THE QUEST FOR OIL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20269, 30 November 1927, Page 9

THE QUEST FOR OIL

POPULAR PUBLIC VIEW. NOT CONSIDERED LEGITIMATE. (Press Assentation—By Telegraph—Oopyrigot , MELBOURNE, November 29. (Received Nov. °'), at 10 p.m.) Mr W. A- Watt, ex-Speaker of the House of Representatives, and a member of the House of Representatives and chairman.of directors of the Taranaki Oilfields, Limited, of New Zealand, criticised oil prospecting in Australia and New Zealand in his annual address to the shareholders of the Taranaki Oil Compaily. He said it had to be remembered that commercial oil production in Australia and New Zealand was not yet an accomplished fact. The history of such prospecting as had been done was a spasmodic effort, and was not infrequently surrounded by an atmosphere calculated to alienate the sympathy of the sound business elements of the community. In fact, most Australian efforts had become perilously near to being a byword, and a holder of shares in an oil -prospecting venture was still looked upon in some quarters as being, financially speaking, a little unbalanced. There had been no opportunity in Australia or New Zealand for the general public to form a correct view of the quest for oil, but, contrary to the erroneous but popular view, the search for oil was as legitimate and straightforward a business as any other.