SOUTH WEST DISTRICT OF OTAGO.

Western Star, Issue 89, 24 July 1875, Page 5

SOUTH WEST DISTRICT OF OTAGO.

T 9 THU EDKTOB, Sib,—Will you kindly gire insertion to a few remarks on a letter which appeared in the Southland News of the 17fch inaf., headed Western Produce,” and signed “C. S.” It professes to be an answer to certain statements abont the produce of the Riverton Electoral District, made by a writer signing himself “Excelsior,” It is one of those chaffy rejoinders which hardly admit of reply, except by similar chaff—a rather aimless, endless kind of contest, If writers of this description would confine their chaff to one place it would be easy to skip it. But C. S. has a string of chaff running all through, spreading at intervale into blots and patches. If Excelsior could only hare known that C, S, had such a horror of vulgar fractions, mainly on account of their vulgarity, he might have given them in decimals; surely nobody will deny their gentility. Ido not believe in this exquisite aversion of C. S. to vulgar fractions, \am firmly persuaded that it is Excelsior’s integers which has stirred the bile on his stomach, And yet he meanly turns round and throws the vilest epithets at the fractions. They are something like the camp-followers of an army, They do very little towards securing a victory, yet the best generals cannot get rid of them. If Excelsior had dropped all the fractions, C. S. would have been down on him like a ' tnousavd of bricks for his want of accuracy, so difficult is it to please those who are predetermined not to bo pleased, 0. S. then tries to divine Excelsior’s motives for publishing as he did—and they are abent the best and wisest that could ho thought of —but be says “it did no good- The public were sceptical of it, and the literary critics could not see through it,” How is 0. S. so sure of all this? Is ho certain that his own little circle is a fair sample, The real question to bo determined is ; “ Are his statements true?” If they are, he may depend on it that the deaths which he glories over will only resemble the death which good seed undergoes when it is cast into the soil. C. S. next tries to neutralise the force of the statistics by enumerating three localities* namely, Winton Plains, Oreti Plains, und Forest Hill, which send their produce to the Bluff and Invercargill. If the produce is for exportation* I suppose the town of Kivorton has to do thesame ; and so would the people beyond the Waiau, if there were any. But, if the harbour of Riverton, were made as good as it might easily be, these things would he modified. This plea, however* recalls to mind a nasty trick which certain Invercargill politicians in the Assembly played us, when the boundaries of the Electoral District were being determined. They elongated the Riverton District to the very confines of Invercargill, and even beyond it, evidently with the intent of practically disfranchising Riverton* thinking that Invercargill influence could sway one end of the district, and so swamp a Riverton majority. The event, however, has not answered these expectations. But, if these places send their produce to Invercargill, how many places, send their produce to Riverton P and how many more would do so which are in our natural, but not in our electoral district. And besides, how about vast expanse of magnificent country to the westward,almost boundless resources of the finest timber, coal, freestone, Su>, ? Must the settlers here to the end of time bo made to toil on with ‘

their goods through Riverton, and on for another forty miles to the Bluff ? You may say they will hare the railways. Bub, sir, does distance count for nothing, even by rail ? You cannot bring every place in the south-west of Otago within easy reach of the Bluff ; and what sane Govrenmeat would bo content with one good port for such an extended territory when nature has, beneficently given them two P C. S. hopes to see the time when the Bluff will be the pore of Otago. I hope, sir, that will not happen in my day ; forit will be preceded by. aome terrible convulsion of nature. It is not once to bo compared with Port Chalmers (ask its M.P.C.), and, in some circumstances, not so safe as Riverton. I believe this, idea of making the Bluff the only port for all the south of Otago has been industriously circulated in certain Government circles. If it should become predominant there, we must bid farewell to all our foad hopes and prospects of Bivertonian progress, thus doome l, as they will be, to an early death and an ignominious bnriai. I believe D. S. and some of his confreres would dance to a merry lilt over their graves, and at intervals vary their exercise by jibbering and mocking in proud scorn at our disappointment, calling whatever wo might say a pathetic appeal, &a. But, air, wo do not mean to give ourselves up to pathetic appealing. It was not for this that wo rallied round the re-union flag, and bore it on to victory. C. S. says we have been sufficiently paid for our political consistency ; but it it would bo a stupid consistency which could lead m to ro.--main true to, those who would betray us. No, sir : if thia Is to be the game, we will give such consistency to the winds, and, according to the advice of C. S., sink all our local jealousies, and. with united hands and determined hearts rally round another flag, and try what valour can. I tear not that we should find many allies in New Zealand. C. S. next tells us that wa have got our share of tho public money, and that we shall get no more.. Sir, wo have never got our fair share. But I suppose C.S. alludes to our railways. What gratitude can we feel for them, when we learn that the only motive for granting them was by coupling them with the condemnation of our harbour, to compel all the produce and all the business belonging to our own district, and all the region beyond us, to flow past to a distant quarter. Justly considered, sir, the railways in-, stead of being an argument against our harbour, ought to tell in its favor. You cannot make a railway from Riverton without making one to it. If the town is thus rendered accssaible from, every quarter, is that a reason why it should have no harbour. Are only such harbours to beimproved as are inaccessible. —Yours, &«., ' Bivketojiia»..