The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Tuesday, January 15, 1889. COMING HARBOR ELECTION.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 247, 15 January 1889, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning.

Tuesday, January 15, 1889. COMING HARBOR ELECTION.

Be just and fear not; Let all th* ends thou alm’at At be thy oountry’a, Tbjr God’«, and truth’s.

The general election in connection with the Harbor Board takes place in February next, but as yet there Il not the slightest indication of any great activity being taken in the contest, and we believe only about one in every ten ratepayers knows that the ap» proMhing election is so close at hand.

The calm that has followed the storm has been a calm indeed, most people being so tired of hearing and reading I of harbor matters that if the members of the Board had taken a holiday ever since the last poll, the probability is there would not have been a murmur about it, provided the money to keep the machinery going had been forthcoming as required. This serenity has been very pleasant after the prior experiences, and the cessation of internecine squabbling has been calculated to in a great measure redeem us in the eyes of those who had become convinced in the opinion that any bad names they could apply to the place would be too good for it, and who had only to make a few quotations of what had been said in the place itself by those who ought to have known better to give imaginary proof of the existence of all the worst features of other districts without any of their good points. Only those who have come in constant intercourse with passing visitors can form a true estimate of the damage which this district has suffered owing to the harmful reports that have been allowed to go abroad concerning it. Independent altogether of our harbor works, or of the ominous forebodings with which a few people regard them, it will be months yet, and it may be years, before the district can fully recover from the injurious effect of the bad impressions that have been made in the minds of. outsiders.

There can of course be an extreme in either direction, but we may be safely assured that the biennial election of an important body like the Harbor Board will be sufficient in itself to arouse a healthy interest when the proper time arrives. All that we ask is that great care will be taken when that time does arrive, and during any excitement that may attach to it, to consider the interests of the district as a whole, and that there shall be no repetition of the evil that has been enacted in the past. There is time enough to deal with the points at issue, but we take this early opportunity to urge that in case there should be any conflict of opinion that the warmth of an election contest will not lead to the various views being expressed in anything but a temperate and reasonable way. From present appearances it would seem that the election will be mainly an individual contest, and that there will be no attempt to divert matters from the course they have now taken, but it is impossible to tell what unexpected things may happen, and the calm that now reigns supreme is no guarantee of what may be the feeling in a month hence, with the biennial election at hand,

Tims after time have we taken Advantage of opportunities to mildly refer to tha management of the Gisborne Public Library, but the latest step taken in connection with that institution is more than we can patiently submit to, and we feel bound to make some protest. The institution Is subsiding into nothing better than a competitor with local booksellers, while at the same time claiming privileges which no business man would have the presumption to hope for. The latest alteration to which we have to refer is a decision that in future books may ba issued to persons not subscribers, at tha rata of threepence per book per week, which, to put it plainly, is nothing else than a “ cut-throat ” policy with the booksellers of the town. Is this unfair competition to be allowed ? Is thia the only means by which what ought to be one of the most beneficial institutions of the town is to be “ popularised ”? Are local tradesman who must find it quite hard enough to hold their own in these times to be met with an opposition from an institution which is indebted to the public for all the advantages it possesses? We would sooner hear that the institution would close its doors to-morrow than that it should come to this. But putting this part of the question aside for the moment, cannot the officers of the institution see what a suicidal policy they are pursuing ? Subscribers, we believe, now pay e guinea a year; and by the arrange, ment allowing books at threepence a week it will roma to thirteen shillings a year; but then egain if a stranger comes along and wants to sit down for a few minutes and read a newspaper, he is informed that “ a sixpence, please, would oblige.” It is to be regretted that an institution of the kind cannot be worked in a very different spirit to what is the case, and all we have got to say is that the sooner it is relegated to its proper position and becomes regarded as a private concern with which the general public has nothing in common, the better it will be for business people, whom it will place on a fair footing. It is time the fallacy were exploded, for unless some better defence can be made than any we have had hitherto we can only assume that the institution is being carried on under a fallacy.