Poverty Bay Standard. Published Every Evening. GISBORNE: WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1882.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1224, 13 December 1882, Page 2

Poverty Bay Standard. Published Every Evening. GISBORNE: WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1882.

«< COMING events cast their shadows before them," and very portentous and disagreeablyominous are the shadows which are now intruding themselves on t*e business path oi the community of Poverty Bay. Whether it is the same all over the Colony we cauimt say, but we, who are residlent in this district, nave every reason to feel alarmed at the financial prospect. Everywhere throughout the district, from one end to the other, people are complaining alike of the stagnation of money and consequent depression of business. Professional men, as well as business men, the merchant on a large scale, and the ■mall shopkeeper, are alike susceptible to the lauses influencing the financial barometer. Three bankers beiug almost simultaneously ■elieved is a sign which has been observed jefore, and is invariably followed by the application generally of that infernal instrument of financial torture familiarly, aye, too .amiliarly, known to our readers as the •‘screw. The why and wherefore of this application lays by no means in a nutshell; the revenues of the Colony are daily improvmg; the wool crop never showed a better promise ; the new export undertakings sued n frozen meats, preserved meats, and ttie like, are promising well; Bank shares aie ligh ; and many new Companies for the manpulation of lauds, and of the various industries of which this Colony is capab.e, uave been started under favorable auspices, md with a prosperous future in prospect, vhy then this application for the second time in four years of the financial screw ’ If he money thus called in is being sent out of he Colony to the assistance ot Australia we tre being simply sacrificed to ou. side financial uterests. It on the other hand, as has been publicly stated, the screw is being thus applied in order to prevent private individuals nterfering with certain concerns in which the large financial institutions of the Colony

tre interested, notably the purchase of .Native lands, we have only to thauk a .voted few for the distress and disaster which such an operation must inevitably euatil. Can anyone look back lour years ago •.nd not dread a repetition of the “calling n” of that time 1 And yet there was reason for it then which does not exist now. Where ays the trouble ? Have the settlers been unfortunate enough to cross the path of one , r two of the powers that be ? And is this to be the means of suppressing the offenders ’ We fail to discover in the financial position if New Zealand any occasion for the wanton md uncalled for application of the screw hat residents in the Colony are now being ■objected to ; if such occasion exists it must iave its origin in the wilful carelessness of ne financial institutions, and should not be ■•isited upon the devoted heads of those « ho iave been their supporters from the start, md to many of whom the pressure thus Drought to bear can mean nothing short of commercial ruin. There are few persons ■low resident here who are uot already feeing to seme extent the disastrous effects of -his monetary pressure, and if signs and •umours are to obtain any belief, this pressure low only beginning, is intended to bo in-n-eased to the utmost shortly. The only wrsons who will escape its direful infliicur--sing the Directors of these financial instateions, while, are good enough to be extre le mxious for the welfare of their respective uititutions withhold from the public all knowedge of how their own overdrafts stand ; md we think they are wise. The accounts would hardly boar inspection.

PkTEA, This Day. A man named Lambert, a fireman, attempted suicide by cu tn , hi- throat with a car ng knife. He has been drinking. It is not likely to prove fatal.