PUBLIC MEETING.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 259, 2 November 1871, Page 2

PUBLIC MEETING.

A crowded meetiug for the purpose of obtaining an expression of public opinion with reference' to the Foxhill Railway Scheme, was held at the Provincial Hal, last night :— M. H. -Adams, the Dtputy-Superindent, having been voted to the chair, read the advertisement calling the meeting, and said that all present were aware that the General Gevernment contemplated borrowing a large sum of money for reilway purposes, part of their scheme being a line from Nelson to the West Coast, of which that between Nelson and Foxhill was but a small instalment, but even that we "were nr>t likely to get without great exertions on our part, and for that reason the present meeting had been called, with a view to impressing upon our representatives the necessity of urging the Government to undertake it without delay. Were it proposed that the railway should stop short a! Foxhill, he should not feel the same interest in it, but looking upon it as but a portion of a ; great scheme, he thought that nothing could be of such benefit to the Province. Some people seepied to thiDg.t hat there -was to be a general scramble for the loan, and that we might as well rush in and get whatever we could. He did not look upon it in this light, but lie did say that we had a full right to demand a fair share to be expended in a manner that must prove beneficial to the Province. If the country was opened. up elsewhere by means of a colonial loan, while ours remained s'.iut up, a great injustice would be inflicted upon the Province by its inhabitants being driven away to seek land where it had been made available by railroads, of the expense of constructing which we should have to bear our share. He was glad to see so large an attendance, as evidencing the interest taken by the people Of Nelson and the country districts in this matter. Mr. Luckie, "who proposed the first resolution, said he thoroughly endorsed the remarks of the Chairman with respect to the ultimate result of the formation of this part of the railway line of the future. As tending to show the feeling now prevalent, he would read the requisition that had been sent to the Chairman, as Deputy-Superin-tendent. (Requisition read ) The signatures, which were obtained -within a very short space of time, included most of the leading merchants and influential men in town, and the opinions indicated there were largely shared by people in the country. It was exceedingly gratifying to learn-, as he did from the appearance of the meeting, that a marked unanimity existed on the subject of the proposed r?:lway, for it had received the support of people of all shades of political opinions. The resolution he had to propose was one -which "was very mild and general in its tone, but none the less ought it and its meaning to be strenuously contended for. It exhibited an anxiety, but not a merely, selfish anxiety, to see justice Vone to the Province, and to the Colony; for it was unquestionable, that what would benefit the Province would, to that extent, benefit the Colony at large. He then read the following resolution :—" That a railway to Foxhill, constructed on a plan so economical as to admit of future extension to the West Coast, -will be highly beneficial to the Province of Nelson, and to the (V.ony, and could be carried out with financial success." He -would he able presently to show, as far as it was possible, to show such things, that this railway, when formed, would be productive, if not ot immediate direct profit actually, still of some small direct, and certainly of enormous indirect, benefit. It had to be borne in mind that the condition of the Province now was very different from its condition some eight or nine years ago, when a borrowing scheme for a railway from Nelson to some unknown region called the Western Ranges, was projected. The country then was comparatively unexplored ; now it was far better known and its capacities understood. Then the West Coast was a' comparative desert, occupied by a -few scattered Maoris. Now we had Hokitika, the , Grey, the Buller, the Inangahua (of which last we had such excellent gold-reefing hews the other day), and there was also the Matakitaki, the Upper Buller, and tributary streams, all of which, and the neighbouring country, were gold-producing, and had, during the intervening years, attracted a large population. Hence, a railway project now and then were two very different thiugs; circumstances had greatly changed, and opinions, of course, changed with them; and hence it was that two tolerably hardheaded men like the Chairman, and himself, who more than eight years ago had opposed the Western Ranges Railway scheme for good and sufficient reasons, were now side : by side advocating the beginning' of a great and beneficiaj work. Parliament had resolved to expend a million of money in railways, arid therefore it was not necessary to discuss the question of borrowing. It was < already an acknowledged fact, and as it was strictly, a. Colonial debt, the interest *on r which, .we . shoujd all haye to pay, it wa's imperative jihab each primnceshould share in, an)!!; fcjerftfit by> the ouflay.ij t ]£r. jfjuckie then proceeded to 'shbw'MioV mucn< unproductive expenditure; w,qu,ld be sayedjjo'the farming popu-/ lation, by tne reduction on the' cost of conveyance and .the opportunity afforded by employing the men and' horses on theii? land, on thoroughly reproductive labor, lit had; 1 been said that the railway to Foxhilll would be no good, and that some opposed it because it did not go farther. But the man who imagined that the line, if made to Foxhill, would stop there;' In'evr nothing of the necessities of human progression, and the imperative pressure of railway extension, and the

