The Standard AND PEOPLE'S ADVOCATE. (PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY.) SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1876.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 402, 23 September 1876, Page 2

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

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1876.

“ 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.”

“ Up Country Settler,” in our issue of the 16th inst., enquired as to the fate of the petition which was forwarded through the Chairman of the Poverty Bay Highway Board to the then sitting member for the Rast Coast, in Wellington, for presentation to the House of Representatives. We promised to give the matter our attention, and to make public the circumstances connected with it. Having done so, we hasten to redeem our pledge, although we handle the “ unclean thing ” with very great reluctance. It appears that the petition was forwarded in due course, which fact acquits the Chairman of the Board of any official remisness ; that it reached the individual in question is also ascertained, but that it was not laid before the House is a fact beyond dispute, as the following characteristic letter, copied ’verbatim et literatim, will testify:— Wellington, Aug. 9th, 1876. The Chairman of the Gisbbrn highway board and .others signing the petition for enquiring into the conduct of the Goverment agent for purchasing native lands also of his Report on the actions of his Department on the East Coast the Friends to our Cause here advise me not to piesent the same until after my Committe have Decided my Case now before them as the Report will have a very damageing effect on my ease he haveing brought into his Report allmost every one in Gisborn as haveing done many things against the Goverment which would hare a bad effect on our Case now Pending. Yours truly G. E. Read. After reading the above, it is difficult to find words to express, in a sufficiently accurate manner, the censure which such unblushing effrontery and political turpitude call down upon the impudent author of it ; and, on the other hand, io restrain the exuberance of delight that one and all must feel at the removal of such a dangerous and unsafe man as he, during his—luckily short—political career, proved hitnself to be. Shakespeare has said, “ There “ is a providence that shapes our ends,” and that there was a special providence presiding over —and ultimately shaping for our good—-the destinies of the East Coast Electorate, is a matter for sincere congratulation, for, with most decided emphasis and determination, it has consigned to perpetual oblivion, an individual who never should have been lifted from the obscurity, in which hehas, hitherto, moved; and who, but fora most injudicious impulse, would never have breathed an atmosphere so uncongenial to his system as that of the House of Representatives. Such a man as the ex member for the East Coast has proved himself to be, can be dismissed from our thoughts with little difficulty, and with less regret. The above-quoted effusion show's how little he comprehended his duty as a Senator ; how, still less, his motives were dictated by a correct principle, and how ever ready he was to make his public actions subservient to his private interests. Beyond drawing our readers’ attention, once more, to the damning evidence he has furnished us with against himself, we have little more to say about this man. It is plain that “ the friends to our cause,” did not include those who signed the petition, and that “ our cause ” would materially suffer from the production of Mr Commissioner Wilson’s report, therefore. “as the “ report will have a very damaging “ effect on my case,” it must be burked. And, further, inasmuch as “ he Mr Wilson—has “ brought into his “ report almost everyone in Gisborne, “ as having done many things against “ the Government,” —this pure souled member included—we have the really true solution of the objection the Native Minister had to lay the report before the House, in reply to the request of Sir George Grey. The above is a fair instance of the degraded position the electors would have had to occupy so long as this man — who has been so providentially deposed no good, but much harm—continued to mis-represent them ; and we are glad to find that a stern Justice has decided in his most humiliating defeat, and placed in his stead an abler, and a better man.