CORRESPONDENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 87, 14 April 1871, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE NERVOUS MAN ON THE MAITAI

BRIDGE.

To The Editor ov the Nelson Evening Maix

Sir — I observe in your last night's issue that after an incubation extending over a period of nine days, your correspondent "Eric" has delivered himself of the opinion that my letter of the 4th instant contained " more of self-interest and sophistoy, than public spirit or practical truth." This is a well rounded and pompous sentence, but, possibly owing to my extremeobtuseness, I fail to see the exact meaning it is intended to convey. * Wherein lies the sophistry of my ; suggestion; that: the money it, is proposed to lay out upon ari additional bridge over the Maitai might

be better expended iv opening up our country districts I am unable to discover, nor am I altogether clear as lo what is meant by the phrase " practical truth." " Eric," I think, must be an artist, from i he graphic mauner in which he has painted two pictures, one consisting of a dismantled bridge floating down the tideway with a view to Ending a resting place in the fathomless deep, iv the place of remaining comfortably high and dry, as it at present appears quite disposed to do ; the other of a "moderately nervous man tracking over one of our Maitai Bridges on a dark tempestuous night." Now I am of a less imaginative temperament than your last night's correspondent, nod consequently am able to satisfy myself with looking at things as they are, iustead of as they might be. I can see the Collingwood bridge standing, not " dismantled," but firm and secure as it is likely to be for years to come, and affording every necessary facility for communication between the town and the Wood, and Suburban North districts. Agaip, I see not the " moderately nervous man" but the hale, hearty, digger in full possession of his faculties, wading up to his waist at the peril of his life through some swift mountain torrent, and as I look at him in dread lest he be swept away, as I have done ere this, I think to myself that the money which would be required for the desired " iron bridge" would, if expended in erecting a ferry or rude and inexpensive description of bridge over that torrent, be the means of removing some of those risks which have to be run by the bold pioneers who are doing that work from which the " moderately nervous man" for whose safety " Eric" is so regardful, would shrink in dismay. Which, I would ask, is calculated to confer the largest amount of benefit upon the province ; and whose convenience should be mostconsulted — thatof theman whose cause I plead, or his whom my opponent in his mind's eye sees "tracking" timidly over " one of our Maitai bridges ? " The paragraph which alludes to the "antipodean points of rthe City," whatever that may mean, and concludes with words that savor strongly of a quotation from the Athanasian creed, I shall pas 3 over as being foreign to the discussion, and slightly unintelligible, but I cannot dispose so summarily ofthe next sentence; indeed I would quote it in full in the belief that it cannot obtain too much publicity. [ Please read it carefully all you who are I in want of an argument in favor of erecting this bridge, which I am called to I account for having stigmatised as unnecessary. Here it is verbatim : — " The unceasing popular cry is, ' Open up the country' — now would not any improvement in our overland communication with Marlborough tend to open up to us the Canterbury an_ Otago districts, proverbial, the one for pastoral, the other for mineral wealth." So the popular cry "Open up the country" meaus, give us communication with Otago aud Canterbury, does it Mr. "Eric?" If you really know no better than this, go and ask the toiling digger as he plunges through the mud tracks in the Matakitaki district — ask the shareholders in companies that are desirous of setting to work in the Wangapeka and the Lyell, but are deterred by the enormous expense of conveying machinery to the reefsask the miners in Golden Bay — aye, ask the "farmers in Motueka Valley — ask all and each of them what we want of better communication with Otago and Canterbury and see what their answer will be. And. even supposing that this was what was really wanted, the idea of opening up the Canterhury and Otago districts by an additional bridge over a town creek where already no less than four are to be found within the space of half-a--mile, is so refreshingly verdant, so charmingly simple, that I only hope that "Eric" has a good stock of such notions on hand and that he will favour us with them weekly, at least, and I am sure that you, Mr. Editor, will not hesitate to find* room for them. No "modest peroration" this time from .'.-..) Yours, &c.j A Townsman.