THE STANDARD. WEDNESDAY JANUARY 29, 1873.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume 1, Issue 22, 29 January 1873, Page 2

THE STANDARD.

WEDNESDAY JANUARY 29, 1873.

“ We shall sell to no man justice or right: We shall deny to no man justice or right: We shall defer to no man justice or right.”

If the Port and District of Poverty Bay are to continue to advance, and receive a proper recognition at the hands of both Governments, it will be more from the gratuitous advocacy of friends from without, than from any active interest the settlers, themselves take in public matters.

We have been waiting for a more convenient opportunity than has presented itself to us lately, in which to say a few words on this matter, and, if possible, to rouse the people from the passive to the active mood of life ; at the same time to give them the opinion which is entertained by influential men in New Zealand relative to the capacities and importance of this Bay as a field of enterpgse. We had almost despaired of removing the lethargy which hangs over the minds of our rising community; but we take heart again from circumstances that have lately transpired.

A writer in a late number of the Weekly News has done good service in helping us to draw the attention of the Government to the hitherto neglected state of the whole district, and endorses our own opinion so completely that we present the following extract to our readers, with a hope that it may be the means of bringing forth fruit:— “ There are many fine districts in this province, not yet utilised by the white population, suitable for sheep-feeding, and now that wool is rising so rapidly I hope to see some of these places taken possession of. I would instance the Poverty Bay district. The land there is good, and abundant, and well adapted for sheep runs. Although that fine district belongs to this province geographically, it is well known that the wants of the settlers there have been, as a rule, neglected by the Provincial Government. Ido not believe the Government had any idea of the wealth of the district until a few months ago, when the Provincial Secretary went there on a land-selling excursion. A newspaper has been lately established there, and if the neglect of the past be continued there can be no doubt but the paper will advocate the interests of the settlers, rather than the interests of the Auckland province. The form that advocacy would take would be to join that district to the Hawke’s Bay province; in fact the dismemberment of this province. I have sometimes thought, looking at all the circumstances of the case, it would be good policy if a number of our old settlers were to show that they took practical interest in the Poverty Bay district. The plan I would propose would be this: Let a number of our oldest settlers, such as Mr. J. May, Mr. A. Martin, Ac., purchase farms in that district;, or lease tracts of land from the natives, whiph can easily be done at a reasonable price, and then send one or two of their grown-up sons to manage the farms or runs. I believe the plan would work admirably. It would show the pioneer settlers at Turanganui that the oldest settlers cf this province had not forgotten them, and it would establish a ready method of letting the wants of that district be known in quarters whence it may reasonably be anticipated some influence will proceed. The isolation in wliich the settlers there have been placed, and the neglect with which their wants have been t eated in the past, have made them feel they were a sepa-ate province or colony, and not a component part of one of the large provinces in the colony.