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Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 956, 29 June 1881, Page 2

The standing Committee of the South Pacific Petroleum Company, met on Monday evening last, to which the local Superintendent, Mr. C. D. Berry was invited, to receive any intelligence he might be in possession of after his interview with Mr. Fleming. It appears that those gentlemen did not meet, owing to the outgoing boat from Sydney being in quarantine, no communication whatever being permitted, beyond the proper officials, between her and the shore. But, nevertheless, the committee meeting w r as not without results. Mr. Berry placed everything unreservedly before the members. Mr. Onward Bates, who was a passenger with him to Auckland has written an exhaustive report, both on the Oil and Paraffin fields, to the Board of Directors in Sydney, and expressed his unbounded confidence in their future. It is thought that

such a document, coming from such a source, wrnuld have a beneficial effect on the Directors, and stimulate them to renewed exertions. Mr. Fleming also received a copy of the report, and it is to be hoped it will have a similar effect upon him. With regard to the Paraffin, Mr. Berry said the Directors had made arrangements with the Mercantile Agency for the immediate despatch of a ton or so of the raw material, to London, with the view of more certainly ascertaining its position and value in the English market. So that, according to their lights, the Directors may be said to be doing their best—such as it is. But it is not the Directors w r e depend on, and look up to, so much as Mr. Berry. The Directors, so far, have, practically ignored the New Zealand Shareholders ; and, by their mysteriousness, and apparent indifference have acted as a kind of foil to the willing desire, manifested here to aid and support the Company. Shares are not near wrorth the price they would have fetched, had a larger amount of earnest sincerity been imported into the Directorate. In Hawke’s Bay, more particularly is this discernible. Our neighbours have invested money in the Company ; but, owing entirely to the supineness, and secrecy of the Directors, added to the incompetency of those hitherto entrusted with the w 7 orks, they are crying off, fearful of the disaster, and failure that attended the first Company. There is this to be considered. The Southern Cross are shewing the South Pacific an example of energy and system wrorthy of imitation. Both have the ball at their feet; and, although, even if the twro succeed in copious yields of both oil and paraffin, they cannot glut the markets of the wrorld, it will be a severe reproof to the older established Company, if its juior brother continues to forge its way into the van of public confidence.