Joseph Liggins’ Eleventh Letter

JOSEPH LIGGINS’ ELEVENTH LETTER

Address now from this :- Longburn Dairy, Longburn,

Nr. Wellington

Sunday, August 29th, 1886

Dear Will,

I have received your newspapers from time to time with the welcome news that all are well. I sent you a Bank Draft for £10 which no doubt has come to hand but you did not say so in your newspapers. You will know how to spend it, i.e. on the interest and for any odd comfort they may require and to defray any expenses you may be put to on my behalf. With respect to the Club, it seems to me, tell Mother, that the expenditure is now quite uncalled for and it will be better to give it up. I am so very far away that although I expect to see you all again some day, I do not anticipate that the Club will benefit me in the least. If I were ill I could not expect to ask for pay even in an extreme case. I hope that Providence will not allow me to be so poor so that the £15 will be any temptation to keep up the payments.

I will at once leave this and enter on the fortunes or opposite which have befallen us since my last letter. You will see from the newspaper paragraphs now and then that I am blessed with success and am taking a certain position amongst my fellows. Part of this is no doubt due to my connection with the head of our firm who is a first man amongst the best in the district, impressing much influence, being a large holder of property, a man of business, a man of the world and a magistrate.

We commence operations again on Wednesday next with a much brighter prospect than last year. We made up a balance sheet the other day and our venture has shown on the credit side of the sheet about £250 after paying all wages, milk accounts, etc. We have a meeting tomorrow evening and perhaps our positions may be strengthened by a few more settlers of means joining us, thus ensuring us that necessity - a good supply of milk during the season and making us practically master of the situation as far as the price and quantity of the raw article is concerned. One of the largest merchants in Wellington has promised to take the whole of our cheese this season at market prices. Our pigs have returned us 100% profit and we this season propose bacon curing thus increasing our profit we hope. Our stores has so increased that we have taken on this week a clerk and storekeeper to look after that particular branch.

It is important here to deal in barter or rather to push goods off instead of cash as much as possible, this again assists us to push off our cheese on to the merchants. It is much more a necessity to go on in this way than I can make you, who are amongst monied men, understand. We are buying now - shoes, drapery, tinware and small ironmongery, so that we hope better things this time than last season.

Since I wrote you last, a railway station is placed just opposite the factory and in about 2 months the new line will be opened to Wellington. I was in the Empire city the other day opening business places for our products and I was satisfied with the result. I bought 2 pineapples at 6d each, amongst other things for the children. I find all but one of my shipmates have left Wellington and are now spread far and wide. This solitary individual being of John Bonnets class evidently a non-success and is now loafing about the House of Representatives getting little jobs of writing from the members and is one of the grumblers who do so much harm to this colony. He is one of the chaps who ought to have never left England. There is plenty of room for the right chap, i.e. young farmers with say £500 or £1000 to bring here. No other men are wanted as a rule.

I had a very nasty fall down the cellar through a ladder slipping last season and I am very lucky and very thankful to say I am without a broken limb though I hobbled about my work with a broom and a stick in most agonising pain for weeks but I stuck it like a Briton, grinned and bore it. If I had knocked up all would have been up. No one could take my place and consequently things would have been very black. I got all right in time and am now sound in wind and limb.

Baby got an ugly burn from a teapot but with great care and prompt measures is now all right and I do not expect even a mark to stay. Her face escaped.

You have read of Terawera. For some months previous to the outburst we had frequent shocks of earthquakes and old colonials said that the shocks coming so often was good as we should have no heavy shock but on the night of the eruption we were awakened out of our sleep with what I took to be awful and unusual thunder and with vibrations of the earth. The noise was as the noise of a minute gun but louder like an awfully heavy thunder clap but not rolling thunder. I could not make it out at all. The reports occurred at regular intervals from midnight till dawn and their regularity gave people strange ideas as to their cause - "Warships in distress in the straits", "The Russian ship "Vestria" connonading Wellington or Foxton", old "Slip" (an old identity) our horse getting out of the paddock by first kicking down the fence (a fault of his) and, nearer than these guesses, "Tougarino" the volcano unusually active. We anxiously awaited news and learnt that Terwawera, an extinct volcano, had thrown out half the sides of the mountain; that a whole tribe of Maoris had become simply a history of the past. All the beautiful pink and white terraces, the work of ages, one of the worlds wonders, an attraction to all tourists and a source of wealth to the unfortunate tribe, had been blown up and hopelessly destroyed. Ngaires or warm lakes, geysers etc. had all disappeared and fresh ones are broken out. But most awful was the shower of heavy mud which, for ten miles, fell silently crushing, by its very weight, animals, birds, human beings and dwellings to the ground. Painful stories are told of this awful shower. Two Maoris, Father and Mother, had each a child of theirs and leant over them to protect them from the mud and for a while kept it off but at last the man, feeling oppressed, shook off the mud from his back, rose and called to his waline to get up and escape but silently and unknown to him life had fled during the unequal struggle and he was alone. He escaped with his child I believe. I have not space to dwell on this. The shower extended in one direction 10 miles and was caused by the volcano dust being thrown so high as to reach a cooler stratum of moist air, it then fell with the awful result stated. Parties have inspected, as near as they dare, the scene of the catastrophe but at present little is known what changes have taken place. So many active cones have been made and the crust of the earth is so thin that none but madmen can attempt it at present. The price of stock has been considerably affected by it; the unfortunate settlers being forced to drive them off the mud to the Auckland market, thus overstocking the market. Our distance from the scene is about 160 miles, the concussions were heard at Blenheim in the South Island.

