Poverty Bay Standard. PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY AND SATURDAY MORNINGS. Saturday, February 18, 1882.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1038, 18 February 1882, Page 2

Poverty Bay Standard. PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY AND SATURDAY MORNINGS. Saturday, February 18, 1882.

A whiter in the Quarterly Review for October gives a glooming account of the condition of British trade. Some trades, he says, are dying out in England, and others appear to offer a sorry prospect for the next generation. The returns of exports are delusive ; thousands of boxes of men’s made-up cravats, for example, arc shipped abroad and duly entered as exports of British manufacture. Each box is valued at 205.. but out of this 2s. onlyhave gone to the British workman, and the sole article of British manufacture contained in the export is a little common stuffing made in Bradford. Scarcely a tenth of the nominal value represents stored up British labour — and the same obtains in the case of numberless other kinds of goods. Lord Derby looks upon it as a sure proof of prosperity that pauperism is diminishing, but he should understand that a man who once earned thirty shillings a week may feel himself reduced to great privations when he can only earn fifteen, and yet may shrink from seeking aid from the parish. Lord Derby should further know how bitterly the poor hate the workhouse. The Board of Trade tables cannot convince a man that he is better off when only employed for half the week, than he was when he worked the whole week. “The country is prosperous,” says the Times, “ although the workmen in some trades are not able to idle half the week and live riotously, as they did a few years ago, to their own real loss and that of the community as well.” “ And from this,” the New Zealand Tablet goes on to say, “ the workmen may learn how adversity chastens their lives and elevates their spirits. In Birmingham the outward signs of declining prosperity are perhaps few, except the immense number of houses and offices to let. But employment is not so easily obtained or so well paid there as it was a few years ago, and many mechanics arc unable to earn half their old Mages. The gun trade has fallen off; the Small Arms anil Metal Company, whose shares stood at fifty per cent, premium, this year has not been able to declare any dividend, and its shares are at a discount. The returns of the principal works engaged in manufacturing fittings for railway carriages have fallen off twent v per cent. A representative manufactory of railroad wheels and axles, having because of declining trade exhausted a large reserve fund, has this year been obliged to withhold a dividend from its shareholders. The large profits of the Patent Shaft Company have been reduced to two per cent. The smaller firms have suffered still more severely, and are less able to bear the strain to which they are subjected. In the iron trade the directors of the company known as John Bagnal and Sons, one of the most prosperous formerly, have been obliged to apply for extra capital to carry on the business, and the sum of £32,000 standing as losses on the books is set down to the account of the bad times only. Large iron-masters generally would have a like tale to tell. There are over ten thousand houses without tenants. The Banks have been making smaller returns, and every large retail house in the City has had to record a fallingoff in its business. Again the Census of 1861 showed that in England there 118,000 operatives employed in silk; Coventry employed 40,61-7 persons in ribbon trade, and Macclesfield had fifty-five factories at work, employing 11,000 hands. Macclesfield has now not more than forty-six factories open, employing G,s2ohands, and in Coventry the annual return of ribbons and trimmings has fallen from £2,500,009 to £600,000. The glove trade once flourished in Worcester, Yeovil, and other towns, and at Yeovil twenty years ago there were forty two manufacturers; there are now only twelve. Not onethird so many gloves are made in England now as there were made there a few years ago. In the Staffordshire and Worcestershire potteries, it is stated, ‘depression is steadily increasing, and the condition of the lower class of operators is indeed deplorable.’ The exports of woollen and mixed woollen and cotton goods from Grimsby have fallen off 50 per cent. Lord

Granville, at the recent meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute, set down the loss of the iron trade during the four years ’75 to ’7B inclusive as £160,000,000. Finally, the particulars as to the decrease of agriculture show that in Berkshire one landowner holds four thousand acres for which he can find no tenants; in Kent ten thousand acres cannot be let, although vacant land there Mas once unknown ; in Sussex farmers of apparently good position, and of repute as careful industrious men, declare their resources to be utterly exhausted, while many of those still possessing capital arc giving up or reducing their occupations, and it is almost impossible to induce capitalists on any terms to invest their motiey in farming ; in Surrey there are farms not only unoccupied but uncultivated. The Estates Gazette reports the amount of county sales up to July 30 as £161,617, whereas last year it was £1,013,461; and £3,000 was bid for one property on which £5,000 had been advanced. Sheep have decreased four millions since 1879, and the decline of wheat sown since 1868 is one million acres, or onefourth of the whole extent.

