The Westport Times. FRIDAY, MAY 23, 1873.

Westport Times, Volume VII, Issue 1074, 23 May 1873, Page 2

The Westport Times. FRIDAY, MAY 23, 1873.

The members of the deputation sent to Wellington and Christchureh by ■ the Nelson -Inland Communication Committee, have returned wiser men than they departed. After the infinite amount of babbling talk and promise of lofty deeds in Nelson, it must have been .pilling to their self sufficiency to • find themselves brought to a dead stop at the very outset of their .mission aud effectually; posed by a plain matter of fact question. The elaborate report of the Committee compiled expressly to prove the necessity for aud importance of the proposed railway, and bristling with statistics and general estimates ingeniously devised to prove the certainty of a maximum amount of traffic at a minimum amount of cost was paraded as proof incontestible that all the deputation asked for should be granted. But quoth the astute Minister, in his most suasive and dulcet accents, are these figures capable of proof, can the correctness of your calculations b assured on the authority of either Provincial or General Government engineers ? And behold they could not. KesponsiUle, practical, authoritv declined to be entrapped into endorsing the opinion of haphuznrd theory, and the Netaffl deputies found " their occupation gone," their bright hopes waUtreJ, aau an immediate return to '

their confiding friends tho most prudent course of action. Nothing daunted .by this rebuff the Committee in all haste despatched a deputation to Canterbury to use all persuasive eloquence to induce the Superintendent of that Province to accept the Nelson view of the question, and consent to alienate land in his Province to the proposed railway company, with as little hesitation or regard for the future as they had themselves. But wiser in his generation than his Nelson visitors, his Honor the Superintendent of Canterbury Province was proof against all blandishments. To give away land would be absurd while people, eager to purchase, kept pouring their money into the Provincial Treasury, and so, in terse telegraphic words, the message came speeding to Nelson : "The deputation has not received the amount of support expected. The Superintendent of Canterbury is disinclined to recommend the alienation of the Waste Lands of the Province of Canterbury for the purpose of constructing a line of railway greater in proportion that that which would run through his province." Thrown thus back upon their resources, having, moreover, to contend with opposition in the Council, and utter lack of confidence or respect among that section of the provincial population whose interests will be most seriously affected by the proposed project, the Inland Communication Committee have found that their scheme cannot be "rushed through" at the break neck speed desired, but must first stand the test of honest and deliberate judgment.