The Telephone. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE POVERTY BAY STANDARD. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, SATURDAY, AUGUST 30.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 223, 30 August 1884, Page 2

The Telephone. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE POVERTY BAY STANDARD. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, SATURDAY, AUGUST 30.

We recently made some remaks regarding the conduct of the oil industry in this district, and pointing out that after the expenditure of vast sums of money and time no results had been arrived at by any means commensurate with the means which had been placed in the hands of certain individuals to be by them used in ascertaining whether or not oil existed in quantities sufficiently copious to warrant the shareholders in subscribing any further moneys to carry on the work of prospecting for petroleum. The article served to bring forth from the local manager of the company an explanation (?) which could only be attributed either to crass ignorance or else an artificial blindness on the part of its author. The insinuation of Mr. Isles that the article was the outcome of what he is pleased to term “ petty spite ” only displays the narrow mindedness of the writer, who appears to measure other people’s corn by his own bushel. So far from it being the result of anyfeeling of “ cutting up " on Mr. Mogridge’s part, or the outcome of any non-success in getting a paltry advertisement, as poor Mr. Isles would have the public believe, we can state that Mr. Mogridge had nothing whatever to do with the authorship of the article, nor was there any communication between the managerial and editorial departments on the subject. As to the conversation which Mr. Isles says took place we leave Mr. Mogridge to reply if he thinks it worth while. No doubt Mr. Isles thinks, to use his own phrase, that he has done a very “ clever thing ” in penning the epistle and getting it published, but if he will read it carefully through we think he will discover that it defeats its own object, and that all the “ cutting up ” business is on the side of poor Mr. Isles. He makes not the slightest attempt to refute our assertions as to want of success on the part of the company, but simply with a touch of ancient feminine simplicity, relates what he calls the “ real facts," viz., a conversation which took place between two business men on a pure matter of business. We always thought that matters of that kind were privileged communications, or at any rate were usually treated as such. But it would be the height of presumpt on on our part to offer advice to a discreet and careful business man like poor Mr. Isles. It is easy to imagine that, as a drowning man will clutch at a straw, so a miserable mortal would naturally feel

some anxiety at finding that his supply of the good things of this lite was likely to be reduced, and that within a short space of time the public would cease to contribute towards the fund from which those supplies were drawn, and we can sympathise with the anxious one, but when, after crushing the offending Telephone under his ponderous iron heel he rushes into the arms of 1 our contemporary for sympathy and there pours forth the sorrows of his heart, we feel a little jealous. We would rather that poor Mr. Isles had hobnobbed with us, and endeavored in a more kindly manner to reduce us to the necessity of admitting that we can only expose a public wrong when goaded to it by a 11 piece of petty spite." It is equally cruel to tell us that the Herald is a better paper than our own, and not only to tell us, but to put it in print to. Oh! vanity of vanities; who set ye up, Mr. Isles, as a judge of these things, and what made you imagine that you could fathom the stupendous depths in which our source of information was obscured. In saying farewell to poor Mr. Isles, whom we have now given time to cool down and become ashamed of himself, we may tender the information that our mouth is not to be stopped with the sop of a miserable advertisement, (as Mr. I. seems to imagine), nor is our pen to be forced from its legitimate object of promoting the public good, even though it be at the expense of a handful of designing double-dealers, or by threats of imaginary consequences. Our course has been marked out and we intend to steer it, in defiance of all obstacles. Since we last referred to the subject we have been inundated with congratulations by investors who have been gulled and deprived of their funds by a ring of unprincipled speculators, and have been supplied with facts and figures which shareholders in (let us

say a local oil Co.) express their willingness to vouch for. We have it on the best authority that the last break of machinery at the oil springs was all arranged for weeks before it took place, and that at the time the arrangement was made it was stated that “it would never pay to have a dividend yet I” We are informed that a recent lawsuit in which a company was mulct was brought about by corruption in the management of the shareholders’ affairs ; that in one instance a contract for ninety cords of firewood was paid for when only twenty-five cords actual measurement were delivered to a certain company. It is a notorious fact that the engine is left to run the machinery for hours at a time without any attendance; that only such men as can be sharped out of their earnings, or at least will run the risk, can get employment at a certain company's works ; that one man was discharged because, seeing the manner in which affairs were conducted, and fearing the engine would blow up in consequence, he shifted his tent and complained to the authorities ; and it is well known that one man has already lost his life at the works through the gross carelessness of those who were employed with him. We ask if it is reasonable to suppose that the affairs of a company can be efficiently looked after by an individual who hardly every leaves the precincts of his residence in Gisborne, and yet draws a salary for looking after the company’s works ? We do not think it is. Yet such is the case, and these and a host of other facts have been volunteered by shareholders. If those facts can be satisfactorily explained away we shall be happy to make public another batch, but in the mean time quantum sufficit. For the present it is sufficient to know that it “ won’t pay to have a dividend yet," and we are strongly of opinion that when the time arrives that it will pay, the shareholders will have to supply the wherewithal to pay it by making a collection amongst themselves. No other conclusion is possible while the company is managed as it is being now and has been for some time. The following, which came to hand by yesterday’s mail, will interest intending investors in forfeited oil .spring shares: — “ The shareholders.of the South Pacific Petroleum Company, no liability, are hereby notified that a further call of sixpence per share has been made on the capital stock of the company, payable on or before Wednesday, the roth day of September, 1884, at the offices of the company either in Sydney or Gisborne. —H. E. Jopling, Secretary, 22,Clarence Street, Sydney, August 20th, 1884. Fifteenth call, making shares ss. Qcl. paid up. The shareholders are also specially notified that the Company, being now registered under the ‘ No Liability Mining Companies Act of New South Wales,’ all shares on which the calls are not paid within twentyeight days of the day appointed for payment will thereupon be absolutely forfeited without any resolution of directors or other proceeding, and will be sold by auction, as provided for in the said Act.”