Fighters and Road-makers.

There is no need here to recapitulate the bush-warfare services of the Constabulary. That is in the histories. It was at its best, probably, in the Urewera Country campaign of 1869, a very difficult and all but unknown region in which the Maoris had all the natural advantage, for they were defending their native wilds.

After that invasion of the mountain land, Colonel Whitmore wrote of his men that six months of continuous drilling and campaigning had made page 10 page 11

The Constabulary Redoubt at Onepoto, Lake Waikaremoana. (From a photo., 1874.)

them a first-rate fighting corps, better than their opponents in every way except that they could not run as fast. In that period, 1868–70, several of the soldier-policemen won the New Zealand Cross for distinguished valour in action.

Then in the period when peace had been restored, but when the various frontiers were still guarded by the A.C. in their earthworks and stockades, the force entered another field of usefulness. Sir Donald Maclean, the Minister of Defence and Native Affairs, remembering the lesson of the military road through the Highlands of his native land after the “Forty-Five” set the force to work at road-making into the interior. He believed that the pick and shovel were as necessary as the rifle in assuring peace, by opening up the country for military movements and for settlement.

So everywhere on the frontier we saw road-making parties at work in the ‘Seventies and early ‘Eighties. Many of the Upper Waikato and West and East Coast roads then laid out and formed by the grey-shirted workers are now the main highways. One is the road from Tauranga to Rotorua, Atiamuri and Taupo; others are the Cambridge-Rotorua road, and the present mountain road from Taupo to Napier.

Thus the soldier-policemen became navvies. The extra pay for this field work did not prevent some grumbling, and the Defence Minister deemed it necessary to issue a memorandum to officers commanding explaining the necessity for this strategic road-making and enjoining upon all members of the Force cheerful and loyal obedience to the new dispensation in frontier control. There are on record, following upon this, reports from numerous officers describing the excellent progress of their roading duties, and the good and willing work done by the various parties.

In my young days in the Upper Waikato the bell tents of the Constabulary road camps and the parties of stalwart whiskered campaigners who laid down the Snider for the pick and spade and shovel were a familiar sight. The Government roading served the needs of travellers and far-out farmers in many places at a time when it was badly needed, and it was not the least of the national duties faithfully discharged for which the old Field Force should be remembered.

(Rly. Publicity photo.)
The Whakaheke Rapids on the Waikato River, North Island, New Zealand.