EARLY DAYS.

Franklin Times, Volume 9, Issue 661, 23 August 1921, Page 5

EARLY DAYS.

(Written Specially for the Times.) IV. THE FLAX AND T 1 Wifi EH TRADE. It lias been stated that the information Cook took home regarding New Zealand flax and timber aroused a good deal of interest, but the world did not move so fast then it does now, and it was some years before anything was actually done. In fact it was not until after the founding of New South Wales that any attempt was made to initiate a trade. The Governor of that colony, Phillip King, must have the credit of having first commenced it, though his first step was the somewhat discreditable one of kidnapping two New Zealanders in order to get information. The fine, liand-dressed flax fibre of native manufacture -was a vastly superior commodity to the machinedressed article of the present clay. In the first place, only the inner or smooth part of the leaf was used and the fibre was not bruised in dressing. When once the Maoris understood that they possessed a readily saleable commodity they were industrious enough in producing it, and before the year 1800 was reached the trade had assumed quite considerable proportions. The things they most ardently desired in exchange for it were muskets and ammunition, and unfortunately there were only too many consciousless traders willling to gratify them. The results of arming the natives not only made the inter-tribal feuds more devastating, in some cases leading to the complete wiping out of the inhabitants of large areas, but added a fresh danger to our Intercourse with the natives. The mere possession of a few muskets was sufficient to send a chief raiding in all directions. Some of these excursions, notably those of the bloodthirsty Hongi, of the Bay of Islands, extended for hundreds of miles and carried ruin wherever they went. In the Waikato River, below Tuakau, may still be seen the stamps of the palisades of an island pa. This was attacked by Hongi in IS2O, and there was only one survivor, a woman who managed to swim to the south bank of the river. However’ for years the flax trade flourished. The Maoris, finding that they had a product they could readily barter for European goods, became very industrious, and large quantities of the fine white fibre, scraped laboriously from the leaf with a mussel shell, were exported. The far north was for a long time the chief seat of the trade, but it gradually grew till the commodity was prepare 1 practically all over the colony. In 1820 a Sydney brig called at Port Waikato for a cargo of flax. A member of its crew was the late Mr Charles Marshall, .who was so attracted by the locality that in 1829 he returned there to settle, and-lived first at Pukekawa, and then at Port Waikato, where he died about thirty years ago.

New Zealand timber was not neglected. Cook had been ' greatly impressed by the length and straightness of the kahikatea trees on the banks of the Waihou. and his story of them strongly interested the Admiralty "of the day. The topmast of a 74 gun ship had to be not less than 75ft long and for a 100 ton ship 85ft, and spars of such dimensions were increasingly difficult to obtain in Europe and enormously expensive. The first ship to load timber here was the Fancy, which reached the Waihou River at the end of 1794 and remained there for three months. The crew cut 213 spars ranging from 60ft to 140 ft in,length, and also obtained a quantity of dressed flax fro the natives. During the next few years she was followed by a number of other ships.

However, kahikatea is by no means an ideal timber for spars, and the trade would no doubt have been abandoned had it not been discovered that the kauri tree made the finest spars in the world. This md to a great extension of the trade. The best account we have of New Zealand in these early days is the journal of Major Cruise, who came here in the frigate Dromedary in 1820. His narrative of the ten months spent m New Zealand, first published in 1821, has been reprinted this year at the Star office, and is well worthy of

the perusal of all those interested in our early history. By me time, of the Dromedary’s voyage New Zealand had become quite a busy place, if we may judge by the numner of snips Major Cruise mentions as being about the coast. The Bay of Islands was quite a busy harbour, an average of about 100 ships per year visiting it. Most of these, however, were whalers. About the year 1791 it was discovered that the waters on both sides of New Zealand teemed with sperm vlud.es. There was also large numbers of the baleena, or ‘Tight" whale, so valuable on account of the great sheets of whalebone in the lower j*w. It was not, however, till about the year 1800'that whale fishing in

earnest commenced, but once established it grew rapidly. Sealing .n the Sounds and on the outlying islands to the south and south-east aiso grew, to large dimensions. The long voyages from Home, with many months fishing added, made a port where the ships could refit and obtain supplies an absolute necessity, and gi adually a township grew up at the Bay of Islands, which was the first actual settlement of white people in the country. As may be imagined it was a somewhat wild and lawless community, but ic lias sown its wild oats, and to-day Russell is known as the very mildest-mannered and sleepiest town in New Zealand.