Wellington

“I have heard the song of the blossoms, and the old chant of the sea, And seen strange lands.”

—Masefield.

People have gone from this City of the Hills, they have wandered over the earth and dwelt in many places—and they have come back again. They have seen the sun rise over the Giant Pyramids, they have choked in a good old London fog, they have been swept by the rushing throng of Broadway, they have watched natives chattering and swarming in many a squalid bazaar—but they have kept in their hearts the memory of a city built everywhere on the hills. The scent of gorse is hard to forget—it used to haunt Katherine Mansfield somewhere in France, it used to come gently to the trenches in Flanders—even to the arid burning cove of Anzac.

There is something very attractive about this wind-swept city, they will tell you—an illusive something which claims those whose childhood has been spent here. So they come back from the corners of the earth, and they are amazed.

There lies the harbour they have described so enthusiastically to Americans, so changeful, so vivid and so nobly flanked by hills, barren and bush-clad.

There stands Pencarrow, Guardian of the Heads; little rugged Ward Island; smoky industrial flats of Petone; Oriental Bay, looking like Geneva by the waters of a blue lake. All these things are familiar and dear to the wanderer. They are part of his youth.

And a boisterous nor'-wester is blowing still, flecking the harbour with gallant white horses; clouds rushing madly across the sky; everything swift and virile and exultant in its strength and movement.

Now he can feel the heart-beat of Wellington, centre and hub of the young Dominion.

He stands beneath the exquisite War Memorial, carved against an evening sky, symbol of youth and sacrifice. He sees many new and magnificent buildings rising bravely, eloquent of a great city of the future. He goes from the city into the many suburbs, clambering and clustering on the hills—everywhere he sees growth and change.

It is morning—great lorries are approaching the city, trains constantly arriving and departing, cranes loading and unloading at the wharves, people pre-occupied and intent pouring in from every direction. Life going on swiftly and inevitably.

Yet he has heard that in New Zealand, and in Wellington most of all, the dread word “depression” has eaten into the very souls of the people. “The price of butter and wool,” “taxation,” “unemployment,” “the Government,” these are the words on everyone's lips, he has been told. “You won't know Wellington when you get back—the people have forgotten how to laugh!”

He idly watched the throngs of business people emerging for lunch from the great new buildings, chattering merry typistes, whistling boys, two “bosses” having a friendly chat.

Over his coffee he rejoices because he has found Wellington again, and because he knows that her children are unchanged.

He smiles as he reads in an English magazine:—“The trouble about New Zealand is that it takes things seriously.”