THE NELSON AND WEST COAST RAILWAY.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 592, 11 December 1869, Page 2

THE NELSON AND WEST COAST RAILWAY.

It will be remembered that the General Government, a few weeks since, addressed a letter to the Superintendent, offering the services of the Commissioners about to proceed to England on behalf of the colony, to remove, as far as might lie in their power, any difficulties that stood in the way of persons in England undertaking to construct tbe Kelson and Cobden Railway. Some correspondence has passed between the Superintendent and the General Government, and from that it appears the Superintendent retires from the original offer of transferring land to the company undertaking the works. He suggests rather that the General Government should guarantee interest on the outlay and take a mortgage on the land as a security. In the letter he says : " The cost of the line is estimated by Mr Wrigg at about £900,000; by other engineers who have examined MrWrigg's calculations, as more nearly £1,500,000. Interest guaranteed upon the Bum of £1,500,000, at the rate of 5 per cent., would amount to £75,000 per annum. " Presuming that 3,000 laborers, with their wives and families, were introduced, the addition to the population of the colony might be taken to be 15,000 persons, whose contribution to the colonial revenue, at the present average per head, would amount to about £60,000 per annum. " With the consent of the Provincial Council, I should be willing on the part of the Province, to hand over to the Colonial Government the land proposed to be granted in consideration of the construction of the railway, about 2,200,000 acres, which under the scheme I am now suggesting would no longer be required for that purpose, by way of security for their guarantee. "But I should not be prepared, looking to the present available resources of the Province, to recommend to the Provincial Council to become otherwise responsible for so large an annual sum as £75,000, although I trust there would be little fear that the Government would be called upon for anything like that amount—after the first year or two, at all events." Ift reply Mr Gisborne, the Colonial Secretary, writes: — " The Commissioners have been requested to use their best efforts to remove the difficulties which have prevented hitherto the success of your negociations for the work. It is of course not competent to the Government to authorise the Commissioners to commit the colony to responsibility in connection with it, and the Government could not undertake to recommend to the House of Representatives a guarantee such as referred to by your Honor, except possibly in connection with a general scheme for railways."