MR STEVENS'S PROSPECTUS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume II, Issue 179, 2 August 1867, Page 2

MR STEVENS'S PROSPECTUS.

To the Editor of the Nelson Evening Mail. Sir —You have devoted an article in each of your last publications ostensibly to criticise Mr Stevens's railway prospectus, but really to write down the proposed railway from Nelsou to the West Coast. Had you confined yourself simply to the object you professed, I should not have troubled you with this letter; but having gone beyond this, I must beg you to permit me to reply to your comments. I agree with you in thinking that many points in Mr Stevens's prospectus are very absurd and will not stand the test of criticism, yet it might in other respects have been greatly strengthened had the writer possessed a knowledge of the country. Mr Stevens's blunders however have nothing to do with the feasibility of the Nelson aud West Coast railway scheme, upon which you throw cold water. . You take pains to show by a table of distances that the railway constructed would benefit Westport more than it would

Nelson, because the gold country lies nearer to the former than to our own port, aud you appear to think that this settles the whole business: a railway therefore is not to be thought of. You have taken but a narrow view of the question. This railway is not wauted solely to improve the trade of this port, which however it would certainly dp more or less, but to open the interior of the province to the golddigger and for general settlement", and thus to render thousands of acres of land valuable which now. from the expense of carriage, have no value whatever. In the advantage to be derived from this both euds of the line mast participate. To attempt to prejudice the questiou by representing that Westport will get more trade out of it than will fall to the share of Nelson is surely a narrow policy. Suppose in a few years Westport outgrows Nelsou, what of that ? When two thriving towns exist connected by a i-ailwav, instead of injuring they assis 1 " each other. As you criticise Mr Stevens's figures and statements, you will of. course not object to having your owu criticised in return. You say the spot where indications of copper and lead have been found in the Wangapeka is 30 to 40 miles from the nearest point of the proposed line of railway, and that the coal at the head of the Wangapeka is 40 miles distant. How do you know the line the proposed railway will take? I was not aware any survey had yet been made to settle this point, aud should it be carried up the Motueka valley you would assuredly be wrong. You say the only true coal known to exist within 60 miles of Nelson is on the saddle of the Wangapeka. I think you are wrong here also, for I believe good coal has been met with in other places and •within a much shorter distance from Nelson. You ridicule Mr Stevens for saying that the railway from Nelson to Cobden would form part of a grand trunk line of railway communication through the island, and you speak of 3000 and 4000 feet as the lowest elevation at which the dividing range can be crossed. You ar,e evidently not aware that a break iu the range exists where it can be crossed at less thair half that elevation, in the southern part of the Canterbury Province. I would call your attention also to your table of distance given last eveniug, where in one instance you make Westport 20 miles more distant from Nelson than you do in the others. I am, etc., Caisdor. Nelson, August 1, 1867. [Our coi'respondent is entirely in error as to our motives, as well as in some of his objections to the statements made in the articles to which he refers, as we hope to prove to him in to-morrow's issue. —Ed. E. __r.]