IT COULD HAPPEN TODAY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 452, 20 February 1948, Page 12

IT COULD HAPPEN TODAY

By

SUNDOWNER

ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT

O show what could happen 20 years ago, I give, as nearly as I can, this account by George Bruce of an experience in Lees Valley in June, 1925. It is not quite verbatim. Some weeks have passed

since George told it to me, and my concern at the time was to vet the facts

right rather than the language. But the story made such an impression on me that I am sure I am within 20 per cent, of a word by word report. "My wife," George began, "was expecting another baby, and I had carpenters at work making additions to our three small rooms. The wind rose

in the night, and when I looked out I knew it was snowing. When I got up the snow was eighteen inches deep, and still falling. Then my wife told me that she would have to go that day. "T rang Oxford-by God’s mercy we had the telephone-to ask if a car could meet me at the bridge entering the gorge. Oxford said ‘Yes, they would be thete by nine o'clock.’ So I said to the men, ‘Who will volunteer to come with me?’ At once two volunteered, and I yoked up the dray, putting a leader in front of the shafter. On the dray I made a kind of tent, and in the tent I put an easy chair-that old chair you're sitting on-with my wife in it. Our eldest child knelt beside her, and the youngest crouched in her arms. I put the two men on horses and asked them to ride in front to make a track. It would be about seven when we started. "The snow was still falling, but we groped our way through the river and over the miles of flat to the bridge. The car wasn’t there. We waited till four in the afternoon, and there was

still no car. Then one man said he was going back. It was madness, he thought, to attempt the gorge at that time of day, and if he didn’t get back and stay up the house frames the weight of the snow would bring everything down. "I Jet him go. But when he was almost out of hailing distance I remembered that he was riding the safest horse and gave a mighty yell. ‘Come ‘back, man, come back!’ I shouted, and at last he turned back. Then I put the other man on his horse and asked him to lead the way into the gorge. He was a fine chap and stuck to me. "It went on snowing, and it was only by God’s mercy that we

kept to the road. Once we struck a buried boulder, and I stopped the horses just as we were going over. We backed a bit and got the wheel round. It was now quite dark except for the light of the snow. At last we came to the bridge halfway through the gorge and found the track of a car. We groped about and saw where it had turned. It had started out to meet us and turned back. The driver told me afterwards that he thought it impossible for anyone to get through. "We followed the tracks till the snow filled them up again and about midnight got out of the gorge. At last we reached Oxford with enow nearly up to the

horses’ bellies and my wife and children huddled together to keep warm. It was two days before I tried to go back with the horses and the dray and two pairs of skis, But I had to leave the dray half-way. It was a month before we got it home."

AND NOW?

THAT, I said to George when he had ‘"- finished, was 2242 years ago. It could not happen to-day. But George wasn’t sure. "We have cars to-day, and better roads, but the weather is the same. We

still get blizzards, and we are still liable to be cut off

by snow. Though we have had nothing as bad as the 1918 fall, we may get another next winter. We certainly have bridges now, and more sheltered homes, but we can still feel very helpless in an Old Man storm. "But you have an aeroplane service, You can get a plane from Christchurch in half an hour."

"IT can, because the landing ground, a war emergency job, is at my front door. But Duck Creek runs between us and the main road. You know something about that." "I do. Without your tractor I might have been there yet. But it would not be a big job to bridge a stream like that." "Not for the Government. But it’s a big job for one settler. And we still have no school." "Do you still need one?" "I don’t. But my two nearest neighbours have young families. There is already a third generation here." "What’s wrong with the Correspondence School?" "Nothing. It’s very good. My youngest boy has just finished with it. But his mother was a teacher. Most mothers don’t know how to start even if they have the time. And they have least time when they most want it-when they have two or three young children on their hands, and two or three men to cook, wash, and mend for." "That’s about a normal experience, I suppose?" "It has been in this valley. Domestic assistance is out of the question, and when a woman has to get musterers away before daylight, then do a full day on top of that, the correspondénce lessons don’t get done." "You think teaching by pe ae ence has its drawbacks?" "TI wouldn’t say a word against it. It’s been wonderful for us. I think it’s wonderful so far as it goes for everybody. But you can see what the situation is for parents who have neither the training nor the time to start their children off and keep them going." "You had a school in the valley ae, I think?" "Yes, the Board built one down by the Whistler, and for six or seven years we had a resident teacher. He used to live at the head of the valley, gather the children up with a car as he came down in the morning, and return them to their homes in the afternoon. For some time before that we had a household school here at Island Hill. But as one settler after another walked out with his family those facilities disappeared. We are back now to our first five years." "You mean in education services?" "Yes." "But in general where are you? Is life easier now or harder?" "Easier, but not so much easier as you probably think." "Would you face it a second time if you had the choice?" "Yes, I think I would. It’s been a tough life, but never tame or dull. We’ve been up here in a world of our own and I. can’t see myself in any other. It’s certainly a hard world. But when I look back I can see that my worst worry has been the fear that I might have to leave it-walk out after the others and start somewhere else." Fs * Fa ROM that fear George has been free for some years. But I was surpri8ed to find an anxiety of a different kind developing in the valley which made me (continued on next page)

LAND FEAR

(continued from previous page) think of Tolaga Bay. It was in Tolaga Bay that I first heard of a land problem

that was clouding the minds of many

leaseholders: resumption by the original Maori owners. The danger I found to’ be real and the anxiety natural. I don’t know how real the risk is in Lees Valley, but I was made clearly aware of the anxiety, The Government, I was told, had given such wide powers-far wider than it at first intended-to the Soil and Water Conservation Boards that these could, if they liked, withdraw any highcountry run from occupation. When I pointed out that the Government itself had always had this power, and had occasionally exercised it-in the case of Molesworth, for example-the answer was that Governments are politically vulnerable while Boards and Commissions are not, "Besides," my informant went ‘on, "the present Government has no knowledge of these problems. It has a far better grasp of industrial problems than any of its predecessors, but it doesn’t understand farming. In any case it knows nothing about high-country farming, and has turned the problem over to these irresponsible Boards." "You think they are policy-making Boards?" ; "They must be. Even if that isn’t the Government’s intention it must happen." "Are there no farmers on them?" "Yes, some very good farmers. But not high-country men. Anyhow farmers mever get their way in situations like these. Experts and politicians always dominate them." "But why do you think they endanger Lees Valley?" "Partly because of our situation, and partly because of our history. New Zealand is at present erosion mad, and a valley like this is a standing invitation to fanatics," "What do you fear?" "Fear is the wrong word. But what could happen is resumption by the Government on the advice of a committee whose minds work one way only." "But you have no erosion here." "Nothing to speak about." "Isn’t it more likely that a Conservation Board would co-operate with you here in setting an example to other areas?" "It would be more sensible. But I think we'll have to stand on guard. The Boards have power without responsi-bility-a bad situation anywhere." bl * * T is clearly a part of a larger situation which a Commission has been investigating for some months. It does not seem very alarming to me that the use we are now making of high-country land should come under review. A new conception of the whole problem might prove as helpful to the runholder him- self. as to the low-country victims of floods. But if I were one of the six remaining runholders in Lees Valley I should certainly wish to be heard before decisions were made affecting my Onn holding, and I should not think it unreasonable or rude to ask by whom my fate was to be judged. (To be continued)