The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 29

[introduction]

Sir,—I am induced to lay before you a summary of the reasons why the completion of the main trunk line via the West Coast to Nelson and Picton should be included in the Public Works Proposals of 1878, by the belief that the earnest and close attention you have paid to the southern end of this island has naturally prevented you from fully recognising the power of development existing at this northern end, and from comprehending the extent and authority of the pledges given to the people of Nelson, Marlborough, and the West Coast by the Government of this Colony in order to obtain their support to the Public Works Policy, and to secure that unanimity throughout the Colony, without which, the money to construct the very railways that have doubled and trebled the value of our Southern Provinces could never have been borrowed. Otago owes much of her present greatness to your patriotic and able government; and now that you have been raised to the higher position of Minister of Public Works for the Colony, I, and many other colonists look to yon, to investigate the resources of the districts hitherto strange to you, and to read and realise the promises on the faith of which we have bought, built upon, and improved our lands, and to extend to us the same successful and energetic aid and assistance, that you have hitherto bestowed on your own province. We trust that you will act so, that the Colony as a whole may see, that you are prepared to grapple with the colonial nature of your present duties, and we hope that you will prove your capacity to abandon the role of a provincial politician for that of a colonial statesman.

In support of the reasons for the completion of the main trunk line, I will try and lay before you a largo array of facts establishing them, and I invite your critical investigation. I feel confident of your cooperation, when you have really mastered the true state of affairs.