NELSON.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XI, Issue 644, 8 January 1859, Page 4

NELSON.

Our'latest papers from this province are dated the 22nd- ult. The principal subject of their contents is a warfare between opposing parties of shareholders and officers of .the Dun Mountain 'Mining Company. A.s far as we can gather the drift of the quarrel, ;it seems'to be that a portion of the shareholders in England, Tinstigated by bad accounts from the colony, had-denounced the whole scheme as a'failure, and itsgetters-up as no better -in morals than -they-should be. The shareholders (or the majority of them) at1 this end, exculpate the originators of the movement, and attack the manager, a Mr. Hacket^who is inferentially accused of keeping down the prospects of the company, that he may be the more free to acquire property in and about the mine. ';The question ab issue gives rise to_some angry correspondence. , 'The following is the latest'from the.Nelson Gold Fields from a correspondent of the 'Examiner:—

■ Collingwood, 13th December. We have had a day's rain this last week, which, though acceptable to our agriculturists and at the dry diggings has not been so welcome in the various rivers." -Within three months from 'this, you'will be astonished, at the yields of gold from the.Slate river' and its tributaries. An examination of the works now in progr-ess on the. Slate and Reeky rivers'"is worthy the attention of anyone; for instance, one party on Slate river are having twenty thousand feet of timber cut*at. 40s. per hundred feet; another has a aplendid dam above five hundred 'feet in length; at Rocky river you may-see flumes in various places, and the quantity and style of work performed by ijTaories is fully equal to that of their white brethren. So much ,for diggings for the present. Now for war. X-shall have enough on my hands if, in addition to attempting to modify the sober rage of; your contemporary at our drunken. condition, I have also to reply to one of your correspondents, a brother chip. But as he contradicts my assertions! must prove them.; and first, with reference to my statement of "population pouring in at the rate of. 900 a-month." I can prove this by the Customs returns, to which I refer my coadjutor. " '.■■'■.■ What with " Senex Albus," " Ignoramus,"." A/ B;)" "Diachylon Plaster," and sundry others, are plenty disposed to take up the cudgels. And with reference to the most recent, that of " A.8.," it all'resolves into one question, the -good or bad management df the present Go - vernment." Is it good management ;to have an Inspector of Works (at some salary, no doubts possibly a guinea a-day) and to keep him without instructions for weeks,-and with only four or five men to' look after, whilst money has been voted for certain pur-poses in this district, and-is not yet spent ? Is it good management to accept tenders from-people for certain works, and not bind the contractors to the performance of their contracts P Is it management to furnish-the Magistrate with a map of the district, for the information -of .the public, and not to-send him, from time to time, a list of the lands sold? .Xs it management to take a trunkTme nip hill and down again, when the same could be skirted? . Is it management for one surveyor to have to undo the work of his predecessor? These are a few of the matters which concern this district. It is quite evident the Government either do not understand what is necessary to develop the jrichness of this country, which should be one-of--their, first duties, or they are determined to be"" free and easy still.''

With reference to Slate River 'bridge, I understand the Superintendent has promised to give onehalf towai'ds its erection; this is unjust to a new country and rfor a trunk-road. Who made the roads to Slate River, to Rocky River,- to the Quartz Ranges, to Golden Gully, 'to Appo's, thence to Bedstead.? not the Government. No, their system is to malce a great parade of advertisements, inviting. -tenders for works, anfl getting all the information from "tenders sent in, and declining them altogether.

But I have -said enough for the present; there never was a truer remark written than that in the "Wellington Spectator" a short time since, that theae diggings were apparently strangled at their birth; I add, not by the mismanagement, but by the total absence of management, on the .part of the present Government.

The public examination of the scholars educated at the Nelson College, took place-on Eriday, Dec. IT, and, was conducted by the Yen. "Archdeacon Paul, Messrs. Domett, Calder, Rough, and Greenwood. The reports which were read by the masters of the various departments give a full account of the progress ofthe institution, and are on the whole veiy favourable^ were awarded to the deserving pupils. At the close 6$ the examination some of the elder boys presented to the principal, the Rev. 3. C. Bagshawft, who is about to resign his office, an elegant-stiver plated spirit kettle, as a token of their regard and respect. TUB STEAM QUESTION. The following observations are from the Nelson ' Examiner' of Dec. 22-.— We are already beginning to experience some of the benefits we may expect to derive from our new steam communications,-in the way of facilita-. ting our intercourse with our neighbours; and instead of intelligence two months old from Wellington, and news of Auckland reaching us from Sydney, we have now before us Canterbury and Wellington papers to the 15th instant. The interest which we shall thus be led to take in their concerns will be of a much more lively description than formerly;; and the opportunities it will afford us of mutually comparing notes on questions affecting our common interests, and coming'to some

