The Kumara Times. Published Every Evening. FRIDAY, JULY 18, 1879.

Kumara Times, Issue 873, 18 July 1879, Page 2

The Kumara Times. Published Every Evening. FRIDAY, JULY 18, 1879.

Tried, found guilty, uu.br extenuating circumstances, and sentenced in U-s----thau a couple of dozen words is concise, if not flavouring of justice. Such, unfortunately, is the fate of the wishes of the majority of the community of this district in regard to the deviation of the Hokitika and Grey mouth Railway, if we meekly submit to abide by the decision delivered by no less an important authority than our contemporary, the West Coast Times. In reviewing in its leading columns the various objects for which public meetings have been convened throughout the district, it deals with this important subject—in an article strongly impregnated with "County fever,"veiled under sarcasm, as follows : —" The attempt to get the line of railway deviated is a legitimate one, though sure to be un-succe-sful." We like a frank expression of opinion, and this is most decidedly frank and absurd. To be plainly and definitely given to understand that the interests of this district are to be subservient to the opinions nf a few beach-sand proprietors, bickedup by an obstinate engineer, and udvo- ; eated by a journal whose principles are j as vacillating as a weather-cock, is a i dictum that will not for one minufe be ' entertained by the residents of this ! goldlield. The deviation is not to lie ,

made, forsooth, because the inland towns are only mining centres, and a branch line would be quite sufficient for all their requirements.- We take it that these mining centres through which it is proposed to carry the deviation are the undoubted mainstay of the very town whose inhabitants in the present instance are so strenuously opposed to their own interests. Were it not for the bone and sinew of the coast, the miners, in what position would commercial interests be placed 1 And now, when an opportunity is presented to foster and actually develope their chief source of revenue, the men who should have been in the van in this matter are the very first to sacrifice the interests of this district on the altar of self-aggrandisement. Meetings are now being held relative to this question, and in a few days petitions will be in circulation for signature, when the inhabitants of this and the adjoining districts will have an opportunity of asserting their rights to a fair share of the benefits derivable from the construe: ion of a railway on the Coast; which claims will be made in a manner to conclusively prove that the mining communities are not to be quietly snubbed and ignored, even should our Hokitika contemporary labor under that erroneous opinion.