LOOKING BACKWARD!

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9673, 11 December 1909, Page 5

LOOKING BACKWARD!

> AFTER TWENTY-FIVE YEAK£— I A.D., 1935. THE MASTERTON OF A GENERATION AGO. A MARVELLOUS ADVANCE; FROM SLUGGARD TOWN TO VIRILE CJTY. (No. I.—Contributed). It is only natural that I should feel a peculiar—an almost indescribable —sensation of mingled anticipation of the pleasure, with perhaps a tinge of reflective sadness as I eventually find myself aboard the train at Wellington en route for Masterton, my native town, which I left just twenty-five long years ago. I say "long", years, though in tratb it seems but yesterday since I drifted away to that busy land of the Stars and Stripes—drifted as many similar exiles did' then, on the fortuitous waves of labour's' turbulent sea. However, I am hurrying bade on the final stages of the journey, and inthis year of grace,- 193b, in this su.my month cf January, I seem at once tb recognise the very air itself of the dear homeland. Contrasia have already showered themselves around me. commencing with the twenty-day 'Frisco trip 1 made In 1910, set off by the ten-day 'Prisca —Wellington trip, I have just completed in our magnificent turbine twenty thousand-ton mail* boat. Va>:ft changes I also noticed in New Zealand's capital city as I hurried ti> catch my train immediately upon disembarking. But I amj a Mastertonian, and my thoughts irresistibly concentrate on the prospect before me in reviewing the scenes of my youth, and in learning with the natural pride of the native-born of how the place has advanced.. During my prolonged absence I have not received a single line of correspondence from Masterton, and for aught I know the town might have become obliterated from the landscape. This is most unlikely, however,, as I notice hy my railway ticket that Masterton stands out in large capital letters—a somewhat significant indication. DEPRESSION OVERHUNG THE TOWN when I left it in the distant past, and I remember vividly how bitter a "gruelling" the place had at the hands of the deceitful local "boom", followed so cruelly closely by a world-wide financial panic. I 1 also remember how tradesmen then—in spite of what threatened to be an exodus of inhabitants without an irreducible minimum—kept a steady, Unwavering front to trouble and adversity, hoping with a desperate hope for the proverbial turn of the tide. I shared not their optimism. How have they fared? What is the town like now? What is its size"* A hundred queries surged through my expectant mind, and I am even neglecting to view the changes in the panorama presented from the window of my railway carriage.. One thing I do notice, and that is that the valley which I knew of old to be the promising Hutt Valley is simply a mass of houses and factories from the foreshore at Petone to the Silverstream bridge. The day is bright, without wind, but a heavy pall of smoke lies over the country through which we are passing, and I am brought back in fancy to the throbbing cities of commercial and industrial turmoil in my adopted country. 1 notice that the train ia a fairly speedy one, though the gauge seems to be the same as when I left New Zealand. We rush along through Trentham—now a verypopulous sub-suburb of the long Wellington suburb lying in the Hutt Valley. We then take what to me seems a new route, and the feeling that that railway "impossibility,"* the RIMUTAKA INCLINE,, must surely ai last have become only a memory, and I make enquiries of a fellow passenger. "Why, sir," he assures me in evident surprise, "it is somewhere about twenty years since this, line was put down—this line behind Kaitoke. 1 well remember how the people in the Wairarapa created such a lot of worry lor the Railway Department by their persistent agitation for a new, shorter and less expensive route to Wellington, that i.i verv desperation the Government took the matter in hand, and the deviation we are now passing over was the result. It is a splendid grade—little different from travelling on the level, while the distance is almost a minimum between the two towns on either side of the range." I remarked on ho™ great an expense the up'ueo of the old "Incline" was, and how I thought t e Government c->uld never have regretted the step they took in abolishipg it. "You are just right there," was the replv, "and the administration responsible for the change was giv-n to quoting.with considerable pride, how much it s«ved annually in this comparatively unimportant change. Now this is tho direct line to Napier—" "To Napier?" 1 interrupted. "I thought the mail went via Palmerston North"" "Ah, so it did," said my informant. "In December, 1909, ill remember rightly, the Napier mail train was moved to the Manawatu line, but after the Pongaroa Hna went through they soon altered that matter." "The Pongaroa line?" I asked. I remembered, then, that there was an agitation prior to my leaving Masterton for a light-!ine through Pongaroa to join the main line at • Waipukurau and Masterton. "Oh, 1 see, there have been many changes here that you are unacquainted with." guessed my whilom companion. "You have been away a long time?" "Twenty-five years," I replied. "A long time!" commented the stranger. "The Pongaroa line is not that old," he continued, after a pause. "The then Administration were very proud of making this particular bit of railway. It proved a thoroughly payable line from the very outset, though it was or.ly constructed after most determined battling on the par. of settlers on the route and the towns-people nf Masterton. First, it was made between Masterton and Pongaroa, and I you should have seen Masterton r.»o«A

copmleted, and I can testify that this ahead! I went to reside in Masterton about the time this railway was line of railway itself added at least five thousand of population to Masterton, opening up as it did such wonderful country, and Masterton being a terminus." "Addsd five thousand people, did you say?" I asked. "Why, Masterton only boasted a total population of about that many when I left it."' "Well, my iriend, it is now just about twenty-five thousand," was the reply. "Twenty-five thousand!" I repeat the words slowly and amazedly. "From five thousand to twenty-five thousand—and in only twenty-five jeara!" I ejaculate. It's a fact," is the answer, "and I'll warrant that you cannot even guess at how fas': the tcwn is now progressing. You'll certainly never Tecognise it." And 1 didn't. We soon arrived at my destination, which was also that of my chance acquaintance. My eyes bad feasted on a wonderfully improved and fascinating landscape as we raced over the plain through Greytown, Carterton and the intervening country. But iMasterton—could it really be the Masterton of old? Could this bustling station with crowds of railway attendants, postal and other officials, with glimpses of electric tramears in the background, and with every appurtenance of a thriving city—could this really be Masterton? No doubt it was, and I -was burning to see it, and learn its history since I left it so long ago. I could, not wait even ui.til tno in .now, Sbo after enpiwiiiJ ho. 1 aiacarruda tion, I decided, as it Was not yet midday, to enlist the services of the Oldest Inhabitant, and by him be shown the sight of modern Masterton, the while he unfolded to me a true and detailed account of its progress since I had known it previously.