AN INTERLUDE IN WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 July 1916, Page 7

AN INTERLUDE IN WAR.

- -•- _ "'' i 1 n, ftffi VICTORIOUS MAORI, . ' A SCENE IN A FOREST. •f From Malcolm Ross, Official War Correspondent with tlie N.Z. Forces). Northern Franco, May 21. In the mythology of the Maori there are chronicled many strange incidents—the romantic happenings of love and pear.; and war. Handed down from the mists of antiquity by moans of the won acrful memories of the Tohungas or high priests—for the Maori had no written language— these adventures of their forefathers still live, and both the actualities and the myths of byegone generations have still an influence upon Maori character. It would require no great stretch of the Maori imagination to feel that the spirit of Heke, the old warrior who defied the British, and time after time cut down the pole from which fluttered the English flag in Northern New Zealand had winged its way from the _ legendary Hawaiki - whither the spirits of the dopnrted are borne—and was hovering over this forest in Northern France where worthy descendants of the tribes had come to engage in a friendly contest with men from those two great overseas dominions—Canada and Australia. Heke was of our time, yet he remembered the day when the Maori felled his tree by fire and fashioned his long canoe with the. implements of the stone age. And now what a change! The Maori whose fathers only a few generations age used Hie stone adze, and whose ancestors could not be conquered by British soldiers, is here helping hi a former foes in the greatest war of all the ages, and in the interlude, meeting them and beating them in the forest at their own game.- As young Rawiri and his men—stripped to the singlet, their great brown, biceps showing, and 'pleasant smiles revealing fine teeth—stood axe in hand, each beside his tree awaiting the signal to begin, one could not but remember the splendid spirit, of their noblY> ancestors. The scene was one in which the old warriors would have delighted; the spaciousness of the forest, the songs of birds, the scent of wild flowers, and, better still, the scent of battle in the air—fpr were we not within sound of the camion, and even as we marched down the woodland path the spiteful tat-tat-tatting of a machine-gun ranging, assailed the ear. And there were many ; soldiers from generals to non.-coins., and ! '•Tommies"—ail eager and interested in [ the coming contest. There was also an Australian band that playeA good music, though as someone remarked they were ■ not' bandsmen but miners. There were ' English, Scottish, Irish, and Welsh. _ French Canadians talked to eacli other - in French, and in the middle of a conversation would switch off into English. _ A French ''lmeheron" seated beside a famous English war correspondent on a fallen tree was saying to him—no doubt with memories of his own rcceiit defeat by the Maoris in these same woods—"Ah! these Colonials, they are not good axemen: they waste too much timber." 11 A Canadian with a Yankee drawl and some swagger was asking' for ''real :- trees. These trees he said were only saplings! That was before the contest, and he had perhaps never heard of the giant kauri in the forests of Northern New Zealand. Could he but see those .- forests he would no doubt have to admit that a kauri is "some tree.'' Later a critical Australian watching this same swaggering axeman hacking not too skil- " fully at a hard elm was heard to remark with caustic humor that he could do better with a knife and fork! Beside, me a very young English officer seemed to be interested in the New " Zealanders. "I hear there are a lot of awful blackguards amongst them," he said. I made a non-committal reply. I He had evidently mistaken ifie for an Englishman. He wondered if the Maoris talked English. I assured him that they did, better possibly than he or I, and = that quite likely there were among them several with University degrees. He presumed they were good at games. I told him they had earned some fame at "Rugger,'' that they played cricket fairly well, and that a Maori had cari<* ried 'off the New Zealand golf championship. "Are you with the New Zealanders?" he asked, looking me up and 6- down. "Yes," I replied. "I am a New Zealander." Then the conversation (languished somewhat, and with all due modesty I assumed that my friend was thinking that after all he might have been misinformed about my countrymen, '• After all he was a very young officer, and, no doubt, as brave as his forefathers who ventured forth in the Cru- " sades, or who fought at Blenheim or . Almanza. And one felt certain that he would be just as ready to die in a ditch ill Flanders, maintaining to the last gasp the honor of the family name. All the same one could not help recalling '' the lines of our English Poet-seer: "What do they know of England Who only England know?" '■ But this war and these meetings under alien skies are doing us all good, and are giving us a better understanding of each other, with the inevitaole result that In '" government and commerce, and even in the arts of peace and war, the Motherland and her loyal Dominions will be drawn yet closer together for mutual ' welfare and protection. Meantime the axemen are waiting heside their trees, a shrill whistle gives the signal to commence, and immediately the chips begin to fly. Canada has three teams, Australia two, and New Zealand one—tlie latter selected from the few hundred Maoris who are with the Pioneer Battalion. There are three men • in a team, and three trees have to be 1 felled by each team. Any one man in the group may help to fell any of the three trees. Thus, when one man has " felled his tree he rushes to the assist- , auce of one of his comrades, till towards the finish there are usually three men hacking away at the last tree. The lots of three trees average in circumference ? meters 50 centimeters, and the wood is hard. The Maoris have drawn a set of trees the averages of which is above all ~ thi' others, but the difference is not great. It. is only fair,to add that the Maoris, having been at work in the !■ forest for some time, are in slightly better condition than the other axemen. One of the Canadian teams chopped *> first, and it was clear to experienced ~, bushmen that they would have no show ~ against the dusky warriors from the Antipodes. The Australians were an unknown quality, and their first team shaped well. They beat the Canadians c easily. The crowd were evidently very interested in the Maori ax'emen. Un- '" perturbed by the interest they were exS citing. Hie three young men remained .„ atandiiiL' silc'lv, axe in hand, each heside he !l '. and when the whistle sounded ' nt to work with fine, l 0 swingle; ! .; -u-h stroke falling within the si.. . - 'iction of an inch of the one befuii ' -a perfect golfer might swing hi; id, hitting on l.hc exact spot, sow !'' II lying well and truly from the ■■•■ h- "scarfc" left, as the gap in i. ( .■ e'dened, was almost

