Looking down from the great height to which the cable-car has carried us, the panorama spread out before our eyes is full of beauty, and without going back one word on what I have said of the glories of Sydney and Auckland Harbours, I gladly admit that Wellington has no reason to be ashamed. She has a harbour that the proudest nation in the world might well envy for its capital. It is, as I have before had reason to say, immensely difficult to realise, looking down upon that splendid series of wharves, with its thronging ships of the largest size, that I am in a city of less than 60,000 inhabitants, the capital of a country whose total population is less than that of three of our London boroughs. It is, of course, only to be accounted for by remembering that here we have a selected population whereof every adult unit is of account. There are neither unemployed nor unemployable paupers or pauperising agencies. Intensely Socialistic as is the legislation, it must be accounted unto them for righteousness that they do not tolerate the loafer, the workshy, and the unfit. They do not make the mistake which our Socialists do at home, of fostering and coddling the parasites of the proletariat at the expense of their fellows who will work, and scorn to accept doles from anybody while able so to do. It is impossible to imagine out here the spectacle of able-bodied men being driven to pauperism because they see so clearly that it pays better than work.
Now the Manuka is ready to start, and I am charmed by the manner in which this huge steamer is manipulated in truly British fashion—sans bruit, as the admiring Frenchman says. Hardly a sound is heard as she slips away from the wharf, and in a space little larger than herself is turned around and headed for the open sea. A delightful discovery has dawned upon me since travelling upon this coast, which is that the fine fleet of the Union Company and Messrs. Huddart, Parker & Co. are largely, if not entirely, officered and engineered by the native-born: if not exactly native-born, then brought out here so young that they are to all intents and purposes New Zealanders. Is this not as it should be? and should it not teach us a lesson at home, if we could learn a lesson, which seems doubtful as far as the Merchant Service is concerned, how good and useful and profitable a thing it is to have our most important trade in the hands of our own people? If only our clamorous so-called Free Traders at home could be brought to see the extent of the evil they are permitting in allowing the enemy—that is, the foreigner—to get his molluscan grip upon all our industries while our own best blood is being driven out of the country! No such mistake is being made here, although, of course, plenty of other mistakes are made, which is only natural.
I have wandered about this beautiful ship until I feel quite happily familiar with her, and I have finished up with a tour of her engine-room under the guidance of a chief engineer, a native of Port Chalmers, Otago. She is up-to-date in every detail, possessing everything in the nature of machinery to enable her to take a position in any ocean line whatever. In fact, she exemplifies the peculiar genius of the Scotch who, while keen to economise to the ultimate baubee, never begrudge the most lavish outlay which makes for efficiency and durability. I am quite proud to be a passenger by such a coasting steamer, and yet I am assured that the new ones now being built for the same trade are far ahead of her in every way. But then I learn that this Company, far away at the under side of the world, have in several matters of ship-owning been pioneers, owning the first steel steamer, the Rotomahana, whose experiences on a reef of rocks showed how vastly superior steel was to iron for shipbuilding, owning the first ocean-going turbine steamship, the Loongana, of twenty knots, presently flying between Melbourne and Launceston, Tasmania, and running their ships at present with 95 per cent. of British crews, while aiming steadily at their ideal, which is to have them all British.
It was an evil night, cold and drizzling rain with strong landward gale, so I did not stay on deck late, but retired to my spacious cabin, feeling certainly that I should be awakened at Lyttleton. And it was even so. When the steward brought my tea and fruit at 6.30 he informed me that she was alongside—a fact of which my senses had before apprised me. The weather was still coarse and blustering, the high hills which hem in the deep bay of Port Cooper, at the inward end of which has been formed the snug and secure harbour of Port Lyttleton, being covered with dense mist, and everything being especially cold and cheerless. When I was here before the majority of the ships lay out in the bay, in a somewhat exposed position, with a gale from the eastward. But even then they did their discharging and loading on the inner side of the infant breakwater, where they were perfectly sheltered and served by the railway which ran along the breakwater, but they were only usable by small vessels, such as the coasting steamers of the Union Company then were. Now I saw, with some considerable surprise, that not only has the original breakwater been nearly doubled in length, curving round in front of the town, but another arm has been extended from the opposite shore, so that the two now embrace a deep-water area as secure as a dock, within which great wharves and piers have been erected capable of accommodating vessels of the largest size. Close to us, at wharves where in my day only vessels of 400 or 500 tons could lie, were the Oswestry Grange and Turakina, two 10,000-ton steamers of the Federal and New Zealand Shipping Company lines respectively. There were five or six of the Union Company's steamers and one or two small sailing craft, but not one representative of the old sailing ships that used to be such a feature of the port thirty years ago.
