The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Saturday, September 26, 1891. NOTES.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume V, Issue 664, 26 September 1891, Page 2

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

Saturday, September 26, 1891. NOTES.

Be just and fear not; Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country’s, Thy God’s, and truth’s.;

Writing of the petition that the Government should arrange to take over the indisposable lands of the N.Z.N.L.S. Company, the N.Z. Herald states : —lt is needless for us to go into the details of this business, which is fraught with painful memories to many citizens of Auckland. What we have to do with is the present position. Somewhere about half-a-miilion of acres on the East Coast, comprising many areas of fertile arable land, and the best sheep country in the colony, is now completely locked up by the legal complications which have accumulated upon it. The natives haye parted v'ith their lands to the company, the shareholders of the company have lost all the money they embarked in the venture, while the mortgagees, the Estates Company, now hold the land, but in such a way that they cannot make available much of it at the present time. The natives hold possession of some portions, and it will be found necessary, as a matter of public policy, that reserves should be made for them if it is found necessary to remove them from their present situations. Mr Mitchelson, when Native Minister, made an attempt to arrange this very complicated business, but was not successful. Mr Cadman has many elements in his favor, and if he achieved it, he would do a work for the colony the importance of which can scarcely be exaggerated. He would make available for settlement a large area of the best land in the colony now lying waste. Every acre of the land would soon be taken up and occupied, because it is specially fitted for the production of staple articles of export now in demand. To remove from the path of progress this great obstacle would be a triumph for the Government, and would tend to show that the present Ministers desired to advance the colony, and were not entirely absorbed in Labor Bills and other legislation promoted by trade unions. In setting this land free from the complications that now tie it up, the Government would have the assistance of every section of politicians, because it cannot be the interest or the wish of any person to keep back from settlement land which might be made available almost at once,

As our correspondent predicted, the Native Land Bill has been rejected with the exception of a clause to prevent litigation. Sir George Grey is one who has to be thanked mainly for the blow that has been struck at the hopes of many settlers in this district who ought to have the sympathy of every man who has been gifted with ordinary intelligence. The most charitable supposition is _ that Sir George has lent an ear to wirepullers whose personal interests are placed before the interests of the country. There could have been no more genuinely Liberal measure than that which the Hon. Mr Cadman sought to have passed into law. It would have contributed greatly to the progress of the country, have done much to subvert the outflow of j population from the colony, and would afford some measure of justice to settlers who have been sorely harassed, and in fact been shamefully cheated by the so-called laws of the present day. It would be easy to cite individual cases to illustrate this. If the question were only comprehended in its proper light, we feel confident that all intelligent men would agree that it was the most important question to which Parliament could have applied its attention during the session. We suppose that some day people will awaken to the fact, but the experience so far has been a very bitter one. For the present we must feel thankful for the one clause to dam back the tide of litigation that threatened to surge in.

The reduced prices since the opening of the present series of London wool sales is not cheering information to Poverty Bay settlers. Every fraction of a penny reduction made in the price of wool totals a large sum that is lost to the sheepfarmers. Fluctuations of the market must be anticipated in the price of wool as in any other article of export, and that is the grim consolation with which the farmer must content himself. The decline seems to have been a nearly allround one, and the change for the worse may as well be accepted in as graceful a way as the circumstances will permit, for beyond the power to recognise the fall and reflect accordingly, the farmers can do nothing in the matter. But we hope that a rise may soon be reported.

The bitter experience of the past has not yet taught workmen that strikes are to be avoided as a means of remedying grievances. A London telegram states that the carpenters’ strike has already cost .£50,000. If the struggle should happen to go against the men, as it seems likely to do, their last stage will be much worse than the first, for they will be left with weak safeguards which some unscrupulous employers will not be slow to take advantage of. The latter class of men will thus meet on uneven terms the contractor who wishes to deal fairly with the men he employs, with the result that the fair employer will either have to go under, or adopt the murderous system of the man who would if he could cut wages down to starving point, Strikes are only justified by th? cigar prospect of success.

THE following slap-dash paragraph from a Sydney paper has additional significance given to it by more recent failures : — Among the half-dozen or so of banks and alleged banks which have burst mysteriously within the last few weeks in various parts of Australia there is one characteristic which seems to turn up every time—the reserve fund can’t be found. Every bank that breaks has a reserve fund, but it always seems to be kept in some place where no one can get at it when it is wanted. Most pf the defunct institutions paid a big dividend at last balance, and carried a large sum to the said *'reserve,- but either they forgot the bearings of the place they parried it to, or else the road is too dreadfully uphill for it to be carried back again, for it never seems to get back in time to do any service. Why they all keep these fpnds in such an inaccessible spot has never be.etj explained. A very small amount kidded in a pair of old boots under the counter would have saved several institutions which have come to grief with a gigantic amount of “ undivided profits " glaring out of the balance-sheet, but it never happened to be there. The whole banking system wants revision. There ought tP be a black-tracker in every bank to get qn ths trail of the the profit-and-loss aceount when it is wanted ; or else the reserve fund should be abolished altogether, and the general manager should simply keep a £lO,OOO Government debenture concealed for use in emergencies) The present scheme is of no earthly good,