" OBSTRUCTIVES."

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume V, Issue 37, 14 February 1870, Page 2

" OBSTRUCTIVES."

To the Editor of the Nelson Evening Mail Sir — I was vastly amused on reading in last Friday's Colonist " surely the last card of the obstructives is now played.' 1 For cool impudence this beats anything that ever appeared even in that journal, and for the future I shall not be astonished at whatever I may chance to read in the columns of your contemporary. Carried away by the ardour of his affection for his new love, Mr. Moss and suite ; blinded by the bitterness of his hatred for the Superintendent, and everything that emanates from him; and with his head completely turned by the compliment paid to him by the General Government, in placing themselves in correspondence with him in preference to the provincial authorities, the editor ot the Colonist has for the last three months been pursuing a course fraught with injury aud loss to the whole province, whose progress he has retarded to an extent that will not cease to be felt for months and almost years to come. I am taking it for granted that by the " obstructives" he means the purchasers, and I waut to know in what way they have earned such a name. Not a word has been said by them or their friends throughout the whole course of this unfortunate dispute,aud I think it high time that a few words were said in their favor. " Obstructives," are they ? Well, let us see what would have been the state of the province at the. preseut moment, had they been placed in possession of tbeir rights at the time of the purchase. Companies were being talked of at the time, aud would have been formed without delay ; machinery would have been sent for, and set up, on the ground long before this ; not only Culliford's reef, but the whole of numerous others which have been discovered, would have been throughly tested; employment would have beeu found for hundreds of men ; a demand would have been created for every description of produce with which the market is now overstocked ; and, had the field proved a payable one, and the reefs as auriferous as they are supposed to be, smiling prosperity would have been the order of the day, instead of grinding poverty and universal depression. The purchasers, of course, would have profited, but the benefits of working such a field as the Wangapeka is supposed to be, would not have been confined to them, but would have extended to the whole of the province, and diggers, who have been driven away by the unsettled state of the district, would have swarmed to our newly discovered El Dorado, where in all probability, there would by this time have been a large population profitably employed. This would have been the effect of granting the " obstructives" their rights, and, what is of great importance, not a single individual

would have been injured thereby, for a the time the purchases were made, not a man was iv possession of a foot of the ground ou the disputed portioD, but those at present in occupation flocked there upon being told that the land had been bought, and therefore the cry could never have been raised that it had been sold over their heads. Now,- Sir, who are the " obstructives ?" I ask you, and by your favor, I ask the public this questiou. Let them study the whole matter calmly aud dispassionately, and having formed their owu unbiassed opinion, I would ask them who are the " obstructives" — the purchasers who by this time would, whilst enriching themselves, have benefitted the whole province, or the editor of the Colonist, and the few speculating miners who originally took possession of the reef in defiance of the law, a course in which they were encouraged by the General Government ? I am, &c, Hear the other side. Waimea, 12th February.