The exhaustive report furnished by the Provisional Committee of the East Coast Land Association we publish in another column. The merest cursory glance at the report will convince our readers that a laborious task devolved upon the Provisional Committee and that they acquitted themselves admirably. In one of our standard commentaries on law it is laid down as an axiom that it is idle for legislators to attempt to bring forward a new law until they have thoroughly acquainted themselves with the flaws in the law they purpose to repeal. Before attempting any suggestions the Provisional Committee carefully analysed the flaws in the existing Native Land Acts, and having thoroughly ascertained the diagnosis of the disease then they Mere prepared to submit the remedy. The festering sore that so long has afflicted this district is too well known for us to descant upon it at further length. Sufficient to say that on Monday evening next there will be called together the people of this district to give their voice and their vote in supporting the most beneficial movement ever yet inaugurated in Poverty Bay. AV hat has so far taken place is merely of a preliminary character. The establishment of the Association on a stable basis will devolve upon the public meeting to be held ou Monday. It is with the people themselves the power now lies. In a day or two the Hon. Mr. Rolleston will be in Gisborne. Parliament may be expected to meet in a month or two. No time should be lost. AVe sincerely hope that party feeling will, on this occasion, be ignored, and that all, high and low, rich and poor, will work withan unity of purpose in bringing about that reform in our local land tenure that cannot fail to enhance the general welfare of all mho have east in their lot with this community.

As extraordinary meeting of the Cook County Council took place in the Council Chambers yesterday afternoon. The object of the special meeting was to consider generally the steps to be taken with the view of bringing about a change in the present Native land laws. Under the existing regime every possible difficulty is east in the way of persons of all classes, whether European or Native, who endeavor to purchase, lease, or subdivide interests in lands owned by the Natives. Owing to Councillors being engaged in other important work in connection with the East Cuast Land Association, a meeting of the Council did not take place yesterday evening. When the County Council will meet this morning, at 9 o’clock, the following resolution will be submitted to it:—•

That, in the opinion of this Council it is absolutely necessary, in order to promote the settlement and progress of the East Coast District, that at the next. Sea-ion of Parliament the Government. should introduce such remedial legislation in the present laws relating to lands held under Memorial of Owner-

ship, Certificate of Title, and the Povertv Bay Grants Act, 1869, as will remove the existing difficulties in the way of individualization of interests, and facilitate generally the transaelion of business between Europeans and Maoris in relation to land. Further,that the Council at an early date resolve itself into a Committee of the whole for the purpose of memorialising the Government upon the subject, and placing before Parliament the great drawback, loss and hardship the District I as sustained owing to the impracticable nature of the exisl ing laws. Also, I hat a copy of this l-esolut ion be forwarded to the Wairoa Count v Council, the Whukatane County Commit, the Gisborne Borough Conned, amt the different Road Boards in the County of Cook.

The importance of speedy action, such as that indicated in the above resolution, must, long before this, forced itself upon the tnind of every thinking man in the eommunitv. The great cause of the district being retarded as it has, unfortunately, too long been in its advancement, is the inextricable confusion that pervades the apparently simplest dealing in Native land. The East Coast Land

Association has taken a masterly grip of a very difficult question, .All that is now required is the earnest co-opera-tion of the local bodies with the organization that has been already formed. Every man in the District, in this great matter which strikes at the foundation of our future progress, should give a helping hand. No one is too poor to aid, none too weak to support a movement which we look to hopefully as the means to attaining an end that has been so long cherished.