THE OIL INDUSTRY.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 March 1920, Page 4

THE OIL INDUSTRY.

THE "DISMAL JIMMIES." The Mayor of New Plymouth (Mr. Jan. Clarke) was recently reported to have said that two or three "croakers" had at one time discouraged a capitalist from coming to New Plymouth with a quarter of a million pounds to invest iu the oil industry, whereupon the Hawera Star comments:—"ln view of great losses made in oil investments, diie wonder* that the Mayor of New Plymouth waa not ashamed to make such remarks, which in plain English mean.- that lie re« gards it as more important that New Plymouth should get the benefit of the expenditure of the stranger's money than that his investment should be sound." The comment concludes: "It is very poor civic morality."

The paragraph was brought under the notice of the Mayor, who adhered to his remarks, and added that at the tim« of Die occurrence there was good ground for believing that oil would be produced in payable quantities—and ht> still be-, lieved oil was procurable in Taranaki—and had that amount of money, or even a portion of it, heen put into the Industry, then success might have been achieved years ago, instead of at aome distant date. The investment of such a sum would certainly have brought in its) train appliances aiid methods of the most modern kind known, and it may be that irreparable injury was done to the industry, and to those then engaged in it, by the "Dismal Jimmies."