The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 1917. THE SHEEP ART UNION.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 20 April 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 1917. THE SHEEP ART UNION.

(With which is Incorporated The Taihape Post and Walmarino News).

Tie Taihape Farmers’ Sheep Art Union ran its natural course in the Town Hall last night, and we can say that there is no imaginable cause or reason why the organiser and his executive should not be accorded the very heartiest congratulations on the splendid result of their achievements. The project had its inception at a time when there was a very urgent call throughout the whole Empire for assistance to enable the work that was soon to fall upon the Empire’s Red Cross organisation in France to be performed in the very highest degree of efficiency. In Taihape, as elsewhere, the usual schemes for raising large sums had been exploited with good success, but that success was jeopardising the very honourable position Taihape was holding in the category of most generous givers in New Zealand. The thought was troubling Mr. Peyton one day, and he walked into the street, wont up to two of our most respected farmers. a,nd inquired wr.eiher they would help in a Sheep Art Union. One said he could be put down for fifty sheep, and the other’s generosity was no less encouraging. That laid the foundation for the most gratifying, satisfactory and useful work that was to follow. There were still many difficulties to overcome, as Mr. Peyton found, but he enlisted a most loyal and trusty lieutenant in Mr. L. B. H. De Latour, and then another in that embodiment of enthusiasm and gen-

erosity, Mr. H. O’Callaghan. These three, with the secretary, Mr. A. M. Ryan, bore almost the whole burden of seeing the Farmers’ Sheep Art Union through to such a wonderful issue, the more surprising considering the call there is ever present for patriotic purposes of one kind and another. Mr. Peyton and his lieutenants found that initial difficulties were very great, involving tne expenditure ,of time that he was scarcely in a position to give, seeing that he was left without assistance in his private business by his last assistant beingtaken from him by the military ballot for recruits. He could not face failure. however, in a scheme that had such inherent life-saving and suffering assuaging possibilities. He asked a newspaper friend how many lives three or four thousand pounds would save, and was told that under certain circumstances it might be sufficient to nurse back to health at least all the boys that had gone from Taihape. It is due to these nothings that the determination grew to persist in the good work that reached its crowning point last night in the Town Hall. The road has been a very rocky one, requiring the expenditure iof much time and benzine. The various centres of population had to be organised; Wanganui, Wellington and Palmerston had to be visited, and ticketselling put on a good cosiness footing, but Mr. Peyton and Mr. He Latour gave the time, did the work, returning to Taihape on each and every occasion smiling the smile of success and satisfaction. They have, with Mr. O’Callaghan and Mr. Ryan, per formed a huge work in a way that must call from every resident of this district the very heartiest congratulations. The exact amount raised will be given in our news columns, but it will probably be found in the vicinity of four thousand pounds. Taihape holds the extremely honourable position on the list' of all New Zealand towns of having the second highest in voluntarily contributing to patriotic funds. Upwards of twelve thousand pounds were raised by a Carnival in aid of soldiers and their dependents, now the town’s Red Cross efforts have been supplemented by another huge amount through the generosity of the men who gave the' sheep to be dis J posed of for assisting such noble and human e work. We can all feel justly pround of the men that occupy the land in our territory, for they have contributed their proportion, a magnificent ’proportion, to the. funds that have been necessary to win the greatest and grimmest of all wars. They have sent their sons and given freely of their money to save the Empire from the Prussian power-lust, which, thanks to their uncomplaining attitude and magnanimity, and the courage of l!he men of which our armies are comprised, is now being crushed and a lasting peace is looming over the yet indistinct war horizon. All will agree that Mr. Peyton and his executive have periormed a huge and difficult self-set task in a noble cause and have aclueved a success that the most sanguine would not have predicted at the outset. Mr. Peyton has all the hatural peculiarities that fit him for such work, and while 1 the war lasts and there is any necessity for them, we hope he will let nothing stand in the way of them being available in the great good cause.