The Press. SATURDAY, MARCH 18, 1865.

Press, Volume VII, Issue 744, 18 March 1865, Page 3

The Press. SATURDAY, MARCH 18, 1865.

When your house is on fire, and you have sent for the engines, there is nothing so aggravating as to be implored by anxious and busy friends to do something. " Why don't you do this, that, or the other." And yet that is the sort of assistance Mr. Paterfamilias gets from many a helpful friend whilst his house is burning. If the unhappy proprietor is a fool, he runs about wildly doing, or trying to do, what the last person has suggested. If he is a sensible man he sends for the fire engine, saves what he can, and when he can do nothing more, waits. Our unfortunate G-overnment are at the present moment something in this position. The public are screaching out " make us a road to the diggings. It is of no consequence to us whether the thing is possible or not, or whether one road is better than another. We say a road must be made." It is of no use to reply " the road shall be made when we are satisfied how it can be made quickest." The Lyttelton Times, fertile in complaints, barren in suggestions, reflects the most unmeaning part of the popular demands. "Why don't you do something?" is the burden of their rational cry. We hope, indeed we are sure, that the Government will not move one jot for these ravings. Men are not fit to govern at all unlessthey have the firmness to select the best course for the country, and to pursue it steadily through evil report and good report. If the G-overnment had put a large body of men on the Hurunui road and spent several thousand pounds, and a pass had then been discovered in another direction which would hive saved both money and time, and would have offered a far shorter route to the diggers at an earlier period,—such a G-overn-ment would justly have met the condemnation of the public. To run about taking this that and the other suggestion from Tom, Jack or Harry, would be as as easy as it would be useless. The duty of the Government is to discover and make up their minds, how a track first, and then a road, can be got to the diggings soonest; that is the question —how to do it quickest. It is easy to say j three weeks have been lost already. Possibly; but those three weeks may save three months in the completion of the work. Great expedition may be gained in the end hy doing the right thing instead of the wrong thing. One thing we know, —that to make any sort of road by which horses could travel, and goods could be packed by the Teramakau Saddle, would take a very long time and a great deal of money. The distance from the present made road to the Otira must be quite 60 miles ; and for a considerable part of this distance the road must be constructed through an exceedingly difficult country. This cannot be done in a short time. It ia simply impossible. Of course it can be done, but it will take sometime. On the other hand, we know that at this moment a dray load can be taken by the route of the Waimakariri to

•within not more than 12 miles from the Teramakauat the Otira mouth. This was known before Mr Gr. Dobson started. Since he came back we know that that 12 miles is reduced by two or three of good carting ground in the Bealey, and the same in the Otira, leaving a space so insignificant that it could be done in a reasonable time. If Mr Dobson on his return can recommend any line by which the difficulty of the Otira gorge can be surmounted, then indeed it will be worth while throwing a very large body of men, all indeed who can be obtained, upon the work. Should this turn out to be the result, the delay in undertaking any work at first may be the means of getting a good road to the diggings months before it could possibly have been opened by the other route. "We suppose the Government not only believe this to be possible, but entertain a very strong hope that it will so turn out. Indeed we readily admit that without such a hope they would have had no excuse for holding their hands even for a day. Unless Mr. Dobson has been stopped by very bad weather, we shallhear on Monday or Tuesday what he has done. We most earnestly "hope — notforthe credit of the Government —that is a secondary consideration, —butfortheinterests of the province, that the report will be favorable ; and that two or three hundred men will be thrown on the work next week. We think we read somewhere, a day or to ago, that if Mr. Moorhouse had been Superintendent we should by this time have had Cobb's coaches running all the way to the West Coast. It must be very galling to Mr. Moorhouse to be exposed to these sneers and impertinences. Cobb's coach forsooth! Do we not all know, that if Mr. Moorhouse had been Superintendent we should have had a railway to the West Coast, and to every where else by this time! Blessed heart! did not Mr. Moorhouse make a railway from Lyttelton to Christchurch, tunnel and all, as long ago as 1858, which has been running ever since, conferring countless benefits on all of us. Mr. Moorhouse requires neither time nor money to do anything he undertakes — (on the hustings). It is very hard then that it should be insinuated that he would only have got Cobb's coaches across by this time. If, however, these sanguine admirers of Mr, Moorhouse's Q-overnment will take the trouble to enquire into the cost of making apart of that road which was attempted by him, we rather think they will find that all the wealth of the province, the colony, and the goldfield, would have been exhausted before the West Coast could have been reached. i