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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 6, Issue 3 (August 1, 1931)

[section]

On The Train.
“Broom behind the windy town,
Pollen o’ the pine—
Bell-bird in the leafy deep,
Where the ratas twine.”

I Wonder if it is human nature to look with a certain amount of scorn upon what belongs to us; to know very little about the things we hold most dear; to long always for that which we have not; and to hold of small account what we regard as the commonplace, the ordinary, and the inevitable. Is it necessary for the stranger within our gates to open our eyes and to make us suddenly aware of our possessions, so that we feel a warm glow of ownership, a thrill of love, an intense appreciation?

The other day, for the first time, I despised my countrymen—my fellow New Zealanders. This is an appalling confession, but an honest one, forced upon me from without—upon me, accustomed to regard all things New Zealand with a tolerant, benevolent affection and a somewhat complacent pride.

It was late one afternoon. The train was slipping across the plains in Hawke's Bay; across mile upon mile of soft, undulating velvet; shadowy, sweet scented; a rich, glorious land of colours, of infinite possibilities. I leaned back lazily in my seat, idly listening to the conversation of two men behind me. At first not at all interested, because the dark, snow-tipped Ruahine's against an evening sky claimed all my consciousness, and the motion of the train had soothed me into a state of semi-coma, a delightful feeling of drowsy contemplation and idle receptivity.

“What a marvellous country!” came a characteristically expressionless English voice. “By jove, just look at that!”

Here I metaphorically drew myself up, much as a fond parent who overhears admiration of her young hopeful from a stranger.

“Land's not bad!” came the laconic reply from my countryman, in the rear. “But that's about all. No money in it these times.”

Outside, a soft darkness was falling upon the scene; gates gleamed whitely, cattle stood silhouetted against the skyline, a night wind shuddered through the page 60 page 61 acres of grass, while we rushed on through it all, and two men were discussing this breath-taking wonder—the stranger seeing its beauties, the dweller there converting them into £ s. d.—and a woman listened to them in mute fury.

We slid into a tiny station, an oasis of reality in a vast world of fantastic shadows; then on through a typical little New Zealand settlement, nestling in a hollow, giving the appearance of having been flung together at a moment's notice to meet a demand for food and shelter. No planning, no order, no “neatness,” but tin roofs, wide verandahs, a few shops, yet possessing a very tangible charm—something unexpected and half-humorous.

The Englishman was intensely interested; enthusiastic over the liquid Maori name, the wide main street, the little centre of activity in the heart of the aching vastness of those shadowy plains.

But his New Zealand fellow traveller was doing his utmost to extinguish any spark of admiration in the stranger.

“Curious,” I thought. “How he seems to loathe it all. Nothing to do there, nothing to see.”

It was then that I hated him intensely. How dare he speak thus of this land of his—of ours! While a stranger from a country of hedges, neat fields, tenements, smoke, fog, could realise the indescribable wonder of it—the youth, the fertility, the sheer exultant strength of it.

Gradually my anger died away, and when we rushed into Wellington, to the dear familiar city crouched there on the hills, I contented myself with turning to the appreciative stranger and demonstrating, very assertively and somewhat defiantly, the perfection of our harbour, white under the moon, fit resting place for the Empire's ships. Surely my countryman would support me in this. But no; he turned his back upon the magic of it, and remarked to the carriage in general:

“Well, back to the filthy wind and the Slump!”