THE SKETCHER.

Otago Witness, Issue 3510, 21 June 1921, Page 59

THE SKETCHER.

OIL FIELDS IN THE FROZEN NORTH. THE RUSH TO THE REPORTED OIL FIELDS ON THE MACKENZIE RIVER. By Fkbdbick NT vex in the World’s Work. The following proclamation (which I quote in full for the delectation of those 'whose taste for place-names, with their romantic suggestions, is not limited to those of the stereotyped, or aesthetically hall-marked, Italian tour) has been issued by the acting Deputy Past-master at Ottawa : Postal Notice. Winter Mail Service to Mackenzie River. The Post Office Department has arranged for mail service during the coming winter 1920-21 to points into Mackenzie River District. 1. Mails will leave Edmonton 25 th November, 23rd December, 20th January, 24th February, and 24th March for Fort McMurray, Fort McKay, Fort Chipewyan, Fort Fitzgerald, Fort Smith, and Fort Resolution. 2. Mails will leave Edmonton on 25th November, 23rd December, and 20th January fifr Hay River, Fort Providence, and Fort Simpson. 3. Mails will leave Edmonton on 25th November and 20th January for Fort Wrigley, Fort Norman, Fort Good Hope, Arctic Red River, and Fort McPherson. It is necessqry to limit the mail matter for these despatches to registered and oddinary letters, newspapers, and parcels cf a reasonable weight, preference being given in every case to registered matter according to date of posting. There is no without fire, no such proclamation without cause, and the cause of this one is the new discoveries in the Great Lone North. During the late autumn there have come cut cf that northland (the map of which is sparsely dotted with the e names) men with tales as miraculous ass Herodotus heard—tales of springs of soda-water ; cf fields of tar : of natural gas, bursting through fissures, that men might boil a pot; stories of sean'is of outcrop, coal smoking awav in the wilderness, summer and winter, lit by some bush fire years ago—stories that are incredible only to the arrogantly ignorant. Theee men have come a long wav. Fort Norman, fortv-five miles north-west of which one of the discoveries has been made, is nine hundred and fiftv miles north of Edmonton as the crow flies, and about one thousand ’ five hundred by the twists of lake and river highwavs. That the Imnerial Oil Oomnanv Ihm stated nine miles of left hank of th« Mackenzie, nine miles of Tight, and islands in the middle is taken as a definite ri-rn not onlv of the value of the oil but of the nosrihiqtv of having the transport nroblem solved. T-ooal syndicates have also arisen, and their representatives have also staked neon- acres. Them who have “comp nut.” and do not- talk, merelv strengtfmo fh° belief ; n the truth of the stories told bv the loquacious ; for. although they snv “there is nnt.hinnr there.” manv of them have boated namage on the fir c( steamer that ’rill churn a wav down the Aiark-cnzie *riHi the breaking of the ice in Snrin<r. Thev "r-tr t t>'o much that there is nothing; it ’« an old stratagem. T>”t thorn who talk- nth er'ri-ie have brought proof, ip tins; thev have be r n nroapecting for oil—and have found it. To vain for the “h”ehhnsh” man to ov there is nothing, p—eoimons of oil. after the can« were pierced f.o let the "as c'v'rn have been noured o>-+ hv the Government ri'nr° c P r, H.Jirp<! n* Ft]Tr»ot*f.on. of •» TP , 'tr , h oil Kas b’azed. fiercely burned in proof of the vr 1 "e of 11 . discoveries. One well no r.’orc than forto" vards from the Afacheprin Ttivpr chore. “sf.rnr-k a iriiptip*.” af eight hundred feet, s,routing the o’l fifteen fenf ovo- the tm’ of the rt’a. dar-1 nmotv-foot derrick in ir' l Tt lias to comn nnrnovc for th"t is t.to well fhc+ hue brought tt>c o—oifament ■ - a fo noint and is dreudv send'ng vo ihe nrieps for 1 paves. Thin gCTnt is out that n-.co running Tvatav-craff on +t P ,1 -.-f 1, r : spasuo have bee-, fnndipn- 1 vet Sl’gb nil to their n-vrirp- e f ter - t -rfiorr v ‘I, the gasclinc the— earricT v-it 1 , thnm Govemnaent. -'gv’vor’ rrr-:k-i- fs. 0.1 e'-iOi-'-r-,, hav-e ?rrr lon., Iron 0,.-rrn rf n; 1 nulrpt-prn in <he oert.h Tt is hio-hlr- ,i—n--1 ship that nil is In h n f,-up 1 rv” a tren-eo_ dr nr area from Athabarre TaodiV- to the .Aratic rl'orpr Thn “nil n-noo : 't’on” is as .nail-- aff'.cotivp tn fhose V f <.-*-'-nll pawl al -* the nhl o'a.-er (t-’-’n-op'p’ i l( ppp, ’■nil mini- i„ the W„,l„o ..V-d Were for the 1n.,,1 era- In c'"ln,3 1,.. thn oil mo neetor at the ™f.' ~f art- ppots p., aeve nor year, and fhp outfit is not exneuoive dVeal’li Through P< i it ThL article is no emigration boo t. Tt is but- to tell of the men who like to hunt great wealth through peril, with endurance. If it were only to gct-riih-quick that was their aim thev would all he in Wall Street nearer to the comforts of the club. Mrcadv the rush ban commenced, despite winter. The Rovnl Canadian Mounted Police (the force that is taking Ho v da re of the old Royal North-West Mvi'.’fc 1 Police) has orders to keep an eye on those men who aro going out in march of t-Ke “black gold.'" and see that thev are of the “Sonrdoi3gh” (old-timer) and not of the “Cheeebako” (newcomer) breed, that they have some conception of the ordeals before them, knowledge how to face the privations, and are packin-, at least a year’s supplies of provisions. tn the summer, it is true, because of the “long day.” a great quantity of crops may ri'-oii up there, near the .Arctic Circle, jut as well as hundreds of miles south; ow n flowers, in that queer north, bloom with a tropic glory. In summertime the thermometer can register ninety degrees