The town of Palmerston has raised a loan of £50,00 so that for a time money will be plentiful here. There is no doubt that the article in the Standard you sent to me has somewhat checked the reckless borrowing of New Zealand although some of its remarks were highly unjust as the country is well able to bear much heavier burdens than she has yet to bear. It is the injudicious and unremunerative borrowing schemes that ought to be checked, not such schemes as railways which as a rule are money well spent in opening up the country. Papers here are very quiet on the matter although they all know of it and prefer not to stir up to make a bigger stink. I am glad you sent this paper otherwise I should have been without the key to several motions in the House. The Premier urgently and fiercely advocating no more borrowing for some long time or, as I think, till the confiding British public have had time to get over the fright.

I neglected to tell that I travelled from Wellington with Messrs. Bryce, Macarthur and Wilson, all M.H.R.s, the other day. I do not know if Bryce really committed the murders attributed to him. I must say, from his looks, appearances are undeniably "agin him" and I think the murder of Europeans was I think just cause for his action. The other day we expected another row. The natives building on land belonging to white men at Masicua Saranake. They numbered about 250 but the sturdy settlers came in the afternoon and stockwhipped the Maori out of the place and arrested the leaders, amongst them being Bryce's old bloodstained enemies. The Maoris travelled I believe. I heard a sturdy colonial say "the fun was glorious". You see some of the same settlers were children of the murdered whites and they came prepared to fight and when they arrived made no bones about the matter and in the face of the old chiefs axes and the long poles of the younger Maoris achieved a speedy, bloodless victory. All men applaud them for their prompt action. I may tell you that Bryce took command at Saranake without orders and slipped out of Wellington as H.M. Governor General was coming in the harbour; arrived at the scene and cowed the Maoris. Settlers do not wait long in these matters and a few white families massacred would be the death warrant of hundreds of Maoris. Many of my fellow settlers here, even now, advocate enslaving them and making them work for their tucker. Of course, this can never be tried, it is all illustration of the latent hatred between the races. I may say this hatred alone is not extended to the wahines who prefer a "man" of theirs to be a paketia not a Maori. The proof of this is the number of half-castes, that is a plain argument and some of the half-caste women are very handsome. A Russian at a ball in Wellington, given to the officers of H/M Bertwick, was asked how he liked the Wellington beauties, "Oh!" he said "They are really handsome women but" said he turning to a half-caste "These women are absolutely glorious". You know the Russians merge with their conquered natives. We do not, except en passant. Speaking for myself, I do not like the Maoris. They anoint themselves with shark oil and stink like the devil. I suppose if I were at liberty for a game with them, I should require a clothes peg with patent close grip for a nose holder, I can't overget it.

To return to the factory, we have enlarged it. Built a cheese room, fitted with reversible shelves, 40ft by 25ft. I have also made three more rooms to my dwelling house. A reporter will come down soon, I will send you his remarks.

If you see Abraham Bailey, tell him he should come out here. I will write him. All are well and happy, Charlie is big enough to milk the cow for me and the lads get the firewood. Sarah now like the place better than England, though I do not think she would admit it. I like the place where I best support my family. I called to see young Carter at Petone. Tell Mr. Carter he misses him. He was removing his goods to a new residence. I shall call again whenever I go to Wellington. There is no doubt Carter is doing well. I know nothing of any other home friend.

Give my love to Mother and read her my letter. Also from Sarah and the children. Also to yourself, Ellen, Aunt and children, Aunt and Uncle Dobson. Please do not neglect a little suitable present now and then to them. Also George, Annie and little ones; Katie and John; John and Emma and chips; Tom and Annie and all friends, who never write but cross my mind many times in a day sometimes. I hope you are doing well at your business. How and where is Cartwright? Glad May changed his mind. I have never written Netherseal yet. Remember me to Lilley and Carter, to whom I shall write.

I am your loving Brother,

Joseph Liggins

I expect to be Postmaster.