GREEKS AND GREYITES.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4809, 21 August 1876, Page 2

GREEKS AND GREYITES.

TO THE EDITOR OP THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sib, —I wrote you some time ago, asking for information regarding the treatment of inventors by the ancient Greeks, and on the 10th current I came upon two paragraphs, which I beg to transcribe for your readers. One is from Bacon’s “Advancement of Learning,” where he says: “Founders and senators of states and cities, law-givers, extirpers of tyrants, fathers of the people, and other eminent persons in civil government, were honored but with titles of worthies or demigods ; whereas, such as were inventors and authors of new arts, endowments, and commodities towards man’s life, were ever consecrated amongst the gods themselves.” The other is from the Edinburgh Review, in which a w: iter, after describing some modem mechanical contrivances, says; “ It is almost impossible to over-estimate the importance of these inventions. The Greeks would have elevated their authors among the gods; nor will the-en-lightened judgment of modern times deny them the place among their fellow-men which is so undeniably their due.” These extracts will show sufficiently clearly the high estimation in which inventors were held by the ancient Greeks ; and now I shall turn to the Auckland settler who invented the flax-stripper, and the amount of recognition he received in the province of his adoption. Mr. R. J. Creighton, editor of a morning paper, when the machine was first constructed opened his columns to articles descriptive of of its working and merits. Some time after, when there was a talk of the machine being an infringement of a patent, the holders of which spoke of claiming a royalty on each stripper manufactured, the editor of another morning paper,opened his columns to letters explaining the principle involved in the working of the machine ; and the settlers at Raglan gave Mr. Dougal a public dinner, in token of their appreciation of his invention, and his generously giving it freely to the public. But, so far ns I am aware, the rulers of Auckland never acknowledged the boon conferred on that province by this humble settler, and their claim to be called “fathers of the people” must depend on other and less v aluable public services.

'Oho caution of some of the Superintendents of the Northern province in matters intimately affecting the prosperity of that portion of the colony, is really remarkable. For instance, when Mr. It. Hunt offered, in 1870, to make arrangements to establish a woollen manufactory in Auckland, the provincial authorities offered the use of an old tannery in Mechanic’s Bay; but the then Superintendent said they would only pay the bonus if they had the money. It is almost needless to say that Auckland has no woollen manufactory yet.—l am, &c. An Aucklander.