THE WEEK.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume X, Issue 104, 1 May 1875, Page 2

THE WEEK.

A vacancy has occurred in the Provincial Council by the resignation oi one of the town members, but up to the present time there seems to be a considerable amount of apathy with regard to re-filling it. One name has been mentioned; out of doors rather prominently, and two or three others somewhat diffidently, but nobody seems to care much who is to be tbe man. To what is this carelessness to be attributed ; to a want of intereat io politics provincial; to a feeling that the present Government is sure to obtain a supporter, nnd, consequently, it does not much matter wbo he may be; or to , the very general impression that Pro- j vincialism is at its last gasp, and, j therefore, that whoever may be now elected will have but a very brief political life, during which he will not be able to do much harm ? If the principal town of the province allows one of its representatives to be elected in this happy-go-lucky sort of way, it surely will be contributing its mite to the condemnation and execution of Provincialism, for it will very naturally be argued that, if a town like Nelson is absolutely indifferent as to how it is represented in the Provincial Council,' the out-districts can scarcely be ex-, pected to take much interest in such matters, ergo, Provincial Councils, in this division of tbe colony at least, must soon lose ali their prestige and importance, aod be looked upon as a useless I excrescence, to sever which from tbe I body politic, would be to perform ao operation tbat would meet with very general approbation. And those who reason thus are, I fancy, not far wrong. A railway to connect tbe town of Nelson with the western seaboard of the province is a thiDg that has so frequently been talked of, written upon, aDd dreamed about, while at the same time nothing has come of all the agitation, that to mention it now almost causes one to be laughed at, but it may not be known to many of my readers that negotiations are now in progress in London for forming a company for the constructiou of such a line. lam not at liberty to enter into details, but may Bay tbat I bave seen a cc py of the prospectus, and am assured that, upon the basis therein laid down, English capitalists are prepared to advance the requisite amount upon a guarantee from the New Zealand Government that the conditions they propose shall be complied with. Much will depend upon the amount of encouragement or otherwise that Mr Yogel gives to the scheme, and by the next mail something definite may be learned upon this head. The accounts that have hitherto been received from the promoters are hopeful in the extreme, and as the terms tbey propose are far from being extravagant, it is quite possible that arrangements may be made for the execution of a work which all Nelson people have so long deßired, and which, it is generally believed, would transform this from a standstill into a progressive province. There are certain difficulties in the way, but if our Premier enter heartily into tbe scheme, there are none of them that are likely to prove insurmountable. I notice that one of the economical efforts of our present Provincial Government has proved unavailing, a cruel General Government haviDg stepped in, and protested against an important service being rendered inefficient for the sole purpose, of enabling the provincial authorities to lay claim to having effected a temporary reduction in the yearly expenditure. It had been ■■ deemed advisable to save two or three hundred a year by combining the two offices of Inspector of Police, and gaoler. The former, as we all know, if the work is to be done effectually, requires tbat the holder of the office jshould (ravel about, and be actually, as well as nominally, an "inspector" of - the force he is appointed to overlook in all parts of the province. The latter, if he is to perform his duties satisfactorily, must exercise constant and unremitting supervision over the establishment placed under his charge. Consequently, tbe holder of the two offices must at times leave either the one or the other neglected. But this was a matter of trifling importance when compared with the graver consideration of laying before the Council tbe estimates of expenditure" upon a | reduced scale, and so the two offices were combined. But the General Governmeut, not caring whether or not tbe Provincial Executive could boast of a majority in tbe Council, have ioterfered, and very clearly made knawn tbeir views witb regard to the management of tbe gaol. Its supervision must be thorough and complete, and they won't bave the gaoler running away to the West Coast to see tbat the policemen behave themselves. The consequence is that the Provincial Government has to give way, and once again to appoint two officers to do the work of two men. Now, one would have thought that having, in their desire to promote economy, dismissed an officer who was not discharged for any fault of hia own, but merely for the sake of saving so many poundß a year, they would, when practically convinced of their own folly, bave reinstated him, but no 1 Having 'taken the bread out of his mouth they menu to keep it away, and so, it is rumored, have promoted someone else to hiß exclusion. If the exigencies of the public service require it, individual interests must give way, hard though it may sometimes seem, but' when tie

necessity does not exist, ifc is scarcely fair to old officers to starve them and to put others in their places. Gradually but very surely the Provincial Government service in Nelson is. sinking lower and lower in the catalogue of things to be desired. Of course it grieves me and all otber charitably inclined persons to see our neighbors in trouble or distress, but really I could scarcely repress a smile yesterday on reading the telegrams from that wide-awake city of Dunedin. In this dreadfully "Sleepy Hollow," where we never do anything right, and are always affording fun to our fellowcolonists in other parts, we, some years ago, established a system of waterworks, which are not on the gigantic scale of the "Yon Yean" in Melbourne which every now and then run nearly dry, nor do they profess to be so perfect as those in the great City of the South. Still, we do, somehow or another, contrive to get through summer after summer, and autumn after autumn, witbout baying to resort to rivers and old wells for our Bupply of water, but in Dunedin we are told that the calculations, upon which the works were based, have proved utterly unreliable — that a fire broke out yesterday which might "have been extinguished at once by two or three buckets of water, but these two ar three bucketfuls were not forthcoming; and that the whole town is now at the mercy of the demon fire because there is not a drop of water to be obtained. Perhaps we are a little sleepy in Nelson, but after all we manage to take care of ourselves, our comforts, and necessities very fairly, and in this respect have proved superior even to Dunedin. 'Pon my word I don't think this much despised Nelson is such a bad place to live in after all. F.