CORRESPONDENCE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume V, Issue 305, 3 October 1855, Page 8

CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor of the Lyttelton Times.

Sir, —It will be a sad pity if there should grow up a feeling of rivalry or antagonism between the inhabitants of the Port and the Piains, arising out of the discussion upon this road question. The inhabitants of the Plains have shewn the extent of their interest, and there is another which ought not to be lightly esteemed, it is that of the Port town. Nor do I think they would intentionally ignore it. I merely wish to suggest that a confer erce< should be held to consist of some 6.0r 8 gentlemen from Lyttelton and Chri&tchureh, say from each place, that they shall both be prepared to submit to certain regulations. Let these gentlemen discuss the subject fully, and should they ultimately agree to resolutions which can be mutually satisfactory, a public Meeting should then be convened both at Lyttelton and Christchurch, and that the sense of the people jmay finally be taken upon them. Upon the issue of those meetings their future actions might depend materially. We ought to understand each other fully upon so grave a subject. If the Plains have a mental reservation which implies a setting* aside of the Port, let as know it, and act accordingly; if they really honestly mean that they are only influenced by a desire to get away their surplus produce without loss to themselves, and still without a fatally injurious action upon the Port, why then it is manifestly to the interest of the Port to endeavour to go hand in hand with them. 1 nese observations may be thought worth notice or not; if they are, I shall be delighted to have been the means of preserving harmony, although perhaps discord is hardly intended. J I am, Sir, No Body. To the Editor of the Lyttelton Times. Sib, What may we next expect from our clever neighbours at Christchurch ? Ihey now propose lo solve that knotty question—" The establishment of the best

Communication between the Port and the Plains," by cutting the Gordian knot away altogether, and making a little Port for themselves at the Shag Rock, from which they may export their produce wholly irrespective of the Port of Lyttelton, and without regard to the wants of the people generally, viz., that of a roadway communication ; and they modestly ask that the funds at the disposal of the Government may be applied to that special object, as if it were one which would the farmers to cart their produce to the Port, and assist all new comers to the settlement in carrying their traps direct over the hills to Christchurch. They evidently resolve that a road for tbe better accommodation of all Her Majesty's subjects should give place to a tramway for the especial accommodation of the goods traffic only of the people of Christchurch, and they seriously profess that they entertain no views antagonistic to the people of Lyttelton. Surely the Provincial Council will not let us thus be cheated out of a road to the Plains, or allow the money for that purpose to be applied to the "chimerical" object proposed—a tramway to Sumner. Did the Christchurch gentlemen object to the Sumner road as one not suited to their arguments, and had they demanded the immediate formation of the shortest practical open cart road, which may be used for all ordinary purposes until the water communication should have been improved, or a railway established, there might have been some reason for proposing a different appropriation of the money voted for the road ; but their proposal to apply that money to their pet tramway fis modest, but by some may be considered outrageous. Let Christchurch have its tram road to Sumner; that luxury, to the exclusion of a public road for general purposes, is one which the Colony in its present state cannot afford to undertake ; it ought to be left to private enterprize. Let the gentlemen and merchants of Christchurch who believe in the proposed tramway, form themselves into a company, subscribe the needful capital, and afterwards luxuriate in the extent of income which the tolls may possibly produce. They will at least be saved the pain of accusing the Government of haviug squandered the public money in " chimerical" projects, whilst the still unfinished and greatly required work of a cart road from the Port to the Plains remains to be accomplished. What we really want is a simple, and as practical a cart road as the nature of the hills will admit, and some improvements in the navigagation of the river, without incurring a large expenditure of public money at this early period of the -colony, because it will in the end be superseded by a railway, and that not many years hence. Your very obedient Servant, Common Sense. Sept.29, 1855.