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Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 193, 8 September 1888, Page 2

The annual meeting of the local Agricultural and Pastoral Society will shortly again be held. We are not aware of the society’s financial position, but we hope that something may ba dope this year to give effect to the mala object for which the Society was formed. It does not speak well for an agricultural district like Poverty Bay when ft i« found impossible to organise an annual show'. No doubt thia is mainly due to the apathy shown by the settlers themselves, and'is tm fayit of the management of the Society, which fjwsfi to have done its best in the matter. Whatever may have been the cause for the lack of interest in the past, we surely ought to be quite as well able to organise a good show this season as we could in years past. Times are dull.or, certainly • but it is when we begin to feel the pinch that we are bound to make the best use ot our natural advantages and what better way is there to do this than to encourage a friendly competition for the attainment of excellence in the different departments of agricultural and .Areiry work ’ A healthy stimulus is thus created, and was there ever a time when such was more necessary than it is now ? We hops that it may ba possible this year to throw some life and energy into the SqUety’s work,

A Cohbkspondent asks i—" Can you explain on wfiut grounds the Herald construes the rating clausa of the Harbor Amendment Act to mean jhat any further liablliiy is to be imposed on the aintrict beyond the radius? The evident intention of the Legislature is to make the sppoial district answerable for the £40,000 if ft be spent- To tfiis end " they have apportioned the liability between the two divisions of the Harbor district bo that the proportion in which they shall pay will be as 105 to 65. The present rate of one half penny in the £ is not to be exceeded in the ridings of Tologa and Waiapu, and if when that is fully called up in the proper proportions it should be insufficient then the special district must hear the extra burden, even if it be necessary to exceed the present rates of one penny and one half-penny. Nothing can be plainer than this. How then is the liability of Tologa and Waiapu increased ? By getting the benefit of the Harbor Revenue it ought to be deurcasod.—Yours etc., L«x."

If we can take as reliable a statement made by a defendant in the R. M. Court on Thursday, things have surely come to a lamentable pass. The person referred to said that with several others he had taken a contract for felling bush, at 17s an acre, and “ by working night and day one man could fall about an acre and a half a week ” I Add to this he was at times unwell and could not work. Is it possible that in this fair colony a m m may be in constant employment, working night and day (of course this statement must not be taken literally), and only earn 25s 6d a week ? We should hope that this man was only relating his own experience: if the application was general, then God help some of our working men. If a man in work cannot earn more than 25s a week, perhaps after being idle for mouths, then surely the hated Chinaman would find it difficult to compete with them. We cannot believe Buch a thing to be possible.