“THE CLOUD PIERCER.”

Shannon News, 12 May 1925, Page 4

“THE CLOUD PIERCER.”

TARANAKI'S MISNOMER. ITS DEBT TO MOUNT EGMONT. CHAIN OF 150 FACTORIES. ("Auckland Star.’’; Taranaki is a stolen name. Mount. Egmont is “The Cloud Piercer” the real Taranaki; and you wonder wha,t the reason is for this misnomer. Foigetting that it was Captain Cook who gave the name to Egmont, you are puzzled why the mountain lost its picturesque and apt title, in giving it to the province; yet there is something curiously appropriate about it all. Taranaki owes everything to Egmont, not even excepting its name, and you think for a moment of how the mountain made the province. You cannot imagim the province without its mountain: the thing would be impossible.

As soon as Egmont’s snow begins to thaw spring is coming in Taranaki; when the mountain’s great white cap slides down as far as Fantham’s Peak you know that summer is gone. Egmont makes the weather and the sea-, sons, the soul and life of Taarnaki daii'ying. As you think of the 150 dairy factories, you think also of the millions they brought into this country. The climate and the rain are everything. Egmont is the watershed and has given Taranaki a river system that beats anything else in New Zealand. But if it keeps fine for more than a week or so you might find your backyard blow up in dust at any time and track you down in the kitchen or bedroom. The land thirsts for moisture Some Elusive Prosperity. All round Taranaki you sec prosperity, but some of this is elusive, you find, and many farms are heavily encumbered. It only seems to confirm what you have seen in Auckland and elsewhere since the land boom. But Taranaki’s land question to-day is trifling beside the trouble of eighty years ago, and you are reminded by the comparison of the fierce fighting with the Maoris that now happily belongs to a closed epoch in our history.

Then, as you think of more subtle troubles since that time, you wonder whether Taranaki will ever have any other industry than dairying. Your attention is drawn to a vast source of obvious wealth, where chequered and futile attempts have been made to found an iron and steel-industry upon the Taranaki ironsand. and an oilylooking puddle, seen casually at the seaside, calls to mind the oil failures of recent years, and mCn who have gone bankrupt in that difficult and dangerous enterprise. But you believe that much may still be done; and the foundation laid by dairying appears broad and secure.

Up the streams that flow from Egmont are hydro-electric schemes that drive milking machines all over the province; and also the sources of municipal water supplies for a chain of thriving towns. It is the towns that give expression of the general atmosphere of welfare. They are the adjuncts of the farms, and seem to spread a sense of well-being. And in the midst of it all is Egmont. The mountain stands there, like a great rangitira, bidding defiance to to the lesser peaks across the Wanganui, and giving a curious emphasis to the ‘Maori legend that explains its existence, In the picturesque way of the Maori. Egmont quarrelled wth Ruapehu and the rest, and was sent across the river to settle a hundred miles away. There he stands still—a solitary mountain —the most perfect cone in the world, according to many travellers, not even excepting Fuji Yama. . Proud of the Mountain. Taranaki is proud of its mountain. “Have you seen Egmont?” they always ask. Of course you can see its cloud-capped peak from all over the province. “Oh, but you ought to see the snowy summit,” and as you see the cloud lying there like a giant cap you think there must be something wonderful in the veiled prospect. High up on the slopes you see Taranaki spread out like a map, fiat, you thought, but now it seems to rise to a distant ridge in the southwards and on the sky-line you see Havvera. ’Tlie Smallest Borough, Until they added a hundred acres to Hawera at the beginning of the month, it was the smallest borough in New Zealand, 7<55 acres exactly, and 250 acres of that in reserves and parks. You distinguish Taranaki towns by their • size; outside New Plymouth. Hawera is the largest. It has a two-to-one advantage over New Plymouth in the density of its population.

When you ask what they do no one can tell; Taranaki towns have no industries. They are first and last an appendage of the farming business: anything above the size of a thousand people or so has its daily paper, generaly a four-page issue, but you find no factories, or, more precisely, no manufactories.

Factories are scattered all over the province. Between Hawera and Opunake you pass four of them in less than thirty miles. A peep at the thousand of cheese crates or butter boxes gives you a lively impression of wealth. Over the Waimate plains is an excellent factory system, that calls attention to the richest farms lands in Taranaki. One of he factories, at Riverdale, you are surprised to know, is the largest in the world, owned by a concern without any branches. Remembering Kaupokonui, ten miles away, of course you don’t believe it, nton lany uare told amtrdat ftitdtit until you are told that Koupolconul is a factory with eight branches. No other concern without branches has so large a factory as Riverdale Large co-operative branch concerns are out of the comparison, but the explanation is sufficient to awaken your idea of the importance of Taranaki dairying.