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King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 553, 26 March 1913, Page 6

Referring to the Empire Trades Commission's sitting in Wellington, the Post is thus playful:— "The Commissioners have brought to their task a keen analytical judgment, and a determination to take nothing on its face value. When Mr J. P. Luke expressed to them his confidence in the extent of New Zealand's coal and petroleum resources, the question came promptly from Sir Rider Haggard: 'Are you a geologist?' Mr Luke, of course, had to admit that he was not,but asserted his authority as a man of common-sense. It may appear somewhat anomalouß that a pastmaster of fiction should be found testing the soundness of facts offered by a non-imaginative ironfounder. So complete has been the inversion of accustomed roles that on this occasion it was the ironfounder who discovered the hidden treasure, and it was tne creator of 'King Solomon' Mines' who doubted its existence. Furthermore, it is the novelist who is now backed up by the cold figures of expert authority, which has relentlessly applied the acid to fond imaginings. This iconoclasm is not pleasant to u<3, especially when we see behind it the man who once led our fancies captive. Evidently Sir Rider Haggard, who is the Jekyll of literature and the Hyde of agriculture, goes to Africa to dig for gold and comes to New Zealand to unearth facts. This quality is remarkble, but the present exemplification of it is somewhat in the .Jo rlnnnha "