The Standard. (PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY, AND SATURDAY.) TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 1874.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume II, Issue 145, 10 March 1874, Page 2

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

TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 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.”

The question of increased postal communication in the interior of the district, and along the seaboard of that portion of the province lying between Poverty Bay and the East Cape, is one, the importance of which is being daily brought under review, and presses its claim to a favorable consideration.

Our Waiapu correspondent takes up the refrain in his last communication (published in our columns on the 28th ultimo), endorsing what we have on several occasions advocated as due to the settlers in outlying districts. In recurring to the subject for the second time, he says:—

Ab stated in my last communication, our postal arrangements are everything but satisfactory, and the consequent inconvenience we nave to put up with is what should not be tolerated in this age of enlightenment and advancement. The English mail—which arrived at Gisborne on the 29th ultimo-haa not reached us, a grievance of no ertsll magnitude. The Postmaster of GisbOMie-vwv obligingly made up and sent a mail tor Waiapu by the Murray on that date, with instructions to land itat its proper destination but the steamer being unable to do bo, owing to the unfavorable state of the weather, it was taken ou to Tauranga or Auckland, and how it was disposed of therel know not. It has probably come back to Gisborne by this time, and it will, I suppose, find its "way hither .after it has ccmpktcii its rireumloratiorary

route. * * * A weekly mail must be speedily established between Gisborne and Waiapu, for it would be the height of absurdity to imagine that the people con* cemed —who occupy an extent of country of not less than 120 miles, and whose correspondence is now very considerable—should remain contented with less accommodation.

One would imagine that the bare fact of a mail not having arrived at its destination only a few miles off, in a month after it reached the port of call, would be sufficient to illustrate ihe grievance of which we now complain, and that a proper representation j! tacts has only to be made to the Postmaster -General to effect an instant removal of such a scandalous state of affairs; but, unfortunately, the reply recently received (not from the Government but) from a subordinate official, practically ignoring the complaint recently made by the Gisborne people, against the practice of making up our mails in the Napier bags, gives us but little hopes that either prayers or entreaties will receive anything more than a polite acknowledgment, with perhaps the addition of one of those stereotyped methods of shelving the matter altogether, viz.: “ That the prayer of the petitioners shall have the early attention of the Government.”

The grounds upon which the Coast settlers urge their claim to increased postal facilities are proof against opposition. The Murray, steamer, arrived at Gisborne on the 29th January, with the English mail, and as the fortnightly overland mail to Waiapu was not due in that settlement until about the 14th February, the Postmaster here made up a bag and despatched it by the Murray, which was to call there on her way to Auckland. The steamer did call, and we believe landed a passenger, but why the mail was carried on we cannot understand, at any rate, at the date of our correspondent writing—the 22nd February—the missing mail had not turned up. The settlers too, are numerically strong, and their vested interests are of sufficient importance to justify an extended concession of liberality in a direction calculated to promote" their prosperity and the peaceful extension of frontier settlement, especially where both may be secured at a very trifling cost. This, perhaps, is one of the most effective arguments that can be adduced in support ofthe question, butevenallowing that it would increase the cost 100 per cent, the sum is trifling compared with the results, and the lavish expenditure of thousands upon thousands of pounds sterling in other parts of the Colony, towards which we subscribe our quota of interest in the shape of increased taxation, while we have to sustain the mortification of an ever-present remembrance that we are not likely to share in the benefits supposed to be derived from it, for many years to .come —perhaps never.

We would suggest that official representations be made to the Government by the Resident Magistrate at Waiapu ; these, backed up with a petition from the Coast settlers themselves, would receive every support from the Gisborne people, whose interests are identical with those of the country residents, and whose future prospects are intimately associated with the speedy development and occupation of the seaboard and inland districts; and while engaged in that work, we would further desire to see, —and it will be our duty to promote it as far as we can—a semi-weekly mail between Gisborne and Tologa Bay. A weekly mail would probably suffice to \» aiapu for the present, but as we have before written, these questions belong to the settlers, and it is they who must begin the practical part of the work.