As the Earth Turns Silver Read Online Free PDF Page A

Katherine’s home-baked bread. He turned to Donald. ‘The presence of Asiatics in this country jeopardises the rights of our fellow Britons. We have to take drastic measures before it’s too late . . .’
    Terry chewed on his bread. ‘A wholesome loaf, Mrs McKechnie.’
    To Donald he said, ‘As for the Maoris, there has never in the history of the world been a case of two races living together in the same country without the deterioration and decay of one or the other. The weakest race is always doomed . . .’
    Katherine tried to consider at least some of Terry’s words. After all, didn’t the politicians say precisely this – that the Maoris required protection, that they were in danger of extinction?
    Terry reached for another slice of bread. ‘The Maoris are now in such a state of moral, mental and physical degeneration that without complete and utter separation, their race will be beyond salvation. I see no practical solution but to exchange all lands in Maori possession for islands such as Stewart and the Chathams . . .’
    Katherine wondered how much land was still in Maori possession. And how many Maoris were there left to be crammed onto the islands?
    â€˜An interesting proposition,’ Donald said. ‘But how to achieve the desired result – now that’s the challenge.’
    Terry swallowed. ‘McKechnie, my man, nothing worth its salt comes without hard work and sacrifice . . . As for race-adulterers, they should be transferred to outlying islands also. Mark my words . . .’
    Race-adulterers ? Katherine had never even considered the mixing of races, but to use the term adultery seemed absurd. She accepted Terry’s exhortation and drew a thick black line through every one of his words.
    â€˜My petitions to members of Parliament, the Commissioner of Customs, the Minister of Native Affairs, etcetera, etcetera, have been to no avail,’ Terry was saying.
    He declined the roast mutton, the vegetables, even Katherine’s bread and butter pudding. He did not eat foreign foods. Sugar, he said. He did not even drink tea. Katherine went to the meat safe to fetch him milk. She didn’t know whether to be alarmed or to be sorry for the man.
    Early the next morning before anyone else rose, Katherine searched for the tracts. She knew Donald had his, but hadn’t Terry left another three? Where were they all? She found two and fed them, deliciously, to the coal range, filled the kettle and set it on top. How she would savour her porridge this morning, her sweet, milky tea.

A Bag of Peanuts
    The news spread from one shop to another, from laundry to greengrocery to market garden. There had been the shooting in Naseby the previous year, and then the murder of Ham Sing-tong in Tapanui only a few weeks before, but this was Haining Street. This was where Cousin Gok-nam lived, where Shun and his brother Yung went on Sundays for wontons and roast pig, for tea and gossip.
    Joe Kum-yung was not a clansman, but with maybe three hundred in all of Wellington, every Chinese was a brother, especially one shot at point-blank range. Yung heard from Fong-man, who heard from Joe Toy, that Kum-yung had been walking home when a man came up behind him and shot him twice in the head. No one got a good look at the murderer. It was a Sunday evening. It was dark. Haining Street was almost deserted. The man with the revolver wore a long grey coat. He was tall. He was gweilo . When Joe Toy got there, his cousin was lying outside Number 13 in a dark pool of blood, a paper bag of peanuts scattered about him.
    Shun wondered whether the locks on the doors were adequate. Kum-yung had been in New Zealand thirty years – a cripple from his gold-mining days on the West Coast. His clansmen had raised the money to return him to China, to return him to his wife, but instead the fool had gone up the coast to try his hand at market gardening. And