Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, MONDAY, JANUARY 9, 1899, DISSATISFIED.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 8410, 9 January 1899, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, MONDAY, JANUARY 9, 1899, DISSATISFIED.

What took place at the meeting of the Chamber of Commerce on Friday evening may be described as the anti-climax to the triumphant visit of the Premier to Poverty Bay. Mr Setldon came, and saw, and conquered. He had a glorious time at the public expense, and his vanity was gratified by much personal adulation. But now people are beginning to reckon up the intrinsic, value of his visit and the exact measure of his utterances, and, we regret to say, they find them small. In his great public oration, as we pointed out at the time, the Premier dealt only in generalities, and the few remarks he made concerning the district were of a statistical nature and singularly inaccurate. He made no definite promises of help, and, in fact, threw cold water upon our ambitions enterprises. The Premier triumphed decisively over the deputations which waited upon him. He gave them the barest of limits of time and met their requisitions with stereotyped replies. In fact, he seemed to resent being deputationised at all, for he subsequently informed the people that Mr Carroll was the gentleman they should interview, and he (their member) would lay the matters before the Cabinet. Summing up the results of the deputations, the President of the Chamber of Commerce stated that the only definite statement the Premier had made was as to the health resort on the Waikanae, and that, he had said, was a matter entirely for the local bodies. To give credit where credit is due, however, it is only fair to the Premier to state that one other definite promise was made, namely, that a tri-weekly mail service would be established between Gisborne and Te Karaka. For this much let us indeed be thankful, but it it well that the Government and Mr Carroll should know that the district is by no means satisfied with the treatment that has been accorded to it. As the President pointed out in his Bpeech, the year 189S passed leaving us little further advanced than we were before. "He must confess that they had not had much success or progress during the past year. Not a mile of coach road had been made, and there had been no attempt to open the country." The year 1599 will show as little progress unless the people agitate for attention to their requirements, and refuse to be put off as easily as they were by the Premier the other day, The idea, of inviting the Minister of Public Works to the district may be looked upon as utterly useless. Mr Hull Jones is purely a figurehead, and has no more authority to order the execution of any public work than a junior clerk in Ilia office. If he did so, the chances are, us with the conveniences he had erected at. Parliamentary Buildings, the work would probably be pulled down again as soon as it came under the notice of his autocratic chief. The giving of picnics to Ministers in the hope of reward to the district, may, after past experiences, be regarded as an utter waste of the money of the citizens who laudably subscribe to such objects, and of the taxpayers who have to pay the cost of the special steamers and trains to convey their highnesses from place to place. The Premier has properly directed the people to the member for the district as the medium of communication with the Government, and unpleasant as the task may be of badgering a genial and popular gentleman like Mr Carroll, it should be the duty of our public men to give him no, peace, and to represent to him the consequences to himself politically of continued neglect of the main requirements of the district by the Government.