"The Standard AND PEOPLES ADVOCATE. (PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY.) WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1875.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 246, 10 February 1875, Page 2

"The Standard AND PEOPLES ADVOCATE. (PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY.)

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1875.

“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.”

Whatever may be the end of the steamer Pretty Jane—and opinion, so far, seems to differ-—the Auckland Steam Packet Company will find few sympathisers in Poverty Bay for the inconvenience sustained through the loss of that boat's services. There are none that will hail with satisfaction the accident that has befallen the Pretty Jane, 'as there are none that will not incidentally suffer from it, but the sympathies of the public will be exercised almost entirely towards those whom the untoward circumstance may, more or less, implicate, and throw out of employment for a season. In taking the van lead in promulgating the general feeling on this matter, we are not, by any means, to be unde - stood, as rejoicing at what—under any phase in which it maybe considered—must be looked upon as a calamity. Our hope is that such an expression of opinion will be made upon the occasion of its adversity as will most

unmistakably demonstrate to the Company’s management that if public support is to be continued, and popular sympathy exerted towards it, the present time affords ample food for reflection on the causes which are operating in such a way as to lessen the one, and to withdraw the other altogether. We should fail in our duty were we to shirk the responri-' bility that rests upon us in exponiirg public feeling, and not tell the pany (what, perhaps, it already that it is desirable to accept of warning, and improve the/wafent occasion by paying more atteiwjn ’in the future to a coastal cpmmftinity, entirely at the mercy of the Company, and who cannot help themselves to a better state of things. N6w'that the Directors are before the Colony again with proposals to extend the operations of the Company by increasing its capital to a quarter of million of money, the present is an eligible opportunity in which to point out that the large amount of support hitherto accorded to the A.S.P, Co. on this coast, is due to the fact that it enjoys a monopoly of the carrying trade between Napier and Auckland, with Gisborne as an intermediate port; and that it is simply owing to the fact of there being no choice but Hobson’s, that forces the trade into that Company’s boats. Such being the case we aver, without fear of contradiction, that the Company has not conserved the East Coast trade, and more particularly the passenger traffic and mail service, with that studied desire to promote those interests, co-evally with its own, as is warranted by the measure of success which has attended the running of its boats ; and this will bepractically demonstrated in an unwillingness to take up shares unless some guarantee be given for better accommodation for the money. The plain speaking of the matter is that with this Company, as with the N.Z.S.S. Company, Poverty Bay is made a scapegoat of altogether in trumping up mail services which have no conditions that are not capable of being twisted into interpretations ex parte favorable to either Company. We repeat that were it not for the existence of Poverty Bay neither the N.Z.S.S. Co., nor the A.S.P. Co. would receive a farthing of subsidy for running their boats on the East Coast — as the trade in all respects pays itself sufficiently without any extraneous money assistance from the public coffers, a thorough exemplification of which is shewn in the continued high rates, and practical indifference, that prevail on both Ijnes. We have, hitl«rto, cordially supported the A.S.P Co., and shall continue to do so, so far as is compatible - with itfwfeatsi.af-tho settlers. Our preference will always be given to a liberal support of home, as against foreign, enterprise, and capital, even to the extent of paying a small per centage more for it; but we cannot, nor do we intend to —as dispassionate and unprejudiced conservators of the public weal —shut our eyes to the shortcomings, and one-sided mode of interpreting their relative duty that but too often permeate the management of public companies in the full swing and enjoyment of monopoly. The foregoing remarks are made in no unfriendly spirit, although it may be difficult to disabuse the minds of the Company of the belief that we are hostile to their interests, because we are opposed to their management; that is human nature all but nevertheless it is an view to take of the performance of a duty which is forced into expression by circumstances which we have not only not created, but would infinitely prefer being able to support instead of condemn. The A.S.P. Co. have inconsiderately, not to say meanly, attempted to force us into hostility, by the withdrawal of its advertizing support to our columns, because we have spoken out plainly on both sides, instead of, like Sir Pertinax MacSycopuant, adopting the cringing (but more successful) method of venturing on nothing that would displease. The truth, especially when disagreeably opposed to one’s actions or pet ideas, generally does give offence, and the small attempt at retaliation adopted by the management of the A.S.P. Co. is at once the greatest compliment that could be paid to us, and the most complete vindication and endorsement of the correctness of the stand we have so often been compelled to take. We repeat, then, a hope that, in the best interests of a Company which has, in some measure, deserved well of the community, it will accept an expression of public opinion on this the first serious calamity that has overtaken it, with a noble decision to be both just and generous without being too exacting.