THE LATE HON. W. ROLLESTON.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 11509, 16 February 1903, Page 5

THE LATE HON. W. ROLLESTON.

EARLIEST DAYS IN CANTER-

„ BURY,

LIFE AT LAKE COLERIDGE. (HV PROFESSOR G. S. SALS, o__GO* cyivEßSirr.) I have been asked to supplement the account of Mr Rolleston'e public career by adding a few facts relating to his life in Canterbury in the very early days, before he undertook any public office. There are very few men indeed now living who were at all iuuiniateiy acquainted with him at that time. Most of these whom I am able to mention will be mere names to the pr-«er.t generation, but still it may be worth while to record them. Mr Rolleston's earliest friend in the colony, of whom he always spoke with the greatest affection, was Mr George A. E. Ross. It was on Mr Ross's two tsheep stations, one on tho Canterbury Plain*, and the other at

Lake Coleridge, that he gained his first acquaintance with sta.ion life. Mr Ross, the Rev. James (afterwards Archdeacon) Wilson, Archdeacon Mathias, and Mr Henry i'h Lips, of Rockwoou, were Mr Rollesion's most, intimate friends at this period. 1 mycvlf made his a.cquaintance in the early pa. of 1861- at the time when he was just, establishing himself on his own newly.iciiu.red station, the "Rakaia Forks." But I had heard about him before leaving England, i'.r.d Had read a letter of his written ;'.<i.ii L;;k_. L'oleridcre and addressed to j iiiei Lanipriere Hunmond, Fellow of :rui y, a very clear ir:end of us both. In ; ....t .t; r -Mr I.oIU-ston spoke enthusi- ■•• ai.v td ihe frvedom of the life he was U !._•. ;.ut he was evidently very much .. •■; c. ior he _.-a:d that his horse and his ■I).- w-re his chief companion...

Life on an out station, such as Lake Coleridge Statical, was in those dsys, of a .-■ mple and rude character. The house in which Mr Rollesvon lived, and which has s r.ce c< __pie.-.y disappeared, was on a peninsula, and ustant about twenty yards from the edge of the lake, ___d it consisted of a single iow slab hut lined with cob and thatched wim raupo, and divided into one small living room and two tiny bedrooms. The table, benches, stools, and bedsteads were roughly shaped out of the local black birch by niieaxis of axe, adze, and plane. Sawn timber was an unknown luxury. The fare corresponded with the dwelling. Baked mutton, pctatues boiled in a bucket, Mation-nia-Jo br.ad, witu dripping instead of butter, nea without "milk, all served on tin d'fihea and tin plates with pannikins for water or tea—such was the spartan fare, aid such was the homely lodging to which Mr Rolleston came from the comfortable, if not luxurious, life of a Cambridge student. __nd he thoroughly enjoyed it; nor did he seek to alter it when he became his own master on his own station, the only point on which lie showed any lastidiousre's being in the matter of cleanliness. While he was at Lake Coleridge he received a visit from Samuel Butler, who was then on his way to look for country in the upper part of the Rakaia. Butler, like Roil-S----tom, adapted himself' auite naturally and comfortably to the lodging and fare, but on getting up in the morning, and not seeing any apparatus for washing, he modestly asked ihia host where he waa to wash. Whereupon Rollestcn, with a shrug of the shoulders and pointing outside, saidj "There is the lake."

It was early in 1861 that Mr Rolleston invited mo to stay with him at his station •on the Rakaia-, and from that time onwards for several years, with the exception of nine months during which I was absent on tho Otago gol-jfieldis, I saw a good deal of him. 1 have already me-niioned Mr Phillip-?, of Rockwood, as being one of Mr Rolleston's early friends. Mr Phillips was a Warwickshire man, and a genuine specimen of the old-fadiioned English gentleman fanner and sportsman. He was, I believe, Air Rolleston's chief adviser in all matters relating to station management, farming, gardening, etc. Curiously, too, though twenty or thirty years older, he was not unlike him in personal appearance. Both of them wore tall, spare men, rather high shouldered, with handsome, clear-cut features. Mr Rolleston himself was nervously, perhaps unduly, anxious about his station and his business affairs; and I can well rememoer the boyish delight with which, when ih© allowed himself a holiday, he used to gallop off for a visit to his old friend at Rockwood, and there throw off his cares for a time.

