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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 8, Issue 4 (August 1, 1933)

Links With The Wide World

Links With The Wide World

Motor-Vessels of 17,000 tons, a floating dock that can lift a ship of 17,000 tons, a floating-crane than can hoist a burden of 80 tons! These and other marvels of man's boundless invention the casual stroller on the waterfront accepts calmly as routine developments in the modern scheme of things, and he gives more time to watching the noisy play of seagulls or to the hopeful angling of small boys for sprats. Yet what a story of human endeavour and triumph is here! The sea pushed far back from the old shore-lines—huge stores and wharves built firmly on wide reclamations—and well-organised trade with the Old World and the New—great ships working to time-tables planned months ahead.

A Modern Miracle.

Here is a liner gliding quietly into her berth with less fuss than an old-time horse would have made at a hitching post. In that enormous bulk, handsomely lined, the progress of the human race in invention is embodied. Run the mind to the mines that yielded the metals for the machinery and other equipment; to the forests that gave timber; to the foundries; to the shipyards—and think of all the energy and skill required to make that servant of mankind and endow her with mighty life. Here she comes with folk and merchandise from a score of countries. On the wide high seas she has been a miraculous wagon hitched to a star from the navigation bridge, and all the way she has been in radio speech with the ends of the earth—but to the waiting water-sider she is just a “job,” and to the taxi-man, a fare. Well, that is natural enough, for in the workaday world the breadwinner finds himself compelled to be more interested in pottage than in poetry.

New Zealand Packed Up.

At another wharf a sister ship is loading for the 12,000 mile voyage to England. There, in carcases, crates, cases, boxes and bales, one sees the main swing of New Zealand's production. Gazing on those final expressions of farm life the onlooker's thought takes in numerous milkings of cows, and the traffic from sheds to dairy factories; musterings of sheep, shearing, fattening and the fatal trips of stock to meat-works; the various activities of the Department of Agriculture; meetings of farmers, all manner of resolutions and requests, deputations—a whirl and swirl of things rural and their repercussions—much movement on roads and railways — and here are the products, shipped in good hope of rising prices, if they are not already sold. Thus New Zealand goes out to the world, and the world in turn comes to New Zealand.

Respite for the Uncalled.

Hydraulic cranes, smoothly, almost silently, are lifting tons at a time from a ship's holds—but their steadfast efficiency gets not the slightest heed from a few light-hearted men at the end of the wharf. When the morning call came for the waterfront tasks it was not their luck to be chosen. But they fretted not, nor did they fume. They set about doing the next best thing. They cast out sprats in the hope of catching vagrant snapper or kahawai. page 7 Care-free peace was theirs for an hour or two. With no worry about the rise or fall of commodity prices in distant markets, the line-slingers had the temporary freedom of the sun and the breeze and of the seagulls that were trying to steal their bait.

(Rly. Publicity photo.) An early morning scene on the Wellington waterfront.

(Rly. Publicity photo.)
An early morning scene on the Wellington waterfront.

In Black Servitude.

The big ships and the big business that buzzes about them are a tonic for any pessimist—they are restorers of confidence in man's immense power of achievement—and yet the walker on the waterfront is pleased that some of the little things are still here. A blue-jerseyed “salt of the old school” has just stepped ashore from a small schooner, and he has paused by a coal-hulk which clings like a dingy black beetle to the side of a large steamer. The ancient mariner knows that battered hulk. He remembers her as a trim aristocrat, daintily flounced, spreading bright wings to the winds of heaven, proudly working in and out of the ports of the seven seas. Poor, tarred remnants of ships! They are warped or tugged in dejection from one wharf to another, with never a wing to fling to the breeze, but between times they have a resting place out in the bay. One can think of their souls communing there o’ nights when the wind gives some of the old motion at the moorings, and moans through their rigging and whistles on the stumps of masts.

Sometimes the stark array of brave ships, reduced to menial service, has a dignity put upon it. This is when a kindly mist half-veils the worn hulks and broken spars, and suggests a battle fleet, hurt but triumphant, resting in the smoke of its victorious guns.

A Light of Other Days.

It is night—and the harbour is a fairy-place of electric lights, white and coloured, all with their own meanings. And yet, in all that glory of illumination, one old-fashioned gleam arrests the gaze. It is a friendly oil-lamp by the rickety gangway of a schooner. This relic of the past—with the creaking of the moorings as the little vessel rises and falls on the slow swell of the tide—brings up a rush of memories. There is another oil-lamp on the foremast, and it is pleasant to think that it has been hauled up to its position by hand and that it is not electric. That swinging lamp arouses a memory of some words of that great sea-lover, John Masefield:—

“Some day, perhaps, when the golden age has returned, and all clipper-ships and liners are rusted nests for the tunnies beyond the reach of lead, the oarsmen of the world's galleys will have a poesy and a drama. They will have an elaborate ritual of beautiful songs. They will sing hymns to the sea when the riding lantern goes up at dusk. They will invest their affections for the elements with the attributes of duty, and they will act little plays about the under-water and the white goddesses that haunt the weeds thereof.”

Brave Little Coasters.

Those little schooners and small steamers that battle sturdily up and down the coast, recall the valour of merchant-adventurers in past centuries. Romantic men are on those craft. They know every nook on the sea-gnawed coast where their vessels may shelter from blustering gales. Sometimes they are caught and sorely smitten, but how seldom any of the bold little coasters meets with any serious mishap! They nuzzle the sea, and glide over the romping billows while larger sisters are pounded till their ribs creak. Those sailors speak of thrilling times in the mouths of flooded rivers with truant tree-trunks leaping at them; of bounds of shallow bars; of pitching at anchor in a roadstead and trying to land or take cargo with a bouncing boat. Anxious watches in the black, stormy night are their portion—but they win through and give no second thought to the peril.

(Rly. Publicity photo.) A typical night scene before the departure of the Wellington-Lyttelton ferry steamer.

(Rly. Publicity photo.)
A typical night scene before the departure of the Wellington-Lyttelton ferry steamer.