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Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 478, 16 March 1869, Page 2

The report of the Westport meeting in favor of County Separation had not reached Nelson in time to be commented upon by the papers which are as yet to hand. The Examiner has just had time, space, or inclination to say this much—that "no out-district was ever more liberally treated than the Buller has been, but because the Government would not spend money it did not possess, and declined to undertake works for which no money had been voted, a cry has been raised that the district was neglected." It is not added, after the manner of Artemus Ward, that "this is meant to be ironical," but in charity our readers will, no doubt, conceive it to be so. It is fortunate that irony, powerful as it is as a weapon in speech or writing, is not always completely " crushing," especially when it is not allied with truth. It happens that, by the absence of that one element—truth—this little sneer is robbed of its " sting." The " cry that the district is neglected " has not been raised because the Government would " not spend money it did not possess," but because they spent the money they did possess in a spirit of selfishness and exclusiveness, and, even where the spirit was good, in a manner that was bad. And it was raised, not because the Government " declined to undertake works for which no money had been voted," but because of their doing exactly the opposite—because they declined to undertake works for which the money had been voted. But the cry was raised for many more considerations than merely these, one and the chief of which is that Westland North does not choose longer to be considered a mere " out-district" of Nelson, to be liberally or illiberally treated according to the discretion or indiscretion of twenty-one men, the majority of whom never saw the district, and know as much about its requirements as does their solitary prototype in the moon.