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Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 949, 4 June 1881, Page 2

Mr. Berry, the Superintendent representative of the South Pacific Petroleum Company in Gisborne, has paid a flying visit to the grounds and reports all going on satisfactorily. Mr W. Clarke’s letter, which appears in another column, will stimulate public observation in this direction. And we must say that, to a large extent, we coincide with what Mr. Clarke says. The lateness of the hour in which Mr Clarke’s letter communication reaches us, precludes the possibility of our remarking on its contents so fully as we could wish ; but we may state generally that we thoroughly coincide with his own conclusions. The position of the South Pacific Petroleum Company is one of simple ABC. There is a block of land literally saturated with wealth, and the Directors do not apparently know what to do with it. They are waiting for the gods to come and help them, instead of helping themselves. As Mr Clarke most justly observes, Mr Berry is doing his level best to promote the best interests of the shareholders ; but the question naturally arises, is his best the best. Mr Clarke puts the matter in a very forcible light when he asks what would be thought of a man who, with a gold find of certain ounces to the ton, waited for instructions as to how he was to proceed. He would not require to be informed that it was his duty to bring the utmost of payable stuff to grass as quickly as possible, and so save time as well as money. Whatever Mr Berry’s instructions from Sydney may be, they appear to us, in these go-a-head times, to fall short of the occasion. We are literally treading, sleeping, and living on material wealth, the excellence and extent of which would put even more plethoric people to the blush ; and yet it must be confessed that we cannot proceed to the aggrandisement of our own fortunes without perihission from head-quarters. As we view the matter it is simply one of profit or loss. If the shareholders in Sydney have not wired to, or otherwise advised, Mr Berry to send them say, a hundred tons of paraffin

as soon as possible, so as to test the market, then we most unequivocally assert that they are not fit for their position. But of this there is a foregone conclusion. They are not fitted for their position, and the past but endorses the fact. They have the analysis before them. They know that the crude paraffin is worth at least £4O a ton —stuff that can be shovelled from the bowels of the earth at per spadeful, and yet, the only consolation we can get from them is an enquiry as to what lateral extent the field is. If something is not done of a practical nature, and that soon, we really must agitate and determine that the Board of Directors be removed from Sydney to New Zealand. We’ve got the men ; we’ve got the scrip ; and the rest we mean to do.