demands therefrom arising. After some further remtrks in this, direction, Mr. Luckie said he had made various calculations as to the future and present traffic^ instancing the', fact that one gentleman, in riding, down from Richmond, eight mile? distant, passed no fewer than 40 carts and wagons on the road. Mr. Rout, a man well up in fiyims, had made similar calculations, as well as Mr. Austin, the Surveyor, and from these he • would read various estimates which would show approximately <he expenses of working and the probable traffic returns. These latter, both as regards goods and passengers, were taken, us he believed, very low indeed, far lower than the actual returns -would show, or that were really warranted by positive experience ia railway traffic. He quoted from an able lecture ou the Political Economy of Rillways, by Judge Chapman, of Otago, and their influence on trade and social and commercial progress in Victoria, and dwelt especially on the remarkable saving in the cost of transit of goods and passengers and the faculties they had given for trading, and personal intercourse, and the interchange and fostering of commodities and productions on which the progress of a community so much, depended. Mr. Luckie then cited various figures and estimates, of which the following is a resume. ;—

Passenger Traffic. Calculated for 300 days in the year.

Making the gross receipts £8900. To set against this, there were, say, £5000 for working expense?, and £4300 for interest on the loan. Mr. H. C. Wilson wished to state that a great many country settlers were present, including Mr. R. M. Smith, of Wakefield, who considered that the probable country traffic had been under estimated by Mr. Luckie by at least one half. Mr. Greenfield had much pleasure in seconding the resolution, and, in doing so, stated that For remainder of news see fourth page.