amicable arrangements, instead of perpetually snarling at each other, will be invaluable. Thus, the matter of steam communication and the best method; of so arranging it as to give to all tho settlements of Now Zealand their fair share of the general advantage, is a subject which just now is vehemently do■bated,_ and. on which, as each party looks upon at from a provincial point of view, opinions will naturally differ widely ; and the good effect which wo already feel as a foretaste of many future advantages, is, that having very fully and unreservedly stated our own views respecting it, we have not only the Wellington pleadings on the other side, but the fair and moderate judgment formed by the folk at Canterbury, with the statements on both sides 'lying open before them. Through some mischance tho ' Wellington Independent ' has not reached us ; but on this subject wo do not expect to meet with the usual antagonism between the-two, and we think that we may safely take the ' Spectator' as an exponent of the ideas which both in common entertain. Our friend hasfavoured us withtvvo statements in answer to our own. The first consists of two parts, banter and argument; the banter is meant to be very funny, and the argumentls very funny too., without its being meant. Tlieeditor, indulging in " Ercles' vien," shows he is able to roar as loudly as anybody else; and laugliing facetiously at our, complaints, and discomfiture, asks what it is all about. "Checkmated — disappointed — is the groaned reply. We have : lost the prize when yet within our grasp; folly and vanity .hath.(sic) done it all; and our neighbours profit by our weakness, ,lamhurt.- Another roar," &c. As our friend, however^ evidently, considers us to have been labouring under a short paroxysm of insanity, and, after perusing our 'second'article, thinks there is some appearance of our-having returned to a more sane state of mind, we will endeavour so j;o frame our rejoinder, "to roar as it were any nightingale," as still to preserve the comparatively favourable opinion of our state he is now pleased to entertain. And first, we will accept his own rstatement of our condition. We (and we speak here of the people of Nelson) were avowedly disappointed; "checkmated," if he likes. But how? Much in the same way as a person would be, who, putting his hand to his pocket, finds that some clever thief has "been there before him, and stolen his purse. For it must be borne in mind that the gravamen of bur charge, our'great cause of complaint, which the * Spectator' has either overlooked or suppressed, for he takes no notice of it, was this: not that Dr. Evans, in the absence of any instructions, had forwarded the New Zealand mails delivered into his care by the first conveyance which offered, and in the manner which he had always been accustomed to do, but that iie went on board and took them, in defiance of and in opposition to direct instructions transmitted to Melbourne by our General Government, which desired that they might be sent to Sydney, where a steamer was in readiness to receive them. Knowing him to.be an old Wellington settler, and Judge Chapman to be one of the Melbourne Government, and both private friends of Dr. Featherston, we thought it and still think it very probable that all. this^ had been less from a conscientious sense of public duty than a desire to secure a public ovation to their friend on his return, for thus cleverly stealing a march.upon us.; although its effect might be, and very nearly was, to make us lose a whole month in our correspondence with Europe. Such, at all eyents, was the idea of our Chamber of Commerce in their interview with the Colonial Secretaiy, when he adverted to our statement of^ facts as correct in every particular, although- it was certainly not entitled to. claim any official inspiration. How, therefore, our " folly " or "vanity " did it alii we are at a loss to conjecture : for we really did nothing, and had nothing to do with any of the arrangements, one way or the other.; tlujugh we think it possible that somebody else's " vknity ", and " folly " had a considerable share hi tlie whole transaction. Wq confess ourselves unable to see any great inconsistency or variation between our latter opinions and those we "first published; the former relating to what we have as yet seen no reason to regard otherwise than as au impertinent interference of Dr." Evans; the other relating to the general subject, on which, we believe, there is very little essential difference between us, or none that may not be reconciled with perfect fairness to all parties. We must ask our friends at Wellington to bear in mind that the view we take,is throughout based on. one assumption, which is, that New Zealand, taken' collectively, cannot support more than one line of steamers, and that the present attempt at rivalry and competition, if persevered in, will risk the loss of that line, and leave us without any substitute. Will any one, with a competent knowledge of mercantile affairs, looking at the population and commerce of these islands, affirm that even a single line, like that now started, will at first be a paying speculation,; or, if. he has any doubts upon that head, will it not remove them altogether to inform him that Otago, Wellington and Auckland mean to have direct and separate lines of their own? It is not, therefore, from any selfish or exclusive claims on the part of Nelson that the arises; but that we honestly believe the two services cannot coexist, but that one must destroy the other, even if they do not prove mutually destructive; and that with one service only, our Wellington neighbours have hitherto propounded no scheme which does not do Nelson a positive injustice. The utmost, it seems, ; thatcan possibly be allowed to us is,that the steamer may rundown and drop our mails on the boulder bank, whilst we suppose that our passengers and goods must go on to Wellington ; and, as the return vieitis proposed to be made in the same hurried manner, without even the chance of being landed here at last, even after a fortnight's detention at Port Nicholson. And yet our population and trade are-increasing in an equal ratio to our neighbours', even if the coming census does.not show the increase on our side to be proportionately greater; and. all we ask for is, that, as we happen to be, the nearest port to the Australian Colonies, the steam communication between the two- countries shall take us in the order in which we stand and afford us the same facilities wliich.it Avill give to Wellington, Canterbury^ and Otago.',i We never asked for more than this ; we do not think .that we ought to be satisfied with less- and we are confirmed in believing that our demands aye neither, exaggerated nor unjust, by the verdict of the ' Lyttelton Times,' which, passing the whole question in review, comes to the conclusion (in spite of the bait held out, that, by giving Nelson the-go by, Canterbury might get her -letters a day sooner) that we .require nothing but what is fair and reasonable.