The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 1929 HONOUR AMONG BEGGARS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 636, 12 April 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 1929 HONOUR AMONG BEGGARS

FE library needs of New Zealand’s four University Colleges are so deplorably acute that the administrative authorities have, been willing for a long time to accept a gift of money from the, Carnegie Trust in America to help fill meagre shelves with up-to-date educational books. In the practice of this pathetic eagerness to receive aid from abroad, the importunists or opportunists now look like falling out into a disagreeable quarrel between themselves over the dispensation of free money. A report from Wellington announces circumstantially that grants of £.1,500 and £SOO a year respectively for five years have been made by the Carnegie Trustees to Otago University and Canterbury College for university extension work in their rural districts/ This report has been interpreted in the North Island as evidence of a reprehensible breach of faith on the part of the South Island university colleges. It has been explained that for some time past the New Zealand University Council, on behalf of the four institutions it administratively controls, had been preparing a joint request to the Carnegie Trustees for a substantial grant of money to purchase hooks for the college libraries (which are badly equipped), and for annual sums to assist university extension work in each of the four college districts. Indeed, such an application has been forwarded to the United States, but too recently for a reply just yet. And now it is asserted that by some manner or method not explained clearly in detail Otago and Canterbury have secured a gift of £IO,OOO between them for the extension of university education in rural districts. Quite naturally representatives of the two North Island university colleges are enraged over the apparent obliquity of South Island importunity. In other words, if they must all be beggars, those in the South have been quickest and best at begging. Possibly it is nothing worse than the practice of greater experience in the art. Otago already had gained the”*" benefit of a munificent gift out of the Carnegie millions, and it must he a special delight for a Scottish community to obtain free money from a Scottish source. Still, when North Island educationists reflect upon the splendid endowments for university education that Otago enjoys, they could scarcely refrain from an outburst of temper over an apparent demonstration of Otago selfishness and insatiable greed. If it be true, as alleged with indignation, that the South Island colleges “have gone behind the hacks” of the North Island colleges while a joint application for a generous Carnegie gift was pending, the successful action of the southern administrators is unpardonable and deserving of the harsh comments that already have been made about it in the north. Unless smartness be honourable it cannot escape a more opprobrious term. There is as yet, however, no convincing evidence that the administrator's of the South Island university colleges have acted in a dishonourable way. No doubt a prima facie ease has been made out against them, but the indictment as to, smart practice is so far based merely on superficial proof. It has to he noted in perfect fairness that the only definite report available shows that the Home Science Department of the University of Otago has received advice that the trustees of the Carnegie Institute had made a grant of £1,500 a year, as from January 1, 1930, for the purpose of carrying out education work in rural districts. According to a Dunedin newspaper report the credit of having received this grant has been given to Professor Strong who received congratulations for her efforts at securing the money. It has yet to be proved conclusively whether or no the university administrators in the South Island were directly associated with the application for the grant and were primarily responsible for the so-called breach of faith by the Otago and Canterbury colleges at a time when they knew perfectly well that a. combined appeal to the Cax-negie Institute was going forward. Meanwhile, it is to he regretted that there should be, even superficially, sufficient reason for suspicion and lively anger, finding expression in argument for separating the North Island from the South Island in respect of university control. Perhaps it is to he regretted more deeply that the New Zealand University should he reduced to such financial straits as to depend on monetary gifts from America to procure essential books for the libraries of its colleges. Still, it is hard to practise the ideal of self-reliance if and when easy money may be had merely for the begging. MERCURY IN THE NORTH rE atmosphere of reticence, almost of secrecy, with which operations have been surrounded has tended to obsc.ure from the general public the immense importance of the work undertaken upon the North Auckland cinnabar field by Imperial Chemical Industries, Dimited. Though the existence of this field has been-known for a long time, it has been worked only spasmodically. New Zealand Quicksilver Mines, Ltd. had a plant at Puhipuhi, where operations were renewed after a lapse of five years by a concern known as the Great British Mercury Mine. Producing •£ 462 worth of mercury in 1927, this concern brought the total yield since production was first attempted to £8,336. The period covered, however, embraced no enterprise worked on anything like the scale of the proposed operations at Ngawha, and if the plans on this development hear fruit the meagre figures of the past should be qu.iekly eclipsed. Some idea of the vigour and scope of the new development was given in a special article in last evening’s Sun. By a coincidence the same issue contained a cabled item stating that Imperial Chemical Industries, Ltd., had increased its capital to the colossal figure of £95,000,000. Accompanied as it is by a steady expansion of the interests of the great concern, this removes any fear that the North Auckland enterprise may be hampered by that bane of New Zealand mining syndicates, lack of capital. Already the amount expended on roading and other preliminaries, or placed in orders with New Zealand manufacturers, shows the value of such an association. The world’s principal sources of mercury for generations have been the cinnabar fields in Spain, Italy, and the United States. There has been very little important production from within the British Empire, and although so much has not been publicly stated, it is conceivable that part of the motive behind the operations of Imperial Chemical Industries, Ltd. in New Zealand is the desire to maintain a centre of production within the. Empire. It is significant that elaborate and systematic boring was undertaken before the Ngawha proposition was adopted, and this hopeful feature, coupled with the company’s vast resources, stamps its entry as one of the most important developments in the Dominion’s mining history. There is a faint suggestion that the representatives of the company consider. they have not had proper support from either the Government or the neighbouring local bodies. If this is so it is regrettable. The importance of its enterprise entitles the company to every possible assistance.