Poverty Bay Standard. PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY AND SATURDAY’ MORNINGS. Wednesday, November 29, 1881.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 1005, 29 November 1881, Page 2

Poverty Bay Standard.

PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY AND SATURDAY MORNINGS. Wednesday, November 29, 1881.

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.

Mr. W. L. Rees apparently forgot when he said Mr. Gannon was either “a knave or a fool,” that he wielded a double-thonged lash, which fell with equal, if not more, severity on his own shoulders than on his for whom it was intended. To give our application of the remark the more point, we shall refer Mr. Rees to the true position he occupied on Friday night last. And it is this: Mr. Rees would have the meeting believe that he had no political object, per se, in addressing the electors; but only a relative one, inasmuch as the affairs of the Land Company, coupled with his own name, had been made political capital of by some of the candidates at their meetings, and it was necessary to remove any false impressions, and correct any mis-statements that had been made by them. If so, why did he invite the candidates to attend, and so make a political question of it? Mr. Rees would have us believe, moreover, that he did not call the meeting to bolster Mr. Allan McDonald’s candidature; and he only made a monosyllabic denial to Mr. Owen Gallagher’s straight question on the subject. The ironical cheers, and unmistakable disapprobation of the meeting, afforded abundant testimony to the contrary. Mr. Rees’ obvious intention was to pave the way for Mr. McDonald’s address which must be made before long; and if he says to the contrary, he will stand apart from Mr. Gannon in the essential difference that he is both knave and fool rolled into one. If he tried—as he undoubtedly did try—to delude his hearers, and to impose on their intelligence by drawing a herring across the question at issue, he is a knave; and if he thought the statements he made were believed in— he is a fool. “I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word.”

Mr. Rees’ meeting on Friday night was a miserable fiasco. It was an utter failure from any point at which we view the intention of the speaker. The ostensible object Mr. Rees had was to explain something about the Land Company; but he told us nothing new; there was no new idea, nothing of the past was explained, because, probably, nothing has been done, while the future remains in as great a state of haze as before. His explanation why he had failed to call a meeting of shareholders, and the public, long before was, at once, impotent and inconclusive. The Company has been

formed, after the unpractical fashion Mr. Rees has of forming anything, for months. Directors have been permanently appointed—not elected; a Chairman, Mr. Dargaville, has been appointed, with, it is said, a salary of £1000 a year; Mr. Rees, himself, is to make his “pickings” as solicitor; Mr. DeLautour, as Secretary, is not likely to put up with a small emolument; the Treasurership, the most important office of all, appears to be still vacant; and Mr. G. M. Reed has been accredited to Europe to facilitate the movements of the Company, whatever they may be, and probably, too, at a pretty heavy cost. Now, if Mr. Rees really wished the public to know the true state of the Company’s affairs, why did not he take the meeting into his confidence as a man with an honest intention; and remark on these questions? No, the burden of his song was a bad imitation of Sir George Grey’s harp with one string—nothing but nauseous repetitions that the land was to be redeemed from its wilderness state, and occupied by good-look-ing, virtuous mothers; contented, prosperous fathers; and happy, wellfed children. Why did not Mr. Rees say something about finance, and the monetary condition of the Company? Why, indeed! Mr. Rees did not want to made his “galled jade wince” more than was necessary; and if he had tried, he would have exhibited his own utter incompetence, and that of those around him, for the Company has no Financial Head to keep it together; and difficulties are likely to increase in this direction, the longer the delay. Mr. Rees did once make a splash at the conversion of land into shares, shares into cash, and cash into scrip; but his explanation was received with derisive laughter. The plain fact is, as Mr. Locke said, that Mr. Rees is one of the best of men at propounding theories; but he has not a practical mind, not even in his profession; and it is not saying too much that, in the hands of such a vapory, intangible man as Mr. Rees is, no Company in the world can ever hope to succeed. And what, a commentary on the sagacity of the Directors themselves to appoint Mr. Rees their “law adviser, counsellor and friend!” as Mr. Locke quaintly put it. The old absurdity of appealing from Phillip drunk, to Phillip sober, could not have had a better illustration. Why one of his very first acts of indiscretion was to advise the Company to take up the Pouawa, Whataupoko, and other entanglements, over which he had spents lots of other persons’ money, and years of his life, without success. But the Directors wisely refused. What confidence, we ask, can the Company, or the public have in a man who will rush on to such madness, and whose whole life has been spent in visionary schemes that never could become realities? Mr. Rees’ connection with anything of a practical, or business-like nature, must end in failure, and the sooner the New Zealand Native Land Settlement Company wake to the fact, the better for all concerned. It is said, and said truly, we believe, that Mr. Rees is an honest, large-hearted man; but there are honest fools, as well as designing knaves in the world; and of the two, we incline to the opinion of an old writer that, in public matters it is better to deal with a clever rogue, than an honest fool.

Mr. Locke completely turned the tables on his antagonist, Mr. Rees, in clearing himself, as he very satisfactorily did, from certain accusations in regard to his pre-connection with the local Land Company. Mr. Rees labored hard to show that, instead of Mr. Locke having taken a few shares only, and with the sole object of watching the Company’s movements, he had sought to belong to it, and requested a seat on the Directorate. Mr. Locke’s explanation was lucidly given, and there was a ring of candour about it that took the audience with him; and will, probably, have a different effect to what Mr. Rees intended, at the coming election. Mr. Rees attempted to damage Mr. Locke’s cause, as he did that of Mr. Gannon, but we are of opinion that both these gentlemen have much to thank Mr. Rees for. He has afforded them opportunity to rebut accusations made with a covert, sinister design. Mr. Locke has cleared himself on the spot, and Mr. Gannon will surely reply on his return from the Wairoa; while, the most unfavourable impression Mr. Rees made in attempting to uplift Mr. McDonald in the estimation of the electors, by accusing his opponents, must tell in the favor of both, according as their several supporters take up the cudgels. It was a sight, almost pitiful, to see a strong man—a political gladiator— like Mr. Rees, disarmed in a moment by a very tyro in politics—one whose only weapon was that of truth. Mr. Locke may, indeed, congratulate himself on the courageous way in which | he withstood the blandishments of those who—probably with a good intention—tried to get him on their side against his will. He showed that firmness of purpose which is a good trait in the character of a public man, while it discovers a recommendation to public favor. Mr. Locke’s services will be invaluable on a Company of which the existing local one is only a skeleton. It wants “body;” and, if we mistake not, Mr. Locke is destined to impart that vitality to it, without which it will continue to be a cumbrous piece of machinery useful only in retarding the prosperity of the district. But we accept Mr. Locke’s assurance that as he has an interest in the Com-

pany, he will watch over it for the good of the district in which he may yet be called on to play a more prominent part than he has, hitherto, done; and, therefore, when the time comes round for action, we have every confidence in Mr. Locke’s word that he, at any rate, will ratify and perform the promises he has made.