The Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) The Oldest Daily Newspaper on the West Coast. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 1885. LACK OF PUBLIC SPIRIT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IX, Issue 77, 4 March 1885, Page 2

Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) The Oldest Daily Newspaper on the West Coast. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 1885. LACK OF PUBLIC SPIRIT.

In Wanganni as m many other places m New Zealand a lack of practical liberality and the spirit of enterprise on the part of local capital with regard to projects calculated to pior mote the prosperity of the district frequently necessitates' betiefic&a/t' schemes being abandoned: There has lately been an agitation 1 to open up the river navigation, on which Mr Rochfort reports very favourably, and which would do incalculable good to the whole West Coast. Strange to say, although only some 2,000 £l shares are required for the proposed Steam Boat Company, only 1400 have been applied for. As our contemporary the Herald remarks: — "It does seem a humiliating thing m a place like this, where we have men who are wealthy enough to take the shares up m Haifa dozen hauds, that not one of them can be induced to subscribe for a «i»gle share. Some of them will not only not take a share themselves, but go lurther and prevent others from doing so J»y their damaging statements, which Mr Rochfoet's report, when published, will amply refute." Such a fctata of things reflects most discreditably on Wanganui, ahd to this lack of public spiritedness may be attributed to some considerable extent the stagnant commercial condition of that town, Vhich, with all its natural advantages and vast undeveloped resources, has been m a state of chronic depression for years past. Its capitalists are too selfish, too small-minded, and too grasping. "We could name half a dozen whose aggregate wealth would run a long way into half-a-million, who are notoriously niggardly m tlnnr support of local projects calculated to send the place ahead. They will accumulate wealth till their dying hour, but they -would not open their purse-strings to aid the place m which they became what they are. Wanganui is already notorious for this il liberality on the. pat t of several of it« capitalists, and the place has suffered, and will continue to suffer, not a little m consist quence.