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.