The Union Company.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 298, 14 May 1889, Page 3

The Union Company.

[to the editor.]

Sib, —I think Gisborne people could not have a better exemplification of the necessity there is for opposition to the Union Company, when the place is treated as it was on Friday and Sunday. On neither afternoon was there the barest excuse for the Steamers forsaking the port; the Snark might almost have gone out for an excursion, and I guarantee that there is not a boatmap |n the place who would have been afraid to take a whaleboat out to the anchoring ground. Captain Sinclair, we know, always had an antipathy to the port—probably because it is too insignificant to be in keeping with his lofty nautical ideas—and he never loses a chance of letting us know his feeling?. On a comparatively calni day he will lay away out in a spot which I am told is, if anything, more dangerous than the usual anchorage which the other captains (quite as good as he) take. It was therefore not at all surprising that the Tarawera should pass on, but Captain Logan must have been out in his reckoning when he jrlso decided to go oh. No sailor would say that there was a heavy sea in the Bay, and qhtobas been found workable on other occawhen it was three times as bad. The there being a gale at Napier is no ground at all for supposing that Gisborne is similarly affected. When a short time ago they had a very bad time of it in Napier, and the breakwater sustained a good deal of damage, it was as calm as a mill pond'in Gisborne, and the passenger? from North were thunderstruck when they got A- into Napier and saw how matters stood, they y- not being made aware of it before they left Gisborne- Whether it to that we have previously held too high an opinion of some of the Union captains, or some other cause which Is not present to my mind, there could not be a better proof of the urgent need of opposition to fhako the Union Comhany recognise the convenience of its clients, ■ Jf some of the captains are afraid to bring their vessels to this port in Blich eom. paratlvely mild weather as we had on Friday and Sunday, then we hardly know what may next arise to astonish us. Good healthy opposition seems to be the only remedy for the treatment we have received. G’sborne is not alone in the cause of complaint, for if the passengers carried on had been'left at Gisborne) they .could have been Bared a rough time of |t on the ocean, and then got back a few days later. Opposition Is going to bring some of the fares down to half price, and I hope it may be successful from the owners’ point of view. It has been badly wanted, and now it has been begun wo may well hope that it will be sustained. —I am, Ac.,

Anti-Monopoly.