The Westport Times. SATURDAY, APRIL 30, 1870.

Westport Times, Volume IV, Issue 652, 30 April 1870, Page 2

The Westport Times. SATURDAY, APRIL 30, 1870.

The opening address of Mr Curtis, when regarded from a West Coast point of view cannot be deemed satisfactory. The total revenue for the last financial year is £82,000, and the proportion contributed by the West Coast so far as can be gathered from the data furnished in the speech, exceeds £52,000, leaving something less than £30,000 as contributed by other portions of the province. As stated in our issue of Tuesday last the expenditure on the South-west Groldfields amounted to £9016 for the last quarter of the financial year, the sum of £6352 16s having been necessary to defray the expense of government, while only £2663 4s had been disbursed in the execution of public works. Assuming that the management of these goldfields entails an annual cost upon Nelson of £25,000, there would still remain a very large margin of revenue to be expended in the formation of tracks, roads, and the carrying out of other public works calculated to develop the rich mineral resources of the country. All mention is avoided by his Honor of an intention to carry out any important works on the Groldfields. Not the slightest reference is made to the various sums placed on the Estimates for the execution of works in the districts of Westport, Charleston, and Brighton, which have been entirely 1 ignored by the Government of which Mr Curtis is the head; no explanation is offered why the sums voted have never been expended, nor is any promise held out that they ever will be expended. Fully half the address is taken up with a vindication of the conduct of the G-overnment in connection with the sale of lands at Waagapeka, and while Mr Curtis cannot congratulate the Council upon an advance in the general prosperity of the inhabitants of the province ; he thinks himself fully justified in dwelling hopefully upon the improved prospects which have lately opened up to the people of Nelson. The discoveries of auriferous quartz reefa at Wangapeka, at Collingwood, and at the Lyell will, he thinks, produce a sensible improvement in the condition of a large part of the province. We fail to see how the development of the Lyell reefs is likely to directly benefit the City of Nelson, unless it is contemplated to bridge over the distance by means of a good road, if this is done, and Westport left without any means of communication with the quartz producing district of the Lyell, we shall be practically excluded from any commercial intercourse with the district. This statement on the part of Mr Curtis, together with the suggestions of Mr Kynnersley, with respect to the formation and improvement of roads in the Upper and Middle Buller A alleys would certainly tend to show '

that it is intended that the inhabitants of Nelson and its surroundings should furnish the supplies for the extensive population that it is hoped may be shortly located there.