EAST COAST ELECTIONS

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 993, 1 November 1881, Page 2

EAST COAST ELECTIONS

[From: the Auckland Free Lance, October 29th.J Mb. M. J. Gannon’s announcement to contest the East Coast election dropped like dynamite into the camp of the Rees-McDonald party. Until Mr. Gannon had announced himself the election was considered a walk over for Mr. Allan McDonald. What possible inducement Mr. Samuel Locke had to come forward still remains a profound mystery. Had he contested one of the Napier town or country seats, notwithstanding his remarkable unfitness for public life, there might have been some show of reason in it, because his home is there and he has resided a great portion of his lifetime in that locality. Mr. Locke came all the way to Poverty Bay, and unsolicited, so far as we are aware, by a single elector in the district, entered the contest. Mr. Locke, however, has seen the error of his way. Hearkening, we understand, to the voice of his friends, he has seriously contemplated retracing the step he should never have taken. This practically lets the contest lie between Messrs. Gannon and McDonald. Captain Porter, who seems to be a species of political dromedary, has been stumping the electorate, but making little headway. We all along have had great sympathy with the East Coast. Our Poverty Bay readers will remember that we have during the past few years persistently denounced in- the strongest terms in these columns the pernicious system of land-sharking, repudiation, and blackmailing carried on there by a certain faction. The form that evil now assumes is under the title of the East Coast Land and Settlement Company, and is really more destructive to the general welfare of the district than the most vicious system yet initiated. Nothing will be more fatal to the future prosperity of that district than if it returns to Parliament any man who is a director of that company, oris in any way, directly, or indirectly, associated with a scheme that will leave the country locked up for years, and having hanging over it endless litigation. Mr. Gannon played a trump card when he boldly came forward, and in a manly address that took the whole electorate by storm, declared in effect that Messrs. McDonald, Locke, and Porter were unfit to faithfully represent the district in Parliament; the personal interests of those three gentlemen, through their connection with the company, being identical with each other, and at the same time thoroughly opposed to the general welfare of that community. From the very inception of the East Coast Land and Settlement Company Mr. Gannon, from his great influence with the Natives, has been the most powerful opponent against whom the company has had to contend. Mr. Gannon’s return to Parliament would strike a fatal blow at the company’s success. His superior fitness in point of ability and Parliamentary experience over the rest of the candidates is on all sides freely admitted. The supporters of the other candidates do not attempt to disguise the fact. The future prosperity of the district depends upon its choice of representative at the forthcoming election. The power is in tile hands of the electors themselves. Sinking all feelings and considerations of any personal character whatever, the electors to a man should leave no stone unturned to secure a representative whose interests are bound up with their own ; who has the ability to advocate on the floor of the House the requirements of a district that has, politically speaking, been totally neglected. From the views advocated in Mr. Gannon’s address, we do not hesitate to aflirm that if the people really want the district opened up, the question of the land tenure clearly and ably brought under the notice of Parliament with a view to its passing remedial measures, whereby an influx of capital will take place, and a greater field for labor they will not lose the opportunity they now possess of entrusting to Mi-. Gannon the honorable position of recpresenting them in Parliament.