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Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XII, Issue 4180, 3 January 1885, Page 2

' It is to be earnestly hoped that the Colonial Exhibition will not be allowed 1 to "slide," but that we shall have an active interval in our usual apathy. A little energy put into the matter would enable us to be very fairly represented at Wellington. Here is an excellent chance of improving our reputation and adver--1 tising ourselves, and to show that we can 1 produce something better than the mythi- \ cal "land sharks " some Southerners believe this place to swarm wi h, and that our producing power is capable of exhibits better than bankrupts and litigation. To read the list of articles the exhibition will embrace shows that we might put in ( a very good appearance indeed, but ( united and energetic action will be requisite, otherwise it will be found that what j is everybody's business is nobody's business. The adjourned meeting on Tues- ; day should be largely attended, and the ■ thing ought to be vigorously followed up f till complete success is attained. The '

proposal to exhibit our rascally bankrupts and dishonored paper may be dropped, and those who suggest and approve such exhibits may consider how far they are responsible for the abundance of the articles. If all the swindling bankrupts of the colony were to be exhibited in Wellington the population of that city would be doubled, and we should well hold our own in the show. Then if they could be sent away to inhabit some island all to themselves the colony would be purged of a pest worse than the cholera. And in the clear out, if the bummers, lazy skunks, and other nuisances could be weeded out and packed off so much the better. France threatens us with an avalanche of her worst criminals, whom she desires to be quit of by permanently exiling to New Caledonia. Instead of months of futile protest why not lot her send them and we retaliate by shipping off our bankrupts and other scoundrels to New Caledonia to keep company with their fellow-rascals? It would be hard on the convicts, but then it would be better for us. There would be a lively struggle in the survival of the fittest in New Caledonia, and— who knows !— the fittest might be the burglars and murderers from Europe. To us it would matter little who survived. Any little preference we might have would be against the bankrupts. Swindling insolvency is a subject perpetually asserting itself, and it will do so for a year or two more till the colony rises in indignation and sweeps away in the bankruptcy lavr what is perhaps the most monstrous farce in civilisation, and which five years hence we shall be astonished that we ever endured. Meanwhile there will be a continual supply of rogues as Join; as the dupes are willing to be victimised. Some of our bankrupt rogues are away now on pleasant holiday excursions, while their victims are poring over their ledgers to find that the expenses of those excursions, which they have provided, make the year's accounts balance the wrong way. It is refreshing to meet with an original remark on the natl >nal scandal, especially when it comes from the pulpit. There is one clergyman at least who dares to speak his mind. At Napier on Sunday week the Rev. Mr Paterson said in the course of a sermon : "It is the easiest tiling in the world for a man to scatter money abroad which is not his own ; the easiest thing to give away money which ought to go into the pockets of his creditors. In olden days thieves and highwaymen got credit for being generous men, because what they would take from one they would give to another, but you could not regard that as the highest stamp of a man. Any man who makes capital in this way ought to be regarded by no other name than that which has been just spoken. We are not in any way to give that to others which does not belong to us." In view of the Harker bankruptcy there this was well timed. Wou'd there were more clergymen with the courage of their convictions to denounce tho bankruptcy thieves who take what does not belong to them and constantly p-actise bare-faced fraud which makes decent men's blood boil. Here is another view on the same subject. The Illustrated London News, of October 25th last, says : — " Bankruptcy is too common now-a-days, and is managed with too little publicity for the general weal. They manage these things far better in China ; for if a native dealer fails to pay his creditors, they all assemble at his house, fortified with their pipes and a goodly store of rice and tea, and there they sit, calmly smoking, sipping and eating till the money is paid. If, however, the defaulter be a European, they post a police agent at his door, and fasten on it a huge sheet of paper on which each creditor writes the amount owing to him. It is decidedly uncomfortable to ' fail ' in the Celestial Empire, and consequently the occurrence is a rare-one." Could we not learn something from this ? Unfortunately, till things worked out a little, if wo tried tho first plan half of us would be living in the houses of the other half. And if the second plan were adopted we should want here alono a great body of policemen, and a large nunibe 1 * of doors would bear the autograph of almost every member of the community. It is not easy to understand the .excitement Victorians, or rather Mr Service und his colleagues, seem to be thrown into about the German annexation of, or protectorate over some tropical islands. Surely Germany has as much right to Northern as Britain has to Southern New Guinea, and any unappropriated islands are as open to Germans as to Englishmen. Britons cannot populate the whole earth, and if Germans want tropical islands that Europeans can hardly live in, why make a fuss ? What possible harm can be .done by having German colonies many times the distance from us that England is from Germany ? Recognising the impossibility of England taking the whole of the unappropriated portions of the world's surface, the Germans are just the very people we should welcome as helpers in the work of civilisation. Millions of Germans make the very best of American citizens ; there are many thousands of them in these colonies, and no better colonists could be had. No one ever thinks that we could make colonies in New. Guinea and the neighboring . islands, in tire sense that we understand colonies when speaking of those of Australasia. That being so, is it not preferable to have Germans as neighbors rather than Frenchmen, for instance ? The la*t year has shown us the result of having French neighbors in these seas. All the protesting and objection of Australasia has made but little impression on French statesmen desirous of sending their convicts to be a danger to us. The slightest hint from Prince Bismarck would have done more than a year's Australasian diplomacy has been able to. If Germany has South Sea colonies, France is not likely to give us any trouble with her recidivistes. Once the German Chancellor has a locus standi to speak on that question, any representations on our part would be rendered superfluous. It is pleasing to see that all the other colonies take a calmer and more reasonable view of the matter than the Victorian Ministry does ; and a suspicion obtrudes itself that Mr Service's action may be unconsciously partly due to an ambition to have a voice and figure among the potentates and statesmen of Europe.