CORRESPONDENCE.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1248, 16 January 1883, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

We do not hoi 1 ourselves responsible for the opinions expressed by our correspondents]. TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —I received an invitation to subscribe to a dinner to do honor to Mr Wm, Clarke, and your paper (I think without a knowledge of the true facts) has approved of the said dinner. Now, Sir, when a public dinner is given to any person it is generally on the grounds that he has conferred substantial favors on the community. I would ask, what are the favors Mr Clarke has donated us ? If the grounds on which the proposed dinner is to be given are those stated in Mr Clarke’s egotistical letter which appeared in the Napier “ Telegraph ” of November 28th, and “ Herald ” of December 6th, then I say they are nod correct. In that letter Mr Clarke claims to be the founder of both Companies. The Sydney people who subscribed to send Mr Clarke over here to report would probably question this as far as the Pacific is concerned; or to start “de novo.” Mr Stubbs, who collected the funds, and Mr Ross, who went to Sydney, would have a still better right to question Mr Clarke’s statement. The Cross shareholders will certainly question such an assertion ; the Company was floated and started with Gisborne capital alone, Mr Clarke’s vaunted capitalists not assisting at all; it was not for many months afterwards that they took a tangible interest, and then not through any influence of Mr Clarke’s.

Again, he claims “The very existence of the Southern Cross Company has depended on me more than once.” I would ask his codirectors if this is true. He claims to have done his best to obtain petroleum. In what way ? How many times has he been up to the Company’s works to see that everything is going as it ought to ? No, Sir ; his visits have been very few ; he has been much more profitably occupied in Gisborne (for himself) in working the sharemarket. In the latter part of his letter he infers that it was through his efforts that Native hostility to European occupation of portions of the Waiapu District was overcome, and through his efforts that the road via Tuparoa was opened by the Natives. This is utterly untrue ; it is well known, both on the Coast and in Gisborne, that it was Mr Wm. Cooper who negotiated so successfully the Rotokautuku for Mr Clarke. It was Wm. Cooper who, in conjunction with Mr Haig, negotiated the opening of the Tuparoa Road ; Mr Clarke had nothing to do with it. What influence has he ever had, or likely to have ? It is no notorious that the Native hostility up the Coast has been directed against Mr Clarke personally, not against the Company. Anyone seeking for knowledge had better ask Ropata Wahawaha, Hotene, or Pene Tu their opinion of Wiremu Karaka. Natives are good judges of character.—From your friend— Tjka.