The Nelson Evening Mail. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1874.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 290, 8 December 1874, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1874.

It will be remembered that in the last contest for' the Superintendency one' strong point made against Mr O' Conor was that he had, in his place iv the House of Representatives, supported the proposal to grant a subsidy to a steamer to ran from Dunedin round the Middle Island. Tenders for such a service were called for, but those sent in were considered too high, and so the matter fell through for the time, and indeed had since been lost sight of until within the last day or two, when, without anything further bo ing heard on the subject, the following advertisement made its appearance in the Southern papers— that which we copy is from the Canterbury Press : — For Picton, Nelson, Westport, Greymouth* and Hokitika.— The b.s. Maori (under contraft with the General Government;, will leave Lyttelton for the above ports on or about Monday. 7th December, returning to Dunedin via West Coast Sounds and Bluff Harbor. For freight or passage, apply, tec. It appears then that a gross act of injustice to Nelson is actually to be perpetrated. For some years pest a spirited firm in this place has connected it with the West Coast ports by aa fine a little fleet of steamers as is to be iound in New Zealand, the consequence being that a very large portion- of the Westport, Greymouth and Hokitika trade has flowed through a Nelson channel. This was regarded by the merchants of Christchurch and Dunedin with a jealous eye, and they made up their minds to obtain a share of it by some means or other, whether fair or foul did cot matter to them. Individual enterprise, euch as that which set on foot and matured steam comI munication between this port and these j on the Coast did not exist among their ranks, co a combination was formed by which the General Government was forced to support the subsidy, without the aid of which the two larger cities could not hope to compete with Nelson. Unfair as was the proposal it was agreed to by thß House, and the result is the advertisement above quoted. Had the Provincial Governments of Otiigo and Canterbury, singly or together, offered a subsidy for such a service no one could have objected, but for the General Government to undertake it is to inflict an injustice upon Neleon that cannot be too strongly protested against. It simply amounts to this, that Nelson, in common with the rest of the colony, is to bo {axed for the purpose of depriving herself of a trade which one of her mercantile bouses had initiated r.tnl fostered, with a view to diverting it into a Canter-bury-eum-Otago channel. Sneered at though she be for want., of energy, there remnina the f«ct that Nelson enterprise has largely aesisted to develop the resources of the Western Coest of the Middle Island by connecting it by steam with a good and available port, but now an attempt is to be made by the General Government to deprive her— and she is to be called upon to bear her share of the cost of the transaction — of the benefits that are to be derived from the trade that, consequent upon the enterprise of her merchants, has attained its present dimensions. Surely a grosser act of injustice was never perpetrated.