WAIROA.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 6439, 2 December 1881, Page 6

WAIROA.

(from our own correspondent). November 19,

The Native Lands Court was opened by Judge Htales yesterday, and as the success )n and subdivision claims appear to be interminable, it is expected that it will be well into the new year before the work is over. The Court-house here is far too small for such an assemblage of Maoris, and really, when the age and the general unsuitability of the building are taken into consideration, it is a wondrr the Government do not go in for a decent block of buildings, combining Court-house and Pos ( s and Telegraph-offices, the building used for the latter purpose being about the size of a couple of sentry-boxes, and very nearly as ornamental.

hlectioneering agents are busy, too busy for the peace and general qnietntss of us sober country bumpkins. From ray Gisborne friends I gather that the betting in the borough of Gisborne Is S to 2 on McDonald. In the country districts of Cook country it is 3 to 2 on Locke : in Wairoa county it is 2 to 1 on Locke. The problem to be solved on polling day is, by how much will the Gisborne town votes nullify the combined votes of the Cook and Wairoa counties ? I fancy the contest is (as matters appear at the present moment) a level one, and both sides will fight bard. There is no doubt but that Locke is the favorite with the intelligent section of the community, but McDonald’s party have worked up the horsey part of the community. The athletes are great on him ; a section of the publicans almcst worship him ; they certainly swear by him, and interlaid their conversation pleutitully when bepraising “ that blanked good fellow, McDonald.** Of course, he is great with the Highlanders, although, for my own part, I doubt the purity of his Scotch descent My theory is this, that a scion of the noble bouse of Front de Boeuf (Ivanboe’s Front de B«*uf) immigrated to the land o* the leal and cakes at some early period and settled there. Highlander or no Highlander, McDonald is not to be rubbed out at electioneering. He has the pubs, with him, the betting and racing men, the ring, the Land Company, and all the aiders and abettors thereof ; he has the discontented, the Greyites pure and simple—the latter especially, when found —and last, but nob least, the proverbial unemployed men I Not a verj respectable crowd to rub shouldeza with, and not a very select assortment—rather mixed, it must be confessed, bub still their votes in the aggregate tell as well as the votes of the more cultured classes, and I expect to see McDonald well up on polling day, because he is a man not to be wiped out easily. If the Ministerial supporters were but combined under Locke, the victory would be almost a certainty ; as it is, the split in the party, caused by Captain Porter’s candidature, may have the effect of sending McDonald again to Parliament. Porter himself has no chance whatever ; he appears to be standing for the sole purpose of allowing McDonald to win.

The East Coast Land Company is not in very good odour among the Natives in this district, and the emissaries thereof have not as yet done much business in this direction. November 22. We are expecting a visit from the Minister for Lands. We have been, off and on, expect* ing a visit from some Minister of the Cabinet ever since responsible Government was granted to the colony ; being, as a community, trustworthy, we have lived in hopes. Thera are traditions, vague and uncertain, to the effect that Kawana Kerei and Jim Crow Richmond once visited this somewhat somnolent settlement, but the inhabitants of those early, halcyon days have, for the most part, drank themselves to that higher and happier sphere where rum, whisky, and tobacco are to be had, like milk and honey, without money and without price. There is also a tradition, of a more recent date, that Mr Macandrew, whan Minister for Public Works, observing from a Parliamentary return that some 250,0 0 acre* of land were then belonging to the Crown in the Wairoa district, proposed to run a loop-line from the Otago Central Railway to tap this new source of revenue. Upon being told that this would necessitate bridging Conk Strait, Macandrew’a interest in Wairoa subsided—it vanished as does a Scotch mist before the summer sun, or as an impecunious debtor mizzles round a corner when a bailiff heaves in eight. As I said before, however, we are expecting a Ministerial visit ; there are still some 200,000 acres of Crown lauds to be disposed of in this country, and roads and bridges have to be made to open them np for sale and settlement; to say nothing of such minor wants as a new Court-house and a more commodious post and telegraph office—which office, by the way, is about the only paying one in the Hawke’s Bay Provincial District; the upper portions of our magnificent river (about the host in the colony for a regatta) want snugging j the Harbor Board also wants to know why Sir John Goode’s report on the entrance to the river ha- not vet come to hand. Altogether, our wants are many, if our means are small.

One great, source of complaint here is that onr Resident Magistrate is not a resident. Our peripatetic Magistrate would be a more fitting description, for in this case the term resident ”is a complete misnomer. With a large Native population (numbering throughout 0 the county some 2300), we should have a Government official residing here, through whom communications could he made as to Native affairs, &c. It speaks well for the quiet, law-abiding character of the Wairoa Natives that sittings of the Resident Magistrate’s Court are only held monthly, but things can hardly he called satisfactory as they now are.

There is a fine field here for a young and steady medical man. We have no doctor in the place, no medicos nearer than Napier on the one side and Gisborne oa the other, both being sixty miles distant. There are some Constabulary stationed in the district, the Government offer £SO per annum on account of the Native population, then there is the public vaccination business, the Coroner’s feta (the Coroner’s billet being vacant), and the insurance office feev, besides which there are two friendly societies ; altogether, there is a rising practice for any man not averse to a country life and who is fond of equestrian exercise.

The Catholics are about to build a chapel; the contract has been signed, and the building is to be started by the new year. This will make three places ot worship in Wairoa, the Church of England and iresbyterian deBoniuations having already neat and commodious churches in Queen-sn eet.

Our annual races take place on the 12th January, the leading prizes being—County Stakes, £IOO ; Handicap Hurdles, £SO, with plenty of minor attractions to suit local “weeds ” and screws.”

In matters political there is nothing fresh to record. Mr Locke is still the general favorite. He will poll more in this county than all his four opponents put together, and more than twice as much as any one of them.