THE STANDARD. SATURDAY, JUNE 7, 1873.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 59, 7 June 1873, Page 2

THE STANDARD.

SATURDAY, JUNE 7, 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.”

While the settlers of the Bay are giving an intelligent attention to the ways and means of more effectually securing to themselves the powers of local government, we would express a wish that it should take another and a more extended form than that shadowed forth at the meeting which decided that the present Road Board district should be enlarged. The desirableness of separating ourselves from the Province of Auckland has often been discussed; and we speak within the mark when we say that such a movement set afoot at the present juncture would receive the hearty support of every adult in the district. The question is not so much a consideration of what good will follow the proposed change, as it is the obtaining of an unanimous expression of opinion on the form of government most acceptable to the people, and most readily to be obtained at the hands of the Legislature ; for it cannot be denied that we are driven to take this course through the cruel desertion of us by the Auckland Government, and any change must be an improvement. The Provincial Executive, under the Superintendency of Mr. Gillies, have heaped up wrong upon wrong so persistently with a deaf ear to our entreaties, that we have conceived a superlative degree of political hatred towards them which will admit of no atonement.

The necessity for action being admitted, we have to choofce between association with the Provinceof Hawke’s Bay, or asking Parliament for the erection of the district into a Shire. We mention the former because, hitherto, that has aeemed to be the only alternative ; but we cannot support that view now. Hawke’s Bay Juts treated us well —nay, nobly, and we hold her past kindness in grateful remembrance. She has aided us in our infancy,, and would, no doubt, be glad to receive us in our youth.; but, as our days pass on to manhood, we would prefer the healthy vigor of self-help, to receiving eleemosynary aid even from' our friends. We are aware that if the county system is decided on, Westland will be quoted by our opponents as an instance where it has failed to fulfill the promise of its birth ; that, in fact, it has been a great failure. But we want no system elaborated to so painfully expensive an extent as Mr. Hall’s grandiloquent ideas led him to believe was necessary. A county that requires the united strength of 3<X) ndd clauses to separate it from its parent, had better remain in its. tutelage. Poverty Bay requires no inducement of that kind ; practically yve are managing our own affairs at this moment, and require but legal recognition as a political entity to cut the galling bands of Provincial slavery at once and for ever. Starting from the Southern boundary of the Province in a line to Ngatapa; thence to the Motu Valley, and on to the East Cape, would give us a county possessing an area large enough to secure sufficient influence to effect a partition; and this obtained, would involve no very great augmentation of governmental expenditure, while we should enjoy the possession and management of our own revenue. Let' us look into the matter. Could we not have dispensed with the miserable dole the Auckland Government has voted us, on condition that we had the land fund which it filched from us ?■ Or with the £2O to improve the harbor ? Our revenue from all sources must increase; and if taxation is to be the main feature of our remaining as we are, we may as well have the disposition of it ourselves. We may also look to the General Government acquiring more land on this Coast; our Shipping would increase; Harbor dues ; Sheep assessment; Custom’s duties; Road rates, are all within the scope of reckoning on the Cr. side of the account, against which we hold it to be necessary at first, to augment the Governmental expenses# only to such an extent as would still leave a large balance in our favor.

It is whispered in well-informed circles, that the Auckland Government contemplate contracting a loan. The Provincial debt, if we remain a portion of the province, will fall on us to aid in paying off, while-we shall not, probably, receive any benefit from the borrowed money. From the earliest days of Provincial institutions, this hypothecation of the future interests of outlying settlements, for the immediate benefit of a few, has been a bone of contention, and, step by step, has caused those farthest removed from the centre to seek redress in dissolution. The longer we submit to a continuance of the present oppression, the more difficult shall we find it to free ourselves from the meshes of the oppressor. It is gratifying to find that the same reasons we are advancing in support of separation are offered on the other side of the island where the settlers of Rangitikei and Wanganui are asserting their claims to independence, and that the New Zealand Herald is backing them up with an influence which, in justice, should be exercised in our cause as well. la a recent article on the separation movement, that journal expresses itself with an eloquence which, mutatis mutandis, we claim as applicable to the Province of Auckland, and the cause we advocate: —

“ Superintendentalism does not appear to be “ in high favor in the Western division of the “ province of Wellington. Mr. Superintendent “ Fitzherbert, and his able lieutenant (Mr. “ Secretary Bunny) contemplate another loan of “ two hundred thousand pounds, in round “numbers, to be expended on public works “within the province of Wellington A “ numerously-attended public meeting has been “ held at Wanganui, at which resolutions have “ been passed unanimously in favor of separa“tion from the province of. Wellington, and the “ constitution of the district between Rangitikei “and Waingongora, into a county. A Separation “Committee has been nominated, and funds “are Sowing in to promote the movement. We

“ are debited at the news. There is vet some “hope that Provincial Government * will be *’ routed up in the North Island before long. “’The district in question is one of the richest “ in New Zealand, and should not be tied to the “ rest of the province, with which it has less “ community of interests than with Auckland ” We endorse these sentiments, and hope to see the Herald, in its columns, and its editor iu the House of Representatives, ranged on our side, when the full measure of justice is demanded to be meted out to us.