THE RESULT OF MR. LIGHTBAND'S LETTER.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 19, 22 January 1872, Page 2

THE RESULT OF MR. LIGHTBAND'S LETTER.

(From the Wellington Independent.) Tho Nelson people are beginning to lament the consent of the Government to include the Nelson and Foxhill railway in the schedule of tho Railways Bill of last session — not so much because that it is one of the lines to be. constructed "leisurely," as because they find now that the money this unnecessary line will cost could have been far more profitably employed io opening up the goldfields of the Upper Buller and adjacent districts. Mr. Lightband, one of the members for the City of Nelson, and who was almost coerced into voting for the Foxhill railway, has recently visited the rich mineral districts of the Upper Buller, and io a letter addressed to one of the Nelson papers deplores the action which is to give the people of Nelsou at some distant date a railway through a part of the province where there is an excellent metalled road, but which does nothing practically to connect the town of Nelson with the rich goldfields oh the West Coast. He now advocates the construction of a tramway from Foxhill (where the metalled road terminates) to the Upper Buller district expressing the opiuion that such a work would produce more real benefit to Nelson in a year than the railway to Foxhill could for many years to come. . And he is quite right. A more foolish expenditure of the public money could 1 not well be conceived than the construction of the

Foxhill line. It can do nothing more towards the development of tho country through which it passes than is already performed by the road, whilst its cost will eutail a burden upon the provincial revenues for which no corresponding advantage can be realised. Had the seventy or eighty thousand pounds, which this line will cost, been appropriated to the opening up of the mineral districts, a vast amount of real and immediate good would have been secured aud the work would have been eminently profitable. A horse tramway — such as are in successful operation in various parts of the West Coast — would give access to a country exceedingly rich in auriferous deposits both alluvial and in quartz reefs, and would open up a vast area of good agricultural land where produce could find a near and profitable market. At present the rich district we refer to is practically shut out from occupation. The miners working there do so under most discouraging difficulties. Provisions have to be brought at great expense from a distance, and the cost of living is thus so enhanced that but in exceptionally rich ground it does not pay the miners to work. If this district were opeued up a large population could find a profitable field for their labor, the revenues of the province and the colony would be largely increased, aud the farmers of Nelson would find an additional market for their produce which is now becoming a drug. We have no great compassion for the Nelson people in this matter, because their members, under the presure of their constituents, persisted in haviDg the useless Foxhill line, which, if completed tomorrow, would not do them a bit of good. ; All they cared for was a share in the expenditure of public money, and they thought that seventy or eighty thousand pounds spent within twenty miles of Nelson would -benefit the tills of the shopkeepers and publicans, and enable a few owners of unremunerative farms to sell their iaud at fancy prices to the Government. But there is yet time to remedy the mistake. The Nelson and Foxhill Hue cannot suffer much by beiDg delayed a few months, and the Government might, in the interest of the people of Nelsou, delay any further action in the matter until the Assembly meets, when the sense of the Nelsou members could be taken, whether they still prefer this line to be made, or would rather the money be employed in a more profitable direction.