Poverty Bay Standard. PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY AND SATURDAY MORNINGS. GISBORNE: SATURDAY, APRIL 21, 1883.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1312, 21 April 1883, Page 2

Poverty Bay Standard. PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY AND SATURDAY MORNINGS. GISBORNE: SATURDAY, APRIL 21, 1883.

Wl desire that it may be distinctly understood by our readers that wo do not appear before them aa supplicant., but aa we have made it onr invariable practice to be truthful and fearless, we will now make a clean breast of our position. We are unable to continue the issue of the Staxdabd after this morning. We are experiencing in common with many, in fact we might safely say all, business people the baneful effecte of the pressure lately brought to bear npon the community at large, Our business necessitates the giving of certain credits, which credits if duly met would in every wey tend to strengthen and prolong the vitality ef onr paper, but onr credits have not been so dnly met, our books showing a woful length of figure, in arrears, although onr business and circulation has greatly increased ; and although wo meet with sympathy on all sides, we have yet to reach that Arcadia where sympathy and friendship supply the place of money. As far as we are personally concerned we rather prefer the Arcadian system, but, strange aa it may appear, onr Banker does not enter largely into the spirit of it, while onr creditors, who, we are thankful to eay, are not numerous, positively reject the idea of conducting business upon those principles, and as we cannot negotiate with those gentlemen that commodity whioh appears most plentiful with our debtors, we hsve remaining to ue the choice of evils—either to run the paper free, gratis, for nothing, or to shut it up until better times offer more valuable inducement to resume its publication. We have decided to adopt the latter course as more conducive to our own interests snd those of the various business people with whom we deal. We do this not without mature deliberation, and much regret the stern necessity that compels us to such end. ; but notwithstanding our regret we cannot disguise from ourselves the fact that when Saturday cotpes wages have to be paid, and when, week after week, our collector returns from his peregrinations in search of the I Sinews of War with the same old story, a ■ story which is doubtless simultaneously reechoed in many business establishments in Gisborne, “ No money—money too tight j “can’tcollect”—wo become positively dis- I heartened. Surely if ever prohibition order I

were needed, it is naw needed ag&hut money, for, during the last twelve mouths, it has been in the same disgraceful state of TIGHT —“ the lame old drunk ”we conclude. We heartily pray that it may soon have a ••lucia interval.” We have been asked and advised by many of our friends to reconsider our decision, and continue our issue without making even any temporary stoppage, but the thing is impossible, while we, at such a disadvantage in collection, are not only losing oar time and money in the interests of others, but are actually' advancing money for them out of our own pockets, and as those pockets are not overflowing with riches or likely at the present rate of things to becoma so, we must follow the dictates of our own experience and judgment, and, even at the risk of offending our friends, wind up the career of the Standard with the present issue. The pressure brought upon the people by the Banks has been the main instrument in retarding the payment of those ordinary credits which all business people, and newspaper proprietors in particular, are forced, by the exigencies of the demands lor the good conduct of their various businesses, to give. No business man ever yet succeeded in establishing a conduct of business entirely free from credit, but from henceforth we hope at least to see that evil reduced to a minimum which would place the people out of the reach of the pressure to which they lately have bean, and even now are, subject. If only the absolute bona fide actual necessaries of bare life were made the items of legitimate credit, people would not, nay, could not, buy beyond or in anticipation of their means, while the instances of want would be so reduced in number that the vendors of those necessary commodities would gladly welcome the imposition as a change from a heavy burden to a light one. We remember to have seen over the bar, in some hotel or other, a placard bearing the picture of a dead dog, inscribed underneath. “ Poor Trust is dead; bad pay killed him.” We could almost parody the words, for we certainly should not now he penning our valedictory address but for the stubborn, and to us overwhelming fact that “ bad pay has killed us.” We do not die craving for mercy. We have fought a good fight, aa even our enemies will admit, and struggled manfully in the interests of the public, and now only succumb to powerful antagonistic principles in credit ana pressure, The Standard in articulo Htorlis will uphold its war cry of “Justice for high and low, for rich and poor—equal justice for all. ” We have never pandered or truckled to the venal wishes or measures of “ the ring j” we have never closed our eyes to shady transaction, or our ears to the cry of help for the oppressed. Had we chosen to adopt the line which would doubtless have moat enriched us, viz., that of cloaking the loathsome iniquities of frand and falsehood which are being daily perpetrated in our midst; had we elected the role of Pecksnifflan morallity which is so commercially successful in Poverty Bay, we should doubtless have, in a monetary view, done well and wisely ; but we have always preferred the straightforward course of truth, justice, and honesty, to that of lying, chicanery, and fraud, and so mote it be. If our choice be given us of becoming rich by the sacrifice of our own feelings of independence, truth, and honor, or remaining poor all the days of ou.r life by the maintenance of them, we unhesitatingly chose the latter alternative, and pray most heartily that we may . become and remain as commercially as Job or Lazarus during the remainder of our natural existence. Independent journalism unless backed with capitals a thing which has do existence. -Tfee moment it is discovered that a paper ! will not cringe and bow to a few who, for the I furtherance of their own personal ends, de- ■ sire—aye, even consider it a right—to rule a I community, that moment is the paper damned, The actions of certain cliques will ‘ not bear the light which a fearless journal ; throws upon them. They must be carefully | hidden foom public gaze, but the j discovered that the Standard would never j ba permitted to be sullied by covering so “slovenly unhandsome corpses” as those i these money-grinders wish to conceal. We i think we may fairly lay the flattering unction to our soul, that our independence if it has brought little grist to the mill, has at least made us some friends. From all sides we have beon assured of support and sympathy. An old story runs something as follows i«A poor, decrepit, old man fainted in the street, evidently from exhaustion. A crowd soon gathered round him, and each and all expressed their sorrow freely for the unfortunate man, and were loud in their lamentations, when suddenly a stranger stepped forward and asked if they really felt sad, and the reply came “ yes,” “So am I,” he eaid, “I am sorry five shillings’” at the same time placing that amount in his hat, and : he went round the crowd and asked how j much they felt sorry. The old adage, j “ Talk is cheap ” was clearly proven I in this instance as, when sorrow had to he ' expressed by pounds, shillings and pence the crowd dispersed. As with the story, so with us. Sympathy and good will towards us proves most soothingly grateful to our feelings and is duly reciprocated ; but do our utmost we cannot cut it up into £5 notes. Promises of support will not pa 7 wages. Sympathy and goodwill, however freely expressed, will not fill hungry atom ich«, and the best wishes for our welfare will not either clothes us, feed, or even provide us with ink. Well I It is a weary lane that has uo turn ing, and the Standard may once more arise Phcenixlike from its own ashes to again become the guardian of the peoples’ interests. That such may be the case we in common with our friends most fervently hope, but it is certain th&t such c&n only be the case under altered circumstances. That u e shall be missed is beyond a doubt; that we may be “recalled to life” is possible, but for the present in the uncertainty of the latter becoming a fact, we bid our friends, readers, and enemies a hearty farewell, thanking them one and all for what they have done in our interests, regretting what they have left undone, and pardoning all that which they ought not to have done ; with which few words we jostle the call boy, the players join hands, the band plays tne miserere, and the curtain falls on the journalistic existence of the Poverty Bay Standard.