It lias sometimes been said that Mr Rolle-ton was always a great student and reader. This is not true; at any rate he was certainly not a great reader at the time when he was living at the Fork?*. He always rose early, and was busy with a variety of station work all day until the evening. After the evening meal he used to attempt to read "Tho Times,", which hie received by every mail from England. But it generally ended s in his dropping off to sleep before nine. He had a few books at the station, but they were very seldom opened. He lived cm the memory of what he had'read at Rossall and at Cambridge, and was fond of Teciting aloud passages from his two favourite poets, Horace and Tennyson. He was espsciallv fond of quoting from Tennyson's "Idylls of the King." Two lines from Guinevere he thought were unsurpassed in English poetry. They were the lines in which Tennyson says of Lancelot— - "His honour rooted in dishonour stood. And faith unfaithful made him falsely true." C.<rt__n-lv it would be hard to match them for terseness and force. For.d as he wpf. of Tennyson, he had a .still stronger affection for Horace, and ho reiained tlrs affection to tire end of his life. The very last time I saw him, not many month.? before his death, he suggested to me a, new interpretation of a passage in one of tfte Ode*. And I have no doubt that throughout his illness, whenever he was unable to rend, be was frequently recalling to his mind the noblest passages from the works of this, his favourite author. In the early days, ot which I am speakinar in this slight sketch, he did not, of course, parade <h-S knowledge of the classics, but he was always glad when he could find any one—and there were not a few in Canterbury in those early days—who could sympathise witb him in his fondness for ths classics. As a further illustration of this fondness, 1 may mention the fact that two streams on the Lake Coleridge run were named by him Simois and Scamander, and the largest hill on the same run was named Mount Ida. A still larger hill at the back of Mount Ida, but on an ad joining run, he named, at my suggestion, Mount Gargarus, from Tennyson's lines— "Behind' t_e valley topmost Garjrarus Stands up and takes the morning.'' Similarly on his own run he called the wooded hill at the foot of "which his hut was built Mount Algidus, recalling Horace's line— "Ni_rraj feraoi frondis Algido." An island in the riverbed was named Hydra, and three streams which ran into the Rakaia. received the names of Gorgon, Titan, and Chimaera. I have said that in tlw management of his bus-rues. Mr Roller ton was almost unduly nervous and anxious. This anxiety, however, was not due to any excessive regard for money, but arose from a strong desire to do his very b*t in whatever he was doing. It waa, in fact, only another form of bis di«tirKruishina chK-racterJs-tic, oonscicntiougnav.. When I had charge of the Lake C'o'.er'dge station I had amon? my ore who hid been rorri-making for Mr RouVfOn. This man spoke of him with the greatest love and ver era tion, end he rcjentiorod to me an incident, one, I have no doubt, among many, which had .given rise to thi* fe ling. The work which he was doin«j vrtfi not on the Rakaia F<m_.« run. but on tie other *.:de of t_i» Wilberforce river; and Mr RoHeston bad promised to bring aerobe t-'-. river a supply of mutton for the rood ji,.rty on "a. certain day. . : But

•was in flood; and any one who know* the Rakaia will know what that means. Mr Rolleston was not to be daunted. He had a good hone, and he knew the river well, so he was determined to try. He made three different attempts to cross the river, but the thing was impossible, and he was reluctantly compelled to abandon the attempt. The workmen flaw him from a distance, and would have dissuaded him if they could have got within ..peaking distance, but they could not. After all they were in no danger of starvation, for by walking a few miles they could have obtained supplies from the adjoining station, but they were none the less strongly impressed by* Mr Rolleeton's regard for bis workmen, and his conscientious determination to fulfil his promise, if it were physically possible. It was this strong conscientiousness, or at least—what is very nearly allied to it—a strong sense of justice and fair play Ifcat first induced Mr Rolleston to enter the field of Provincial politics, and thus to lay the foundation ot his future work as a statesman. For, when Mr Bealey, who had been elected Superintendent, was deserted and left In the lurch by those who were in duty bound to stand by Kirn, he came up to the Forks and laid the case before Mr Rolleston, who at once agreed to act as Provincial Secretary, and to do his best to form a strong government. He succeeded fully in doing this, and the government of the Province was never in better or abler hands. I have said nothing about Mr Rolkston's wisdom and foresight. These char-

acteristics were, of oourse, displayed more j conspicuously afterwards in his public j life. But even as early as 1861 and IB6__ | he gave strong evidence of sagacity in j business matters. I am not now speaking; of his private affairs, although it is cvi- j i dent that they were conducted with skill' and prudence. I think it was in 1862 ] tlvat he received a circular drawn up by j business men in the colony, asking his ' opinion on the question whether it wae advisable to advance money on station properties. I cannot recollect who it was that drew up this circular, whether it was the banks or the merchants doing business in New Zealand. The circular was ad- > dressed to all runhoid-rs. Mr Rolleston h-tood almost alone in strongly condemning the proposal, and it would have been well (or the sheep-owners themselves, as weii as for the colony at large, if his advice had been followed. In less than six years from that time the value of breeding sheep ; had fallen from twenty-five shillings to; half-a-crown, and many of those who had in the meantime borrowed largely from j banks or merchants found themselves j .■uined. " j I need not carry my recollections any J further. From the time he entered fro-] vincial politics, Mr Rolleston was closely j connected with the ablest and most hon-! Durable men in the colony. But it is noti necessary for me to mention their names. I They all occupy an honourable place in' the history of the colony, and their names i will be held in veneration as long as trutu j and honour exist. J Those whom I have mentioned as having been Mr Rolleston's most intimate friends in the very early days,- before he entered into politics, have long been dead. There was, however, one other, a much younger man, who knew him very intimately. This was Mr A. G. Mathias, who still lives in Otagp. He, I feel sure, will confirm everything that I have imperfectly attempted to say in this short sketch. I will conclude by quoting from his favourite poet a stanza taken from the came ode from which he himself quoted a few touching words in relation to the death of Scobie Mackenzie. Every syllable of this stanza is so applicable to William Rolleston's character that Horace might well have written it for the express purpose of describing him. Ergo Quintilium perpetuus sopor, Urget: cvi Pudor et Justitiae soror, Incorrupta Fides nudaque Veritas, Quando ullum inveniet parem.