MR. LIGHTBAND'S LETTER.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 11, 12 January 1872, Page 2

MR. LIGHTBAND'S LETTER.

To The Editor or the Nelson Evening Mail. Sir, — In Tuesday's issue of your paper is a letter from Mr. M. Lightband, recommending a diversion of the money (voted by tho General Assembly to construct a railway between Nelson and Foxhill) to connect us with a country by a wooden tramway. I cannot quite understand where ihe beginning or the end of the tramway is recommended to be, nor the country that is to support the town. Having taken a great interest in the proposed railway as a part of a through line of communication to the extreme South, I read the letter with great surprise, being so opposite to the telegrams Mr. Lightband sent to Mr. Barnes while the Bill was under discussion in Wellington, and I am afraid that Mr. Lightbaud is doing, and bas done injury to the cause he professes to support. It is nearly certain tbat the General Government will not be in a hurry to commence tho railway for us if our senators tell them it will be money thrown away, and the work of no use when it is made, nor calculated to pay the working expenses. Before making such statements, should he not; have gone into the question (as for example Mr. Garside has clone in the Examiner about, the Brunner Coal Mine), and shown where the failure is likely to be. The estimated traffic and working expenses were given by Mr. Luckie, showing a profit and unless Mr. Lightband can show a fallacy iv these estimates, his throwing cold water on the railway scheme must operate injuriously to the Province. As to the wooden tramways being cheaper and more useful than common roads, we do not require to go to the Pelorus for proof, as I remember one in the Moutere Bush sorau fourteen years ago, and it may be in use now for aught I know. It was constructed by Mr. David Burns, at something like £100 per mile, to convey the logs from the Bush to his Saw-mill. There is another very superior line at Foxhill, laid down by Mr. G. Holland, at £250 per mile, also another belonging to the Collingwood Coal Company, &c. Nelson patriots unfortunately do not pull together, and when anything is proposed likely to benefit the place, an opposition is shown which renders the scheme abortive, as witness, the Patent Slip versus the Dry Deck, tho first railway proposals, the Town Drainage, and many others. To my mind a railway or tramway must commence at the Port to be effective, and the connections will soon be made extending it to aii parts of tiie country where a trade is likely to pay, and no doubt wooden rails will be used in the first instance, but, to decry the formation of the work and commence in the middle does not show a wish for logical sequence or a desire to benefit the Port aud Town of Nelson. The sneer in the last paragraph about bubble companies is unworthy of Mr. Lightband, and the allegations are untrue. Tbe quartz crushing company of which I have the honor to be manager, has not absorbed all its calls in paying expenses. These can be ascertained by reference to the published accounts, and shew but little over ten per cent, on the capital (few businesses are conducted at less cost) the company is directed by men as honest and straightforward as any in the province and who aro as much interested iv its progress. " The same may be said of all the public companies engaged in similar operations in Nelson, the whole of which I believe were established aud carried on in good faith, and it appears very unjust to style any of them bubble companies. I am, &c„ Wm. Rout.