and, at any rate, they are having a splendid time.

In a blaze of golden sunset we sight the Three Kings, those outlying northern sentinels of New Zealand which will now always be remembered for the horrors attendant upon the wreck of the _Elingamite_ only a few years ago. Curiously enough that terrible story--as it was so fully reiterated about the civilised world I need not now re-tell it--completely overlaid my early recollections of the Three Kings, all fortunately very pleasant. As a small boy in a Sydney steamer bound to Auckland I often saw them and always in fine weather, while again in a whaleship as a young man I have circled around their grim pinnacles, and never saw them veiled in the tempest spray which these stern seas can always raise upon the slightest provocation. Be sure I was up early in the morning, for the view along the north-east coast of New Zealand if the weather is fine is not to be beaten anywhere, more especially as you near the Hauraki Gulf and begin to approach Auckland. The fine weather still held, and the sun, blazing out of a cloudless sky, illuminated every crag, islet, and beach as we sped up the splendid sound to where grim Rangitoto waits like a stern sentinel over the smiling harbour, whose entrance he guards. I suppose living constantly within sight of a volcano, whether it be active or extinct, as long as its activity is not pronounced, tends to oblivion of its potentialities. But I confess that in my youthful days I never entered or left Auckland without glancing fearfully upwards at the crater of Rangitoto, as do visitors to Naples at Vesuvius, and wondering whether some day or other the giant Enceladus would awake from his slumbers and involve all that busy, beautiful environment in one heap of smoking ruins, _Absit omen_, and yet remembering the gigantic upheaval which caused the ruin of the pink and white terraces a quarter of a century ago, and, as geologists tell us, was only prevented from overwhelming this beautiful town by an extraordinary barrier of strata beneath the soil which shed the earth tremors off as a breakwater sheds the waves, it is impossible for an outsider who has been a frequent visitor to avoid having some such reflections as these. Fortunately for the progress of the world, the condition of mind of dwellers in seismic districts is closely akin to that of consumptives. It is a truism how a poor fellow in the last stages of phthisis will look commiseratingly upon a fellow-sufferer perhaps not nearly so far gone, and say, "Poor chap! he can't last long." When you anxiously inquire after the speaker's health he assures you, between bursts of coughing, that it is vastly improved, and really he has hardly ever felt better in his life. And so, in spite of St. Pierre, of Vesuvius, or of San Francisco, the volcano-encircled towns of the world go steadily on their way without apparently giving a thought to what may happen at any hour. Which, of course, is just how it should be, if our life is to be lived at all in decent fashion.

Ah! here we are in Auckland. But, dear me, I hardly know the place, and have to look back to Rangitoto to get my bearings. There is, of course, the same splendid land-locked harbour, but in my day there was one wharf with a "T" at its end, and the smaller fry of schooners and such-like, which in those early days Auckland was famous for building, had to be content with tiny jetties or an outer berth in the anchorage. And now the whole water-front of the city is a labyrinth of wharves, which, being yet all too small, are being extended with the utmost energy. No docks are needed in this entirely peaceful and land-locked bay, but wharves, wharves, and ever more wharves, to accommodate the trade of the Britain of the South. It is a splendid object lesson in the maritime instincts of the British race that this city, whose total population is about one-fifth of a big London parish, should have an oversea trade of such enormous dimensions as to require the expenditure of millions on the wharfage accommodation!

XIII

THE PARADISE OF LABOUR

Upon landing from the steamer, and strolling up the pier towards the well-remembered Queen Street, I was puzzled to account for the fact that the pier seemed shorter than it used to be. But I set it down to my being so much younger then, and to having seen so many big things of late years. I could not, however, help feeling that the rows of big warehouses crowding along the front were much closer to the water's edge than any buildings had been in my time, and I seemed to remember also that the water used to come up into the town unhindered until it chose to retire. Now, however, its entry was severely restricted, and I was not at all surprised to learn that, along the whole water-front, over half a mile at least, one hundred yards in width of land had been reclaimed and built upon. It may be asked why, in a new country like this, it should be worth while to spend money in reclaiming land from the sea when there is so much land unoccupied. But when you learn that the price of land in the city of Auckland ranges from £20 per foot frontage up to a figure which closely approximates to that in most parts of London, and that building land in even the remote suburbs of Auckland is fetching to-day £400 per acre, you will not be surprised, however much, like myself, you wonder at the reason for this state of things.

