IN THE MASTERTON LIBRARY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8465, 15 June 1907, Page 5

IN THE MASTERTON LIBRARY.

(Specially Written for the Wairarapa. Age.) No. V. THE LONG WHITE CLOUD. I (Ao Tea Roa.) —William Pember Reeves. Interest in any book is enhanced if the reader has a clear preconceived, idea of the personality of the author.. Particularly is this so when the book purports to cover the contemporary history of a country in the Government of which the author has taken an active part. / We have for long been accustomed' to picture Mr Reeves only in the entirely respectable capacity of the colony's representative in London, making polite speeches in the mellowecr post prandial atmosphere of the Mansion House and similar places. Some dozen years ago. however, Mr Reeves, as one of the organisers of the Liberal Party, was a; ver» different personality. The ' writer has an indelible impression of a lean, sharp-featured man, with an aggressively sarcanic expression,, stooping slightly forward from the hips, his face thrust still further' forward, as, in the energy of debate, -* with pointed finger, he pours forth from the Treasury benches a flood of scathing anathema upon the devoted heads of a group of solid and eminently respectable looking gentlemen on the other side of the House. "Social pests," rasps William Pember, the lean forefinger wags, and; the solid and respectable ones visibly squirm, not so much at the quite unkind things he says, as at the particularly nasty way he sez 'em. Having recalled the personality ©f the author one turns over the title page in the anticipation of reading how this aggressive person, from the vantage ground of the historian, proceed to scarify his foes—but we are doojned to disappointment in the first chapter. The book opens with a full description of the physical features ot the country, and contains, descriptive passages that may be fairly described as prose poetry.* The bold coast line, the clear air, the variety of climate and vegetation,, the wonders of the Tbefrnal Regions, the eternal siwws of the Alps, the charm of vthe bush and of the streams —all are. touched upon with a deli- . \ bate, and, : withall > ,-in accurate hand. Here, for example, is part of the description of the forest: —"Ad a rule the lower part of the trunk is branchless, stems rise up like pillars in long colonnades. But this does not mean that they are bare. QHmbinjr ferns, , lichens, pendant grasses, air-plants, ; and a orchids drape the columns. /Tough lianas swing in air, coiling roots overspread the ground." 'And here again in a, description of the rivers: —"lt happens that the rivers show their plainer features as they near the sea. He who wishes to see them at their best must go inland and, find _ them as they are still to be found in the North Island, winding through untouched valleys, under softly draped cliffs or dhacowsd by forests not yet marred by man. Or in the South Island, they should be watched in the Alps as milky or green-tinted, . their ice-cold currents race through the gorges.," And much more uf the same quality, good description, and sympathetic; description that can have been penned only by a man with the seeing eye of a poet and writing of a country that he knows and loves. The quondam firebrand evidently possesses some amiable qualitß'j. However, things will surely mend as the reador proceeds—-wait till we come to conten:;;or.iry politics. Then, surely, the old Keeves will appear, the Social Pests will be duly scarified, and William Pember Reeves will be himself again. Buoyed up by this hope wa proceed to amble pleasantly through a sketch of the Maori race and of the early colonization. The quaint Maori tales—discreetly bowdlerised—are told. The strenuous life and even more strenuous dissipations of the old whalers are pictured by the fitful light of their trying-in fires. We read of the New Zealand Land Company and the wars with the Maori in the North, of the religious settlements of Otago and Canterbury, ancL.the rush to the 'goldfields in .the South. The Wakefields, Captain Cargill, Domett, Grey, - and General Cameron, "the Lame Seagutl" as the .Maoris called him because he persisted in crawling along the coast,line; and', last, but not .least, the great war ; chiefs of the Maoris, both friends and foes—'Thompson the King Maker, Te Kemp, Titikowaru, Rewi the cordon at-Ora-kau pafc shouting the Ake! Ake! , Ake! that is adopted for all time as the warcry of New Zealand). These and a host of others flit across the page. The granting .of representative Government,, and/ the subsequent / abolition of the provinces next claim i our attention, and then we come to the birth of the Democratic party under Sir George Grey. Now, surely, tjhe old Adam will appear—but, alas, a final disappointment awaits us. "Social pests" and synonyms therefor are terms carefully avoided; moderation is the dominant tone, compiled with a quite judicial appreciation of the good qualities of the author's quondam opponents. Here, for example, is a picture of Sir Harry > Atkinson:—"Theories he had, of a quasi socialistic kind, but his life ■ was pasted in confronting hard facts. Outside the House he was a workingcolonist, inside it a practical politician. The only glory he sought was the 'glory of going > on,' and of helping the colony to go on. However hard he had hit in debate, it had never been below the belt,~and his oppon-, ents joined in regretting |hat so ' brave and faithful a public servant had not been spared to enjoy the rest he had well earned." And much more in the same happy vein. But the crowning blow of all is the criticism of the newspapers. '* The best nev/spaper of them all -may it please you—is that rank Opposition journal, the Otago Daily Times. Thus the author thereon:—-"It is a partizan, but not ferociously so, except in dealing with somej pet aversion like the (then) Minister of Lands, Sir John MacKenzie. You may read in it, too, now and then, what is a rarity indeed in colonial journals—a paragraph written in a apirifc of pure good-natured fun." Oh? William. Pember Reeves, has

'it come to 'this —that thou, of all men, shouldst set up as a virtue the faculty for dealing with matters "in a spirit of pure good-natured fun?" Indeed, William, "Thou art translated!" Can it be that some alkaline property lies concealed in the generous steam ascending from the Lord Mayor's soup tureen for the old acidity to be so neutralized? Or have we, perhaps, been mistaken all Jalong? Gibbon Wakefield's terrible saying that in colonial politics "everyone strikes at opponent's heart," you quote as having unhappily some truth in it.. And it may well have been, after all, that the stress and bitterness of the old strife obscured genial qualities that have since come to light in a noncontentious sphere.