CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 226, 12 February 1913, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

DATRY FARM EAND. The Government has purchased a block of land at Tariki. Taranaki, containing between 700 and 800 acres. It is anticipated that the block will cut into at least seven dairy farms, and it will be thrown open for settlement as soon as the necessary surveys have been made. • DUTY OF PARENTS. You can drive a horse to water, but yon cannot make him drink. Tf a philanthropic millionaire came to a modern parent and said. "I will give your son a start in life that will enable him, by industry and perseverance, to rise to opulence," 00 per cent, of parents would rush at the chance. Hut because the State offers similar opportunities' to all, through the medium of the educational facilities it affords, instantly the gift becomes cheapened in the eyes of those who should profit by it. All cannot be brain-workers —hewers of wood and drawers of water are a necessary factor in the economic equation—but there are large numbers of men toiling hard from one week's end to another for a pittance simply through the want of foresight and common sense shown by their parents in allowing them to leave school too early. —Lyttclton times. OIL EBULLITIONS. The Ministerial party were interested yesterday in watchinar the oil ebullitions near the wharf. The oil would be erupted and spread over the surface of the water, indicating the proximity of a subterranean oil vent. Those people familiar with local conditions, and competent to judge, say that Taranaki is a vast oil field. Oil has been proved to exist in large quantities at Moturoa; gas seams have been encountered seven miles up the Carrington road, and also at the Oil end Freehold Co.'s bore a mile up the same road: petroleum gas has been encountered at Tnglewood; it emanates from the swamp at Toko; its presence has been detected in the Whangamomona district: it has now been struck at Bell Block. Even on the faraway Waimate Plains there is good reason to believe that it exists, for several of the deep wells that have been sunk there have been rendered quite useless by the petroleum taint affecting the water. At Lepperton a settler in putting down the foundations of a building "struck oil." indications. It is, therefore, certain that oil is to be found in Taranaki over a considerable area. Who can tell but that in Taranaki we have another Pennsylvania? MAKING THE MOST OF TT. One thousand extra visitors! That is (lie result of the Expansion and Tourist League's work during the past few mouths. Tt is a good record, and one the League is to be congratulated upon. Few thought when the League set out on its campaign that any appreciable results would he forthcoming during the past holiday season. Results from publicity are not always immediate. The ground has to be prepared and the seed

sown before the crop can be garnered. In this case the late sowing brought forth a most abundant crop. Subscribers Bhould be gratified. They, as a whole, have come forward willingly and generously and provided a good sum of money, which seems to have been judiciously expended. Some there arc in the town who pooh-poohed the whole movement, but the League can afford to overlook the opinions of these people. A great deal, of course, remains to be done. The tourist part of the programme is jiraetically finished for this season, and a start, we are glad to notice, is about to be made with unifying the efforts of the several snail organisations in the town having for their objects the improvement of the attractions of the town and the development of its resources. If the League is as successful in this respect as it has been in the other, the town will have reason to bless the day when the League was ushered into existence. THE DTSESTABLISTTMEXT BILL. The discussion of the proposals for the disestablishment of the Church in Wales has revealed some curious fads in connection with some of the Welsh livings. Tt seems thai in certain parishes tithes are being collected and revenue is beinir drawn from endowments on behalf of churches which are not serving the people at ajl. The parish church at Llandilo. North Pembrokeshire, for instance, is in ruins, and no spiritual provision at all is made for the parishioners, whose tidies are applied to what the "Diocesan Direr-lory" calls "a perpetual curacy." The position is similar at Newton Down parish, where the church fabric is entirely dilapidated and the churchyard open to cattle. Last summer the font was discovered on an adjoining farm, where it was being used as a pig trough. Tu the parish of Castelldwyram. Carmarthenshire, not more than half-a-dozen services have been conducted during the last five years. The Church of Tfaroldston St. Jessels. which is associated with memories of seventeenth century Puritanism and eighteenth century Evangelicalism, and eontains the, remains of Peregrine Phillips, one of the ejected of 100-2. has no clergyman. The rector of an adjoining parish conducts occasional services there, and often there are not six people present. It is small wonder that the rural districts of Wales resent having to support an Established Church under these conditions. THE RTfiITT TO STRTKE. Mr. 0. K. Chesterton, writing in the Daily Xews and Leader in reference to the railway strike of last December, expresses his entire dissent from the dogma enunciated by so nianv of the British newspapers when commenting upon the famous Knox ease, that the police are infallible. An honest mistake of identity or an incorrect deduction from evidence, he says, is no more impossible in the ease of a policeman than of any other man, while perjury, arising out of spite or self-interest, is an everpresent cause of miscarriages of justice. Having disposed of the infallibility of the police Mr. Chesterton urges the Radicals to make no mistake at all about which side they are on when ten thousand common Englishmen claim an unquestioned right to protest against a most questionable legal system. "No democrat can deny that these railway men are citizens and not slaves," he savs. "and that therefore they are each and all free to throw up their work if they choose. That disposes of all the rubbish about an 'unauthorised strike.' Who is going to 'unauthorise' me to leave the • service of this newspaper if I choose? . No democrat can deny that the railway ' men, as citizens, have the right to coni- ' bine against the wrong done to a single i citizen. Tf we Radicals desert the del itineracy in such a struggle—we deserve . to be in the House of Lords." The sub- ' sequent developments in the Knox case. L while they did not. of course, prove l either the correctness or the incorreetr ness of Mr. Chesterton's theory of "the right to strike." substantiated his opinion as to the fallibility of police evi- ' deuce. '

