The Standard AND PEOPLE'S ADVOCATE. (PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY.) WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1874.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 233, 23 December 1874, Page 2

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

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 23, 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.”

We have had frequent occasions to complain of the injustice done to this district by the General and Provincial Governments, and not without good cause. Our grievances are many, and it is only by making them known that we can expect' redress. We would gladly maintain silence, but such a course would be a culpable abnegation of our manifest duty. An undoubted authority tells us that importunity had, in a certain instance, been rewarded with success, when such a result might be regarded as almost hopeless, so w’e are determined to put importunity to the test. We ask for nothing but what we are justly entitled to; and the Governments must be aware of the reasonableness of our demands. Still they persistently ignore us. They are lavish enough with their money in other districts —where votes are cheap and plentiful, but very sparing of it in Poverty Bay where votes are not to be had. at a price. And this is observable when we compare the flourishing state of this district with some of those more favored by the two Governments. On more than one occasion during the current year, Mr. Vogel has stated publicly that he and his Government were anxious to aid all parts of the Colony—particularly the more necessitous portions of it. His co-adjutor, Sir Donald McLean, too, made a post-prandial asseveration of the like purport at the Napier banquet. It is now currently reported that telegraphic, and other promises are flying about the country to the same effect as those we chronicled some time ago, and which amounted to this : “ Ask, and ye shall receive ”•—a promise. We are “promise crammed,” and most unsatisfactory feed we find it. Promises are one thing—their fulfilment is another; and these recently to hand, hot-pressed into the twentieth edition, may be just as intangible as those which preceded them.

One of the grievances we desire to advert to on this occasion is the provokingly unjust manner in which Poverty Bay has been treated with regard to immigration. The latest returns show that some 60,000 souls will have been added to the population of the Colony under the Immigration Scheme by the end of the year. How many have found their way to Poverty Bay ? One of the prime inducements the Premier made to Superintendents;—and one of the largest promises they in turn, made to outlying districts,—in handing over the management of immigration to Provincial authorities, was that vessels should leave the mother country with immigrants specially despatched for certain localities, where they would be spared the expense, delay, and temptation that wait upon new arrivals in a colonial sea port town. How has this been carried out in our own and other provinces ? Human beings are drafted out to the Colonies like stock, with just enough fodder for present necessities, and then turned adrift in the towns, —helpless women and children, and imcompetent men—to shift for themselves, rendering the scheme of immigration a political, a financial, and a moral failure. There are scores of districts like Poverty Bay that could absorb hundreds of immigrants, were they shipped direct, or so nearly so as to prevent the chagrin and.disappointment that is felt after landingin a large town. But once there the great majority absolutely refuse to budge; the authorities have no control over them, and the sequel is being worked out daily in the police reports, and foundjag., of Poor-houses. Here we have territory enough and to spare, if the Government were but true to their pretensions. Let timely provision be made for the acquisition of land as speedily as possible from the native owners ; let settlements be formed for the location of the hundreds of families that swarm the towns, eking out a most precarious livelihood—dangling, in fact, between the gutter and the clouds. What, we would ask, are the land purchase agents about ? There are ?ew districts in the North Island better /adapted for an agricultural population than Poverty Bay. We ttyat a whole phalanx of Nafive laXd purchasetalent has been coacetjt%fihg i 0 powers in the Bay of WeiftyWistrijt; and, as far as we can l<»n, Jbas been successful in the df I’orne valuable bloeksof land.Rere tip havel had an angel’s visit or/ twX from one\ of the host, and cui gone i \ W4 unhesitatingly assert, on a/ith&ty|that| cannot be dpubtejf, are! several blocks of land district at the present moment, ttfe native (Vnersl of which are positively import wring] the Government to buy ! That there] are others easily to be acquired is a] matter of notoriety; and yet, in »he| face of this, we have as much misera-| ble capital made out of the wretched,] isolated, “ Motu ” purchase as though! it were a land flowing with milk and’ honey. We are, in common with the rest of the Colony, heavily taxed for immigration; and it is outrageous to think that we are systematically deprived of the benefits supposed to ac-

crue from an increase of population ; and, as we have said before, we are despised and contemned by the Governments to which we are no longer of any “ active service.” Why, we may ask, was Mr. Holloway not permitted to make his visit to New Zealand complete, and extend his geographical knowledge over the whole of it ? The colony has to pay the piper—we are a portion of the colony—ergo, we pay the piper, and dance, too, to a very lively, but disappointing tune. Ab uno disce omnes is not always a truism ; and in the case of reporting on the facilities offered by this colony, with its varied and distinctive attractions as a field for successful emigration, it would be erroneous to draw inferences of the whole from only seeing portions of it. There are special advantages peculiar to each di strict; Poverty Bay possesses these in an eminent degree ; Poverty Bay is one of the gardens of New Zealand Mr. Holloway was not only not permitted to see, but was actually packed off to England in unnecessary haste at the time when the proprietor of this journal was in communication with him, with a view to ascertaining the probable period of his visit here. That Mr. Holloway contemplated visiting the East Coast there can be no do not; we believe that he was disappointed in not doing so, arid we know that a gross injustice has been done to this and other districts; by the sudden collapse of what promised to be a valuable record for future immigration reference in England.