The Standard. (PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY, AND SATURDAY.) SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1874.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume II, Issue 141, 28 February 1874, Page 2

The Standard. (PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY, AND SATURDAY.)

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1874.

“ 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.”

Verily, indeed, there must have been a good supply of “ herrings” laid in, as an item of “ plant,” by the Poverty Bay Herald when it started on such a fishy duty as that of right-hand-sup-porter to the Chairman of the Road Board. It is not long since Mr. Poynter himself commenced the trail by cavilling as to what the Secretary bad done in the matter of informing the public that the Board had accepted the tender from this office for advertizing and printing. Now the Herald comes out as advocate-in-chief, to bolster up its friend in one of the most contemptible pieces of official trickery ever practiced by a public body. The Herald tAso introduces a “ herring,” in attempting to draw public attention from the main point at issue ; and in affecting to believe that a public tender is entirely a private affair, in which the public have neither voice nor interest.

In its issue of the 23rd in st., the Herald gives its own version of the Board’s acceptance of our printing aud advertizing tender, “ in justice to the “ members of the Road Board,” which we unhesitatingly denounce as incorrect. It, possibly, may be “ suici- “ dal folly ” on our part to attempt to find reason in a man so blinded with prejudice and ill-will against ourselves

as the present Chairman of the Road Board is. So far we do believe we should have wasted our time had the attainment of such an impossible result been our aim. But we submit that it is not “ suicidal folly ” to expose abuses of public trust, and to denounce the despotic use of official power for the purpose of subserving private ends. This is the object we have in view. We take the matter up on public grounds alone, entirely dissociating ourselves from the fact that we are involved in the issue. As we have said before, we would much rather have to do duty on behalf of some one else, but having it thrust in upon us, in support of a principle, and on impersonal grounds, we shall not stay our pen till satisfaction is given, even if opposed by the Herald and all its phalanx of official despotism and prejudice. The Herald says,the note which was sent to that office, Was not a call for tenders, but merely a request, from the Board to be kind enough to furnish them with a memorandum as to terms for executing printing, required by the Board, for a period of six months.

Although in a previous portion of the article from which we quote it says : — Our Manager, at the time the TENDERS were called for, did his best to impress on the minds of the members of the Road Board privately, the fact, that it is entirely impossible to get advertizing done on advantageous terms by tender.

Now isn’t that fishy ? Is it not barefaced impudence, having, in answer to this “ kind enough ” request, sent in a list of prices, for the Herald to say it does not consider it a “Tender?” A similar request was sent to this office, with a verbal explanation from the Secretary that “ as there could be “ but the two tenders it was useless advertizing them.” Can Mr. Carlile deny, we again ask, that, in reply to his offer, he was officially informed that his “TENDER” was not accepted ? Surely he did not wish the “ call for tenders,” as he terms it, to be published in both the newspapers in order that their proprietors might read it! And suppose such “ suicidal “ folly ” had been exhibited by the Board, what would have been the sum of the difference ? Simply nothing. But we can tell Mr. Carlile where the difference would have been had his tender been accepted, instead of ours; we should have treated the matter as one of perfect good faith. We should have accepted the result as a natural consequence of competition ; and we should not have shown the pettishness which he did in making, from feelings of wounded pride, the silly, childish, proposition to the Board to do its advertizing for nothing! This, and the tormented feelings of the Chairman in being forced to accept the Standard’s tender, are the cause of all this perversion of fact and common honesty. The Herald of the 29th January, in remarking on Mr. Poynter’s acceptance of Mr. Carlile’s gratuitous offer, on the Hybernian understanding that he was “ of course to charge for the advertisements,” nevertheless, says : —

Wc beg to state that we were led to make the offer to publish Road Board notices free of charge for six months, solely by the circumstances that we felt that the announcements which the Board had to make were matters of public importance, and that in giving publicity to them we were doing what lay in our power to forward the interests of a district where we have experienced such an extraordinary measure of warm and cordial support. Well, although this is a tremendous dose of bunkum to swallow at one gulp, we will promise to do it if the Herald will satisfy the public with its object in tendering for any money payment at all, if the “ measure of “ warm and cordial support,” which it had received, had, up to that time, acted with such a soothing effect upon its system, that it was prepared to forward the interests of the district independently of lucre considerations? Why did it not state so patriotically and boldly at first? Bah! We decline to swallow such rubbish.

Again, in its issue of the 23rd February, the Herald advances another reason for advertizing on the cheap, because, it says : —“ There are large “ districts where we have a considerable “ number of subscribers, where, to the “ best of our belief ” (an artful interpolation) “ the Standard is never seen.” We could characterize this quotation with a monosyllable, but it carries its own condemnation; however, as a test to the falsifying propensities of the Editor, we engage to subscribe Five Pounds to any public charity in the province, if he substantially proves his occult meaning within a week from this issue. If he fail to do so we shall expect him to meet, the like penalty; and, by being condemned in his own utterances, it will add one more to the long list of false pretences on which he started his journal, and also illustrate the gross impostures with which he keeps it afloat. We quite agree that it is impossible to get advertizing done satisfactorily by tender ; it is the first instance in

which it has been attempted, to our knowledge; and- it would not have been tried here bad the Chairman not exhibited so great a desire to play into the hands of the Herald, by concluding, in his own mind, that its terms must be lower than ours. We had intended to refer to the letter of “ Contractor ” in this morning’s paper, but we think enough has been said to cause the ratepayers to bestir themselves and take these matters up as belonging to themselves—the public.