WAIAPU.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume II, Issue 204, 12 September 1874, Page 2

WAIAPU.

(from our own correspondent.) September 5. At the representation of our Resident Magistrate, the Government has, I understand, sanctioned the erection of a Court House here. When it is taken into consideration that the district has been without this very necessary convenience from the time it was first constituted a magisterial sphere, no surprise will be expressed at such a concession being made. The work will probably be proceeded with in the course of the ensuing summer, when the weather may be expected to be sufficiently propitious to permit the landing of building materials. The past winter, with its many violent storms, furious gales, and heavy pluvial visitations, has, doubtless, fully convinced those who were engaged in building operations on this coast, during that period, that the summer is the proper time for undertakings of this description. This part of the country now presents a charming appearance—the late genial rains, coupled with an agreeable change in the temperature,- having produced a most salutary effect. The grass and the wheat are springing up rapidly, garden flowers are prettily developing themselves, the birds sing merrily, and the snow has wholly disappeared from the summits of the Hikauranga Mountains. You have certainly made out a good case for Poverty Bay against the General Government, in your leading article of the 12th ultimo. One of Daniel O’Connell’s axioms was, “Agitate! Agitate!” which stands good in New Zealand as well as in the Emerald Isle. You do well, then, to “ agitate ” for your local rights when you have justice upon your side, as, undoubtedly, you have in regard to the improvements you contend for. Poverty Bay is not now the comparatively .insignificant place it was a few years ago, but a most prosperous and progressive part of the colony, yielding a revenue which ought to secure for it greater consideration at the hands of the ruling powers than it has yet received. It may, however, be inferred from the success which has attended the representations of your recent deputation at Wellington, that the Government is not indisposed to make pecuniary grants for improvements imperatively needed, when such matters are pointedly and pressingly brought under their notice, and when nothing unreasonable is asked. Had this electorate been more efficiently and energetically represented in the House of Assembly, than it seems to have been for several years past, Poverty Bay would have fared better than

it has, and dissatisfaction would, consequently, be less rampant there than it apparently is. For this state of affairs the electors themselves cannot, perhaps, be exonerated from blame. “If,” says Thomas Carlyle, “ the people abuse their national privileges in the election of Representatives for the highest council of the country, by returning men who were never designed to be legislators, when it is in their power to make a better choice, they at once incur the responsibility of aiding the perpetration of many of the evils that inflict grievous injuries upon the community.”