NELSON, WESTPORT, AND COBDEN RAILWAY.

Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 684, 7 June 1870, Page 2

NELSON, WESTPORT, AND COBDEN RAILWAY.

[nelson examiner.] Everyone will rejoice to hear that the prospect of seeing the two extremities of the Province connected by a railway is highly promising. We announced last mouth that gentlemen had been found in England willing to construct the Nelson and Cobden Railway on the conditions offered by our Government, and that objections solely of a technical character had prevented the signing of a preliminary contract. By the last mail his Honor the Superintendent received letters informing him that, through the intervention of Dr Featherston and Mr Dillon Bell, the New Zealand Commissioners, all the objections had been overcome ; and before the mail left, the solicitors of the contractors had been instructed to draw up a preliminary contract on terms mutually agreed upon. On the signing of this contract, an engineer of high attainments will be despatched here to verify the survey made by Mr Wrigg for the Provincial Government ; and if that gentleman's report be found to be a reliable one, the construction of the railway will at once be undertaken. But under any circumstances, the contractors will bind themselves to at once construct a railway from Cobden] to the Brunner coal mme — a most important work, aud an excellent commencement of what we feel little doubt will quickly follow. The following ia the message in which the Superintendent announced the pleasing intelligence to the Council on the 27th ult.:— " The Superintendent has the satisfaction to inform the Provincial Council, that although he has received no official communication upon the subject of the Nelson, Cobden, and Westport Railway, by the mail which arrived this morning, he is in possession of private information of very favourable character. " By; confidential letters, from one of the New Zealand Commissioners, and others, the Superintendent learns that the legal difficulties referred to in his Message, No. 3, of the 3rd iiistan b, have, as he anticipated, been oveicoiiie by the assistance of the Commissioners, why have pledged the Colonial Government to use their influence with the General Assembly to that end. " This pledge proving to be satisfactory to the proposed contractors, and all other conditions, with some slight modifications sanctioned by the Commissioners, having been agreed upon, a draft preliminary contract was in course of preparation when the

left, and also a draft bill for the satisfaction of the technical objections raised. ' 'A deposit of LSOOO was to be made on the signing of the preliminary contract, and a further sum of L 15,000 as soon as the bill referred to shall have received the assent of the General Assembly. " One stipulation of much importance has been madeand agreed to, namely, thattheline from the Brunner coal«mineto Cobden shallbe commenced at once, and the mine worked while the survey of the main portions of the line is proceeding. "The Superintendent cannot anticipate any further difficulties or delays in this matter, but of course until the necessary documents are actually signed, no absolute certainty can be entertained. "Oswald Curtis, "Superintendent. "Nelson, May 27, 1870." We certainly owe a debt of gratitude to the Commissioners, in England, without whose assistance it is probable there would have been another year's delay before the work would have been undertaken. If the Commissioners would fail in the special object of their mission, the colony will have no cause to regret their appointment if they succeed in directing attention to the vast field which public works in New Zealand offers to British capitalists.