in the shade; the heat haze hangs trembling over the land and grasshoppers chirr all day. Then, after the haunting glamour of Indian summer drops into the quiescence of autumn, the thermometer falls, sometimes to fifty- or sixty below zero. The “Sourdough” can live, but the “Cheechako” may die. If every tenderfoot who has rushed to Edmonton intending to spring off into the north were allowed to do so, the Royal Canadian ‘Mounted Police boys yvould do nought all winter but trail through the yvildernesa looking for their last camps. —The Way InThe “way in” at the time of ’writing is as foil ows : the traveller leaves Edmonton (with all its metropolitan comforts, its tourists’ hotels with hot and cold water in every bedroom, or with private bathroom attached, with it-s stores and their show like the shows of Bond Street), and goes on by railway to Lac la Biche. The train is no mere “freight,’* carrying passengers in the caboose. They can travel in a Pullman car, sitting on velvet chairs, yvitb a coon attendant to brush them down at the end. From Lac la Biche onward are only construction trains—at- least while I write this —to carry pilgrims to .the end of, the steel. At the moment railhead is about twenty miles from Fort- McMurray. There lie the stern-wheelers, the paddles encased to protect them from floating snags, which surge away north on the Chipewyan River as far as Fitzgerald. Caterpillar tractors there do to-day what the old voyageurs were wont to do yvith a tump-line” over their foreheads —-transport the loads round the rapids: and beyond the rapids the pilgrim goes aboard another stern-wheeler (or whatever craft he can find) that plies to the Arctic S,ea by Lake Athabasca, Slave River, Great Slave Lake, arid Mackenzie River. That is the route, and the easiest way. in summer. In winter the sledge and dog-team take the p’ace of river craft. In the spring the big, real rush will begin. All the berths in all the boats as far as to next July are already booked. How will it end ? They sit and discuss it at the verges of the North. A Pipe Line to the Arctic. There is talk of a pipe-line hundreds of miles long to bring the oil out southward. There is talk of tank steamers that will carry it to the h ort Smith rapids, where it will be portaged the 16 miles to other tank steamers which will take it out. There is talk of a- pipe-line to carry it north, instead of south, to the Arctic shores, and of a fleet- of tank steamers to bring it round the end of Alaska bv Behring Straits. At what temperature it will freeze, how it will be thawed, when it will be run, be pumped, be tanked—these questions they sit and discuss in the warmed hotel rotundas of the last town. “Anyhow,” they say, “the stuff is there.” Fortunes will be made, and also men will die because of “black gold.” Some will come out wealthy. Others will come out, financially, no richer than'when they went iu. In every rush it is so. Back in the hotels at Jasper Avenue (on the edge of the wilderness) thev will sit and look out at the scene which is, after all, much like that of any city, although just a little way beyond the last bungalow, and the last shack, begins the spruce, the birch, the muskeg and the scented silence. But they will hardly see the electric tramcars, the bustling city men, and the tip-tapping elegant damsels. They will see the snow-laden vistas of the nine and fir, the sun-dogs, the waving pennons of the aurora above their old camps. Some of the big silence they will bring out with them, and will never be the same men again even those who do not “make good.” The Something Else.