Nevertheless, Auckland as a city is disappointing--distinctly so. It has one fine street, a really splendid wide and straight thoroughfare, but in that street there are only two decent buildings, one of which is, appropriately enough, the Auckland Savings Bank; all the rest, though some of them are pretentious enough, are mean, and unworthy of the first city of New Zealand in point of population (and some say of wealth), being either jerry-built of brick and stuccoed over, or of wood. Now, of all mean shams that my soul abhors, it is the imitation stone-building of which the early Victorian era in London furnished so many hideous examples. Good honest brick-work, or even wood-work that looks what it is, I like, but stucco, hiding, as it always does, the most slovenly and unreliable brick-work, and showing after a few weeks its misery in the shape of numberless cracks, and even crevasses (I saw one public building, before I had been five minutes ashore, which had to be propped up as if there had been an earthquake), is beneath contempt, and should never be encouraged by an independent and outspoken people. I know I shall be reminded of the lack of suitable building stone in this volcanic country, and the cost of getting stone here from other parts of New Zealand where it is abundant; but that is not to the point. There is plenty of brick--the best of brick--and abundance of the most beautiful timber the world grows, wherefore stucco, the sham of shams, should be anathema. Fortunately I shall be out of the country before the Plasterers' Union can be out after me, so I do not care.

Then there seems to be something lacking in so prosperous a city in that there are so many mean streets and only one really good thoroughfare. The city looks unkempt, dishevelled, as if it had not yet made up its mind whether to rise to the height of a metropolis or sink to the depth of a village. It looks fortuitous, and although it certainly does not fall to the level of the average American city of its size, it does not rise to the occasion like Perth, Western Australia, for instance, although comparisons are odious; but I would like to know why! On every hand may be heard tales of the abounding prosperity of the country, and I have ever found that when business men are contented with the way things are going, and say so, the visitor, more especially if he be not one to whom something may be sold in order to get rid of it, may depend upon it that things are even better than they seem. Wages are high, food is plentiful and cheap, and, indeed, all the necessaries of life are cheap in comparison with the standard of wages. Only land seems dear out of all proportion to the prosperity of the country.

This is indeed the paradise of labour. Practically all legislation is shaped with an eye to what the worker with his hands will think of it, and men who at home are classed with the demagogues, and treated as dangerous subverters of law and order, here make the laws, administer them, and rule the roost generally. I have been introduced to several men whom I should at once have recognised anywhere as journeymen carpenters, masons, plasterers, &c., with horny hands and an utter absence of the graces or delicacies of speech, and told that they were J.P.'s., members of the House of Representatives, or leaders of societies wielding enormous power. It is not necessary, nay, it is almost impossible, for strikes to occur, since every question of hours and wages is submitted to Courts of Arbitration having all the powers of legal tribunals. Strangely enough, the capitalists profess to like this state of affairs. I anxiously looked for some sign of insincerity in their remarks to me upon the subject, but could not detect any at all. So I was, and am, compelled to believe that they are at least contented to acquiesce in this condition of matters. Then it must also be remembered that many quite large employers of labour are themselves what we are pleased to call working men, that is, they still work at the bench with hammer and saw, lathe and file, among the men whom they employ, and their distance from employed to employer is not yet great enough for them to have lost touch with their men.

