PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY. Saturday, October 22, 1881. OURSELVES.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 989, 22 October 1881, Page 2

PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY. Saturday, October 22, 1881. OURSELVES.

There are times in the career of a newspaper, as in many other duties in life, in which it is pardonable, if not, indeed, necessary to turn aside for a short time, from the ordinary topics of its columns, and converse upon subjects of a more personal nature. Such being the position of this journal today, we shall consider no apology necessary in asking our readers’ attention while we explain. The past is as well known to our friends as to us; the present is as we have before intimated, namely, in a transition state; and of the future we can say nothing beyond the expression of our hopes. The present issue ends, at once, the ninth year of the Standard’s existence, and the connection of the original proprietor with it. Like most journalistic enterprises it has had its ups and downs, its joys and sorrows, its foes and friendships ; but amid all the turmoil and strife; through the deceitfulness of friends, and the machinations that money ever makes powerful enemies of; through evil report and good report, it has held on the even tenor of its way ; and the principles, and platform on which it first started have never been deserted. Whatever may have been its defects, an unflinching adherence to, and support of the public interests —or what were conscientiously held to be public interests—have been its chief characteristics ; and it affords the writer supreme gratification to reflect that those signal properties are about being transmitted to successors who will undeviatingly uphold them in their integrity. But we are sensible that it is quite unnecessary to extend our remarks on this question. Those who are acquainted with the past do not require to be reminded that what we £ay is correct; and strangers do not care much whether it is so or not, since their judgment will depend upon the future.

As we have said, to-day supplies a line of demarcation drawn on the horizon, of circumstances ; and Tuesday next, the date of our re-issue of thrice weekly, will be the boundary of another era in our history, and regarding which all that has to be said can be disposed in a few words. The only change that will be found in the Standard is that of proprietorship. The policy it has upheld, and the principles it has encouraged will be its leading features. It will carry with it, into the dim vista of coming years, all tliQse attributes that are on the side of Progress, right and truth, whatever the party, creed or color, whose cause has to be espoused ; as the past has been so will the future be, with, we trust, this difference, that our enemies may fight us more fairly ; and that our friends may be something more than an empty name.

In connection with the foregoing the proprietor desires to express the many obligations he is under to, and the large measure of* support he has received from the public of Poverty Bay during the last nine years of his journalistic career. The severance of a connection. wftich |has lasted so long, cannot be made Without some token of regret. It may not be discernible, but it exists, nevertheless. Regret, like pleasure, or any of our mental activities, is intangible, but it has its effect upon our lives, for it is certain if one has nothing to regret, he has little to be pleased with. The career of the Standard has been a chequered one. It has oft’ been scotched but not killed. There is a good deal of wiping to be done before it will cease to appear on the roll of journals whose heart and soul are in the grand work of promoting the interest of the common weal. This has been our mission from the start; and the writer looks back to-day with a pardonable pride in having been instrumental, in his humble, but honest way, in making Gisborne and Poverty Bay what they are, and what they are now, is nothing to what they will be, if the settlers are but true to themselves. They should trouble themselves less with individual interests, and personal business, than those that appertain to the public good. Depend upon it colonization

and settlement will not take a deep and lasting root in any place, whose inhabitants do not act gregariously. Community of interests should be the guiding principle of a new district ; the working together with might and main for the good of all, and not isolation and estrangement, one from another, which are marked feature# in places where men have so little trouble in getting a living of some kind, that they assisf their neighbours, unsolicited, in trying how not to mind their own business. The settlers of Poverty Bay have a grand future. The climate they possess ; the splendid land inheritance which is theirs, and the unbounded wealth lying at their doors, are blessings that a more unworthy people may sigh for in vain. But the truth must be told, that until the pre-sentheart-burnings, and bickering jealousies are laid aside —until the settlers rise superior to the contracted views of men and things which have proved so fatal a clog to advancement in the past, and help each other along, nothing but stagnation will result. Union is strength, and until this is known and felt to be a realism in our daily life, it will be useless for the units amongst us to cry to Jupiter for help. However, as we “ welcome the coming ” so we “ speed the parting guest,” and express a strong hope that? the settlers will lend us their help in bringing about abetter, and more lasting state of things.