— Those who “make good,” and those who fail, will have that in common. For in all such “excitements,” “rushes, “stampedes,” although they are all nominally excitements over the dollar, there is something else. Sit among these men and you feel it; it exudes from them. They are different, from company-pro-motors and stock-brokers. They do not care for an excitement at their doors; they like their possible wealth to lie beyond the desert or beyond the blizzard. That is why even those who “make good” go back again; and it is not oiily because of the first failure that those who do not “make good” return to the quest. The quest in itself is enthralling. As for those whom the Silent Places will claim for their own—after all their end will be better than that of many who die penniless in city garrets, and have never lived. That is how we feel about it here. And as there are always men who love risk (“the bright eyes of danger”), the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, A sizing them up before they start, will let through all who give proof that they can endure. While, you sit reading this, with ahoarse and recurrent cry of “mush, mush!’ to the dogs, the nolice-boy,s will be swinging along for two dollars' or so a day (and something else not reckoned in terms of dollars), on their patrol to see how these scattered inhabitants in the northland fare, and carrying them thenmail. Lurking between the bald lines of that Postal Notice for the winter of 19201921 (a historic document for the next generation) is all the wild glamour and over-alluring romance of the dc-snerate north.

POEM THAT MADE A REVOLUTION. BYRON AND THE CENTENARY OF THE GREEK RISING. By Colonel B. R. Ward, C.M.G., in John o’ London’s Weekly. Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth! Immortal, though no more; though fallen, great! V. ho now shall lead thy scattered children forth, And long accustomed bondage- uncreate? Not such thy son-s who whilom© did await Tiie hopeless warriors of a willing doom In bleak Thermopylae’s sepulchral strait — Oh, who that gallant spirit shall resume, Leap from Eurot-as banks,- and call thee from the tomb ? In these words Byron addressed Greece and its existing inhabitants after his visit to Albania and the Morea in 1809. Greece was at that time nothing more than a geographical expression, being divided up into a number of Turkish provinces, governed by semi-independent pashas. A\ nen Byron, in company with his friend, John Hobhouse, visited A 1 i Pasha, t ,,c . I urkish Governor of Albania, at Janina, in October, 1809, lie doubtless little thought that in less than 12 years —to bo quite exact, in April, 1821—the standard of revolt would be raised m the 1 eioponnesus—-and that no names would stand higher in the estimation of the Hellenic nation than his. own and that of his Turkish host, the redoubtable “Lion of Janina.” - A Lyric Masterpiece. Never did a nation rightly struggling to ha free obtain a more magnificent advertisement of its claims and ideals. Ail later propaganda, however scientifically conducted, must pale before the immortal propaganda in support of Hellenic freedom put forth by Byron in the second canto of “Childe Harold” and in “The Lies of Greece,” that lyric masterpiece sandwiched in between two flippant stanzas m the third canto of “Don Juan.” . muc}: , for Byron’s influence -in the uprising of Hellenic nationality against 1 urkish oppression and tyranny.' , H "' V did it come about that portraits °/-i" * asha, the Turkish Governor of Aibama, were to be found hanging up in i, le ™ ts of {ireelc mountaineers during turn wav of Independence, and that no songs were more popular amongst them than those celebrating the doughty deeds ol the “Lion of Janina?” Ihe Sick Man of Europe.” , A]i did » ot support Greek independence .roin any love of the ancient classics or from any desire,to support the idea of the seif-determination of peoples, but simply and solely from overmastering ambition and love of power. The Sultan was already ■ the Sick Man of Europe.” although the name had not yet- been bestowed upon him, and the Governor of an outlying province such as Albania was in riior-e days to all intents and purposes independent monarch. . So ~ 0 as the annual tribute and judicious bribes to the Sultan’s advisers were foiJicorning,_ the Sultan was willing to leave the Lion of Janina severely alone. M lum, however Ali so far forgot himself as to nrocure the murder of one of the ftultan s relatives m Constantinople itself me. long-suffering- Commander of the f °«ed to take action, and dispatched an army to Janina in order to ret ' ,lCo h “*" so,ent . Vizier to subjection. I-iom 1820 to the spring of 1822 Ivurs. id Pasha, the Sultan’s commander-in-clncf, besieged Ali in his stronghold of Janina. Meanwhile, on April 2, 1821 the centenary of which date all Greeks have been celebrating—Archbishop Germanos raised the standard of the Gross' I.U* More,. „1 ell * ° f the Peloponnesus the TnrlUh Peasa 4 nts rose «gainri t-lieir few V i mas i?' s an< ? duri, Ft the next tew weeks thousands of Turks were massacred throughout the country. The Sultan took a terrible vengeance and on Easter Eve, April 22, 1821, immei.mtdy after the morning celebration i • e Gregorios, the Greek i a inarch of Constantinople, and two bishops of the Orthodox Greek Church v.e.e seized by his orders and hanged