ENTERPRISE WANTED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 84, 10 April 1933, Page 6

ENTERPRISE WANTED.

After living in New Zealand a few yean I can say that there are one or two little things about New Zealanders I do not like. For "one thing their parochialism. They cannot be told anything, even by one who has travelled in many countries. But their worst fault in my opinion is want of enterprise. They will take a risk on the racecourse, but.that is risking a pound for about two on the average. Ask them to run no greater risk arid stake a pound in the hope of getting a hundred back and they think you are mad. I have been up and down New Zealand telling people that the West Coast and Otago are full of "old and suggesting to people with money to put up enough capital to carry out prospecting on a proper scale. You would think I was trying to sell a gold brick. New Zealand people have no pluck at all. If they do risk a pound and lose it they squeal as if they had been shot. Here is a first-class proposition, and yet they wouldn't look at it. It took Americans to show what could be done by dredging, and even now there is nothing much to show in the way of imitation. This means that even when you prove to New Zealanders that there is a good thing if they will only put up the money they shy off. Now the Unemployment Board is organising prospecting on a big scale. Quite right, too, but why? Because it is not its money it is risking. Well, a lot of people would be better off if they had listened to what I tried to. tell them two' years ago. They will put up money for a mine that will never pay a dividend because they listen to some salesman with the gift of the gab, but they would not look at a 100 per cent proposition like a large-scale prospecting venture. QUARTZITE. ,