The Standard AND PEOPLE'S ADVOCATE. (PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY.) SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 1875.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 257, 20 March 1875, Page 2

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

SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 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.”

If the Honorable the Minister for Public Works were compelled to transact business in the Courts and Public Offices in Gisborne, we think he would be induced to change his opinion as to the wants of the settlers in this respect not being of anypressing moment. The arrangements (or want of them) as they stand at this day, for public convenience, are simply disgraceful; and instead of business being facilitated, it is retarded to a most unsatisfactory degree. Since the sittings of the Native Lands Court began, the Resident Magistrate has been driven (for we can hardly suppose he would give up his Court room, voluntarily) upstairs into the Road Board office, a small stifling box, already filled with official paraphernalia to such an extent as to allow little or no room for anything else —Bench, Bar, Clerk, Bailiff, Clients, Witnesses and Reporters,—occupying nearly all the space available; and as many of the public as can squeeze into the passage, doing duty at the door. We refrain from arguing the advisability of closing the Lands Court, for the periodical sitting of the R.M.’s Court, inasmuch as such a course would inflict a great hardship on the large number of Natives who are interested in its proceedings, but that is no reason why one or other of the Courts should not transact the business belonging to it in a more commodious building than the office of the Highway Board. We have often drawn attention to the unsuitableness of even the present Court-house for the transaction of business; and we wish the Honorable the Minister for Publie Works, and all w-ho think with him that the erection of public offices in Gisborne is jA ■matter of no importance, were condemned for a season to be subjected to the noise and inconvenience from which there is no escape on a Court day, in the building now in use.

We learn from the proceedings of the Hoad Board on Monday last, that a letter has been received by the Chairman requesting that he would certify to the completion of the Immigrants’ cottages recently erected in Gisborne, according to specification, so that the contractor might get the contract money due on them. It appears that Mr. Hardy has demurred doing so before, as he very naturally inferred that the Act would involve a certain amount of responsibility, particularly if he were required to s.ale his salisfaction with the work. So as not to keep the contractor out of his money, the certificate has been given, accompanied with an official protest from the Board ; and, ere this, some £l,BOO has been paid for the most worthless piece of work ever performed in the province. We do not insinuate for one moment that the contractor has not faithfully performed every tittle of the conditions with which he was bound: but we do protest against this wholesale, and useless waste of public money. The tender, originally’ confined entirely to the town of Auckland, was accepted far above what the work could have been done for here ; the houses are slovenly built; they are not weather proof ; and —we write from good in foi-toa-tion—there is not an Insurance office in the place that would take the risk under something like 150 per cent.—if at that. The fire-places are in such dangerous proximity to the wooden part of the buildings that no office under the usual regulations and conditions would, or could, accept them. And to make this absurdity the more glaring, the same contractor—wc believe without any tender at all—has orders to erect 10 small outhouses, one attached to each building, at an additional cost of A7»e pounds each! Ninety pounds has to be paid for what any average carpenter in this town would put up for £3O. and grow fat at the work 1 In his letter Mr. O’Rorke states that it was the intention of the late Superintendent to come down to Poverty Bay ici/A the Provincial Engineer to inspect the buildings himself, so that the aggregate cost of these cow-sheds would — plus travelling contingencies — have rounded up to about £2OOO, a shameful, useless, waste of over a thousand pounds I Wc trust our member wi.l niakeam'e of this item, aud enquire into the matter at the next Council meeting.