in then ecclesiastical vestments before the Patriarchal Palace. Meanwhile Ali Pasha was keepioo- the mam body of the Turkish armr °ful!v emt,loved round his fortress of Janina and it was not until the spring of 1822 that he was obliged to sue for terms. Rebirth of Nationalism Meanwhile the Greek- Revolution had a year s respite and time to gather strength and support from English and Freiich volunteers, such as Colonel Fabric© Thomas Gordon whose statue now stum-G m the Piraeus- and Sir Richard Church so that when Ah’s head was sent to Constant,nople m 1822. the old Lion of « Place ’>* Wrts Time, however, has dethroned Ali from T . P°' !t ion, and Byron—his guest in Janina lo years before—is now the .mentest name connected with that historic stiuggle—the first great outbreak of nationalism of the nineteenth century a robiMl?' t n‘? t Wn f- 0,1 t 0 witness' the ii both of nationalism in so many JMirojicnn countries. “The Glory That was Greece” H was in 1821—the year of the opening of the War of Greek Independeucc-that thy third canto of “Don .Tuan,” containing Byron s magnificent appeal fo the Ci reels, was published. The poem is supposed to have been rc-ciied bv a wandering Greek bard. The opeuim’ verse gives the keynote of the poem, the contrast between “the glory that was Greece” and the shame, that lias succeeded it. ! «ir, * s ' cs <l ' f ' ' I’h'oc-c! the islc,s of Greece! '\\ ii'T’o burning- Sappho loved and sung, \\ here grew the- arts of war and peace, Where ."Delos rose and Phoebus sprung! Eternal summer gilds the m yet, Tint all, except their sun, is set. The poem -ends in a note of despair and defiance ;

Place ms on Sunium’s marbled etoep, Where nothing, eaves the waves and I. M.ay hear cur mutual murmurs sweep: T Ire re swan-like let me sing and die! A land of sday.es shall ne’er be mine—j Dash down yc*n cup of Samian wine! REFORMS IN THE HOMELAND. i PUTTING AN END TO FEUDALISM. The privileged days of the' "Lord of the Manor” are corning to an end and another chapter in the feudal history of England closes. “Shorn of hi-s quit rents, free rents, fines arbitrary, fines certain and heriots, the lord of the manor will have only the honour and glory of the title to sustain him ; but he ceases to act as an obstructor to land reform, and, as he has ceased to be picturesque in his persistent survival, none will mourn him.” “A tremendous change in the appii> a tion of the Common „J-aw of England relating to real and personal estate is in process of evolution, says the Daily Chronicle Parliamentary 'correspondent. “By the enactment of the Law cf Property Bill, to be examined in Committee by the House of Lords this week, a great sim.nl ifu'aCiou in conveyancing and oi the establishment and registration of title will be effected. Feudalism Ending. “To the unimaginative lay mind the Bill is just a bewildering jumble of legal phrases, and a dull compilation at that; • while a legal training is. necessary to a full appreciation of its significance as a measure of legislative reform, from which point of view it is inspiring enough, “But it may appeal to the historian, the antiquary, and the 'historical novelist in anotner sense—as a regrettable necessity, perhaps—for with its passing will finally disappear the remaining privileges of feudalism. “The manor, which has survived from Saxon times until the present dav, will he swept away, with all its ‘incidents’— fines, heriots, quit rents, free rents, estovers, escheats, courts leet and courts baron, view of frankpledge, assize cf beer a-nd of bread, and all the rest of its archaic formulary ; and with it will vanish the ancient pageantry of lord, thane, knight, vassal, socman, villein, steward, reeve, liayward, heaaborough, grieve, woodward, and beadle, representatives of whom still survive in those manors whose j lords take pride in the maintenance of I their petty seignories as a matter of sentiment. Lord Haldane’s Reforms. “With the disappearance of these forms and figures of _a bygone age, much of the romance attaching to the ownership of the soil will go too. Soon the sale or purchase a parcel of land or of a house will be no more mysterious <i process than buying or selling a ship. “Lord Haldane set about this reform as long ago as 1914, but the war came, and his Bill was shelved. The present Bill, which will be identified with the n,h me of Lord Birkenhead, embodies nearly all Lord Haldane’s reforms, and in 1 a simpler form. “Its general principle, as the draughtsman puts it, is to assimilate the law of real and personal estate. Far-reaching Changes. —- | “When the draughtsman goes on to ; explain that it involves the repeal of the Statute of Uses, only a lawver will grasp the true inwardness® of ' the announcement, which is a- very far-reaching one indeed, for the Statute of Uses has governed certain transactions in land