A WESTPORT MAN ON THE PRINCE'S RECEPTION.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IV, Issue 75, 1 April 1869, Page 2

A WESTPORT MAN ON THE PRINCE'S RECEPTION.

A correspondent of the Westport Times who evidently possesses a faculty for rash assertions, writes a very fierce letter to that journal, on the subject of the Duke's visit to Nelson. He is terribly angry with us for spending any money on giving a public reception to H.R.H., and, as will be seen from the extracts we publish, is amusingly untruthful in one portion of his letter, savagely sarcastic in another, and enthusiastically eloquent in a third. But we will let him speak for himself : — Far be it from me to say that His Royal Highness, if received by the Nelson authorities, should not be treated with every consideration, and with a certain amount of display ; but to hear that fifteen hundred pounds of West Coast money is to be spent in such a miserable village on such miserable fooleries as we hear the committee appointed to carry out the programme intend it to be, is a lasting disgrace upon our administrators of the public purse. * * # # # * I will place the matter in another light. The Duke is making a tour for the sake of observation and instruction. Tell me what can he observe in " Sleepy Hollow," and in what can he be instructed. He will see a small village — pretty certainly — and a few scores of villagers neither uglier nor prettier than in any other part of the world; he will see a lot of humbugs called Nelson officials going on their knees to him, and the chief of the latter class will be " His Honor," for "His Honor," after the show is over, expects to be rewarded with some order of the Thistle, or, I suppose, the one especially reserved for the colonies — St Michael and St George. Will not his Royal Highness laugh — a low ironical laugh ? But will hi? Royal Highness leave Nelson a wiser, a more experienced, or a better man? Will he have seen anything new, of will he have observed any of the enterprise amongst the sleepy ones that he has seen or may see in other parts of New Zealand ? On the other hand, bring him to the West Coast of Nelson Province ; show him the hardy, persevering toiling digger ; point out to him, as he wanders about our small but rising townships, that where he then stands was only a few months ago, one mighty wildernes on which the footprints of man had never been marked. Take him to some of our diggings ; show him the enormous amount of labor and enterprise already expended by his own countrymen thousands of miles from their native homes, in pursuit of the mighty impelling power called gold. Take him overland to our southern workings ; let him ride along and observe the magnificent roads made under the eye of our late Commissioner and in the face of a strong opposition at Nelson. This, together with the unrivalled scenery around him, will be ample food for reflection, and if he does seriously reflect only for one Eecond he will have done more than anything the Nelson people can show will cause him to do."