Poverty Bay Standard. Published Every Evening. GISBORNE: TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1882.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1212, 28 November 1882, Page 2

Poverty Bay Standard. Published Every Evening. GISBORNE: TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1882.

AnU it came to part When the historical bldck known bjr the name of PuUaWn, celebrated in the annals of our different law courts was submitted to public auction by the New Zealand Native Lund Settlement Company, per favor of the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Company} that there were- only two buyers. Out of II nJ 7000 Acres, divided into twenty three sections, purchasers (ffiidd not be obtained for even 500 acres, This indeed is an ominous foreboding of the future success likely to be attendant upon the operations of the Company, whose actions it has been our duty to so frequently adversely criticize. Throughout the Colon? great interest has been manifested in the first of the Company’s sales. Directors and Shareholders alike who as they became better acquainted with the working of the Company, and acquired a more intimate knowledge of the lines upon which it was cast, began to feel an increasing npprehensiveness, which they were hardly prepared to admit, even among themselves, so long as they held what they looked upon as a trump card. That card has been played, and lo ! it is discovered to be of the wrong suit. Plainly then, the public have not the confidence of the New Zealand Native Land Settlement Company, or they would never have allowed the Pouawa lands to pass under the auctioneer’s hammer without, (excepting in two instances,) making a legitimate bid. These lands have been largely advertised throughout the Colony. All the publicity that the press could afford has, for months past, been accorded them. The Directors of the Company have, in many instances, largely used their own personal influence towards bringing the sale to a successful issue, and, it is with extreme regret that the only result that can now be pointed to, is that the sale of the Pouawa Block has culminated in a miserable fiasco. The ad mise.re cordiam appeals of the auctioneer to the spectators to bid, was painful to persons who have made this place their home, and have been allured as this community has been too long allured by promises too often of a specious character, held up to them by those to whom the public look to as being responsible for the success, or otherwise of the Company. It was a remarkable contrast to see how brisk the bidding became when the auctioneer got away from land that had the odour of the New Zealand Native Land Settlement Company about it, when one thousand acres of the Waihau block were offered for sale. This land, situated thirty to forty miles from Gisborne on the GisborneWairoa road, is in many respects, not in distance alone, inferior to parts of Pouawa—realised over 30s. an acre. How is it, then, that land equally as good on the Pouawa block, within a couple of miles of Gisborne, could not find a buyer at the same price The title to Pouawa the auctioneer stated to be under the Land Transfer Act, but this possibly was not generally known. The Company, however, may console itself with having obtained a fair all round price for the thousand acres of Whataupoko. Now let us give a word of warning to the New Zealand Native Land Settlement Company. They have launched out in an undertaking that is truly of a gigantic character. The theory of their schemes if not so philantropical, or rather gwrm'-philantropical, in their nature would be more taking with business people. One great fact that surely must stare the Directors in the face, and that is that, so fur as this district itself is concerned —the place that is the head centre uf the Company’s operations—the public luck confidence in its management. And how can it be otherwise, when day after day the Company Is directing its efforts to ruin settlers in the Bay who for years have borne the burden and heat of the day, and having passed through a time of trial and difficulty incidental to the pioneers of every new settlement, find themselves thwarted and crossed in all manner of ways by the Coni' puny starting to buy the very lands upon which, for years past, they have exhausted much money and labor. Go to Tologa Bay ; to any part of the district, and we could point out, but for the sake of the persons themselves we refrain from mentioning names, to places where by a species of domineering bombast the Company rushes in to buy shares, interfering in a manner most unwarrantable with the bona fide settlers of the Bay. We tell the Company that they must change their tactics, while there is yet time, or their existence will be speedily doomed. By honest, straightforward dealing the Company might become, not only a profit to the shareholders themselves, but an instrument powerful for contributing to the progress and settlement of the East Coast. To-morrow a meeting of tne Directors will be held, and in good faith, and with earnest solicitude that they may look rationally to the remarks we have made, we would urge upon them to make the institution they represent, what it really should be, a genuine scheme of dealing between the two races, for the advantage of both. This can be done— but not by “ jumping ” the claims of those who wore first in the field.