Thirty Years After

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 450, 6 February 1948, Page 19

Thirty Years After

By

SUNDOWNER

HIGH IN A VALLEY

you want peace on a high level, go to Lees Valley in mid-summer. You will have some anxious moments getting there if you meet others coming out, but once you are through the gorge you will find yourself on the floor of a valley 1200 to 1500 feet above the sea, with walls rising about 3000 feet

on one side and 5000 feet on the other, For 12 miles one wav and

two to three the other there is only enough rise to keep the streams running. and the veround cover on all sides

is tussock mixed with Wild Irishman and Spaniards. Every day when I was there I saw dotterel, silver gulls, and terns, as well as grey and paradise duck, and I twice saw Canada geese. If I sat down anywhere on the roadside a ground lark would come within a few yards, and skylarks provided the background music-heard only when we concentrated on it-that cicadas supply in our North Island bush, Every night the valley filled with fog, and every morning the mists dissolved in sun to reform again at ten or twenty thousand feet and hang for hours in modelled masses on the horizon, I know nothing more satigfying than the scent of matagouri, tussock, and meadowsweet blending with the smell of a saddled horse; but even Maori onions have their moments when you throw yourself down in an acre uf them and there is no living thing near you but droning flies and a high circling hawk, All these joys I had every day till I wondered what sickness I had con-. tracted in the world outside that I could not stay in the valley till I died. But I had gone there for a special reason, and my time was only partly my own, * Bg *

THIRTY YEARS

| WAS there because a party of soldiers of the first world war had gone in 30 years earlier to build homes fit for heroes to live in and a world fit for

heroes’ children. At one time or another I had met most of them, and one or

two nac pecome close friends. In 30 years I had visited the vallev three or

err. ee elie cat four times and I knew that if I not return soon I would be too stiff in the joints to mount their horses and ride over their hills and too late in the day to meet them untouched by time themselves. But time had moved faster than I knew. Of the eight originals-"the old contemptibles" George Bruce called them-only two now remain, and neither

of them has been wholly dependent for survival on cattle or sheep. If I gave serial "numbers to the present holdings and started at ‘one end of the valley, 'the record would run | something like this, Block 1: Taken in 1919 and still in the same hands, One of the safest runs in the valley and one of the ablest managers. Block 2: The first occupier walked off in 1935 after a heroic struggle for 16 years, Did much fencing and tree planting, and suffered much from illhealth. The second occupier still in possession, Block 3; Taken up in 1919 and abandoned 15 years later, after considerable expense in

fencing and the erection of buildings. Held for 10 years by ‘the second occupier, who also walked off. Cold, high, dangerous country on which a poor man has no chance, Now added to Block 1. Home unoccupied. Block 4: The original occupier went out five years ago, Received some compensation for buildings and fences, but nothing (I was told) for the thousands of trees he had planted and the attention he had given-them for nearly 25 years, Beautiful home abandoned, Block 5: Occupied in 1917 by two men in partnership, After five years one bought the other’s share. After 20 years the whole property was sold to a third man, who lasted only a few years more, Block now shared by three adjoining settlers. Block 6; Occupied in 1917. Original selector still there and holding considerable enlarged. A good block to begin with, taken up by a man with other resources. Block 7: Occupied in 1917, Very good block, Original occupier still there, with another big block in addition, Occupier has other sources of income, Block 8: Occupied in 1917. In 1918 occupier lost over 1000 sheep in snow, with 20 cattle and some horses. In deep trouble for 15 years, but pulled (continued on next page)

"THROUGH NEW ZEALAND"

(continued from previous page) through with the aid of a hard-working family. Sold recently to a serviceman of the 1939-45 war. Blocks 9, 10, 11. and 12 have passed through several hands and more than one readjustment of boundaries. No original occupiers left. Two unoccupied homes. Summarised, it means that two men have lasted 30 years (with outside assistance), one 28 years (with energy, economy, and some luck), and 10 found the going too hard. Where there used to be 13 settlers there are to-day six.

LAND FOR HEROES

‘THE story in general was not a surprise to me, but I was not prepared for the details. I knew that in Lees Valley as nearly everywhere else after the first world war soldiers had been settled on land with heavier obligations

than the hard heads thought they could carry. But not many of us_ had

hard heads between 1917 and 1919. We were romantic and wishful thinkers, eager to do our duty to our returned heroes, and a little short with any one who asked questions. It seemed especially good to me that comrades of the battlefield were to be neighbours and mates in a little mountain colony where their wives would catch the spirit of their husbands and their children carry it on. It still seems good to me as a conception, but the economics of it were clearly crazy. The politics would have seemed crazy, too, if we had been willing to face the facts. These men were not looking for communal life, but for individual free"dom. As one of them put it to me when I asked what had happened to the community -woolshed. "Why would we have come here if we had _ been collectivists? High country men are individualists or they would not be in high country." I could not at first think what he meant, and said so. But he himself knew exactly what he meant.

"A high country man must have @ big stretch of land. He must spend most of his time alone. Mustering compels him to work with his neighbours, but if he is not mustering, or tailing, dipping, or shearing, he does not need neighbours at all." "Would you say that he doesn’t want them?" "He doesn’t want too much of them. In the planning of his work ‘he usually doesn’t want them at all." "And that is why you have no community woolshed?" "It’s why we pulled it down. It was a half-baked idea in any case in a valley like this. For most of us it meant a journey of several miles to get to the shed, and if the weather broke our sheep might be kept hanging about for days on end without shelter or feed. But the fundamental objection was the fact that none of us were socialists or communists or collectivists of any kind. We wanted to run our own show." "What happened to the shed in the end?" "We pulled it to pieces, and each man took his share." "Now in 10 or 15 miles you have 10 or 15 sheds?" "Yes, but we can’t help that." "What has happened where you have had amalgamations?" "The sheds are still there." "So some of you have two sheds?" "One or two have three. But it’s better that way than if one shed had to serve all of us." "But you could have had one big and very efficient shed with all kinds of facilities that one man can’t afford." "We didn’t want that. We wanted © go our own way." I hesitated to ask if that was why two-thirds of them had gone right out, but it might have been a foolish question if I had asked it. The longer I stayed in the valley the less likely it seemed that co-operation would have saved them. (To be Continued.) eiiisiinnimetencnl