The Westport Times. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1872

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 1018, 1 November 1872, Page 2

The Westport Times. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1872

'The peculiar complication of p\iblic :affairs in "Westport needs iustant and radical reform. A greater state of muddle than at present exists can hardly be conceived. The inhabitants of this sea beleagured town, after long endurance of inconvenience and much suffering, by reason of adverse flood and tide, are making a last struggle to secure for themselves permanent habitations, wherein they may live and still hope to retrieve their fallen fortunes. The Provincial Government, with tardy justice, have to some extent assisted; and are now expending a sum of money voted for town improvements. That the work proposed to be dono has been well devised, or that the money is now being well and fairly expended needs no present argument. The public are not wholly satisfied —in "Westport, as elsewhere, no public man or public act has ever yet won unqualified approval—the town is divided against itself, conflicting interests are aroused, individual action ±o promote individual gain, is the order of the day rather than united action for the public good, aud to a stranger looking on from neutral ground, it would seem that we are as a people who know not what they do. Petition and counter petition, telegram and counter telegram, are all brought in action, sharp and persistent, for or against any alteration of the governmental plans for forming the nucleus of a now township, even now at the eleventh hour when the work is well,nigh completed. To make confusion worse confounded the government, either by misconceived or misunderstood action, have proclaimed the whole site of the present township as a reserve apart from Goldfields regulations, and from our local representative of government, the public do not obtain, nor can they expect to under the circumstances, any definite ruling that may guide them in their judgment as to whether they hold their sections by r'ght of law, by right of possession, or by the right of the strong against the weak. Meanwhile the sea and river, with unrelenting and insidious motions, still encroacli, sapping the foundations and tumbling down buildings, and despite all that men can do or say, contracting on two sides at least, the boundaries of our future township. The moral of all this, the one course suggesting itself

as the only possible escape from the present muddle, is prompt, determined, and vigorous action on the part of the Provincial Government, and, none the less, united action among the people themselves. Our Nelson rulers may earn popularity while doing incalculable good, by clearing up all doubt as to security of tenure of our town sections, even to the extent of selling freeholds to those who so desire, either on the old or new towDship silo; while the Westport community may achieve a better social status, and win more respect and attention from the powers that he, by adopting the long talked of Municipal form of local government, whereby there will be created a public recognised body, endowed with power and authority to exercise public duties, commandingand entitled to respect and attention from every branch of the public service, and whose actions will be above suspicion, inasmuch as open to public scvutinyj and exercised for the public good.