as if it had been cut with a saw—with such accuracy did the blows from the keen-swinging axes fall. The lirsjt tree 1 came cashing to the ground, to an accompaniment of cheers in six minutes. It was a tree 1.43 metre in circumference. The second tree fell in seven minutes. At the last tree—the biggest in any of the groups—the three Maoris were now all plying their axes in great style. In nine minutes forty seconds it, too, had fallen, the three trees thus having been brought down in .twenty-two minutes forty seconds. This was a record that, evidently, it would be difficult to excel, anil, a s a matter of fact, none of the other teams approached jit. The results were: Min. See. New Zealand ...... 22 40 Australia 31 8 Canada .... 45 22 Following this contest there was a log-chopping contest, won by an Australian, with a Maori second. It was almost a dead-heat. In a cross-cut sawing competition a Canadian pair just managed to beat a Maeri team by about a second. The prize for the best axemanship was won by a Maori. Thus ended a competition that will perhaps be memorable in the annals of warfare. Just about this time, in a village only a few miles away, an Australian general was wounded and an Australian doctor blown to bits by a German high explosive shell. Yfet here we were, with competitors from our widely scattered Dominions, calmly carrying out in the midst of idyllic surroundings this strange contest. Under the circumstances it was an event such as perhaps only the British could have conceived. One of my latest impressions of it was a glimpse of the Maoris grouped for a photograph by the Baronno from a neighboring Chateau. She will have an interesting picture. Thousands of miles from their ancestral home, here they were, ready and willing, in forest and trench, to strike a blow for the honor of their native land and of Mother England. Yes, of a surety, the spirit of Heke, who time and again cut down the flagpole, and of old Rewi, who when asked to surrender said he would fight on for ever and ever, remains with young Rawini and his men as, smiling, sweating, and victorious, they lean upon their axes beside the , fallen elm—a pigmy compared with their ■ own giant kauri —in a forest in Northern i France.