since the 27th of Henry VIII. i “The Bill, in effect, gives facilities for overriding all interests in land, except legal estates in fee simple or for a term of years ’absolute; equitable interests have to be registered to escape being overridden, and all charges and incidents are to be appraised as definite terminable amounts. “Another salient reform is in the application of the existing law . relating to the devolution of personal estate on an intestancy of land generally. This involves changes in tke rule of inheritance of an intesta-nt-’s landed estate; among other provisions, kindred more remote than 1 second cousins are excluded, the Crown taking the place of a ! l others. Exit the Copyholder. Remnants of the feudal system are destroyed by the abolition of copyhold tenure, which is absolutely to disappear, onlv ‘the quaint and inoffensive services ■ -rand and Petty Sergeanty’ remaining, i All the rents, fines, heriots, and the I rest of the ‘incidents' may he compounded i for °n a specified scale of compensation or converted into a rent-charge or 20 fixed annual instalments. j “All manorial ‘incidents’ must be ascertained and redeemed or their redemp- : tion provided for within five years, and ■ at the end of 10 years all will cease to i he operative, whether declared or not. | “Thus the vexatious restrictions that hinder the transfer of copyhold property and injure its possessors ' will be completely swept away, and the copyholder will become a freeholder, subject- ter the | discharge of the ascertained value of the quit rents, free rents, and heriots to which he is liable under the custom of the manor, and to the compensation lor the steward—the steward is never forgotten in these scheme! of reform. I “Another useful reform is that the Minister of Agriculture may cause reputed copyhold land to be declared and defined ; at present there is no power to make the lord or the steward define such land, with the result that speculative ‘claim.-, are liable to he launched against freeholders who are living adjacent ! to or within a manor.”

THE YOUNG MA M PF TO-MORROW, Mr 11. (!. Wells, writing on "t;alvaring of Civilisation” in the Sunday Times,' disc. ibes what- hte mav be tc. “an ordinary young man living in a World State” in the days to c- me. He would evidently have a good time, for, says Mr Wells; “He will probably be educated continuously at hast until he is 18 or 19, and perhaps until he is two or three and twenty. I’or a world that wastes none of its resources upon aimsment.-. or soldiering, and which produces whatoicr it wants in the regions best adapted to that production, a'fui delivers them to the consumer by the direetest route, will he rich enough not onlv to spare the first quarter of everybody's life for education entirely, but to keep on «ith some education throughout their entire lifetime. To-morrow’s Education. I aon t know whether any of ns really grasp what we are saving when we talk of greater educational efficiency in the future. That means, if it means anything. teaching more with much less trouble. It will mean, for instance, tha*t most people will have three or four languages properly learnt: that they will think about things mathematical with a quickness and clearness that nnrzler us; th it about all sorts of things i - u minds will move in daylight where c.-rs move in a haze of ignorance or in an emotional this clear-headed, broad-thinking young citizen of the World State will not be given up after his educational years to a life of toil; there will be very little toil left in the world. Mankind will have mach’nes and power enough to do most of the toil for it. Why between 1914 and 1918 we blew awav enough energy and destroyed enough machinery and turned enough good grey matter into stinking filthy to release hundreds of millions of toilers from toil for ever. ‘Our young citizen will choose some sort of interesting work—perhaps creative work. And he will be free to travel about the whole world without a passport or visa, without a change of money; everywhere will be his country; he will find people everywhere who will be endless]v different, but none suspicious or hostile. The world will he a far healthier place than it is now—for mankind as a whole w “I still carry on organised wars- no longer wars of men against men. but of men against malarias and diseases and infections. Probably he will never know what a cold is, or a headache. .“But it is very difficult to (ill in the picture of his adult life so thaf it will seem real to our experience. It is hard to conceive and still more difficult to convey. We live in this congested, bickering, elbowing, shoving world, and it- has soaked into our natures and made us a part of itself. Hardly any of us know wliat it is to be properly educated, and hardly any want it is to be in constant- general good health.”