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Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 648, 15 March 1870, Page 2

Qur Hokitika: contemporary yesterday devoted a considerable amount of space to an attempt to prove that the Greymouth people " are never, remiss in looking after their own interests, that they are emphatically energetic, both iv great things and small, and that their energies, where mo.n.ey is to be had, are very little }.npeded by the.ir modesty." As a community, we are. happy to receive this pat on the back, but we much fear that it is undeserved, at least, so far as our deal* ings with onr Hokitika neighbors are concerned, for the past has proved that in all monetary transactions this community has been over-reached. But to the case in point. It is scarcely worth the space that is devoted to it, being a dispute about the right of our Hospital Committee tfi receive a portion of a sum of £89 2s Cd, the balance o money collected some four or five years ago for the relief of destitute miners in Westland. Instead of meriting the title of "grasping," which our contemporary applies to the Grey River Hospital Committee, that very estimable body of gentlemen ought to have beea commended for the pure spirit of fairness in which the proposition was made by them, that the balance available should be divided between tho three Hospitals in Westland, in proportion to the number of patients in each on a given date. Instead of this equitable division the Hokitika Hospital Committee desires to grasp the entire sum, on the plea, according to our contemporary, that was subscribed for the erection of a Miners 1 Hospital in Hokitika. It was raised for the relief of destitute miners, and men were relieved out of the fuud from whatever part of Westland they came, aud it was contributed by persons belonging to every part of Westland, and the remaining balance ought at once to be divided, as proposed by the Oroymouth Hospital Committee, between the three institutions. Only as a matter of principle is this affair worth contending for, and as such we take this prominent notice of it.