Poverty Bay Standard. Published Every Evening. GISBORNE : THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1882.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1203, 16 November 1882, Page 2

Poverty Bay Standard. Published Every Evening. GISBORNE : THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1882.

Mr. E. P. Joyce’s letter in our issue of last evening is deserving of full and weighty consideration. There cannot be the slighted doubt that in previous instances in Gisborne notably in the case of Mr R. Cooper, the Bankruptcy laws have been strained and prostituted in a degrading and shocking manner in order to put a stop to certain legal proceedings presently pending. Gisborne has suffered much from these and other disreputable attempts to make the law subservient to private ends. In the case of Mr Davies, we are not prepared to say, on our own responsibility, whether an attempt of this sort has been made, because we had heard nothing but rumors, up to the time of Mr Joyce’s letter appearing, which rumors we have not yet hacl time or opportunity to sift. But the fact of Mr Davies making a statement to the Deputy-Registrar in Bankruptcy to the effect that the moneys lawfully due to him would, if he were allowed time to recover them, enable him to pay every creditor 20s in the pound with interest and there appearing no real reason for casting doubt upon such a statement is startlingly suggestive of the truth of the allegation made by the debtor to the effect that these proceedings were not requisite in the interests of creditors, or honest in fact, having for their basis the intention of depriving him of the power of proceeding with certain actions. Now we contend that the Bankruptcy laws, while framed with the view of preventing further or careless expenditure on the part of a debtor, never contemplated such an idea as that of preventing him from obtaining by fair and just means possession of such moneys as might be lawfully due to him, and enable him to pay off his liabilities. Without going so far at present as to assert that any such prevention has been the object of these proceedings against Mr J. R. Davies, we decidedly say that the fact of these assertions being made, and being to a certain extent supported by public opinion, is in itself sufficient to make the Registrar or his deputy doubly cautious in his mode of procedure. If an injustice has

been done in the name of the law it must be rectified in the name of the law ; at any rate, for the satisfaction of both parties, it is perfectly necessary that these allegations should not be permitted to remain unchallenged. Either an injustice has been done, or it has not been done ; there can be no medium. The attention of the Registrar must be particularly devoted to the investigation of these allegations, with the view that either the truth or the falsity of them may be satisfactorily established. As it is, people are losing their faith in the administration of justice here. It is said to be accessible to some which is denied to others, and it is to proceedings such as those we have lately beheld in the local courts, and the dark and underhand attempts that have been made to pull, strings of, justice by a few individuals whole unlimited supply of audacious impertinence carries them over difficulties where honester men would possibly fail., that Gisborne is indebted for its very unenviable reputation. The cliques of Poverty Bay are its curse and its ruination. We have heard a good deal of cry (and very little wool) about “lair play for the poor man.” We shall never see fair play for the poor man till these wretchedly despicable cliques are trodden out and obliterated. This is the work of the Press, and the journalist who shrinks from the task, let it be ever so great, is undeserving of the people, or the place he holds. For ourselves we can safely say that nothing will prevent our utmost endeavors to root out these cliques, these hydra-headed monsters, whose sole motto is self, whose aggrandisement per fan aut nefaa perception of right has dwindled and become so distorted that they recognize no interests byond their own, no rights of others, no law, human or divine, which they may not if they can, wasp and prostitute to their own selfish ends. Miserable to contemplate as such a picture is, one does not need to go out of Gisborne to behold it. Draatic measures are needed to purge and purify the place of these

festering sores, and if the lash of publie scorn laid on by the hands of public journalists can contribute to such an end, our efforts at least will not be wanting. What wonder is it, with these things laid glaringly before us that our neighbours one and all condemn Poverty Bay, the most fertile district of the Colony, as a den of iniquity, and a very hotbed of fraud and vice.