One splendid result of this close equality of capital with labour is that there is no room for the whining rascal who gets so much utterly undeserved sympathy and the lion's share of pauper-making doles at home, the workshy or unemployable. He could not exist here. I do not quite know what they would do with him, but I am perfectly sure that he could not live here for any length of time. It is a land of workers, not loafers; and while for the worker who is unfortunate in any way there is every help and encouragement, for the class for which our sentimentalists who call themselves socialists at home are mainly responsible, there is nothing available but elimination, and that very swiftly. This goodly position of the worker is not confined to the outside workers only, the journeyman mechanic, labourer, &c., but it extends to the class which at home with us is so terribly handicapped in small business and in large wholesale houses, counter-salesmen and clerks. The majority of shops close at six, only a few refreshment-houses, tobacconists, &c., remaining open. No such spectacle is possible here as that which I have often seen at home at certain seasons of the year, when employees must work practically all night as a set-off to the fact that they get a fortnight's holiday in the year without pay. Or of the shops which, under the stress of competition, keep their pale slaves on their feet from eight in the morning until ten at night, and on Saturdays until twelve. Everything that can be done is done in the direction of early closing, even to the hotels (there are no public-houses here) whose bars are closed rigidly at ten o'clock, and on Sundays may not open at all. Nay, so far is this carried that, if you are staying in an hotel, you may not have a visitor to see you after ten, or on Sundays at all, lest you should be tempted to offer him fluid hospitality, and thus evade the law which declares that no man may drink intoxicants during prohibited hours, except in the privacy of his own permanent or temporary home. Local Option is carried out to its fullest extent, and has some queer results where a district closed to the sale of liquor ranges with one that is open. But there is no gainsaying the fact that all that can or may be done by what we at home know by the opprobrious epithet of grandmotherly interference to discourage the consumption of strong drink, is done.

In many other ways what we call the liberty of the subject is interfered with, the distinct proviso being laid down that the law may punish any person for doing anything which is harmful to his neighbour. Which, of course, strikes at the root of monopolies, and of all those evils which usually accompany the building up of enormous fortunes out of the woes of the wage-earner. And yet, of course I suppose, there are evils attendant upon all this dry-nursing--evils which I have heard liberally descanted upon by citizens, but will not enlarge upon myself because, in the first place, I am not likely to come here to live, and next because I am too grateful for the removal of many of the horrible diseases of the body politic which are rampant at home, and can there, alas, only be cured now by drastic remedies involving much suffering to innocent people. Of course you have heard all about the old-age pension system out here, which is now about to be extended to Australia. I am not sufficient of an actuary to know what it will eventually cost, but I do know that at present it is hailed with intense satisfaction by all classes, who pride themselves upon having solved a problem that has baffled all the civilised nations. More than that, a public-spirited citizen of Auckland has erected and endowed a really beautiful building in one of the most romantically picturesque suburbs of Auckland, which is called the "Costley" home for aged people, and is on the lines of what we at home should call an almshouse or set of almshouses. Here with their pensions the old folks can, and do, live most comfortably, having entire liberty to do what they please, just as if they had retired upon a competency of their own earning. And, indeed, they are led to regard the old-age pension in that very light. In such a practical community as this it is, perhaps, superfluous to add that every care is taken to exclude from the benefits of the pension scheme all those whose habits of drunkenness and laziness have made them unworthy of its provisions. It really does not put a premium upon wasteful debauchery.

When I was last in Auckland, thirty-five years ago, I used to be much amused and interested in watching the Maories, both men and women, strolling about the streets with a lordly air of indifference to everything under the sun but their own ease and comfort. The idea of work of any kind seemed entirely foreign to their nature, and although they were gratefully taking to the white man's style of dress, it was very slowly, and the mixture of native and European costume produced some grotesque effects. It was very funny to see a Maori belle dressed from top to toe in what she had been led to consider was the height of European fashion, plump suddenly down on the nearest convenient spot and hastily remove the tight boots which had been making her hobble like a Chinese lady. Tying them together with a piece of string, she would sling them over her shoulder, then producing and lighting a short, black pipe, she would resume her leisurely way sublimely indifferent to what anybody thought of her carefree proceedings. And the older natives were often dressed in a complete native garb, save that they wore trousers. It helped one to realise how near to the native times of supremacy we were to see these calm-eyed Maories strolling along the streets gazing at the strange sights but never manifesting any surprise or even interest.

