The Standard AND PEOPLE'S ADVOCATE. (PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY.) WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1871.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 227, 2 December 1874, Page 2

The Standard AND PEOPLE'S ADVOCATE. (PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY.)

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1871.

“ 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.”

We transferred to our columns on Saturday last as copious an extract as ourspace would allow from Sir Donald McLean’s speech at the public dinner given to him recently at Napier, which we should have done before had our usual exchanges come to hand earlier. There is little, if anything, in the speech that the Colony is not already acquainted with ; there is less that is interesting to any beyond the dinner table at which it was delivered, and nothing at all to the settlers of thia district, who have been waiting with bated breath for ministerial consolation for some time past. From a colonial point of view the speech is a failure; it is a mere parrot-like resume of what can be found amongst ths Parliamentary Papers of last Session ; while from a local or Parliamentary aspect, it must have been disappointing to the bon. gentleman’s constituents. Of course, as the representative of a constituency outside the district of Poverty Bay, it is a matter of small concern to the settlers here that the electors choose to hear a postprandial speech from Sir Donald M'Lean, in which he tells them nothing new, and for which they pay a guinea, rather than listen to an exposition of public affairs from the bon. the Native Minister, as their representative, at a public meeting. But taking either view of the case, Hawke’s Bay has nothing whatever to complain of in the conduct of her Colonial representatives ; and it is no wonder that the hon. gentleman preferred being relieved from the unpleasant necessity of going into detailed explanations where there was the smallest possible chance of ’being catechised upon the tenets of his political faith. We do not propose now to enter upon any lengthy criticism of his speech beyond that in which we are more immediately concerned ; and this, it will be observed, has more relevancy to what Sir Donald did not say, than to what we find reported he really did say. The only solitary allusion Sir Donald M‘Lean made to Poverty Bay was, to say the least, unworthy of the speaker, and unjust to a district that should be treated liberally—at any rate justly —by his Government. There is a tinge of sarcastic irony in his reference to the present state of affairs here, which is not likely to increase his popularity, nor to quiet the minds of those whom he is aware are, to use his own words, “ thoroughly dissatis- “ fied with the manner in which they “ have been treated.”

While Sir Donald was regaling himself with good cheer, and so sneeringly referring to the “ modest character ” of some of the requests the settlers have made, he was fully aware that resolutions, passed at a public meeting, were then on their way to his Government, praying that something might be done in order that the vitality of the district might not be destroyed. He knew that the people here desired to see him personally upon matters of the most pressing moment; and instead of abstracting two or three days from his sojourn in Hawke’s Bay, he passes away frirn us, and at a public dinner table, while speaking to the whole colony, he dismisses the misfortunes of Poverty Bay in a few terse sentences, as a trouble to his mind.

There is no longer any doubt that the General Government do not intend to do anything at all for this district ; and any belief that did exist that they ever would has been dispelled by the utterances and conduct of Sir Donald M‘Lean. Nothing in the present —everything in the future, is the embodiment of his reference to the abolition of Provinces. In other words Sir Donald says,|“ don’t trouble “ yourselves about what you are to get “in the stead of Provincial Govern- “ ments ; our desire is to give to out- “ lying districts l the management of “ their own affairs, for there can be “no doubt that they have been, and “ are now sadly neglected. He wished “to see the revenue more localized, “ and expended on roads and public “ works in the districts in which it ac- “ crued.” But, unfortunately for Poverty Bay, if she has to wait until the hypothetical abolition of the provinces takes place ; until the “ proposed” (proposed? ‘Where? When? “ By whom ?) “Shire Councils ” are in active work ; and until she has a portion of the many millions of “ Colonial “Estate”—so glowingly alluded to in Sir Donald’s speech —from which she could boast of a revenue, the prosperity of her people, if not her very existence, will be highly problematical ; for, unless a helping hand be extended from a quarter where we have every right to look for succour, it is not difficult to foresee troubles which, while they last, will act like mill stones round about our necks.