TREATY OF WATTAXGT. Writes Mr. W. T. Jennings:-Apropos of the above, which appeared in your issue of Monday, many old New Zcalanders will remember Mr. Eliot. Elliot, who was a clerk in the Colonial Secretary's Department in 18-11. when the wllole Government business was transacted in a four-roomed cottage in Official Bay, Auckland. Tt was Mr. Elliot's duty to look after the various records and papers —in fact he was Clerk of Records in those prehistoric days; and many n laugh was raised amongst the earlier settlers when newchmns. scking information, were told to go to Eliot Elliot, with a strong aspirate on the first EliotMr. Elliot, whom T met in Dunedin in the early 'seventies, had charge of the Treaty, and lie stated that it was composed of a number of separate sheets, some being on parchment and others on paper. These sheets were sent to the different tribes for signature by influential chiefs, and. as many could not write (there was no Te Ante College then), marks were made in the imitation of the tattoo on their faces. Mr. Elliot hold strongly to the belief that if the Treaty papers had been destroyed, the Maoris never would have signed again. That it was nearly destroyed in the above-mentioned four-roomed wooden building. Mr. Elliot told us the following, which was published in the paper that I was connected with in Dunedin: "The Treaty of Waitnngi and the seal of the colony I kept in a small iron box brought from Sydney. Hearing that there wis a fire in Official Bay (I was then living in a raupo whare in Queen street) T ran up Sh or Ha ml street and saw that the Government offices were on fire. "When T got to the building, one end was in flames, and the place was full of smoke. T tied a handkerchief over my face and got the door of mv office open. The room was sina l '. and f knew it so well that f could my hand on anything in it blindfolded. 1 ■[' once went to the iron box. n.flocked it. took out the Treaty and the seal of th colony, and ran out again directly. T carried both to the house of .; eHon Matthews, Purveyor-General. en I earp them int.. bis charge." Thus the Tiv.it ~ was saved, and though a great deal of confusion of thought exists in the minds of many people to-day as to the meaning of the Treaty, there is no doubt it saved the situation in so far as that large areas in New Zealand were not alienated from the natives by Baron de Thierry, Wcntworth and others. Mr. Elliot died in Dunedin some years ago. Associated with him in the offices in 1841 Mas Mr. Grimstonc, father of the recent manager of the Bank of New Zealand. Waitara : Mr. Shortland. uncle of the solicitor of that name at Tanmarnnui. and Mr. Oooper. grandfather of Mr. Cooper, solicitor. Palmerston North.