And now, so long after, I find almost as many natives about as I did then. You meet them everywhere, not now in native garb it is true, but wearing, with a curious alteration of set and cut, the ordinary European raiment. The women, too, hang skirts and jackets upon their stalwart bodies, but I did not see any more tight-fitting boots, most of the ladies wearing generous men's sizes and shapes for ease, while they also chose to wear, as being more comfortable and useful, men's wideawake hats secured with hatpins. The short pipe is still in constant evidence, also the tattooing on the chin which marks the married woman, while a child is often seen slung on her back in true native fashion all the world over. One thing excited my attention, in view of the statement made that this splendid race is slowly dying out--it is the magnificent build of many of the men. It is well known, of course, how fine a human animal the Maori half-breed makes, but I have seen many full-blooded Maories here whose physique was that of the Farnese Hercules, a splendour of trunk and limbs that even the slouching way in which their clothes are flung on them could not hide. But nothing will ever make the native take to the idea of steady, settled work--fixed hours for anything; it is unnatural to expect it, and, as far as I can see, the ruling powers of New Zealand do not expect it. They educate the Maori, give him a goodly share in the Government, treat him with kindly respect, and do nothing to hinder him from retaining his ancient language, but they do not commit the blunder of supposing that he will become a European.

I have been for a drive to-day around the suburbs known as Mount Eden and One Tree Hill, from whence a peculiarly beautiful and comprehensive view of Auckland and its lovely environs can be obtained. But in spite of the beauty of the country and the luxuriance of the verdure, the air of prosperity manifest by the neat and sometimes handsome dwellings dotted about everywhere, and the wealth of flowers--the arum lily especially growing in masses by the waysides as if it were a noxious weed--one grim feature of the landscape would exclude every other consideration. Auckland is literally hemmed in on the landward side by a ring of craters of extinct volcanoes; nay, it would almost seem as if the whole region had once been one vast volcano, like Mauna Loa in the Sandwich Islands, having many vent-holes. Evidently the present quiet condition of things has lasted for many hundreds of years, and I fervently hope that no uneasy demon will arise to mar that ancient peace.

XIV

A UNIVERSAL SHOCK

The pious aspiration with which I closed my last chapter has not been quite fulfilled. The earth mother is quiet, thank Heaven, but the minds of the people have been stirred as by some mighty disaster. On Monday, June 11th, the news was suddenly flashed across from Sydney to the whole of New Zealand that the _Oswestry Grange_ had returned to Sydney, whence she had sailed on the preceding day, with R. J. Seddon dead. It is almost impossible to convey to you at home what a sensation this news made. We all love the King, but it is with an impersonal affection; we shout and cheer for the various political leaders of our party according to our tastes; but here it was as if the country had been smitten with an irretrievable disaster. The visitor forgot the smallness of the number of people affected as he realised the extraordinary consternation this sudden death produced among all classes, even those who had been most violently opposed to him politically. I was staying at the time in an hotel kept by an amiable Hebrew, and in consequence largely frequented by gentlemen of that faith (who, by the way, are particularly numerous and influential in Auckland), and it was to me amazing to see the grief of all, the genuine sorrow manifested, and hear the sentiments of deep affectionate regret that were uttered by the landlord and his friends.

The secret of this amazing popularity seemed to be that first and foremost the deceased Premier, while he magnified his office and never failed to magnify New Zealand also, was essentially accessible to all, hail-fellow-well-met with Tom, Dick, and Harry. He never, so it was said, put on "side," unless he were dealing with magnates who endeavoured to put it on with him, when he would be aggressively, almost ferociously, self-assertive. It has been repeatedly stated that he was offered a peerage at home, but refused. This man, so essentially of the people, who, like so many other men in power in this new and thriving country, had toiled at many humble occupations in order to earn a living, and who, when he had obtained the summit of power out here, lived in simplest style without a trace of ostentation, was wise enough and courageous enough to refuse such an honour as most men will toil and intrigue and spend fabulous sums in trying to obtain, because, so people here say, and I am fain to believe, he knew that as a peer he would have been a nonentity, but as plain Dick Seddon he was really the uncrowned King of New Zealand. Naturally his essentially Socialistic policy was fiercely assailed by those whose privileges and profits it curtailed, and nothing less than ruin was predicted for the country so subjected to political experiments of the most drastic order. But although it is for the present beside the mark to say that, so far from the country being ruined, it was never more prosperous than it is now, it is curious, almost pathetic, to note how all the voices of controversy are hushed, how all parties, all newspapers, unite in doing honour to the man whose proudest title was Digger Dick. There has been, as far as I have been able to hear, not one dissentient voice raised against the chorus of eulogy, and there certainly has been none of that indecent exultation so often painfully manifested at home on the death or downfall of one of our great men by the party opposed to him.

