Poverty Bay Standard. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 9, 1882.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1118, 9 August 1882, Page 2

Poverty Bay Standard. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 9, 1882.

Or all places in New Zealand that want “ seeing to " Gisborne eertainly has a prior claim on the attention of Her Majesty's Minister* in Colonial Parliament." We have always two steamers per week coming into the port, sometimes more, each vessel carrying Her Majesty’s mails. The mails arrive in the roadstead, and there, for aught we are entitled to know, they may remain. There exists no decided arrangement for landing them. We are indebted to .a crew of bard working luvu who <ue dependent entirely On

heir own earnings fora living, andon the kindness of Messrs. Kennedy and Bennett, for getting our mails landed at all. The Government occasionally give a small gratuity for the performance of this service, but the men are in no way bound to such performance. Messrs. Kennedy and Bennett lease their boat to the working men, and allow them to earn any money’s they can with it, deriving not the slightest pecuniary benefit from Post Office arrangements. During a portion of the time Capt. Chrisp was Harbormaster here Messrs. Kennedy and Bennett received £5O per annumfor landing the mails but they were dissatisfied with that arrangement, •hinking, and we hold with them, that the pavment was not sufficient remuneration, therefore they asked for an additional £lO per annum, or £6O per annum in all, which sum the Government declined to give, and ordered that the mails should be brought ashore in the port boat. There is no one here who knows better than Capt. Chbisp that the port boat with its powerful crew of two men is thoroughly inadequate to this service, in fact it would be simply sending a boy upon a man’s errand ; recognising this fact, an arrangement was made by the Harbormaster that the two men comprising the Port establishment should work in Messrs. Kennedy and Bennett’s boat on occasions of arrival of mails. Thisarrangementwasthought at the time, by both contracting parties, a good one, but, like all loose agreements, it did not work well, and now has completely fallen through. The consequence is that the 8000 inhabitants of this district are entirely at the mercy of a boat's crew for the regular delivery of the mails either from or to steamers. That this is a monstrous state of affairs no one can deny, but it is entirely our own fault. We ought to pay the men well for their work and have a regular contract with them. It is all very fine to sit in an office and swear at the country because we don't get our letters quickly enough, but we don’t consider the men who are risking health, limb, and life to bring them ashore for us on days and nights when it is blowing hard enough to break down fences. We want our mails regularly delivered. These men patiently and without grumbling, have worked for us gratis for a long time, and it now seems that they ought to have justice done them. If they refuse to bring the mails ashore we have no power to compel them to do so. Let a regular contract be made with them giving them a fair wage, say £ 1 per week or £lOO per annum for the performance of this service, and no longer disgrace ourselves by loafing upon working men for the delivery of our letters.