To the Editor of the 'Evening Mail.'

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 216, 21 October 1878, Page 2

To the Editor of the 'Evening Mail.'

Sir—l had hoped that the Nelson papers would, ere this, have taken some notice of the action of the Government and their followers in Parliament upon the question ot telegraphic communication from Motueka to Collingwood aad Takaka. There is a great want in the statements published as regards the route by which it was proposed +o carry the wire. If it was to have gone over the range from Motueka to Takaka and thence to Collingwood, the distance would be about 42 miles, and the cost stated, £t}soo gives an average of about £15} per mile. Now on looking at the report of the Telegraph Department for 1878 you see that the line from Nelson to Motueka is nut down as having cost £49 7s 6d per mile* and as certainly not more than one-half of the proposed route is through bush country, and that labor and timber are as cheap, if not cheaper, than along the Motueka line, and as the remaining half of the route is all accessible for carts, I cannot but come to the conclusion that some error has been made in the estimate of the cost; or perhaps the £6500 is intended to defray the erection of a line via Totaranui. People in Colliugwood and Takaka have repeatedly urged their representative, Mr Gibbs, to do all he could to get the line via the Ranges, and not via Totaranui, therefore we --ire yej*y desirous to know the reason for the extraordinary post ojf this line, which must have b.eeij a ye**y stroiig reason for refusing to pass the vote. Can you, Mr Editor, obtain a»y information on this subject? I mean as to what route the' £6500 was required for. I see that Mr Saunders, the quondam Superintendent of Nelson, strongly opposed the vote on the ground that he knew there was no country iv Golden Bay fit for settlement, but how he obtained information sufficient to enable him conscientiously to make this assertion I don't know, but I am informed that he paid the district bne yjsit -for a few days about fifteen years ago, and s»wj Ifttle of it, but that a man who ouly made a flying yhti'of. that Jiind should have presumed to say there is' no country in Golden Bay fit for settlement would bo surprising from any but a quondam Superintendent, who when in office succeeded in doing more to retard settlement and the t general progress of the province than any I Suberinlendspt cither before or after him, which is saying a gooi^ deal. j ' ''" *'*-"• 'turn, £tc., ■ '""A Miner, Callingwoad, *Q.c.t. J5,187§. -v ' ' " J,'.***."- .J «_ i2JL,f!S!?*»*.*W^B3^i^w«m; mjumiw/3