THE GREY DISTRICT.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 930, 22 February 1872, Page 3

THE GREY DISTRICT.

(Extract from a private letter.) I noticed that you had had a big flood at Westport, but it was nothing to the inundation at Greymouth. Although it is said that about 34 jouses were floated to sea, more than 10 were washed away. Greymouth is built on a shingle bed, and about half the protection works having given way, the river soon made short work of a few thousand tons of gravel. Independent of this, the 'whole town was Jooded. and houses were floated down the streets into the lagoon at the back of the town (carrying away three bridges), and from thence into the riverand over the bar. I don't know what Mr Fox thought of the ruinous look of the town, but he is »oing to advance money for the-con-struction of stone breast work for the protection of what remains of the town. From personal observation on Saturday lOtb I satisfied myself that had ! the flood continued six hours longer, no house in Greymouth would have been standing to point out'the place \vhere the town once stood. In one of the principal streets the overflow washed a channel from six to seven feet deep. The papers would not speak out as to the damage done, it was thought that if such was done the General Government might pause before they made a sand flat the rail - way terminus. The proposed route of the railway between the Twelve Mile and the Ahaura was in many places tweuty feet under water. At the Brunner mine the flood was in the drive'for tweuty-six chains. I certainly should have liked the railway to have been completed as proposed by Blackett and Hector, it would have been a capital. job for the working men, about six miles of the seven would have had to be reconstructed. Mr states that he has seen the Grey several'feet'higher, and old says that nine years ago it was from four to five feet higher. Had the river risen that high on this occasion, the loss of life would have ,been fearful.

It is publicly spoken of here that the proposed route of'the railway is intended as a dig at Mr Curtis for opposing the Ministry.; and the ugly fact i that the result, and 'in the particular I parts the exact words of the report f was known in Nelson before Blaekett and Hector left Wellington, is indicative of an unfriendly spirit on the part of the Government, but it 'is a line of policy that the people see through and is exasperating the angry feeling that was awakened when it was determined to fhrow away such a large sum of money for no useful purpose. I'Hare say that you will now see for yourself that Nelson will lose the South-west Goldfields through the mismanagement of the Government, supported by such imbecile councillors as the , , breed. They know nothing and are too ignorant to learn. ......

By the way, I think I have not advised you that had thelnangahua reefs not turned up the Greymouthians were going to'lay some claim to at least half of the diggings in Otago. It seems that mosfrofthe merchants here were on the Otago Goldfields, and this was the ground, for this singular claim. Anticipating some Tather tough work with the hard-headed Scotchmen, and the Inangahua turning up in the nick of time, they easily gave tip their " grab all" policy in the south. And the General Government encouraging them in their pilfering habits, particularly on the Nelson -Province, and never ■meeting with any opposition from the Nelson Government, they have positively sent up a surveyor named Johnstone to report on the Feasibility of making a road from the Grey Valley ; to the reefs.