THE WEEK.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume X, Issue 196, 7 August 1875, Page 2

THE WEEK.

We Lave seen some hard fights in our colonial Parliament on various occasions, but none of them have, either in severity or in the importance of their results, come up to that, the first gun of which was to be fired last night. That the "solemn death bell," announcing the approaching decease of provincial institutions, may sound at once, there cannot be the shadow of a doubt, as the general feeling is that their day has gone by, and that the time has arrived for doiug away with the mockery of quasi regal speeches, responsible Executives and Ministerial crises, playing at Parliament, and other such nursery games which have been deemed necessary to the politicals exisi fence of every little district where twenty or thirty- thousand people are gathered together. And so the Jlat is to go forth for the abolition of such institutions,, and though there may arise a sound of weeping and wailing from some of those who will lose their emoluments, and what to a few is perhaps equally dear, the power attached to office^ there/will be bright smiles and loud rejoicings' amongst 1 the people, who have for sometime past been opening their eyes to the fact that they are too much governed altogether. One big Par liament and nine little ones, comprising something like 320 legislators, all of them engaged for several weeks in the year in making laws for 300,000 "inhabitants, isl)eginmng to be regarded as trie 1 exaggeration of legislation. No wonder thea that the people ask those whom they have chosen to represent them to frame some new constitution which, while it gives them the power of administering. their own purely local affairs, shall leave the work of making laws to one general assembly of representatives from all parts 'of the colony. Even in the province of Canterbury, which has usually been regarded as the hotbedof provincialism, the residents in the chief town appear to be enthusiastic in their desire to see Provincial Governments swept away, and they even go so far as to wish that the Bills shall be passed at once, and without being referred to the various constituencies. The only fear is lest the Parliament should be carried away by this enthusiasm, and in the general eagerness to abolish what at present exists, should not take sufficient care to frame some workable measure in lieu thereof. The Bills in their present shape will certainly not serve the purpose for which they are intended, but when in Committee- they 'may .be; remoulded and rendered, more applicable to the altered circumstances of the colony. In two or- three weeks we shall probably learn what one representatives have determined upon! The disastrous effects in England of continued rain at harvest time, of which we haye heard .of .late, cannot but be productive of beneficial results to agriculturists in the colonies. Those who are sowing now, or who have already got their wheat in, may, provided they do not meet with the same bad luck in the harvest season that has attended the English farmers, calculate upon high prices for their produce. While sympathising with those in the old country who will be deprived of a large portion of the 1 n annual income, and many of whom will probably be ruined thereby, one cannot but consider the effect their misfortunes will have upon this country. We have already had experience of the results to the colonies of the failure of one particular description of crop in England, in the higher prices realised here for hops in consequence of the blight which devastated the gardens at home last year. At the same time it is depressing to reflect upon the misery that will be occasioned in the agricultural districts of the old country by this, the moat terrible of all ills to which the farmer is exposed — a wet harvest. Many of those who read these lines will have painful recollections of what they have themselves suffered from the same cause. I have been reading the annual statement of the Minister of Public Works, and, regarding it from a Nelson point of view, I almost felt that I was perusing a document that related to some far-off country instead of to my own. Poor Nelson is indeed left out in the cold. Railways are being pushed forward everywhere but here ; everywhere else the chief towns are to be connected with their inland country ; even that disgrace to our Public Works scheme, the "political railway," from the Brunner Mine to Greymouth, is to hava an additional £37,000 thrust down its greedy maw ; but here, the pitiful sum of £13,000 for doing something or other to the Nelson and Foxhill railway is to comprise our share for the year. Unless this amount is for the purpose of extending the line to the Port, better for us that we had never come within the scheme at all, for a railway with one terminus in an out of way part of the town, and the other nowhere, can scarcely be regarded as an unmixed blessing, nor, indeed, as a blessing at all, but rather the reverse. The Buller line, of which wo have always regarded the present 19 miles as the commencement, appears to be removed further than ever from our reach, and another railway, encircling aud not bisecting our province seems at the present moment to be the favorite. The Statement in full is not yet to hand, so that it is impossible to understand its details, but we are in possession of quite enough information to convince us that we at all events, hare little to hope for.

There has been a scarcity of coal in Nelson lately, and as my grate was constructed with, a view to coal only being consumed in it, my sense of enjoyment in watching on these cold nights green manuka spluttering and hissing, and smoking, in the place of the cheerful blaze to which I have been accustomed may be quite as easily imagined as described. The other night, having, in endeavoring to arrange the obstinate sticks in some sort of order, calculated to induce a flame, burnt my fingers with fire that I did not know existed in that part of which I laid hold, and scalded them with the boiling sap that bubbled out at the ends, and hissed at me in a most aggravating way, I first of all uttered a powerful expression, and then took up the Public Works Statement in the hope of deriving some comfort from its perusal. Something in it that met my eye caused me once more to look at that wretched manuka that wouldn't burn, and to say something that I shall not write, and then to return to the Statement. It was about the Mount Rochfort district that I was reading, and this was what caused me to look at the manuka:— "A rough estimate of this area gives as much as 140,000,000 tons of coal, in seams of £0 feet, attaining, at I one point, a thickness of 53 feet." And here was I burning my fingers, losing my temper, and uttering hasty exclamations 'because I could not get a fire, when, within the same province in which it is my lot to reside, and within a day's steaming of the port are lying — let me look agam — yes, one hundred and forty million tons of coal, And the Province of Nelson, a few months ago, celebrated its 33rd anniversary, and the existence of these hundred and forty million tons of coal has been known of for I don't know how many years. I won't write any more just now, because my pen begins to feel like one of those manuka sticks when I think that all this time we have chosen to be dependent upon Newcastle instead of digging into those hundred and forty million tons that are lying at our very doors. lam sure, if I went on, that the ink shed upon these pages would be of the same temperature as that of the sap which just now scalded my fingers. I\