THE COLONIST. NELSON, TUESDAY, JULY 21, 1863. WEAK SUPPORTERS OF THE RAILWAY.

Colonist, Volume VI, Issue 599, 21 July 1863, Page 2

THE COLONIST. NELSON, TUESDAY, JULY 21, 1863. WEAK SUPPORTERS OF THE RAILWAY.

It has been this year in the Council a favorite expression, originated by Dr. Monro, and afterwards retailed by others, that certain steps of the Provincial Government have been weak, feeble, and tottering, like those of an infant—though the exact application of the neatly sounding metaphor was never made very plain; figures of speech being much oftener paraded than the figures of thought and calculation, or the facts of conclusive logic. An example of very lame argument, and of the feeblest, infantile support was exhibited last Saturday in respect to the matter of the proposed railway to the interior, and of the "heavy blow and sore discouragement" the rampant advocates thereof have just received in the. letter from Mr. Domett.

For a period approaching to twelvemonths our local contemporary the Examiner has been the thick arid thin advocate of a railway. "We are ready to admit that its advocacy has never been such as could by any possibility satisfy the commercial mind—the mind which calculates outlay, and estimates returns. In truth such was not to be expected from a journal which, four or five days ago, appeared proud of possessing a " philor sophie mind," which professes to be ignorant of public opinion on the subject of the railway ; an opinion which it has labored for a year to create, establish, and instruct! ♦ Yet, notwithstanding these proofs of loose thinking and looser writing, we were not prepared for such a feeble, tottering, and unhappy reply to the Colonial Secretary's letter as our contemporary helplessly articulates,in his issue of Saturday, last. Here it is—destitute of even one solitary merit save brevity:—

"We give to-day a letter from the Colonial Secretary to the Superintendent, in answer to an application for the assent of the Government to an increase of the amount of a loan already approved at Auckland. Mr. Domett considers the question exclusively as relating to the Wangapeka coal deposits, and refers the question to the Council before promising to assent;. It must, bo confessed the letter is something of a wet blanket, yet the present prospects of the place will not allow of its being taken as an extinguisher. Communication with the interior country, is too Bssential to the interests of the present settlements to be dropped as unpracticable, and if means cannot be had in one way, they ought to be sought in another."

After all the wordy warfare jn which the Examiner has indulged on this pet subject, the accusations of slowness, of injuring the province, which it has brought against the government j its censure, expressed and implied, of all who doubted its project, or asked

* We profess, indeed, what may seem strange in a journalist, to be ignorant of the feeling in the Council and out of doors on this important matter, and a philosophical turn of mind leads us to be always prepared for the defeat of hopes, and to pick up systematically the crumbs of comfort in our yny.—JSelson Mfominer, July 16.

for further information, — this is the only defence it is able to set up. It has censured others who hesitated to propagate a scheme about which its warmest supporters knew nothing. Surely, it has small reason to boast of its advocacy. We should have imagined that in reply it would have brought forward cogent arguments, plain, unanswerable statements, and an array of facts and calculations, which we have long in vain sought for, and which would have been powerfully available against this severe official blow from Mr. Domett. Instead of this, however, it turns out that our contemporary does not even understand the Colonial Secretary's letter. And this blunder becomes more grave, when we reflect that just the other day the Examiner modestly assumed to direct the Committee now sitting on this very subject, as to the line it ought to adopt in prosecuting its inquiry! Mr. Domett does not "consider the question exclusively as relating to the Wangapeka coal deposits." He dismisses the Wangapeka coal deposits by saying that the Grey or Buller would cut off the possibility of returns in coal from the former district. Besides, apart from the West Coast competitibn, Mr. Domett knows from Mr. Burnett's report that the Wangapeka coal is so disrupted in the position of its strata as to be entirely unavailable for mining operations. He therefore (and to prevent all mistakes we quote his words,) goes into the other branches of the subject, of

" how far the opening up of a new country for settlement, and the amount of ordinary traffic between the agricultural districts and the town of Nelson, would justify the very large outlay required for the railway to Wangapeka, which is estimated at £231,000, besides heavy expenses for working. But I scarcely think there is sufficient evidence of the value and quantity of the lands to be made accessible, and the amount of traffic in question, at present before Government, to warrant the assumption that such an outlay would be a profitable investment of the provincial funds, if the returns in money or other material advantages were derivable from these sources alone."

And what is the reply of our railway agitator and special pleader to these objections ? "Why this—" Communication with the interior of the country is too essential to be dropped as unpracticable, and if means cannot be had in one way they ought to be sought in another." It is difficult to imagine a subject of interest to a whole province being argued with more laxity. The process here is entirely undefined, and utterly void of precision. Why not show the practicability of the scheme ? Let this be done in a business-like, intelligible fashion, and we shall give it all the humble support our columns can afford. But this lack of comprehension of plain writing, this tame and feeble yielding up of a cause which has been fought for for many months, and on which people have earnestly sought for information, (the Colonial Secretary being the latest applicant,) are indications of weakness, and senility of reasoning, of which a self-elected champion might well be ashamed.