The feature that I have so frequently noted as characteristic of most New Zealand ports, viz., that of nestling at the foot of the ranges on a little ledge of foreshore, is especially noticeable at Lyttleton, which town looks so absolutely cramped for room that the houses in many cases seem to be clinging to the sides of the encompassing hills. The latter, too, look higher than usual, but that perhaps is because of their nearness to the bay. But long ago the energetic colonists of the province of Canterbury took the bold step of tunnelling through that lofty range and connecting Port Lyttleton with the great area of level country beyond, the far-famed Canterbury Plains upon which the city of Christchurch is built. In certain parts of the city on a clear day I have been bidden to look away off at the ranges eighty miles away over a level plain no part of which was ten feet above high-water mark, and yet it was not boggy or swampy. So I should say that Christchurch was probably more favourably situated than any other New Zealand town when all the requirements of a town are taken into consideration.
As to the appearance of Christchurch architecturally, I confess I was disappointed. Of course I know that the day was vile as regards its weather, and no place will look well in drizzling rain and driving gale. But still, I saw that the usual mean wooden buildings, interspersed with pretentious edifices of stucco-covered brick, were here, as in Wellington and Auckland, the regular style, and I was disappointed, because I had great hopes of Christchurch developing into a fine modern city when I was here before, and it seems to me (I hope its citizens will forgive me for saying so, but I don't suppose they will) to have become somewhat slipshod and down-at-heel in appearance. But, as I say, I had no fair opportunity of viewing it as a whole, and what I did see was a bird's-eye view at the best, my visit only lasting a few hours en route to Dunedin.
We left the harbour at about five o'clock in the usual quiet, easeful fashion, despite the weather, I being mightily struck by the manner in which this 6,000-ton steamship was turned round in a space less than twice her own length without the aid of a single spring or warp, or a sound being heard save the occasional clang of an engine-room gong, and the deep sob of the propellers. It was a fine piece of ship-handling, and when she pointed out between the closely confronted ends of the breakwater and sped seaward, I retired below, glad I had witnessed it but conscious that I had gotten chilled through by the inclement weather while thus deeply interested. So I went early to bunk, knowing that at daylight again she would be off the well-remembered Taiaroa Heads, the entrance to Port Chalmers Harbour, and felt that I must be on deck to see her going in round the spit. Surely at dawn the next morning I came on deck to face a wind bitter as any North-easter at home—a searching, cutting blast, sending the spume flying high over the long sand-bank that blocks the entrance to Port Chalmers Harbour, all but a narrow, curving channel of deep water close under the high land of the Heads, which seems terribly restricted for such vessels as do negotiate it. To enter it is necessary to make a complete half-circle, and keep within very narrowly restricted limits—almost as narrow, indeed, as when entering a dock, but under far severer conditions as regards ship-handling. Bor! but it was cold. I used to pride myself upon my indifference to cold, but this morning has searched me out so that I could hardly endure to stay on deck while the big ship ploughed steadily up the harbour and around the end of the sand-spit across the front of the pretty little port where thirty-two years ago the fine, big sailing-ships of Patrick Henderson & Co., New Zealand Shipping Company, and Shaw, Savill, used to lie thickly during the season. It looked so deserted now, so lonely, for since then the narrow and almost unnavigable channel up to Dunedin has been dredged and buoyed so that ships of almost any size can be brought up to the city wharves. But without a pause she swung round Flagstaff Hill, and held her way steadily onward until we reached the city front with its great extent of wharfage, and a big Shaw, Savill liner, the Karamea, was lying cosily alongside her berth, and was secured at once, while just a few carriers and cabmen asked for hire, without, however, any bustle or fuss, because it was Sunday morning. I walked ashore, and just glancing around at the many alterations in the front of the city that have been effected since last I saw this place, made my way up to where I had elected to put up during my stay.
It was a most pleasant change from all my late experiences in this thriving Antipodean Colony. I always have borne kindly recollections of Dunedin, as of all the Australasian ports I used to know seemed to fill the requirements of the mind as carrying on the traditions of the Mother-country; and verily there was no disillusionment. It was as it had been, only more so. No sham buildings here. Massive stone edifices of a fine type of architecture, and where brick had been used, as in the General Post Office, it was honest, good work, not at all pretentious or hiding itself under a flimsy veil of cracked stucco, but reminding me forcibly of the sturdy fashion of the Midland Railway Company's buildings at home, good red brick, well-pointed, with white stone facings and parapets, not needing to be ashamed by comparison with any other erections around. In that comprehensive glance, I saw that Dunedin had maintained her high promise in youth as regards her buildings, and whatever had been done since was surely in keeping. The streets were beautifully paved; there were many well-laid electric-car lines, and I noticed that up the sides of the steep, encircling hills there were cable-car lines running, enabling the citizens who lived in the suburbs to gain their homes with great ease and little expense. I saw that Dunedin was a city of which none of her citizens need be ashamed, and I was very glad. Moreover, although this southern part of New Zealand has an unenviable reputation as regards weather at this time of the year, the drizzle cleared away, and the sun came out, showing up the grand buildings clearly and pleasantly.