During the later years of his life Richard John Seddon was exceptionally fortunate, over and above the position he earned by Titanic toil. But in nothing was he more fortunate than in the manner and time of his passing away. It must be remembered that he had just closed such a triumphal progress through the chief cities of the Commonwealth of Australia as a monarch, even the proudest, might have envied. He came to Australia as his own ambassador to endeavour to effect a closer union between the Commonwealth and New Zealand in matters of legislation, and especially in the direction of a reciprocal tariff. How far his self-imposed mission was a success it is as yet too early to say, but it is certain that he dominated the Australian politicians like a giant towering above pigmies. One would have thought that New Zealand was the great State and Australia the small to read the speeches made and the editorial comments thereupon. In fact Seddon seemed to hypnotise the politicians as he did the ordinary banqueters of whom I spoke in a previous chapter, so that even such a platitudinous and vulgar plagiarism from the arrogant Yankee as his frequently uttered allusion to New Zealand as "God's own country" was always rapturously applauded and received as the coinage of his own brain, a happy idea such as no other mind would be capable of receiving. This description of New Zealand was especially pleasing to Seddon's warmest supporters, the Maories, who are all nominally Christian now, and who all firmly believe that he was the inventor of the epithet.

And then, when this triumphal progress culminated in Sydney and he had embarked for "God's own country," as his last telegram stated, he sat down to rest with his family around him, and suddenly laying his head upon his wife's shoulder, murmured "Oh, mother!" and died; instantly, peacefully, painlessly. Of course it was a terrible shock to his devoted partner and his no less devoted children, but as far as he was concerned it was a passing such as few great men are privileged to obtain. Even Nelson, whose end was similar in that he passed at the summit of his glory, had to endure long hours of agony, whereas Seddon's end was such as most of us, however humble, must crave for, but few obtain.

Business seems paralysed, and the newspapers can apparently print nothing else but pages about the deceased Premier; but of course, although the intense mourning and general _distrait_ air will continue until the funeral at Wellington in about ten days, the people will discover, as they have so often discovered before, that no man is irreplaceable, and that the sincerest tribute to a great man's memory is to carry on his work after his departure.

Perhaps I have devoted overmuch space to Mr. Seddon in a work like this, but really the event has caused so great a sensation out here that it seemed impossible to pass it over in a few casual words.

My stay in Auckland is drawing rapidly to a close, to my regret, although, as I am repeatedly assured, the country is not to be compared, as far as appearance goes, to what it is like in the summer. Which seems so strange to me, for, as I am never weary of repeating, the climate now seems to be almost ideal to a Briton: the air has just enough freshness in it to dispel languor, while the sun's heat at noon is tempered enough to make the genial warmth enjoyable and the wearing of even the lightest of overcoats an absurdity. This ideal climate condition makes me wonder why it is that so many of the flowering plants and shrubs do not bloom all the year round. The conditions are never even sub-tropical, being more like Cornwall than anything else, yet there is no approach to the wealth of bloom that may be seen in our far western counties all the year round. And many of the trees, having shed their leaves, look absolutely dead, as if nothing could ever induce them to burgeon again. Even the verdure on the hills does not look fresh and green as it does in our southern counties during our much-maligned winter. But appearances are proverbially deceitful, and nowhere more so than here, for they tell me that the sheep find excellent pasturage all the year round, and are never in need of any special care, while the cool air induces the luxuriant growth of wool.

But I must bid farewell to Auckland. The _Tarawera_ waits for me, and we are presently spinning southward down the Gulf towards Gisborne, my next halting-place. This is a coast to test seamanship. From Auckland round to Wellington there is no real shelter, and when the mighty Southern swell rolls up the steamers must either put out to sea and breast it, not daring to attempt a landing at any of the ports, or pass on with their disgruntled passengers to the shelter of one of the safe harbours aforesaid. As happened to the ship which passed us on her way North--for although the weather was not what a seaman would call bad--she had, owing to the enormous Pacific (?) swell breaking in on the coast, to give up all idea of landing her passengers, to say nothing of her cargo, at Gisborne, and take them on to Auckland. When we passed East Cape the weather was sublime, the sea like oil, and the sky above cloudless, serene; but that terrible swell tossed us about like a cork in a mill-race. However, we came into Gisborne, Poverty Bay, on Sunday, and anchored quite close to what has been ironically termed the harbour, rolling and tumbling about there in strangely bewildering fashion. Presently I saw some small steam vessels making their way apparently through the land, but behaving as we were doing, that is, rolling and tumbling about with wonderful agility. They soon emerged from behind what I could then discern was the horn of a breakwater, and immediately became easier in their movements. When, however, the tender, a fine, stout-built steamer of about 200 tons, got alongside it was possible to see how great was the motion on this calm day and to imagine what an impossibility it would be to carry on any work if the wind was blowing into this unprotected bay instead of, as it was now, blowing out. The master of the tender being an old shipmate of mine invited me on the bridge to see the entrance to the harbour, for which I was very grateful, for it was a revelation to me.

