THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1872.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1368, 17 December 1872, Page 2

THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1872.

While we in Westland South have been discussing the merits of men, with special consideration as to their eligibility for election as members of the County Council, the organs of public opinion in Weatland North, and chiefly the Westport Times, have been discussing the merits of measures which, though not for the first time debated, have seldom been taken up with more seeming warmth than they are at present. We refer particularly to the revived project of improving, or rather creating, means of communication between Nelson and the West Coast. Suddenly, and in a Btyle somewhat surprising by its freshness, the subject was first resuscitated a few weeks ago in the Nelson Mail, from whose columns we made extracts at the time, attaching some remarks which our contemporary is, perhaps properly, pleased to characterise as "satirical}" and adding some other remarks the arguments contained in which, if he will eveu admit them to be arguments, do not seem to him to be altogether satisfactory. Since that time, and under the spur of its local prints, Nelson has been excited into unwonted activity on the subject. J3o far from being recognisable as a freshly awakened Rip Van Winkle, there is some chance of strangers mistaking Nelson, for the moment, for a much more "gushing child of nature" than ever he could have become in the days of his dotage. There have all at once been meetings of influential people called together " by circular," and these have been followed by the appointment of committees, and the production of programmes, all of which is indicative of a very creditable, and, it is to be hoped, permanent spirit, and which for the present, it must be said, makes a very respectable appearance upon paper. Notwithstanding all this activity, however, the impression which we had formed from the first arguments used has been rather confirmed than otherwise as the discussion has progressed, and a similar impression seems to have been simultaneously formed by our contemporary, the Westport Times. In a judicious, if slightly satirical article on the subject, the Times says :-—" The intention is good to a certain degree ; it would be narrow-minded and selfish in the extreme to raise on behalf of the people on this side of the Province the slightest protest against the development of inland communication by means of roads or tramways radiating from Nelson, always supposing that such roads form connecting links in a network of roads giving easy access to every centre of present or probable population ; hut a careful perusal of the various arguments and proposed schemes set forth at the Nelson meeting fails to give any con.vincing proof of expansive ideas, or the recognition of any principle beyond providing for the necessities of Nelson citizens alone. The constant refrain of each succsejding speech was, Nelson city tffrdv is gone ! b« t tp the interests of Nelson Province, as a whote, (ho welfare and material advancement in prosperity of the scattered inhabitants of ouilying places were too evidently of secondary consideration. Admitting that our Nelson

neighbors in seeking to protect their own interests are but doing precisely what any other community would do under similar circumstances, the question is will they be able, from the narrow platform they have adopted, to bring their theoretical ideas to any practical issue." Our Westport contemporary, in these and others of his remarks, adopts very much the same strain as we did, or endeavored to adopt, when first referring in seriousness to the subject, but we fear that he concedes too much, and presumes too much, when, after condemning any puny or local attempt to bolster up a falling trade, he adds : — " A. line of substantial tramway, from Foxhill to the Lyell and Reefton, with ultimate extension to Greymouth and Hokitika; a drop line to Westport, and an extension to Mount Rocbfort and the Ngakawhao coal-mine 3, would form the only profitable undertaking that could be devised, seeing that at every point of connection it would expand inexhaustible resources of mineral wealth, and afford facilities for extended i commercial and agricultural enterprise. From this point of view the entire popul lation of Nelson Province and Westland would be of one accord in petitioning the General Government for assistance." It is true enough that, if the proposed scheme is to take any definite form and issue, it will only be as part and parcel of the general scheme of the Colony, and that, only in that connection, would it be likely to receive the support of the entire population of Nelson and Westland, but the question still remains— ls the project of railway communication with Nelson of primary importance, even as part and parcel of that scheme 1 We have ventured to express a generally entertained opinion, so far as concerns Westland and a large section of Nelson, that it is of very secondary importance, and we find, even at the Nelson meetings, statements made which rather strengthen that opinion. We find, for instance, Mr Richmond stating that " he did not think that they could hope to do a large trade by railway with Hokitika, or places much outside the Buller basin. He did not wish to dogmatise, for there was much reason for qualifying opinions on such matters ; but considering that with all the perfect appointments of English railways they could not afford to carry coal by them more than about 120 miles or so, it would not do to calculate on heavy traffic beyond the Lyell and Inangahua. The Upper Buller was, however, an important and promising district, all the great tributaries yielding gold, and in spite of difficulties retaining a small population for ten years." Important and promising as this district undoubtedly is, we say that here, by a not incompetent authority, it is admitted that the project is not one of such | general importance to the West Coast or to the Colony generally as to entitle it to be undertaken on that plea — undertaken, we mean, promptly and preferentially as compared with another project, that of connecting Canterbury with the West Coast. The article which we have already had upon tlm subject has been dissected with some adroitness by the Nelson Mail, and our contemporary caricatures our quotation of the letter of a Canterbury settler on the subject, because, in the concluding sentence of that letter, he seemed to advocate the connection of the East and West Coastß solely on the eastern producer, while he said not a word as to the western consumer. That letter we Bitnpty quoted in its entirety as printed, but certainly not as adopting it literally, nor was it difficult to discover that, though "pointed and petinent" as a whole, that one statement was its " weak point." Anyone who knows the first principles of buying and selling knuws that it is the purchaser who, if carriage is iuvolved, pays for its cost, and the community most greatly advantaged, though not exclusively, by the construction of a railway intersecting the Middle Island, would be the large body of consumers on the West Coast. By no line starting from Nelson would they be equally, or nearly equally, benefited, because in no direction, so much as in the direction of Canterbury, are supplies of live-stock or produce available, while in the same direction there are markets and harbors as accessible for the disposal or export of min3rals. It is in no spirit of local or Provincial jealousy that we have ventured either now or on previous occasions to s.tate, as we have stated, somewhat briefly and imperfectly, the reasons which exist against the ready adoption of any Nelson scheme before other projects of apparently greater importance have their merits equally discussed. Nor ij there any disposition on the part of auyone in this district to condemn the interest which the people of Nelson have taken on the subject of connecting themselves mor§ closely with their Weat Coast customers and sUents. It ought to be rather a subject for congratulation that the people of Nelaon are going so formally, practically, and publicly to work to obtain all information regarding the resources of the btsins of the Motueka, the Buller, and the (Jrey— their population, present and probable, the priceg of the necessaries of life, and so on. This spirit of statistical inquiry is well worthy of imitation on the part of the people of the districts themselves, and on the part of the people of Canterbury, beginning with the Superintendent of the Province, who has on more than one occasion exhibited an interest in a portion of the Public Works scheme which is inevitable some day, and the propriety of undertaking which it is now full time to consider.