THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY. FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 1872.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1121, 1 March 1872, Page 2

THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY. FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 1872.

The battle of the Six Thousand is being warmly waged in Nelson. When we mention Nelson and anything in the shape of figures, our readers will readily understand that they mean money, and that it is money coming from those welcome visitants to that part of the country —from the clouds. Readers of recent records and discussions will discover also, without being definitely informed of the fact, that the cloud in this, instance is the golden cloud which has for so many years past overhung that Province, and which Nelson citizens have been so much disposed to deal with as the countryman dealt with the goose — the South-west Gold Fields. Without following metaphor any further, we may say at once that we refer to the six thousand pounds which the more ingenious than energetic Superintendent of Nelson suggested should be spent in that district of great deserts and elasticity in the matter of boundaries — the Upper Buller. It is the Upper Bnller that is made the battle-field, and clad in Mail, in Colonist, and Eocaminer, the local writers for the Press are "coming out" as they only come out when there is anything worth fighting for —as did the Borderers of old. Of course, there is a " cause " to be fought forl With the Colonist it is the cause of Truth. It meets Misrepresentation which is presumed to have emanated from Westport, and which does sometimes emanate therefrom, though this occasion is an honorable exception ; and it meets it with what are probably believed in as facts, and with what may or may not be facts, but what are very wide of the question at issue. The Examiner associates with the cause of .Truth, as nearly as in the nature of things it can do, the question of "Conflict of Authority." It remembers how Sebastopol should, would, could, or might have fallen after the battle of Alma, were it not for divided counsels among the Generals commanding, and it discovers a parallel probability as to the downfall of something, in the event of a General Government and a Provincial Government acting at one and the same time in the precious Province of Nelson, though they have done bo throughout the Colony ever since it possessed a Constitution. Bat both the Colonist and the Examiner are urged to action by even higher objects than either Truth or Administrative Unity. It is the cause of Benevolence. It is the cause of the community of Inangahua— a community at the mercy of that class of which the Examiner is always pleased to write so contemptuously— the merchants and storekeepers of Westport and Greymou fch. It is the cause of alimenting properly those poor people at the reefs— of supplying them, forsooth, at the lowest possible cost, with such mundane commodities as beef and mutton ! It is for this cause, say they, that six thousand pounds should be spent upon roads in the Upper Buller, and nowhere else, if that object is to be accomplished. And if this sum be not so spent, constant will be the collision between Premier and Superintendentwretched will be the conflict and confusion—and, as for the result to those immediately concerned, can words describe it better than the crocodilo exclamation of the Examiner— r" Alas ! for the unhappy digger?" Of our two benevolent contemporaries, the Colonist is great upon the question of boundaries. In connection with this same question, it once before did eminent service in the interests of truth, if not in the interests of Nelson speculators, when, by the force of its advocacy, it brought Wangupeka within the South-west Gold Fields. But, in this instance, it ought not to Be a question of bare boundary. Whatever may be the words of the Act

