Bush Camp Election

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 954, 22 November 1957, Page 22

Bush Camp Election

by

K. B.

GREGORY

ARLIAMENTARY elections are not what they used to be: ask any old fellow at the club or pub (and be prepared to listen to many a tale beginning "Now in Seddon’s day ..."). A little delving will bring to light stories of wordy battles between candidates which led to battles between rival supporters, with fists, bottles and eggs thrown in for good measure. Nowadays we pride ourselves on cur tolerance;-and on the fact that the secret of thé ballot box is inviolable. If election day now rivals a wet Sunday afternoon for tameness, those who act as Deputy Returning Officers aie one class of person who have no regrets. The instruction book issued to D.R.O.’s lists enough methods of incurring heavy fines or imprisonment to worry a conScientious person, without his having to cope with incipient riots. In the smaller country communities, it is usually the local schoolteacher who acts as Deputy Returning Officer in the building he uses through the week. The fact that the election day job is not without its hazards, and the ballot box sometimes not quite so secret as we think, emerges from the following incidents which took place a very few elections-ago in one of the more remote bush camps where I was teaching. This camp, which was very isolated, was situated in dense bush, where

timber trees were felled and hauled down the bush tramway by the "loci" to the mill. There were eight or 10 houses for married men, the cookhouse

and school, and rows of unpainted huts for single men. I look back with a great deal of pleasure on the years I spent in the camp as teacher. The bushmen were as fine a bunch of tough, independent and loyal New Zealanders as would be found anywhere. Their gargantuan appetites in the cookhouse never ceased to amaze me, but they needed vast quantities of

food as they worked prodigiously hard in appalling conditions, for much of the area where the trees were felled was swamp. The quantity of beer consumed was another source of amazement to me. It was evident that beer held a great place in the affections of some of them. Although the nearest road was six or seven miles away, a few hardier types thought nothing of carrying in a couple of kegs over a track which would make a goat think twice before taking it.

Kind and generous to a fault, the men were all the best of friends. However, most of them kept aloof from one old chap whom we will call Bluey. I found that Bluey’s crime had been to help break a strike in Australia some 20 years before. As election day drew near, a succession of official envelopes arrived in mailbags brought by the "loci," and in due course I was appointed Deputy Returning Officer. For the folk in the camp, the problem of choosing a Member of Parliament Was a simple and uncomplicated affair. There were two candidates for the electorate. One, whom we will call Mr White, was in the opinion of the camp, purer than the lilies of the field, wiser than Solomon, and the only possible choice for M.P. The other, whom we will call Mr Black, had a character considerably blacker than his name, and was fit for treason, stratagem and spoils (if not worse). Mr White, who was known personally to most of the camp, paid us a visit which developed into a triumphant procession. Mr Black wisely Stayed away. The chairman of Mr White’s election meeting at the camp had, with great oratory and thumping of the cookhouse table, declared that our camp was 100 per cent behind Mr White, and that the (continued on next page)

results from our polling booth would declare our solidarity to the world. Now whatever my political views might have been, I had long before decided that it certainly would not do to have one Black vote sully the result sheet of our polling booth. I should do the right thing, secret ballot or no. Came the day. Things were quiet: very quiet considering the number of kegs which had been imported to celebrate White’s victory. Bluey voted first. The others came in in dribs and drabs, all loud in their praise of White, «ll louder in their condémnation of Black (until I drew their attention to the large notice chalked on the blackboard VOTERS MUST NOT DISCUSS POLITICS IN THE BOOTH, whereupon one old chap roared with unanswerable logic, "We’re not discussing politics, we’re just cussing that blank blank Black’’). Just before the poll closed, consternation reigned. Someone found that five of the boys had become so immersed in their early celebration of White’s victory that they had forgotten to vote. Their friends got them into the booth on the tick of closing time, and honour was saved. I locked the door and turned to counting the votes. Dave, the poll clerk (who also helped run the cookhouse), suggested that to save time we should not bother to count the voting papers. "Fifty-three people voted," he said. "That’s 53 for White and 53 for Continuante." I had read the instruction book, especially the bits'which outlined the penalties. We counted up. With monotonous regularity we unfolded the papers and reverently placed them on the White pile, the only pile needed. Then it happened. Amongst the others there was a vote for Mr Black. One solitary Black vote. And when we began the licensing poll, it was even worse. Amongst the votes for Continuance and State Control, there was one vote for Prohibition. Dave looked at me, more in pity than in anger. "You're going to cop it for this," he said, Dave was good to me. He offered to ring the results through on the company’s line, and tack up the results notice on the school door. I signed the sheet and handed it over. By the time that Dave had _ purposely fumbled through the job of affixing it to the door, I had dodged through the group of men outside, and was running down the tramline to my hut. Fortune smiled on me. The bush boss and his wife were already in my hut listening to the results over my radio. I had invited them in for the evening as the battery of their set was flat. I had just time to stammer out my tale before we heard the tumult coming nearer down the tramline. "Where's that so-and-so schoolteacher? We'll teach him to vote for Black and Prohibition. Chuck him in the river!" _ The bush boss commanded an immense amount of respect, which was just as well for me. He carried the day and assured the men that I had voted the right way. There was an earnest conference to decide who was the traitor in their midst. Then someone suggested Bluey, and off they went. But the river was not polluted with a Black supporter that night. Bluey had gone on a fishing trip. A queer chap, Bluey. Some said he even read poetry.