NORMANBY.

Patea Mail, 24 January 1882, Page 3

NORMANBY.

(from our correspondent.)

The adventurous spirit of Hawera and her established reputation, are pleasant contrasts to the faltering inactivity of Norrnanby. Looking simply at the published addresses of the mayoral candidates, there may not perhaps be anything very original or much to admire. These addresses seem to be all cast in the same mould, to have a strange family-likeness, and to be old acquaintances, which, I fear, I have seen before. But their authors are all practical men, well tried and true. Either one of them would fill the mayoral chair as something more than a mere ornamental appendage. Mr Winks is far-seeing, industrious, and liberal, and is invested with a quiet gracefulness which would be very becoming in a first magistrate. He wastes no useless words, but is alive and pushing- by way of compensation. Mr McGuire has had exceptional experience in many departments—commercial, political, and legal—and has demonstrated his success and ability in each. An affable manner and gentlemanly deportment, combined with earnestness and a ready. tact in the minutest details, are qualities which in an eminent degree should fit him to become the leader of a quasi-commercial and agricultural borough like Hawera, and should even commend him to any office in the state. Mr James Davidson, the last of the candidates, is probably the oldest settler in the district, but whether or not, his name is a household word in every house in and around Hawera. While possessing the administrative abilities of the other candidates, he has a large and refreshing fund of genial, humor, which however, in no instance, condescends to unkind commentaries, or coarse jocularities. No name stands higher for probity and honor, and no character is more replete with sound common sense than that of Mr Davidson. These traits and attributes have come to fruition in a prosperous career, and the same integrity, earnestness,'and geniality would be brought to hear on any honorary office to which he might be raised by the voice of the people. Mr Davidson will, I think, be the first Mayor of Hawera. Whichever succeeds to office, the district is now bound to forge ahead. Thirty years ago Dunedin was one vast and abominable mud-hole ; yet even then Captain Cargill assured a numerous audience that in fifty years or dess it would become a great and influential city, an assurance which was received with many a bitter smile, while the younger and more mirthful majority greeted the announcement with shouts of laughter. A few of ns (young people at the time) afterwards met, and we all agreed that the old gentleman was stark mad. Let Hawera take courage—she is better by ten times than Dunedin then was ; and the latter is how at this moment the most populous and wealthy city in New Zealand, and more famous than any other for its cleanly streets and architectural beauty. And it is not so long since one of our English princes had the Mayoress of Dunedin for a partner in the ball-room, an incident which I here purposely introduce to remind Mr Davidson that (as he is likely to be Mayor) when royalty visits Hawera it will expect a Mayor’s consort to head its festivities.