Untitled

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 120, 21 May 1872, Page 2

To the Editor op the Nelson Evening Mail. Sir, —Absence from town during Friday and Saturday has prevented me from taking more prompt notice of some remarks affecting my conduct as a member of the General Assembly in the year 1867, which were made by Mr. Saunders in his speech on Thursday evening. Iv the first place, the Consolidated Loan Act, and the Public Debts Act, which were passed, and must be read, together, inflicted no injustice whatever upon this Province in its relation to other Provinces —they did not change the relations of the Provinces as to their respective debts —-Nelson lost nothing, and neither did Wellington or Otago gain anything at her expense, as Mr. Saunders would make it appear. These Acts provide that each Province shall pay the interest on its own debts, and shall, also, by means of she Sinking Fund, repay the amount borrowed, whether large or small. Each Province has done so up to this time, and I see no reason to doubt their continuing to do so. The Public Debts Act did, I consider, do a great injustice to the Colony, although not to any one Province more than another. The provisions which had this effect received my active opposition so long as I remained in Wellingtou, but, before the measure was finally disposed of, I was compelled to return to Nelson, in order to meet the difficulties the Province was getting into from the profuse expenditure going on upon the West Coast, under the

management of the then Commissioner, Mr. Kynnersley. When a measure which would have done the grossest injustice to this Province by bringing it into partnership with the heavily indebted provinces, was subsequently brought in, I not only opposed it, but voted in favor of a motion of want of confidence in the Stafford Government on that account, and I may asssert, without vanity, that it was mainly owing to my opposition that the measure did not become law. As to the course I took with respect to the £12,000, which, so far as it had any real' existence, was expended on public works, instead of being applied to the reduction of our small Provincial debt of £41,500, 1 will not encumber your columns by reopening a question which was thoroughly discussed at the time. I will however observe that on my election to succeed Mr. Saunders as Superintendent in April, 1867, although I found that tbe sum of £12,000 was lodged on deposit at the bank, I also found that there was an overdraft at the bank in Nelsan of £3600, and also overdrafts at the West Coast branches and other liabilities in excess of revenue, which swallowed up, if not quite the whole, at all events nearly the whole, of Mr. Saunders' favorite £12,000, which] for all practical purposes, bad its existence chiefly in Mr. Saunders' imagination. I am, 85c, Oswald Curtis. Nelson, May 20, 1872. For remainder of news see fourth page.