Poverty Bay Standard. PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY AND SATURDAY MORNINGS. Thursday, December 29, 1881.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 1017, 29 December 1881, Page 2

Poverty Bay Standard.

PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY AND SATURDAY MORNINGS. Thursday, December 29, 1881.

We shall sell to no man Justice or Hight; We shall deny to no man Justice or 'Right; We shall defer to no man Justice or Right.

The periodical growl common to our Hawke’sßay contemporaries atPoverty Bay cases having to be heard atthe usual half-yearly sitting of the Supreme Court, in Napier, once more resounds. This time the complaint manifests itself in the columns of the Hawke's Bay Herald. The sanctimonious tone adopted by the Herald in extolling Hawke’s Bay virtue as against Poverty Bay crime, must appear very ludicrous to those acquainted with the abundant crop of litigation Hawke’s Bay has produced ; when, to use a phrase until lately in familiar use, “ Hawke’s Bay Stunk in the nostrils of the country.” We are quite willing to admit that an unfortunate amount of litigation exists in connection with this district, but then our Hawke’s Bay contemporary should remember that the “ Poverty Bay legal sink,” of which it complains is of Hawke’s Bay creation, and was in fact generated there under the form of “ Repudiation.” It is but fair to mention, now that we are to go into cause and effect, that had it not been for the “ Twelve Apostles of Hawke’s Bay,” we possibly should have never heard' of the Repudiation party. And if we had never heard of the Repudiation party it would, beyond all doubt, have been much better for Poverty Bay. The simple fact is that three-fourths of the legal business of this district that has taken place during the past two or three years in the Supreme Court, in Napier, is directly or indirectly owing to the same tactics, in a more or less modified form, that served to hold Hawke’s Bay up before the whole Colony as a hot-bed of litigation. If Hawke’s Bay, as the Herald now boasts, has become freer from litigation than it was in times past, it need not flaunt its virtue before the world, and sneer at us, for we have now, and perhaps for a little while longer, shall have to bear the curse that Hawke’s Bay itself had struggled hard to get removed from it. If Hawke’s Bay will take back to its bosom a solicitor that it has shunted upon us, we will undertake to cry quits for anything the Herald says against us. There is one very sensible observation made by our contemporary, and it is—“ Why should there not be a sitting of the Supreme Court at Gisborne ?” It is quite incomprehensible that there should not be a sitting of the Supreme Court held here. For years past we have urged that step; and the necessity of its being adopted is every day making itself more and more apparent. The loss of time inflicted upon the Hawke’s Bay residents in hearing and determining our cases as jurors, is a mere bagatelle when put side by side with the loss both •in time and money occasioned to a large number of persons who are called away from this district during almost •every sitting of the Court, either as witnesses or suitors. Looking .at the question from a purely commercial point of view, we believe that many tradesmen in Napier would sincerely regret the absence of Poverty Bay litigants from the sittings of the Supreme Court. We have no hesitation in asserting that hundreds of pounds sterling

from Poverty Bay are spent every year by persons from this district whose business compels them to attend the sittings of the Supreme Court in Napier. If this boon is not appreciated by the good folk of Napier, we believe that if they will advocate our cause, and strive their utmost through the columns of their local press to obtain for this district a regular sitting of the Supreme Court, we shall, in return, if they send their cases down here for trial, find good men and true to officiate as jurors for them. As a fact we do not believe the Herald is an exponent of public opinion on the subject it professes to deplore.