The Nelson Evening Mail. MONDAY, JUNE 7, 1875.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume X, Issue 135, 7 June 1875, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. MONDAY, JUNE 7, 1875.

The proceedings of the Provincial Council have occupied so much of our space and attention of Jate that we have hitherto been unable to comment upon certain remarks made by the N. Z 'limes on a recent article of ours upon the Brunner railway. However, we cannot allow our contemporary's statements to pass unchallenged, and, acting upon the principle " better late than never," we will now endeavor to answer them. The Times says: — "The Nelson Eveni g Mail of Hie 18th instant contains a long and elaborate reply to our n marks, which we are bound to regsrd in the light of an autiori^td statement. "We have read it carefully through, and do not find anything in it which controverts our s ateracnt of facts. We stated that the first vote was taken for seven miles of ordinary country, a survey not having been made; and the Mai quotes the report by Messrs Blaokctt an i Hec;or in 5 871, to prove that a careful estimate was prepared, an>l that the appropri.tion was made in good faith by the Assembly, in the beief that the amount (£26.250) would cover the entire cost of making the line, erecting a bridge across the Grey, connecting t> c mines on both eidts of the river, extr* sidings at Greymouth, and wharf improvement and protection works. But if our contemporary had only t^ken- the trouble to think, he would bave seen that the report was by a Commission appointed to determine the site for the railway, that; no survey h*d been made, and that the estimate, if estimate it could be caltei, was simply approximat?. ■ Ttie Curamission named was asßistod by the Chief Engineer and Chief Surveyor of Wetland, and by the Provincial Engineer of Nelson, the professional mem 1 er of the Commission having formerly been Provinciil Enginterfor Nelson, and thtrefote well acquainted with the locality, Tney examined the cround care'ully, and reporte 1 that ' the chief advantageof this linn is f. und in the small expense ot the works, compared with the complete manner in which it fulfils the requirements of the cage.' We are now told by every local authority that this report was a huge blunder, and we know ou'-t elves without being told, that the work will cost much more than the approximate estimate." Our contemporary says that he is " bound to regard " our reply "in the light of an authorised statement," and he is quite correct in so doing, although not in the sense that he means. It was " authorised," but our sole authority was the Blue Book of 1871, in which are to be found statements so entirely •in contravention those made by the Times in its first article upon the subject of the railway, that we wonder how it could suffer itself to be so led astray when the records from which we made our extracts were as accessible to the editor of that journal as to ourselves. But the Times is not to be beaten by facts, and in the face of them it continnes to assert that " the first vote was taken for seven miles of ordinary country." Now, to show that this was not the case, we will quote from an estimate sent in with Messrs Hector and Blackett's report, in which the estimated cost of the line is given in detail in three sections. One of these will Buffice for our purpoae : —

Does this look like a rough guess at what a railway would cost over an ordinary country ? And, in addition to this, we find in the same report another estimate for the line on the north side, which, clearly shows that both banks of the river had been " carefully examined," or two estimates would never have been sent in. The fallacy of the pleasing fiction about " ordinary country " is therefore at once disposed of. The Times lakes exception to our statement that the appropriation was made in good faith by the Assembly in the belief that the amount (£26,250) would cover the entire cost, &c, and says that the estimate was merely approximate. 1 Surely this is a strange misapplication

of the term -" approximate." The estimate was £26,250, and the work, although not nearly finished, has alreadycost over £80,000. "Would the Assembly have agreed to, the first vote if it had reason to believe that the cost was to be nearly quadrupled before ' r ' h . completion of the line P - ,£,„ ? clearly conscio iir . „ , •, '•• * "*° weakness of its 1, ana, in its endeavor to make the best of it, it only flounders deeper and deeper in the mire. In another portion of the article upon which we are commenting it is stated t — " "We have the satisfaction of knowing that the Greymouth papers, while condemning the work as 'an extravagant blunder,' do not seek to saddle it upon the present head of the Public Works Department. On the contrary, Mr Curtis is not held free from blame." This is disingenuous, to say the least of it, on the part of our contemporary, as it is calculated to lead to the impression that Mr Curtis supported the selection of the present site, whereas the Greymouth papers merely insinuated that Mr Curtis might have offered greater opposition to it. But even the latter supposition is not fair to Mr Curtis, as he always strenuously advocated the construction of the line on the north side, but, at last, seeing that he had to fight against backstair influences, he proposed to refer the matter to Messrs Hector and Blackett in the full belief that they would endorse his views of the case. But between the receipt of his letter making this recommendation, and the carrying it into effect, the Government received a long letter from Mr Harrison, M.H.E. for the Grey Valley, advocating the construction of the railway on the south side, and, apparently, in consequence of this, the instructions issued to the Commission contained the proviso that, in reporting upon the best course of a railway to connect the coalmines with a shipping port, they were to consider it " with a view to promoting public interests to the greatest extent." "Whatever this phrase might mean we know the result, but we take leave to question whether " the public interests " have been •' promoted to the greatest extent." Over £80,000 have already been expended upon a line originally estimated to cost £20,250 ; it is not yet nearly completed : and it is exceedingly doubtful whether it ever will be.

£ s. d. Clearing 290 0 0 Earthwork 4,261 12 0 Drains 174 o 0 Formation 4 12 0 Ballasting '429 0 0 Sleepers 568 15 0 Bridges . 210 0 0 Permanent way ... 2,112 10 0