County Call is the Waimarino's first newspaper

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 6, Issue 232, 23 February 1988, Page 10

County Call is the

Waimarino's first newspaper

With this first edition of the new-look Bulletin , it seems appropriate to cast a look back at the first newspaper to be published and printed in the Waimarino with a specific purpose of serving the local community exactly 80 years ago.

The Waimarino C o unty Call and Raetihi Record made its first appearance o n Monday January 6, 1908, and appeared triweekly thereafter on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. It was not the first paper, however, to bear the word "Waimarino" in its title. Credit for that must go to the Waimarino Argus which appeared for the first time on January 25, 1898 bearing the imprint: Smithyman & Co of Mangaweka. In that edition, covering the first published news of events in the Waimarino, come the two following stories. The first: Maltreatment "A Maori for maltreating a pig at Raetihi the other day was sentenced to four hours imprisonment. He pleaded that it was Maori custom to batter a pig over the head with half an axe handle previous to killing it for food."

The second: Fertility "Three years ago a settler planted potatoes on a piece of land that had never even been burned or grassed. The logs were simply rolled off and the ground dug up and planted with excellent results. Last season the same ground was planted in potatoes and gave even better results." That was in 1985 so it is probably fair to claim that the settler mentioned in the second story (whoever he was) who realised the potential of local soil to grow root crops, was the founder of today's thriving market g arden industry in the Waimarino. Another newspaper bearing a local name in its title, the Ohakune Times, had also appeared three years before the Waimarino Call when it was first published as a weekly journal in 1905. But this was a Taihape production until the establishment of a printing press in Sed-

A^A^VWWWWWWV don Street, Raetihi in 1908. Like most newspapers at that time the Waimarino Call was a broadsheet publication (same page size as the Dominion, NZ Herald and Wanganui Chronicle) instead of the smaller tabloid size of the present day Bulletin. That particular edition and most subsequent ones ran to four pages,

VW\r\A/WVVWV\rv\r carried advertising on all pages (including the entire front page) and cost twopence. The launching of the first edition was announced with obvious enthusiasm by the proprietors Frederick John Jones and Lawrence Fryer from their Seddon Street, Raetihi, office. Their first editorial was "To Our Readers" and was introduced with

the following verse: "For the cause that lacks assistance; For the wrongs that need resistance; For the future i n the distance, And the good that we can do." The editorial continued: "It is with extreme pleasure and an excusable measure of satisfaction mingled with pride, that we place this, the initial issue of the Waimarino Call and Raetihi Record, which is also the first newspaper printed in the County, to the public of Waimarino, at the same time confidently expecting that the enterprise will meet with the approval and co-operation of the community in whose interests it has been launched." "Having watched the steady and sure rise to prominence of Raetihi and surrounding districts we, the proprietors, are thoroughly in accord with the numerous progressive residents who have expressed the opinion that the time is quite ripe for the introduction of a representative organ in their township, a step which must materially tend to advance its progress and place it on a more

equal footing with other towns along the Main Trunk route which possess such facilities." It went on: "To make the 'Call' a House Paper is our ambition, knowing that every member of the household will welcome it, advertisers will appreciate it and the general public will be well satisfied. "We are here to do our best to make the community harmonious and prosperous - to urge all to work together for the advancement of the district. These are the days of 'push' and we must push. If our town and district are to prosper, it will be by our own individual and collective efforts." "Our readers will have the benefit of every item of interest locally and the district generally. "Our columns will be open for correspondence on matters of public interest. Writers of same will sign their names, not necessarily for publication, but as a manifestation of sincerity. "Papers will be delivered over the town area per runner on days of publication and subscribers who fail to receive their papers are

requested to notify us of the fact. "We would also ask our readers to bear in mind the fact that those responsible for the publishing of a local newspaper by no means fill an easy billet. There are as many varied interests to study in a small community as in the larger centres of population and consequently matters often arise which

require the utmost tact in their handling. "We may state right here, however, that the 'Call' is not bound in its policy to any one section or party either local or political but will be run on the good old Free and Independent principle. The 'Call' stands for the Waimarino having se-

lected Raetihi as a working base." That Raetihi should have been "selected as a working base" is no surprise because, according to the 1907 Year Book statistics published in that first edition of the Waimarino Call : "the Waimarino area comprised 1315 square miles or 841,600 acres" and the 1906 population census showed: "2,787 Euro-

peans and 728 Natives", with the main centres having the following population figures: Raetihi 285, Ohakune 87, Raurimu 459. When the first edition of the Waimarino Call was published in 1908 Raetihi's population was already in excess of 400.

Elsewhere in that first edition the proprietors appealed to local businesses to support their publishing enterprise. "To business people we would say: Advertise and Prosper. Those who do not advertise lay behind the times and must certainly lose. As a town grows, becomes more populated and competition keen, advertising will be found indispensable to the man who would

see his business prosper." The local business community certainly heeded this advice because that first edition as well as subsequent editions of the Waimarino Call were well patronised by advertisers who offered every imaginable product or service. There were bakeries

and tea-rooms, fruit and confectionery shops, builders and plumbers, hairdressers and dressmakers, butchers and blacksmiths, boarding houses and booksellers, transport contractors and sawmillers, wheel-wrights and watch-repairers, coachbuilders and undertakers, dentists and opticians, jewellers and grocers. Two local tailors competing for business, were offering worsted, tweed and serge suits "made on the premises with fit, style and workmanship guaranteed," from prices as low as four pounds fifteen shillings. One of the expressed aims of the proprietors of the Waimarino Call was "to advance this pleasant spot in the Dominion" which was a very reasonable and attainable objective but they were perhaps a little over-ambitious in their stated intention: "to make the 'Call' reverberate from North Cape to the Bluff"! Now, 80 years latef, with this new-look edition of the Waimarino Bulletin we enter our second phase - new owner/publisher, new masthead, new format - with most of

the aims and objectives of a local newspaper expressed so fulsomely in those far-off days still intact. We do not realistically expect to make the Bulletin reverberate

from North Cape to the Bluff but we do hope to serve the Waimarino community with an interest ing, accurate and complete account of local news and comment each week.