he agreed with Mr. Luckie in saying that the question; of borrowing might be set on one side, as that had already been settled by the General Assembly. It had teen decided that one million was to be borrowed for railway purposes, and no doubt that amount would be^borrowed and spent; the only question was, where ? Some of the railways were only to be , constructed ob Provincial guarantee, but this condition did not now apply to the Foxhill line as he had that day received a telegram from Mr. Curtis stating that the " money for construction is available without interest being, chargeable to province." He did not think that of much importance as eventually, if not immediately, Provincial Institutions would be abolished, and the 1 interest on the loans.^whether guaranteed or not, would then become a first charge on the revenue of the whole colony, no matter where the lines of railway were. This of itself he considered was not a sufficient reason for advocating this or any other line, but. as the, construction of. the. Foxhill line would promote the settlement of, and the connection of Nelson with, the Central Buller and the Inangahua where there were large and valuable tracts of agricultural and mineral land, •we were fairly entitled to claim the expenditure of a portion of the loan on that' work. He had heard it said that the Foxhill line ! would not pay, possibly it might not immediately by direct receipts, but the indirect benefits would be a great boon to the country — lines of communication seldom did pay a Government but they w.ere necessary to progress, and a Government must -not look at the question in the same light as a private company would do, who constructed railways: merely, for the; revenue to be derived from them. He had recently travelled down the Buller and through the Inangahua Valley to the Grey, arid was surprised at the large extent of valuable agricultural land to be found there; many thousands of acres of splendid land covered with pines and totaras, and taking into consideration the evidently rich quartz reefs ia'the locality, and the large amount of agricultural land, the district : would undoubtedly, before long, become largely and permanently settled, and the importance oi connecting that district with Nelson could only be appreciated by those who had seen the country. Should the line be constructed to Foxhill, extension to the Central Buller would almost immediately follow, if not by Government, private enterprise. would not be wanting. Already proposals had been made to construct a line of railway from the Hope totheMaruia. If the line were taken down the valley of the Hope, at least 25 miles would be saved, which would reduce the distance from Eoxhill to the Inangahua to about 75 miles, an insignificant distance for a railway. ile hoped the meeting would see the advantages to be gained and pass the resolution unanimously. Mr. Nathan thought that the estimates of. the probable receipts from the railway were greatly understated, 1 as it was almost inconceivable how traffic grew with increased facilities of communication. The Clmstchurch and Lyttelton railway had been the . making of Canterbury, and he believed that similar results would follow here if a railroad was constructed into the interior, as farmers at present were, unable to export their produce on account of the expense of conveying it to the port. > Mr. J. C. Richmond was about to give his voice in favor of the resolution. He had been asked to frame a resolution to be laid before the meeting, which lie had done, and that which Mr. Luckie had proposed was substantially the same as the one he had drawn up, but there were certain qualifications which could not well appear on the lace of a resolution, and therefore he had preferred that it should be proposed by someone else, leaving him to express his own individual views on the subject. He was not a little gratified to find how great a change had come over pubiic opinion on this railway question. For himself, he had no occasion to say that the times had changed and that he had changed with them. Ten years since, he became substantially a citizen of Nelson, and, within six weeks of his arrival here, he had been convinced that a railway was not only necessary to the progress of the Province, but was within the limits of a reasonable speculation. At such a conclusion he had been induced to arrive by seeing the successful manner in which the Dun Mountain line had been carried out, and he argued with himself that if such a line could be constructed over such ground it might well be carried out in other parts of ithe Province. There were at that time some with heads as hard as was then, and is now, that of the chairman of the present meeting, who strongly opposed, and even ridiculed the idea of a railway' into the interior; there was also one whose head was .perhaps the hardest — not the densest — inthe Province, namely, Mr. John Sharp, the present Resident Magistrate, who had the honor of being the first advocate of such a scheme. In jthe course of time 5 he (Mr. Richmond) became a member of the Provincial Government, and in his capacity of Provincial Secretary he had travelled through the country, the rough and i mountainous character of which had by no means ! shaken his opinion as to the feasibility of constructing a railway through it. A pannikin of water could scarcely be taken from any of .the numerous stream s without gold being discoverable in it, and every here and there were beautiful little oases in even the wildest districts, where a hardy population could settle down in small numbers, and make themselves exceedingly comfortable. But, like John Gilpin, Though he was on pleasure bent He had a frugal mind, * : and, much as he desired to see a railroad,' he never lost sight of the fact that, to be successful, it must be constructed on the most economical principles. He was convinced that in carrying out the railway policy of the Government it would be necessary to reduce our conception of what we were going to spend to a minimum. Indeed, unless such an amount of bitter parsimony were exercised as had nev.er, yet been known; in the colony the various, schemes would result? in mere talk. ' If a railway; system was to pay, ;the lines must be made of payable dimensions, .but hefeared that the sum already set.do^h for jthe Foxhill railway wotild prove fatal to its extension ■'to the Buller. If we 'were to commence on so 'grand a scale as there 'appeared to be a desire to do, the money proposed to be borrowed would be : 'spent before we bad got half through bur schemes. Cheapness was the great desideratum, and with reference to theiine then under consideration'; he would say, take the roads as they are, and lay the rails on them. He cordially agreed with ,the resolution. Itwad.deci.ded^thatLthe money, was to be obtained, and a portion ofviitj might, and possibly would, be Bpept, on speculations ;much 'less hopeful than/the Nehon anft.jFpxlull: line. No part of ' Ihe, -colony had beeri aoVftugai; as NelsbnT ;f^bneFbuld'tlirow so "small a burden upon it when the clay "came for the extinction; of fiorißcisiiinitJtatipflp, juOi consequently, none could gr«6tep fairaeii demand that' a

portion of the proposed loan should be expended ■within its limits. He cordially supported the resolution, and trusted that it would be carried without a dissentient voice. Sir. Babnes believed that the principal returns to be looked for from railways lay in the benefits they conferred in opening up the conntry. Nelson now had a chance of obtaining such communication, and he would say to the. people, "For Heaven's sake avail yourselves of the opportunity afforded to you." Mb. C. ir. Martin thought that tlje line should commence at Foxhill and -work its way back from that point instead of from Nelson. ; The resolution was then put from the chair and carried unanimously, amidst loud cheering Mr. T. Mackat, in moving the second re9olu-. tion, said he was glad to see so large an attenddence of influential settlers from the districts through which the proposed line would pass— Stoke, Richmond, Moutere, the Waimeas, aud Wakefield—- joining with the townspeople in their approval of this important object. He would move, "That this meeting, impressed with the necessity of securing their first instalment of a useful public work, request* the chairman to -communicate the foregoing resolution to the Nelson members of the Assembly now in Wellington, and invite their cordial support to the proposal." Mr. Elliott, in seconding -the resolution, said that it was very gratifying to himself and others who, years ago, had labored with him to obtain a line of railway, through the province, to find that at last public opinion was in their favor. Reference had been made to the change that had taken place in the state; of; affairs, but he. might say that he and those who thought with him had long since seen that such changes must occur, and on these grounds they had advocated the fonsiruction of the line of railway which all now seemed to think advisable. He had been all ovpr the country, and knew that it was rich in mineral wealth, and possessed fertile soil, and he had long been convinced that all that was wanting was a railway to open up the various districts. If such a course had been adopted ten years ago Nelson would have been a very different place to what it was now. However, he could but warmly congratulate them all, and Mr. Luckie in particular, on the change that had taken place in their opinions. The resolution was then put and carried unanimously. A vote of thanks to the chairman terminated the proceedings.

