FINAL JOURNEY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 April 1940, Page 5

FINAL JOURNEY

TRAIN HALTS AT MANY STATIONS THOUSANDS PAY HOMAGE, MAORI AND PAKEHA MOURNERS. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, March 31. More than all the funeral pageantry in Wellington and Auckland and perhaps even more than the silent homage of the thousands who filed past his bier in Parliament House, the late Prime Minister’s last journey through the North Island countryside showed the regard in which he was held. How many thousand people paid their respects along the 450 miles o? railway it is impossible to say, but every one of the 20 stations at which the funeral train halted during its 28hour run was thronged with silent and orderly folk from all the country round. At more than half . of, them parties of Maoris offered tribute in their own demonstrative way with hakas, mourning chants and hymns. For the Cabinet Ministers and others who accompanied their former leader's remains, the journey was an ordeal relieved by the warm human feeling that pervaded each stopping place. The most enduring memory of it all will probably be the familiar hymns such as “Lead, Kindly Light” and "Abide With Me,” admirably played by small country brass bands. Such music was almost the invariable background, whatever hour of the day or night. Mingled with it, and in no way incongruous to those who know theii- New Zealand, were the wailing of Maori women and the lusty shouts of the men in the haka. Two traditions, Maori and pakeha, stood together in perfect harmony, typifying the brotherhood of the brown and white races. Added to those who gathered at stations, people all along the way stood and watched the train pass. Week-end holidaymakers at Plimmerton, motorists halted at crossroads, groups in suburban back gardens, an entire tennis club, farm families in paddocks, drivers of motor lorries—all took time from their day’s occupations to do what they regarded as a duty. The train was not a long one, and the coffin was borne in a large goods van in the rear of the carriages. The van was decoated on either side with black and purple drapings, and a large silvered cross. The interior was lined with black fabric, and lit with dim electric lights. When the doors were slid back, the coffin on its low bier could be seen by the thousands who marched past it.