The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Tuesday, September 6, 1887. “PUFF” ON THE OIL.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume I, Issue 37, 6 September 1887, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning.

Tuesday, September 6, 1887. “PUFF” ON THE OIL.

Be just and fear not; Let all the ends thou aim’at at be thy country’s Thy God’s, and truth's. ’

Genial Mr "Puff” of the Wellington Evening Press, or in other words Mr Edward Wakefield, has given this district a specimen of his bantering criticism in referring to the recent oil find. “ Puff” is a merry rogue, and his quips and cranks and quiddities are widely read and smiled at. He has the true satiric touch, and often combines with a merry jest a certain shrewdnesss of conjecture, and a happy seizing of the very pith of a thing, which is remarkably entertaining. But, like all men who have to grind out a daily dose of half a column of mingled jest and earnestness, he is apt sometimes through sheer lack of material, to comment on matters ol which he possesses not the slightest modicum of actual knowledge. We print his facetious remarks on the South Pacific’s success in another column, and although serious remonstrance with a professed joker is but sorry wink, we would protest most strongly against the manner with which he so flippantly [dismisses a subject of such immeasurable importance to this district.

The veiled sarcasm as to the procuring of shares is quite unwarranted, and not based upon facts. Shares are not to be had, that is not at rates which would betoken the holder’s anxiety to sell, and when Puff is asked to buy, it will be time enough for him to refuse. The fact is that Wellington journalists, especially Mr Wakefield, are too apt to affect a most irritating superciliousness of tone when referring to industrial projects outside a ten-mile radius of the Empire City, and by their continual depreciation of any industry outside their own narrow circle, materially diminish the value of their opinions.

The real gist of Puffs remarks is that no real dependence can be placed upon the genuineness of the oil find, and that in fact the present excitement is merely promoted with a view to allowing the present holders of shares to unload. This is an entirely erroneous supposition, and one which friend Pufi should speedily get rid of. No one pretends that oil is flowing by thousands of gallons a day out of the well, at least no one who is not a born fool or a would-be rogue, but what we have virtual proof of, upon the most disinterested and absolutely undoubted authority is that an

oil flow has actually occurred aj the South Pacific’s bore and that with a reasonable amount of patience and a very slight expenditure of capital the well will prove a payable speculation. As to the Wellington journalist’s sneers at Poverty Bay and its speculations, we might remind him of the dozens of miserable failures, mining and industrial, which the Wellington press have gushed over in times gone by. Take the Terawhitl goldfield for instance. Will Puff look up the back files of Wellington papers and read the flowing enconiums which appeared about that most palpable of swindles and financial frosts. The Wellington editors exhausted even their supply of gush over it.

Let “Puff” mind his own business and not further indulge in his cock-sure wouldbe sapient criticism of matters of which his knowledge is so wonderfully limited, We don’t want any Wellington capital here to help on the oil industry, and if we did it is hardly likely we should get it from the Empire City, for if report says truly, the Wellingtonians can do with all the capital they’ve got. As to Puff’s sneer about the value of the shares, it is hardly worth further reference. The Poverty Bay oil shares are, however, fully equal to the value of shares in the Evening Press newspaper, of which he is the conductor.