MR. CURTIS AND THE WEST COAST.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 574, 30 October 1869, Page 2

MR. CURTIS AND THE WEST COAST.

{To the Editor of the Westport Times.) Sib, —Mr Curtis has forwarded to the electors of the Coast the copy of a gushing speech delivered by him iu the Provincial Hall, calculated to mislead the credulous and to make sensible men blush at his audacity and ignoraut innocence. If—and he says 50£210,000o — £210,000 have been spent on the Coast since it opened, I should like to know what there is to show for it now. This he endeavors to explain. H 6 says " Westport was absolutely made by Government money, and it had more money expended upon it than any other district in the Province." Now if all public works in this district were valued at the actual cost of construction—the Q-overnmeut buildings, the clearing and forming of the streets, six miles of a track to the Caledonian, eight miles of a track to Addison's, five miles of dray road to Charleston, ten miles of track up the river, and the money that was "expended " on the river—it would not amount to £20,000, allowing the districts of Charleston, Brighton, and Cobden to have had as much spent in each of them. That would leave £130,000 for departmental expenditure and Nelson necessities. Mr Curtis surely meant, when he said there was " 100 miles for drays and 400 miles for horse tracks," that there ought to have been that length of tracks on the Coast. He would find it impossible to measure half that extent of made roads on the Coast unless he crossed over into the County of "Westland.

Again he says, "the "West Coast opposes the railway," and proceeds to draw fictitious conclusions from this sentence as to his connections, family, and reputation. The fact is that the people on the Coast would be as glad as the people of Nelson to see the railway proceed, but they have more common-sense than think that Mr John Bull is to be charmed into spending £2,000,000 by Mr Curtis, " charm he ever so widely." "We also know thatpermauentprosperitymust come to the Colony by other channels than through him, his family, his connections, or his reputation—yes, through the industry of the people, and through government being administered that it may fall upon the people like the dew upon the grass. Again he says, " The "West Coast newspapers oppose me because they know that, so long as I am Superintendent, they have no chance of obtaining separation." Here he seems to ignore the fact that it is he and his imbecile administration that have raised the cry for Separation, and that when the people of Nelson are ready to put another and a better man in his place—one who will do justice—the cry of Separation will become a thing of the past. If they will not do this it is likely to become both " loud and deep " enough to rend the connection asunder. Had we sent some well informed person to keep Mr Curtis's imagination from wandering

into the probable on West Coast affairs, and bring him up in the same way that Mr Gibbs did on the hustings, we should have opened the eyes of the natives with astonishment and seriously interfered with his re-elec-tion. for the length of this letter, I am, Sir, An Elector.