The' Victorian Standard says that ths Duffy Ministry will henceforth be known ns the Teetotal Ministry. The Chief Secretary (Mr. Duffy) is a teetotaller; so is the Treasurer (Mr. Berry); Mr. Grant,the iMinister of Lands, is a teetotaller; ami so is Mr.' Walsh, the Attorney. General; while Mr. Longmore (Minister of Railways) is a. devout disciple of Eechab; Mr. O'Grady, takes a little No. 2, or Colonial wine; Mr. McLellan, the burly and much-loved member for Ararat, is the only one of the team that can take a " nip" of " bard stuff," and he is very moderate indeed. Australians versus Americans. — Our American cousins have not taken much by an attempt to. work a wool ring. The trans-Pacific, buyers had come to an understanding among themselves about wool purchases. They felt it would be folly to oppose each other and to raise the price against themselves. So it was agreed that one only should buy, and that the others should stand in for their shares. 1 - This : didn't suit the Melbourne wool-brokers, who had not been engaged by the new buyers, and who seemed likely to be left out in the cold. So one or two of the youngest of the local wool-dealing brotherhood bought nearly every bale of wool suitable for the American market, to the astonishment of the new men, who stood aghast. A few. .days later they found themselves constrained to take over at a handsome advance, the clips which had slipped through their fingers at the public sale. In this first conflict of business' bet ween America and Victoria the colony hasn't come off second best. The Unemployed in Melbourne.— The following facts, says the Argus, are worth noting as a comment upon the cry of the unemployed in Melbourne. A few days since. an advertisement from the Rose of Denmark Company 1 , Gaff ney's Greek, appeared in the Melbourne papers asking for some 20 or 30 men' to proceed to the mine at 355. per week wages, and 20 per cent on the net profit of the mine divided between .them. , The last return from the mine brought the wages of the mien working in it up to over £2 11s. ptir week. It must ba. remembered that these men have no house rent or wood and water to (o pay for. They can pitch their tents where they please, and if desirous of being economical, can easily live on 15s. per week. A number of men were under these conditions engaged to go to Gaffoey's Creek ; but when the hour ,of starting came only four presented themselves, although it had been agreed that their fare should be paid for them and deducted, not of their wages.,' but out of their first, bonus. No terms could be fairer, but they did not suit the loafers of Melbourne,' who as a; matter of policy, constantly cry, "We can get no work to do."' • .■..;.:.'.• ; ; >- v-\ A Family haye repeatedly found their milk can empty in the morning. The other night 1 they put a few drops ofcroton oil in it before~putting it out to be filled. J ftext nWrnt^ heat, were r ,<3readjf ally 'sick, and ha<3t to ;be triaiferred to another atation. ;

£ S D. Nelson to the Port and Back— 40 per diem each way at 4d. ... 400 0 0 Stoke— 10 per diem each way, at 1/- ... 300 0 0 Richmond — 20 per diem each way, at 1/6 ... 900 0 0 Spring Grove and Hope — 15 per diem each way, at 2/- ... 900 0 O Wakefield, fed by Dovedale and Eighty-Eight Valley — 1 5 per diem, each way, at 2/6 ... 750 0 0 foxhill, fed by motfeka valley, Central Btjller, &c. — 10 per diem. each way, 'at 3/- ... 900 0 0 Live Stock from all Stations ... 300 0 0 Excursion Trains... „ 200 0 0 Total JG4650 0 0

Goods Traffic. £ s. d. Stoke— General Produce 250 0 0 Richmond — Agricultural produce in, and merchandise out 703 0 0 Waimea West and if outebe — 300 0 0 Spring G\rove — Including breadstuff's from mills, timber, &c ... 700 0 0 Wakefield, Dovedale, and Eighty Eight Valley — Sawn Timber and Firewood in, and merchandise out ... 1100 0 0 Foxhill — Timber and Firewood 500 0 0 Merchandise, Sic, to Wangapeka, Motueka Valley, Central Buller, &c 700 0 0 Total £4250 0 0