NATURE-AND MAN

Waikato Times, Volume 118, Issue 19634, 22 July 1935, Page 4

NATURE-AND MAN

‘CURSED HUNGER OF GOLD.’

ALAS! THE LOSS.

(By Leo Fanning.)

Yes—although some teachers may argue about it—a fair translation of an old Roman writer’s words, inscribed twenty centuries, or so, ago, would be “cursed hunger of gold.” Queer! Although gold satisfies no real human need it has been a bane of mankind for untold ages. It cannot be eaten; it cannot be used as a-blanket on a winter’s night; if it were as common as lead it might be useful to stop a leak in a pot or a pan, but for that purpose it would not be nearly as valuable as solder or lead, for gold is not easily melted. Yet the quest of gold has cost human lives in millions; it has wrecked countless homes; it has destroyed huge areas of food-producing country. The best that can be said for the metal is that it has served as a makeweight in arranging the balances of goods (the real wealth, such as food and materials for clothing, housing and other needs) between various countries, but that' is merely because the countries lacked a more intelligent method of composing their differences. Already gold is losing that function. A few years hence—ten perhaps, fifty at the most—the world will look back and laugh at the fusses and messes made by gold in the evolution of civilisation.

Does that read like a sermon, dear friends? The excuse for it is that New Zealand is still having good land ruined in the swishing and sluicin'’- for gold. My gaze goes back a good few years to stark scenes oi desbutnorz on the West Coast of the South Island. Poor ICumara! I remember well the sadness that came upon me when I looked out from my tramper’s camp one bright Sunday morning on a wide waste of barren b.oulders from which a rich cover of soil had been swept away by the savage nozzles of the gold-sluicers. Some flakes and specks of metal were “won,” but what was lost? Something which took Nature many thousands of years to make; something, a fertile soil, which would have yielded a good living for many folk as long as the land stayed above the sea, but that priceless asset has been lost. It is beyond man’s power to restore that real wealth. What about Nature? If Nature is allowed to. have her way, she may be able to make another good layer of soil in a few thousand years—but that is beyond the bounds of “practical politics ”

Raids on Forests.

Correspondents of the Forest and Bird Protection Society have become alarmed about the issue of “miners’ rights” in certain wooded country in the western districts of Nelson and Westland. It is complained that these so-called “rights’’—which have been denounced as “New Zealand’s wrongs” -—allow the holders to take sad toll of timber on cez-tain lands owned by the State. Indeed it is said that in some cases timber, rather than gold, is the real objective, cloaked by “minez-s’ z-ights.” Who is to take action for. “public rights,” the rights of the present generation and posterity to have a-proper conservation of national assets? The present unsatisfactory position calls for the quotation of a remark made recently by Mr J. N. Darling, Chief of the Biological Suz-vey, U.S.A. “We have,” he said, “reached that point in our national development where we must concern ourselves with plans for the more ordez-ly utilisation of our lands and resources. After 300 years of occupation, it is time for us to sort our goods and decide which possessions are worth keeping and which az-e not.” ,

Australia Awakens!

The Sydney “Bulletin” has become a good pz-eacher of the kind of gospel which New Zealand’s Forest and Bird Protection Society has beezz presenting to the pzzblic hez’e for some yeaz’s. “For the second time within a few months a vast area of Gippsland (Victoria) is under watez’,” the “Bulletin” commented recently. “Tremendous losses have been caused, and permanent injury may have been done to hundreds of agricultuz-al and pastoral properties. Cabinet has called foz- reports fronj the Water Commission, the Foz-ests Commission, the Public Works and Railways, and public opinion in Gippsland is so thoroughly aroused that their recommendations may not be consigned to pigeonholes, as is usually the case. “Investigations made since the earlier flood strongly indicate that these inundations are traceable to the intense desire to chop down trees. Country must, of course, be cleared to enable crops to be grown and stock pastured, but the clearing in many instances did not pause when these objectives were reached. Just as the Englishman says ‘lt’s a fine day; let’s

(Continued in next column.)

kill something,’ the Australian has been saying for 50 years ‘lt’s a fine day; let’s fall a tree.’ He did not act with malice or even without thought, but in earlier times the value of forests as a means of preventing floods was not propez-Iy understood. Victorian experts are now agreed that had a scientifically devised system been in operation there would ; have been no floods over Gippsland and scores of thousands of pounds’ worth of destruction would have been averted.”

Beech—The Oldest Tz-ee-Name.

“Beech is probably the oldest existing. tree-name in the world,”, writes Darel McConkey. “It is derived from the Sanskrit ‘boko,’ meaning ‘letter,’ and ‘bokas,’ or ‘writings.’ The’AngloSaxon ‘boc,’ the German ‘buche,’ and the Swedislz ‘box’ all mean ‘book,’ and probably originated from the fact that old Runic tablets were of beechwood. Beech remains were found in ruins of Swiss lake-dwellings. Beech mast, or ‘buck,’ for feeding swine, was a subject of early medieval legislation, and gave its name to the English county of Buckingham.”