PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY. Saturday, August 6, 1881.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 967, 6 August 1881, Page 2

PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY. Saturday, August 6, 1881.

Verilv, the Poverty Bay settlers cannot be accused of want of enterprise, although, so far, for the last 8 years, there is little to show for the money they have invested. Of course our remarks are confined to the enterprise of public Companies, or the association of private effort to develop the latent industries of the district. Whether those efforts have been either misdirected, or incomplete, it is not pertinent to our present remarks to discuss. It is sufficient for our purpose to know that, in the face of repeated failure, and “ nulla bona ” returns being recorded time after time, the great heart of the settlers beats with as active a pulsation as ever. The life blood courses through the “ natural gates and alleys of the body,” with an increasing vigor hopeful to contemplate. Years ago we (and it gives us pleasure to claim the ancient identity) allied ourselves to the party of progress, and formed a No. 1 Petroleum Company, which came to grief—but not from want of enterprise, or pluck. In the measure of time No. 2 Petroleum Company was started, and is still in existence, though not coming up to expectations; and this, also, is not from want of enterprise. Ere long, No. 3 Company springeth up, and bids fair to outstrip its predecessors. The secret of success which has, so far, attended the Southern Cross Petroleum Company, lies in the fact that, for the first time in the history of the public Companies of Poverty Bay, we find enterprise backed up by intelligence, and a thorough knowledge of the work in hand. So much for them. We do not desire, in these remarks, to institute comparisons, nor to set up one enterprise against the other. It is our earnest hope that both will succeed ; neverthe less, as faithful chroniclers of passing events, we should fall short of our duty did we not improve the occasion by drawing attention, now and then, to these things, with a view that the actions of the future may be shorn of the errors of the past.