(Kipling, in McAndrew hymn, the story of the “Auld Fleet Engineer.”)

To see a huge mail liner arrive from overseas, first seen nearly broadside-on some distance out in the Rangitoto Channel; then swinging round impressively into the wider channel leading up to the Auckland wharves, and bear down on you head-on, her rails lined with gaily-dressed passengers, her masts sporting two or three little varied-coloured signal flags and white upper decks and red funnels glistening in the sun's rays, is truly a wonderful sight. And yet, although to thousands of people, the ubiquitous officers and the vessel's outward show of life and colour are a familiar enough sight, only a very few possess even a passing acquaintance with the ship's engine room, with its oily, perspiring greasers, and officers dressed in blue grease-covered overalls.

Together with the railways, New Zealand depends almost entirely on the frequent service of steamships and motor vessels for her well-being and prosperity. Sailing ships may have sufficed in the earlier days; they would not, or could not, suffice for the needs of the present huge outward trade of butter, frozen meat, wool and fruit, and other perishable goods. When a slag boat arrives from Antwerp it is the railway that is called upon to distribute the huge quantities of basic slag to its various and widely spread consignees; similarly, when a steamer puts into Auckland, Wellington, Lyttelton or Dunedin to load produce, it is almost entirely the railways, aided by a few coastal steamers from the outlying ports not yet served by rail, which are called upon to transport the bulk of the produce from inland points to the sea board to fill the capacious holds of the vessels. As the locomotive and engine driver are still the most important combination in our system of land transport, so are the engines and their attendant officers the most important combination in our lines of ocean transport. Without the railway to feed her ports and the great ocean vessels which call and take away her produce, New Zealand would indeed be a bankrupt and poverty-stricken country.