This little community of less than 9,000 souls, being in possession of a magnificent sheep country and having built up for themselves the largest frozen meat export trade in New Zealand, felt themselves most severely and painfully handicapped by their want of a harbour. Not, be it understood, for vessels of any size--that they could hardly hope to effect--but one from which they might carry out their produce to ships at anchor in the bay. So they consulted Sir John Coode on the construction of a breakwater, behind which the small steamers might come down from the little river Waimata in safety and emerge into the bay. He gave his opinion, indicating the best position for, and the mode of construction of, the breakwater, which apparently did not coincide with their wishes. In the result they disregarded his advice and built the present breakwater, which, for a time, served fairly well, but alas! the channel behind it began to silt up from the scour of the river, which, as rivers are wont to do in all mountainous countries, occasionally ran in spate, overflowing its banks and bringing down enormous quantities of detritus. In the hope of obviating this the local authorities built a groyne running parallel with the breakwater and making a sort of canal running out into the harbour. But unhappily they extended this groyne until it was equal in length to the breakwater. Then when the prevalent swell rolled in, it struck the end of the groyne, rebounding up the channel, and making such mighty turmoil that it was impossible to get in or out except at very great risk. On my journey up, as I said, the weather was exceptionally fine, but this tiny steamer required two men at the wheel, which was spun hard up and hard down continuously as the great swell rolling in after her swung her from side to side.

I need not labour this point, but may say briefly that it is one of those blunders easily made but most difficult to repair; and now this small, energetic community, having burdened itself with a debt of a quarter of a million in order to facilitate the shipment of its produce, finds itself in a rather worse position than before. It is, as may be imagined, a very sore point indeed with the townsfolk, who do not know who to blame, and who do not see what good blaming would do after all. Yet in spite of all this it is, by all accounts, the most prosperous in proportion to its size of any town in New Zealand. The ranges of hills hereabouts form, so I am told, ideal pasturage for sheep when they have been treated in the following fashion. The natural surface growth is burned off and grass seed is sown among the ashes. This presently, under the beneficent skies of this beautiful country, clothes those heretofore barren ranges with living green of such succulent nutritiousness that it will "carry" two sheep to the acre--sheep who fatten and breed with scarcely any attention, in such fashion as we in England have had ample demonstration of, and who find within easy reach a ready market. I confess that it was difficult at first to realise the value of those lofty ranges of hills where cultivation is quite out of the question, but in the light of this expert information and of what I saw of the flocks of sheep streaming down to the freezing works to be presently dealt with in exhaustive fashion, I began to understand how and why it was that New Zealand ranked so very high among the countries of the world as regards her export trade, £9 per head as against £2 8s. from the United States by the admission of one of their own experts.

XV

MUTTON, THE MASTER

Gisborne is, historically speaking, almost the most interesting place in the whole of New Zealand. Close to the site of the present town is where Captain Cook made his first landing in the country, and named it, on the spur of the moment, Poverty Bay--a name which it still holds, because the natives take a delight in the irony of the appellation in contrast to that of the Bay of Plenty, which, though only the next bay northward, has done nothing so far to justify its grand title. This little place was also the scene of the Poverty Bay massacre, wherein between thirty and forty whites were slaughtered by the Maories under the redoubtable Te Kooti, as a direct result of the inevitable, invariable blundering of the home authorities. It is not a little remarkable, however, that it should have taken so long for this place to attain its present dimensions, even when the limitations of the harbour (?) have to be taken into consideration. But since that is a feature of every part of Australasia that I have revisited, I need not do more than allude to it in passing.

