The Nelson Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 1874.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 24, 28 January 1874, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 1874.

The speech delivered by His Honor the Superintendent at the opening of the Council will, we believe, give general satisfaction. Hitherto we have been called upon on such occasions to listen to along string of commonplace remarks, flavored perhaps with aliusions to some correspondence that had taken place beween the Superintendent and the General Government upon certain question on which they could not agree; now

we have a bold proposition made that is in accordance with the generally expressed views of the people, and which, if carried into execution, mustmaterially affect the status of the province. It is quite clear that if she is to continue to rely upon her ordinary revenue alone, Nelson must-give up all hope whatever of executing those public works which are essential to her progress. If she cannot obtain n loan by means of which her natural resources may be turned to account she must droop and die and be blotted out from amongst the provinces of New Zealand. We are perfectly well aware that there are in our midst sources of wealth that at present are not available for the want- of means of getting at . them, and we believe that we are : perfectly justified in borrowing money for the execution of works which will ultimately prove remunerative. ' The Superintendent appears to hold the same views on this subject as are entertained by those who elected him, and he chimed in with the wishes of the people in coming down to the Council with an invitation to them to assist him in obtaining the money that is bo urgently needed. We do not propose now at such short notice to criticise/the schedule of .the proposed works, fut it appears s stosus to be framed witbAa view to the" general welfare, and no part of the province in which roads are absolutely required for opening up the country and rendering it accessible to the miner or the agriculturist seems to \l)ftvo been overlooked. Qn the contrary, we are disposed, ttf think that if it does contain faults"' they are rather in the other direction, and that there is a slight tendency to extravagance. Some of the proposed works partake in our opinion of the character of luxuries that may be dispensed with rather than actual necessaries. This, however, is a consideration that no doubt will be fully discussed in the Council and if a good case cannot be made out in support of e^cb individual work, it will of course bo struck out. At the same time i(h-nHJ6fc *be remembered that iti. is not » proposed to borrow the whole of the money-' at once, but that its expenditure shall be spread over a series of years, and it may be that in the meantime the necessity may arise for certain of the undertakings which are mentioned but do not claim the immediate attention of the Government. It is, too, a question with us whether the supply of immigrants that is mentioned in the speech is not rather in excess of our requirement?. That we can very well do with an increase to our laboring population is beyond all doubt, but it is highly important that wo should not import more than can be provided with employ, ment. It is true that it is only prtposed that immigration should proceed simultaneously with the execution of public works, but whether we shall for some little time be justified in adding to our population by means of the Gov.emment echeme of immigration at the rate of eighteen hundred a year is a Question that requires earnest consideration, and much calm and thoughtful discussion, We have shown what dfpear to us to be the weak points in the Government programme, but these may be easily remedied, and we now repeat what we said in commencing these re-

marks that both the speech and the schedule of the proposed works will meet with general approbation.