ACCLIMATISATION.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXX, Issue 3825, 22 August 1899, Page 2

ACCLIMATISATION.

SOME CRITICISMS AND SUGGESTIONS. Certain facts having come under my notice (writes" Double Barrel-") 1 think u right to mention them, purely in the interest of sport and sportsmen, particularly those-sportsmen, in and round Wellington who by the purchase of both shooting and fishing, Jicehses keep up the body of the finance-of- the •'Wellington .vceiimaviuatioii Society. I am induced to let a little light in upon the. doings of the said Society, or rather the council of the Society, so that the members—for now all holders of, either license are by right members—may judge for themselves wliethcr or not they, are being fairly treated by a certain section of the council of the Society. Reading your paper of the 15th instant I noticed a paragraph which stated that Mr Ay son. the curator of ,our fish ponds, had been offered by* the Government the appointment of Inspector of Fisheries. ' It has time and again been pointed oirJ to the-council that Mr Ayson and liita friends on' the council have been for the past eighteen months working for this appointment, and such being the case it was absolutely necessary to have an assistant to Mr Ayson appointed, so that the Society which rears fish to the tune of some 3,000,000 per annum-should have a person duly trained in the colonial method of collectingtovnlhi ease, the curator should fall ill or secure, the long sought after Government appointment. Resolutions have been proposed-arid seconded by independent members of this body to give effect to tire foregoing, but were defeated by the friends of our, curator —see minute, book of Council meetings. ■ : The question naturally now arises who is to fill Mr Ayson’s place iff the event of the appointment being-accepted by bin?. It must be remembered by the sportsmen, in-this (district that the education of Mr Ayson in colonial methods of collecting ova hais cost hundreds if not thousands of pounds, and we may have to pay this Money all over again in educating another curator to take his place Another thing to' be thought of is that it will take years after Ays on's departure for any other man to bring up our ova collecting to 2,01)0,000 per annum. Surely, if the members of the council were at all independent they would-have, in spite of all opposition, done their best to’ save all this expenditure which is looming in the near future, and consequently protect the funds which the sportsmen have been contributing. | Jlr 'Ayson, in the writer’s opinion, is the best man in Now Zealand at his work, and ho blame can be attached to ,bim in this matter,- for who would not have acteid as he has done in the same circumstances Y The point is' that the council have no right to play the fool with, our money by deliberately blinding’thumselves for a period of 18 months, when it was clearly before them that they were goihg to lose the valuable services of Ayson, and refusing to honestly face 1 the position by procuring an assistant to whom Ayson could have imparted knowledge * which wo shall now have to pay fpr doubly. - i I bavp-good reason for saying that the' Majority, of'sportsmen are, of opinion that the tiriieTiaa arrived, when the general GoBnoiifd take oyer nil the acclimatisation societies in New Zealand and make acclimatisation a national work.. The Goyernnient could do this well*. and mako a profit out of it., Mr Ayson would then be the right man in a good place.