NAPIER.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume II, Issue 103, 8 November 1873, Page 3

NAPIER.

[from our own correspondent.] October 31. The province of Hawke’s Bay will be very shortly as famous for the number of its publie houses as the colony of New Zealand is for that of its civil servants. Public houses are going up in all directions in town and country, and, although it is said that a Napier man can be detected in any part of the world by the appearance of his nose, and his capacity for drinking, 1 very much doubt whether our united efforts will be able to put profits into the pockets of those who are investing their capital on their faith in our drunken habits. Our Licensing Benches never refuse an application for a publican’s license, and in this our Magistrates show much wisdom. By multiplying an evil, the chances are it will cure itself, like thistles, which when allowed to grow as thickly as they can, exhaust the soil, and die out. There is a spot, some five miles from Napier, called Farndon, where at present stands a blacksmith's shed, and the blacksmith’s house ; there are besides, perhaps three, other dwelling houses in the vicinity ; here, it is proposed, some day to have a railway station, consequently two applications were made for Licenses, and both were granted. Not more than two hundred yards off, the West Clive Hotel stands, which, a passing traveller would not think wns doing a roaring trade. But somehow people have got it into their heads that railway travelling will induce thirst, and our magistrates evidently think so too. In Napier, we have already I welve public houses, two more are in the course of erection, and the license for another has been granted. One of the hotels now being erected is to be an immense building, and appears to me to be out of all proportion to the requirements of the town. Naturally enough, all these new buildings, in esse and posse, have woke up the old iniquity amongst the publicans, and great improvements are now being made to the present ancient beer-shops. Mr. Britten’s Clarendon is to be rejuvenised, and the old Masonic, as soon as the lease expires, is, I am told, to be rebuilt at a cost little short of that of the monster new hotel. A District Court is to be established in this province, and a .Mr. Weston, vulgarly known in Auckland as “ Little Tommy,” is appointed Judge at £7o<> a year. Mr. Weston has done nothing in particular to recommend him to the notice of the Government, or to place him above his brethren of the Bar, but he has a brother, a co-writer, formerly with Mr. Vogel in the Southern Cross newspaper. If literary labors, like certain virtues, are often merely their own reward, it is comforting to think that the former will sometimes be remunerated, if only in the way of obtaining for one’s brother a lucrative billet. The Napier Bar is disgusted at the unblushing effrontery of the Premier, in placing a man over them for no other merit than the accident of relationship to a hired scribbler. The Honorable Donald M*Lean is now in Napier, but his presence has brought about neither terrestrial nor atmospheric change. The puissant Native Minister keeps strictly to himself, and remaining in private, treats with majestic calmness all the hints that have been thrown out to meet his constituents. It is now more than seven years ago since he addressed the electors, and it will, probably, be seven more before he condescends to give an account of his stewardship. There are but two Ministers in New Zealand—the Premier, and the Native Minister—and they can do whatever they please. Mr. M'Lean is under the impression, and he has gulled a good many more into the same belief, that New Zealand cannot do without him. Time will perhaps show. In the meantime, while faith is still reposed in the great “ Medicine Man,” it does not altogether pay to run counter to public opinion. On Tuesday next, ( November sth) the Hawke's Say Times will be re-published, in an enlarged form, and as a semi-weekly. The nominal proprietor is Mr. Coupland Harding, son of the former proprietor of the H. B. Times, and the best reporter in this province. In noticing the revival of this journal, one cannot but regret that so much capital should be thrown away upon an undertaking that cannot but prove a dead loss. The people here are accustomed to a daily paper, and it is not likely that they will care to read stale news in a journal, no matter how well it may be got up, or edited. It is supposed that the Times is really the property of the Hon. H. R. Russell, M.L.C., and one or two others, opposed to our present Superintendent, and the Native Policy of the Government. It was further suspected that Mr Russell would make his paper a medium for the dissemination of his peculiar views regarding that which constitutes an agreement between Maoris and Europeans. Touching Mr. Russell, there is a story told of him when in Wellington, during last session. You have heSrd, I presume, that he did not put in an appearance into the House till quite the end of the session. 111-health was the cause of thia apparent want of pluck ; perhaps it saved him from listening to disagreeable remarks, in rs “ repudiation movement ” and his connection with it. However this may be, the story goes

that neither he nor any one of his family was invited to Government House, and it is said that this new mark of disapprobation from the Queen’s Representative was in consequence of Mr. Russells’ connection with the late attempt of the Hawke’s Bay Natives to repudiate the whole of their land sales to the Europeans.