THE Kaipara Advertiser. AND WAITEMATA CHRONICLE. WEDNESDAY, FEB. 18, 1914, POTTING OUR NATIVE GAME.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 18 February 1914, Page 2

THE Kaipara Advertiser. AND WAITEMATA CHRONICLE. WEDNESDAY, FEB. 18, 1914, POTTING OUR NATIVE GAME.

The Minister and the Banker. Sport and Sport.

Htjddlestone, the N. S. W. Bank at Rawene, will be long remembered as one who should go down to posterity as a " Sport'1 of a different calibre to that desired by the Hon. MiBell, Minister for Internal Affairs. The other day Mr Huddlestone (Bank Agent), and Mr Butler (a solicitor), waited upon Minister Bell as a deputation. They were out for fish and game. Disencouraging creating small districts into Acclimatisation areas, Hoki.mga having asked to be severed from the Bay of Islands, the Hon. Mr Bell said his idea was to make them larger, and the larger the better for controlling and distribution of fish upon a satisfactory basis. He gave them, no hope of a separate dis-

trict.

Next Mr Huddlestone preached the old, old gag re an open season for pigeons. He explained that the Maoris were taking them, and he thought that if a season were declared the whites would exercise a greater interest in protecting them during the close season. The "very idea" appears to have set the Ministers teeth on edge, as he straightway said into Huddlestone had affections. The minister had no sympathy with this request whatever. He declared that pigeon shooting was not a sport. It was simply a matter of v the pot". In the south they had the same trouble over the paradise duck. He wanted to preserve both of these birds and would not consent to their being shot at all. v What I will do," he said, if you can find me a man shooting them I'll do my best to make an example of him. Now if this is not straight out talk from the shoulder we don't know what is. The pigeon is being ruthlessly destroyed by the thousand year after year— by Maori and Pakeha alike— simply for the sake of '' the pot," and we think it time to prohibit for the sake of preservation before it is too late. Of course it is hard to have to knuckle down to cm c " reforms," but where would the oyster have been today, only for the drastic measures resorted to hj Government. They were pretty late too getting on the job of preservation.