The Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, MAY 31, 1873.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 130, 31 May 1873, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, MAY 31, 1873.

Those who are interested in the Nelson arid West Coast Railway scheme, that is to say, the public Of Nelson, are to be congratulated upon the result of the dis-

I eussion in tho Provincial Council on i Thursday night. That the resolutions met with a certain amount of opposition, which certainly savored somewhat of obstinacy, is not to be regretted, since it showed that the Council was not disposed to agree to anything and everything that might bo placed before it without enquiry, while it further brought to light the fact that there wero but two opponents, neither of whom, although the disposition to cavil and find fault was by no means wanting, could raise any more Berious objection than that the wording of the resolutions did not exactly meet his views. No stronger testimony to the merits of the scheme could have been offered than that volunteered by Mr Reid, who stated that although he had strongly opposed the construction of the line by a Company, had written against it, ridiculed it, and caricatured it, rather more perhaps than he should have done — and to this we cannot eay nay — yet now that ths question hod assumed a new garb, he was prepared to give it his warmest support. Mr O'Conor was in a more than usually critical mood, and, as we have said before, his opposition was not untinged with obstinacy. Either he was not lully aware of the nature of the amendments he wished to make, or he was desirous of depriving the resolution of its full force, but, as he is not generally wanting in shrewdness, we are not disposed to attribute his opposition to the former cause. Mr Vogel had laid it down as an indispensable condition that tho cordial consent of the Provincial Council should be given to the proposition. -That spirit of cordiality was displayed in the resolutions submitted by the Government, and the Provincial Secretary was quite right in refusing. td allow them to be tampered witb, or in any way weakened, even though Mr O'Conor's peculiar sensitiveness prevented his accepting them in tbeir original form. Although we should have been sorry to see them yielded to, we are yet willing to admit that there was a certain amount of plausibility in Mr O'Conor's arguments, but the reasoning of his humble, and on this occasion solitary, follower, Mr Ivess, was altogether too subtle for our comprehension. His sole objection to accepting the resolution was, that by so doing he might seem to have too suddenly become a convert to the railway scheme. The inhabitants of the remote districts, from one of which we presume Mr Ivess has come, are not, he told us, as enthusiastic on the railway question as residents in Nelson, fearing as they do that it may entail additional taxation. In an address recently delivered to his constituents at Reefton, Mr Ivess, it appears, sympathised with them in this view, and expressed his determination to oppose the scheme that was then before the public. Since that time the matter has assumed a different aspect, and he is not now so strongly opposed to if, but he is extremely desirous that he should not be thought to have been converted too suddenly. He is perfectly willing to state bis conviction that the proposed line is " essential to the prosperity and the permanent settlement of the Province," because this would show that, although converted, he had travelled to the conversion stage afc only half speed, but he is horrified at the idea of being asked to assert that the Foxhill and Brunnerton railway is "absolutely essential alike to the immediate prosperity and permanent settlement of all parts of the Province," lest by so doing he should lay himself open to the charge of being a " sudden **•* convert. We admit our utter inability to discover how, by approving of the words to which he takes exception, Mr Ivess would have been fixing the precise date on which he was converted, nor on the other hand can we [see that their omission would justify the assumption that the process of conversion had been slow, and not characterised by that suddenness, to the charge of which Mr Ivess featß to lay himself open. We look forward with much anxiety to the time when Mr Ivess will return to his constituents, and in unbosoming himself to them describe at length the how, when, and where of his conversion, and explain in what way his voting for the resolution would have convicted him of being a sudden, or his preference for the amendment prove him to have been only a gradual, convert. The impression conveyed to.our minds while listening to him in the Council Chamber, was that he would have liked to offer opposition to the resolution, but could not see how it was to be done, until Mr O'Conor's superior intelligence pointed out a way to him. rr— i ii i