Like Auckland, Gisborne suffers from a want of good building stone, which prevents the erection of any really imposing buildings, since all builders are in a conspiracy to hide the brick-work, of which the best buildings are constructed, under stucco, a most futile and pernicious proceeding, directly conducive to bad work. The older buildings are of wood, which is honest at any rate, if flimsy in appearance. It is not so in reality, as New Zealand boasts some of the finest building timber in the world--so good, in fact, that it pays to import soft wood from America and Scandinavia, and export the native woods for other purposes. It is a beautifully laid-out little town, with wide, level streets, and as yet no imposing buildings in them--a town where everybody seems contented and prosperous, although there is an utter absence of swagger, such as usually accompanies the possession of considerable means in other countries. It would appear that here, at any rate, the Socialistic schemes of the New Zealand Government have resulted in a general levelling of the people in point of comfort, a certain limitation of growth, and a great air of contentment, for I have heard no one as yet speak of hard times.

Viewed from the sea, Gisborne gives one the idea of consisting of only a small collection of houses clustered about the lower slopes of the encircling hills, and the stranger instinctively wonders where the town can be, the distance of those hills from the sea being so very deceptive. But once ashore it is seen that there is really an immense area of almost absolutely level land extending from the sea-shore to the ranges--beautiful land of the highest quality, and containing space enough for the erection of a mighty city if only the conditions warranted its growth. The contrast between the level of Gisborne and the inequalities of Auckland is very marked, but of course, while the position of the former is excellent from the point of view of transport, it does not make for picturesqueness. It much resembles the position of Adelaide, and, for the same reason, the deposit of alluvium at the foot of the hills by the age-long work of the rivers coming down to the sea and spreading out their detritus.

I was taken to see the principal freezing establishment, belonging to Messrs. Nelson & Co., and went with a great deal of curiosity, after my reading of Upton Sinclair's awful book, "The Jungle," and my own experiences of Chicago. Of course, in point of size, there is no comparison, the whole output of New Zealand being but a trifle compared with the holocaust daily offered up in Chicago. But that was of no consequence; it was the system I wanted to see. First of all, our arrival (I was taken by a Government Stock Inspector) was unexpected by the people in charge, so that nothing could have been cleaned up or put out of sight for my sake. Work, indeed, was very slack, only a few bullocks being slaughtered and the sheep being discharged from the great refrigerators into specially built and equipped lighters for conveyance off to the _Niwaru_, one of Messrs. Tyser & Co.'s huge cargo steamers, which was lying in the bay. It gives rather a curious sensation to stand at the other end of the long chain of supply forged by man's inventive genius, which connects the sheep which I see on the hills yonder with the suburban butcher's shop in England with its sheeted carcases being chopped up for distribution at practically the same prices, and in practically the same condition, as they are sold to the consumer here.

Apart from the grim side of the business, the immense and continuous blood-shedding and the suggestive crimson rivulet flowing steadily into the river beside the works, there was an air of great calm and peace over everything. There is nothing squalid or sordid or dirty about the place, from the rows of pretty workmen's dwellings to the immense cooling chambers crowded with freshly skinned and disembowelled carcases, depending from rails overhead and chilling off before commencing their journey towards the freezing chambers (Linde's Ammonia process), where the temperature rapidly converts those fresh, soft, pink and white bodies into no bad resemblance of a block of stone. As to the meat itself, like most householders, and without being anything of a butcher, I pride myself on knowing a bit of good meat when I see it, and better-looking meat than that mutton and beef I have never seen, even at Christmas-time at home, while its cleanliness was a striking contrast to the appearance of the carcases in many a West End butcher's that I wot of. The inspection is of the most rigid and searching kind, for the meat must be above suspicion. And should the examination of the lungs reveal the slightest taint of tuberculosis, the entire carcase is first drenched with kerosine and then cremated, every portion thereof except the hide, which of course has no part of it consumable by man. But the percentage of carcases which it is necessary to destroy is ridiculously low. The conditions under which the cattle live and are brought to the abattoirs are so good and healthful that the inception and dissemination of disease is very rare.