The New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator No. 185, Saturday, October 15, 1842
[Editorial Note, New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator, Saturday, October 15, 1842]
We have inserted in another part of our paper an extract from a very long letter written by Mr. Golder of Petoni, upon the vital necessity of our procuring an article of export. It will be gathered from this extract that Mr. Golder considers he has planned a machine which will reduce the Native Flax to a state fit for exportation. The writer seeks no reward, he further considers that the machine may be made for a small sum of money; but he will not divulge his secret until it is made evident to him that the requisite funds are in hand. As a means of obtaining that fund, he proposes that a Company should be formed, “say of about 200 or 300 or more shares, at 5s. or 10s. each, the half of each share to be paid into the hands of a Treasurer on subscribing for the shares; ” this Company would have a capital consequently of from £50 to £150, half of which, or £25 or £75, is to be paid up. We need hardly state the persons would not become parties to a Company on such a scale; and that if they would it would be an unwise mode of raising such a small sum. Say that £150 be needed, now we are sure that it would be an easy task to get ten persons each to contribute £15, for the accomplishment of an object, which all feel is of so much importance; but, before the money is forthcoming, a conviction that the object would be attained must be created. The ingenious are always sanguine, it is necessary that they should be, but it is unreasonable that they should, as they generally do, expect the public to be equally so, especially when it is well known that a person cannot avail himself of the English patent law without making a considerable payment, while the statistics of that office show that not more, if we remember correctly, than two out of every hundred patents have been applied after having been paid for. The cause we presume of this curious fact being that, some insurmountable difficulty arises upon the real application of the invention to the business of production. Were the public as sanguine as inventors the world would be wholly employed in the business of discovery, and application would be disregarded. Fortunately it is otherwise, and that a highly valuable purpose can be discovered in that apparent indifference, of which the ingenious unwisely complain.