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Poverty Bay Independent, Volume I, Issue 25, 21 July 1885, Page 2

Having merged into a tri-weekly, and assumed the respectable proportions of our present form, it becomes our incumbent duty to address a few words to our friends and supporters. When we started this journal in March last, under the greatest difficulties, both present and prospective, we undertook the arduous task more from a strong desire to, as far as possible, counteract those evil influences which—either from sheer inanity, or a corrupt line of selfish policy—were working against the best interests and prospects of this town and district, than from any hope of a lucrative reward. We saw that all matters affecting the welfare and progress of the people, all questions of morality and enlightenment, were being sacrificed to the avrice and venality of one class, and that the great majority of the people had no exponent of their wants, their wishes, or their interests. Public questions of the greatest import were approaching, and a most critical and important period of our history had been arrived at. Strenuous efforts wgrg being made by our public men to open up a bright future prospect for the district by obtaining the sanction of Parliament to construct a harbor in the Bay; and yet no word of encouragement or assistance was vouchsafed them by an organ whose moral obligations and plain duty together with its whole interest, should have been identical with the movement. We saw that if this cloying evil were left unchecked much longer, that the golden opportunity might be for ever lost, and that the future prosperity and

advancement of this district was in imminent danger of being sacrificed. We entered the lists under the broad and Independent basis of an advocate of the public rights, interests, and morals. Whether we have done our duty or not has best been shown by the result, and we do not fear being accused of excessive egotism if we claim to have contributed in no small degree to the present successful accomplishment of the harbor scheme. The next important question which claimed public attention was the pecuniary position of the Borough, and the Turanganui Bridge fiasco. Is it too much to say that had we not been in existence the public would not have known anything about these grave matters ? And now with respect to the all-important Native land question: who would have taken up the matter had we not done our duty ? When has our leading (?) journal ever led the van and attempted to mould public opinion on any of the many important and vital questions which have ever—but more especially of late — cropped up ? Its columns have been solely devoted to the washy panderings to a few, while the broad wants and interests of the great body of the people have been utterly ignored. Is it any wonder that the district has so long been suffering from neglect at the hands of our legislators? It was to remedy this state of affairs that we ventured to enter the public arena, and although, owing to narrow-minded prejudices and ulterior motives, our efforts have not met with that amount of recognition in certain quarters which we have a just right to claim and expect, yet we have every reason to be proud of the warm support and acknowledgment which we have received from a generous and discriminating public. In the future, as in the past, we shall studiously endeavor to make our interests solely identical with those of the people, and as an exponent of the needs and wants of the district shall never flag in trying to obtain for this neglected district a fair share of those plums which have been so lavishly scattered in other directions.