WESTLAND.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 343, 19 July 1875, Page 3

WESTLAND.

We take the following items from our Westland exchanges : With reference to storm on Monday last at Hokitika, the Times says :—Fences were blown down, windows blown in, cottages unroofed, and many minor discomforts were experienced by the inhabitants of the town, and were cheerfully borne. Many houses, even public houses, the doors of which are wont to be invitingly open, were as hermetically sealed as a tin of preserved meat, the proprietors thereof preferring to risk the problematical loss of coin of the realm to the certain destruction of property involved by opening their doors to the powerful breeze from the sunny south. The searching gale was no respecter of the law, as it annihilated about a chain of iron fencing round the Police Camp, to the wrath and dismay of Sergeant Blane and his myrmidons. Mr Keller, of the Cafe National, is likely to be an authority on glaziers' charges, and many other publicans will shortly be able to give an exact estimate of the cost of a new lamp. On the wharf, at Hansen's corner, the wind revelled in great force, and it required some physical power to pass from Sewell street to the wharf. All along the Quay doors and windows were closed, the most enthusiastic tradesman having abandoned the hope of a customer, An indefatigable settler in the southern part of the province of Westland, Mr J. (Jollyer, reached Hokitika on Monday evening, bringing a despatch from Mr Macfarlane to the Superintendent. The letter is dated 26th June, and says :—" Since you were here on the 22nd instant, I have not been able to complete the uncovering of the coal seam on account of the bad weather, but I am glad to say from the increased amount of waste coal thrown out from the outcrop, I anticipate getting a payable seam. We have touched the northern limit of what may

prove to be a very extensive coal deposit. Meantime I am pushing on the work, and I trust to be in a position to give more definite information in a few days." The work of clearing and house-building is still progressing at the Jackson's Bay settlement, and by the last report of the Resident-Agent, dated 19th June, there were thirty-four houses erected, and a number of other dwellings in course of construction. Four men are engaged on the recently discovered coal seam, with the view of further developing the same, and several othef men are employed clearing the Jackson's Bay road, twenty-eight ten-chain sections being now let. The agent further reports that the Jackson's Bay track is now open for traffic. As an instance of the greed for pastoral lands in the Grey Valley, the Inangahua Times mentions that Mr Thomas Garth, of Ahaura, has forwarded an application to the Waste Lands Board, Nelson, for a lease of the whole of the Bald Range, situated at the head of Moonlight Creek. The area comprises something like 10,000 acres. The land is free from timber, and has a plentiful natural growth of grass, but as its altitude is something between 3000 ft and 4000 ft, its crop during the greater part of the year consists of snow.

We ( West Coast Times) learn that it is yet an unsettled question in what district the Volunteer Prize Firing will take place this year. At an interview between the Superintendent of this Province and the Minister of Defence in Wellington last week, the former advocated the claim of Westland in respect to the meeting, the Volunteers having passed a resolution to that effect at the last annual competition. The Defence Minister, however, did not hold out any great hopes of such a course being decided upon, but expressed himself more favorable to the selection being made in one of the districts on the East Coast of the North Island, for the present year. The members of our local company and the others throughout the Province will be disappointed at hearing this, as since the Grahamstown meeting, at which a preference was expressed in favor of the next meeting being held in Westland, our Volunteers have been in jubilant expectation of welcoming their compatriots on West Coast soil.