TOWN SECTIONS.

Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1232, 27 November 1874, Page 4

TOWN SECTIONS.

[WESTPORT EVENING STAR.] In much perturbation of mind and confusion of opinions, section.-holders on the Colliery Eeserve gravely discuss the present situation. One which in all their varied experience of being driven from pillar to post had never occurred to them as being possible or probable, until the stern fact is brought suddenly before their notice. Resting in thankfulness from their long battling with encroaching river and sea, and wrapt in pleasing fancy that at least they had built their houses on a sure foundation, they have been startled by a mandate to move on once again. The land they hold is needed, or will be at some not distant period, for railway purposes, and it matters naught that they are occupying the land by express leave and license, paying rent for it, and with assurance that undisturbed possession would be given them for a long term of years. That arrangement, either expressed or implied, was, as section-holders are now told, an unwise one, a mere temporary concession devised by the Nelson Provincial Government to rid itself of an irksome responsibility. The original holders of sections in the township surveyed on the railway reserve, had paid into the Provincial Treasury chest thousands of pounds sterling as business license fees, and as the sections thus held were washed away by sea or river they claimed the right and pleaded for assistance to build elsewhere. The Provincial Government, neither just or generous, would not give up possession of a single acre of freehold land as site for a new township, but with much ostentatious parade allotted sections again on the Colliery Eeserve, and thereupon the present Westport has arisen. A new town wherein the clinking of hammers and driving of nails has not yet ceased. The people scarce settled in their new habitations find the land they have built on needed as a track for the iron horse, and are warned that the order to clear out may come upon them epeedily. In such a case little wonder that discontent prevails, that stubborn spirits suggest dogged opposition, and

that much confusion of opinions prevail, and many diverse suggestions are mooted. Amid all there stands prominent the one unmistakeablo tact that between the river bank and Palmerston street the area is gradually but surely narrowing'from river encroachment, and that if facilities for wharf and railway traffic are to be established there will be scarce room or verge enough without the removal of many buildings—possibly all except the one line facing Palinerston street, the one and only business thoroughfare of the township. There appears no reason to suppose that this particular line of buildings will be removed for some time to come, perhaps not for several years, but the doubt on this point, and the existing doubtful tenure practically renders all such property valueless in a monetary sense. Many and varied are the suggestions made to meet the perplexing circumstances of the case. Two among these are at least feasible. The one is that the reserve on the opposite side of the way shall be allotted for occupation, one section deep, and the freehold of such allotments ultimately secured the occupiers. The owner of every building now facing Palmerston street, up as far as Wakefield street, receiving a money grant from the Government to help to recoup the cost of shifting his habitation across the way. The other is that to save the trouble of removal, present occupiers should be allowed to purchase the freeholds of their sections on the Colliery .Reserve facing Palmerston street, at say £SO per section, the money thus accruing to be spent in reclaiming land along the river bank. Possibly the Municipal Council, under whose guardianship Westport is supposed to flourish, may evolve ideas even more practical and, what will be more to the point, attempt in all earnestness of purpose and recognition of duty, to prevail on the Government to deal with the question in equity less than in mere expediency.