limiting the outlay of of the Middle Island Railway Fund, that outlay, according to the, spirit of the Act, and /according to the necessities of the case, should be upon complete consecutive works such as are proposed by the Government, and for which the money voted is no more than enough. Supposing the spirit of the Act and the bare local boundaries coincided, so as to include the construction of roads in that mysterious district, the Upper Buller, there is, however, in the arguments of the Colonist regarding the expenditure of these six thousand pounds, the grossest fallacy. In the face of the fact that Nelson never has attempted to supply the Gold Fields with live stock— that it never can do so to any extent at all equal to the demand — the Colonist assumes that Nelson ia to be the market for the Inangahua, and indulges in, to those unacquainted with the facts, the following delightfully fallacious quotation of figures: — " The road work proposed to be done, and which we trust will yet be done, will complete easy communication between grazing districts in the Provinces of Nelson and Marlborough, and the districts of and around the Inangahua, and will * save to that district in the article of meat alone something like £10,000 a-year. It wiU cheapen butcher's meat nearly 3d per pound ; and, suppose eight pounds per head is the weekly consumption, that 'represents 2s a-week of a saving, or in a population of 2000, £200 a-week, which is over £10,000 a-year. This in the article of butcher's meat alone !" The Examiner follows suit, iv its own tone of mock philanthropy and mistaken sarcasm. "The storekeepers and merchants of Westport and Greymouth,". it says, " will no doubt benefit by the proposed roads, and the dependence of the Inangahua 'upon these emporia for its supplies. So also will the farmers of Wan«anui and Rangitikei, as was very naively pointed out by Mr Fox himself. But the parties to be first consulted in the matter, as we see it, are the hardy gold-producers and settlers of the Inangahua. Any outlay which would place within their reach an unlimited supply of cheap beef and mutton must surely be regarded as a great boon to them, and by assisting their operations is calculated to add to the wealth of the Colony." There is no one acquainted with "the hardy gold-producers and settlers," and with the propriety of feeding them on the best of beef and mutton, who will not sympathise with this touching reference to their existence, and this acknowledgment of the doctrines of Adam Smith. But, pray where i 3 this unlimited supply which is to bring to the doors of the diggers at the Inangahua the blessings of beef 3ausagcs and mutton cutlets? Certainly not in Nelson, or among its attenuated herds, else how is it that it is from Canterbury and Wanganui that the supplies of stock at present come? Freight is no higher from Nelson than it is from Wanganui ; the roads are more easy than those from Canterbury. In fact it only requires a bridge or a punt at the Lyellio make the stock-road from Nelson to the the Gold Fields the best that the Province possesses. How • happens it then that this "unlimited supply" lies unsold to the drover, and uneaten by the digger? Are the Waimea Plains wandered over by herds in such close proximity to eager butchers and consistent beef-eaters as the diggers, and yet permitted to wander aud to worry their proprietors by their useless presence ? The fact is simply that there is no such supply, nor, if a road were made t» '-morrow, would Nelson compete either with Wanganui or with Canterbury as a meat-market. And, if six thousand pounds are to be spent in the construction of a stock road, it would be infinitely more advantageously spent in connecting us with the Canterbury Province by the Amuri and the Ahaura, than it ever could be in reaching the shingle-beds of the Waimea, and the paltry supplies which, by the greatest efforts of its cattlebreeders, could be produced. The Nelson breeders have had, since the Gold Fields were opened, opportunities superior to any of the more distant stockowners ; they have had superior facilities of conveyance both by land and sea ; and there i 3 no evidence, in their transactions as buttor, cheese, and fruit vendors, that the Nelson people are so dull to their own interests as not to have taken advantage of a market, if they had anything, however worthless, to sell. That they have the supplies of 3tock required, or that any expenditure such as that proposed would secure these supplies, is well enough known to^ those acquainted with the country to be unfounded and hopeless ; and, if the Nelson papers cannot urge better reasons for a withdrawal of money from districts in which it is much more urgently wanted, they had better leave the subject alone, and believe, as we believe, that the General Government are following no time-serving policy, but doing, as they believe, the best for the community as a whole. The Examiners reference to the congenial subject of "conflict of authority" between the General Government— of course it only refers to the present Government — and Provincial authorities, we must . leave unnoticed until another time. We shall just quote one sample of what can come from Nelson when Nelson criticises other than its own Government officials. Speaking of Mr Fox's supposed agreement with the expenditure of the Railway Fund where we say it should be spent, the Examiner "says distinctly, that it is scandalous that the best interests of an important branch of the Colonial industry should be treated in such an offhaud and dilettante manner by a Minister who can have been but very imperfectly informed, and within whose department there is no special responsibility for a correct decision upon such a question." This reference to the " dilettante manner of a Minister" who has ridden over the country, and done more in one week than the Superintendent of Nelson has dove in years, is extremely good. It is fortunate that it is a manner which is also off- handed. That is a desideratum in Nelson which those who have never experienced it before will be best able to appreciate, and it will be more appreciated if it is the manner in which the works on the Weat Coast which are con templated by the Ministry are carried ? u k . , f There has been enough "underhand" in the past to enable us to bear, w/th virtuous resignation, a little of the "off-hand" in the future.