The Standard. (PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY, AND SATURDAY.) SATURDAY, APRIL 11, 1874.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume II, Issue 158, 11 April 1874, Page 2

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

SATURDAY, APRIL 11, 1874.

“ \\ e shall sell to no man justice or right: VVe shall deny to no man justice or right: >' e shall defer to no man justice or right.”

Neither ths Postal Mail Service, nor he system oi steam communication, present m vog Ue between Gisborne <• the rest of t\> Colonv, can be to be in a satisfactory condition. VOGEL, m the : Service between 'and, laid it down an usable condition that a gooi tld be placed in the trade, one 'ombinirg speed and good tilth a Heth* -Avauglit, es were made to the cam Packet Company in the Pretty Jane 'dy tc run periodically

to the ports on the East Coast. So far, we confess, we have benefitted but little by the transaction ; and, if no improvement takes place in the meantime, it will be a fruitful theme for our member to descant on in the Provincial Council. We know that the Auckland Steam Packet Company has some difficulties to contend against in providing a boat equivalent to the peculiar requirements of the trade of this Coast, and it inav be that the new boat, shortly expected, will supply our wants properly ; but, there can be no doubt that the Pretty Jaue is not up to the work, and the sooner she is displaced by some other boat the better the shareholders and the public will like it. So much for steam. With respect to matters postal, we heartily wish that every post office in the colony were burnt to the ground, if it would be the means of bringing about a much needed reform in the Post Office department. That causes of complaint exist there can be no doubt, and that they cannot be remedied or removed is simply intolerable in the face of the exacting levies made to ensure a professed security. With newspapers there is no sacredness of trust, less safety of transmission, and and no security of delivery whatever. Each newspaper posted in the colony to other parts of New Zealand, has to pay a halfpenny tax, which the public have a right to demand should ensure its safe transit. It is another form of registration, and bears upon the face of it an obligation on the part of the Government to see that it is legitimately ratified, and not, as now, carelessly abandoned. We are continually receiving hints from subscribers — exchanges are held to be common property we know —complaining that unless their papers come more regularly to hand they shall withdraw their subscriptions ; and by a recent mail we were notified by a subscriber that of the previous dozen issues of the Standard, posted to Napier and Wellington, not one had reached him. This reduces the matter to a focus of which Gisborne and Wellington are the circumference, with Napier as a centre, but we should be disinclined to say that the fault lay with either one, solus, although, undoubtedly, it lies between them.

When the Superintendent was in Gisborne the propriety of economising prison labor was brought before His Honor in such a light as to draw from him an emphatic opinion as to the advisability of retaining the services of those prisoners who are committed to gaol with hard labor sentences, in the district, rather than to put the province to a deal of unnecessary expense in providing for their conveyance to Auckland. There were until yesterday three prisoners in the Blockhouse, whose labor might have been made available on the roads in the Bay, for the next six months, provided that all other things had been done that are necessary to their proper and safe custody and oversight. Now that the Road Board is contemplating a large expenditure on roads, it might be profitable to urge this matter upon the attention of the Government once more, through the Resident Magistrate, with a view to a more speedy settlement of the question than seems to be likely at this moment.