MISREPRESENTATION.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 5, 17 February 1872, Page 9

MISREPRESENTATION.

Last Wednesday's Examiner contained two notices reflecting ou the conduct of the .Nelson Government, which must not be passed ovei\ The first referred to a deputation which had waited upon Mr. Fox on his late arrival at lYesfcporfc, to protest against the expenditure of £6,000 iv the " Waimea districts," taken from the grant of £21,000 apportioned for expenditure on roads in the Nelson South-west Goldfields. The Superintendent of .Nelson, to •whom the mode of expending this money was referred, allotted £18,000 to the construction of a trunk road from the portage on the luangatiua to the portage on the Little Grey, passing through Eeeffcon, thus placing Westport and Greymouth on the same footing as to supplying the wants of the population now fast augmenting near the head of the lnangahua,and£6,ooo to the construction of a road in the Middle Buller, from the Owen to the Lyell, to connect with a road from the head of the Buller already partly made, and now

[ about to be completed. The road spoken • of would be in the heart of the Buller , Gold-field, and if made, open a road by \ which stock could be driven to feed the , miners at Reefton, instead of their I having to depend on supplies sea-borne ) to Westport or Greymouth, and thence t transported by water carriage, followed ; by a land journey. It is no exaggeration • to say, that making a good stock road down the Buller is a question of twopence : to threepence a pound on all meat coni sumed at Reefton. This is the expendi- ■ ture which Mr. O'Conor, and the other . members of the Westport deputation, de- ', nouuced as about to be made on a road in the Waimeas, from which it- would be dis- ; tant fully sixty miles. The transparent selfishness of Mr. O'Conor and his friends, in trying to monopolize the trade of Reefton for the West Coast ports, is apparent. The other matter referred to is of small 1 importance, but still requires notice. A meeting of miners and others was held early in the month at Jacklin's Flat, to complain of the road not being made, of which we have been speaking. When Parliament, in the session of 1870, settled the capitation grant which should be paid 1 to the provinces for the ensuing seven years, the Provincial Governments calculated, of course, on the Act being carried 1 out. During the first year, £2,000 was 1 allotted for expenditure on the Buller 1 road, and it was intended that a similar sum should be devoted yearly to the same object. But last session the Act was repealed, and instead of the road being continued, as inteuded,the Government found itself without the necessary funds to pursue the work. It was no fault of the Provincial Government that the work came to a stand-still, but of the General Government, which is continually changing its plans. We learn, however, that Government now sees its way to completing the road aB far as the Owen.