THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1872.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1109, 16 February 1872, Page 2

THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1872.

While the Premier has been paying a visit to the most Northerly Province of the Middle Island, another member of the Ministry has been on a mission of inquiry and exploration to the remotest South. The Resident Minister of Public Works, Mr Reeves, was not long in possession of his portfolio when ho proceeded to the Province of Otago, and from the Province proper he was very soon spirited away by its energetic Superintendent to what may some day form a magnificent Province of itself— Stewart's Island— and to the undeveloped districts of Jacob's River and Waikava Bush. Mr Reeves's |mission to these remote or sparsely settled corners of the Colony is, in a sense, more significant and interesting than is even the Premier's visit to the Gold Fields of the West Coast.. -Not in; the spirit of a spy upon Provincialism, as some persons have too readily recognised the Premier, but simply as the head of the General Government of |the Colony, Mr Fox's visit will probably be more useful, in affording him an opportunity for observing \yhat has been done in the past, and what is doing in the present, than in connection with any schemes for the future to which the Government are as yet committed. Its utility as regards the future will be chiefly eminent in connection with what are contingencies, and only contingencies — the conversion of the West Coast into one Province, or the direct management of the Gold Fields by the Colonial Government. But Mr Reeves' s mission, essentially and avowedly concerns the future, and the furtherance of |the work of colonisation in parts of the Colony which jhave no past history except as the scene of Enow abandoned whaling stations, or of the rude homes of a few scattered settlers. Undeterred by the very easily explained, and, we confidently believe, only temporary failure of the miniature settlement of Martin's Bay, the Superintendent of Otago did not rest until he obtained the assent of the Assembly to his scheme of special settlement upon a scale which would more truly test the propriety of its adoption, and, in fact, ensure its success. It ha 3 happened so that, while a large area of his Province was thus selected as the scene of special settlements, the work of promoting the influx of immigrants to the country was transferred to the General Government, and on the Colonial Ministry, therefore, falls the duty of completing jthe work which the Provincial Government had begun. To abstract from the present population of the country a sufficient number of settlers of the type suitable for the rough pioneering work by which the Waikava Bush, the seaboard of Southland, or the considerable area of Stewart's Island, can only be colonised, would be to attempt what is impossible of achievement. Other and more densely populated countries must be made the source of this supply, and it is, no doubt, to ascertain thoroughly the character of the couutry, as bearing upon the question of the class of immigrants to be introduced, that Mr Reeves's recent voyage of discovery has been undertaken. The Provincial Government, through the mechanism of the Assembly, have provided the specialty of easy acquisition of the land ; it is for the General Government ■to take advantage of those conditions, by placing upon the land those who will prove the right men in the right place. Neither to Mr Reeves, nor to any other visitor to Stewart's Island, or the southern seaboard of Otago, can this question proye much of a puzzle. For the accustomed bushman, for the professional fisherman, or for the half-farmer] half-fisherman so numerously represented on the shores of Norway or the North of Scotland the situation is an eligible one, and will prove every day more eliyible as population in other parts otthe Colony increases, and as, by the frequency of steam communication, a market is found for the products of the settlers' labor on land and sea. It is this class, no doubt, Mr Rj:ev63 will recommend for these particular parts of the Colony. It is this cuss which the Agent-General at Home should endeavor, in certain proportions, td provide. The question may fairly bo asked, whether ho is doing so with due discretion, or whether ho is not unneces- \ sarily going out of his way, to seek on

strange shores that class which the Home country itself contains. Very probably he knows the circumstanced a great deal better than many of his colonial critics who caricature his trips to Germany and Scandinavia as more associated with the medicinal waters of the one country arid with the salmon pools of the other than with the selection of immigrants ; and it may be the satisfactory truth that from Britain itself emigration i& not easily encouraged ; but it does seem beginning at the wrong end of his errand, to flee, as he has done, to the forests of Germany or to the fiords of Norway and Sweden for that particular class of people who would so well suit the south of this island, and who, in the Hebrides, and in the Orkney and Shetland Islands, would increase far beyond the capacities of the country were it not that they find outlets for their labor in the Canadas, in the Hudson's Bay service, and in the Greenland seas. Had Dr Featherston made his summer sojourn in these parts for his first season at Home, he would in all probability have succeeded in obtaining several shiploads of as exemplary emigrants, and of emigrants as adapted for Stewart's Island and its surroundings as he would find on any part of the Continent. Of Scandinavian as well as of German settlements America alone contains, no doubt, abundant excellent ex- ' amples, and it would be a narrow and mistaken policy to discourage the influx of such admirable immigrants ; but in the circumstance of those from the Highlands and Islands, in the majority of instances, being kindred in nationality, habits, and language, and, most especially in the probability of some capital accompanying them through the agency of companies or associations, there are good reasons for a preference being given to them which, do not seem to have been acted upon, or even considered. Such, at least, does not appear, in those high-flown descriptions which are published periodically in the monthly journals, regarding the Home Agent in his Rearch for population and the picturesque. ' Looking at home, and to the system of special settlements which the Otago Government has initiated — and by "special" we refer more to that feature of the scheme which provides cheap land open to, all comers — the question naturally suggests itself, . Is Otago alone possessed of territory which may be so utilised ? Is there no district in Westland — no part of the extensive area of Nelson — whose situation or qualities of soil justify a measure being passed simifar to that which has been passed to secure the settlement of the outlying portions of Otago 1 A glance at the map, and even a partial acquaintance with the country, favor the belief that both in Westland and Nelson there are large areas -of land which, with due provision made as to the metals it may contain, might most judiciously be thrown open to such settlement. From Jackson's Bay northwards, in the County, and from Mokihinni or the Karamea northwards, in the Province, there is a long line of sea-board upon or beyond which there should surely be some country quite as eligible m any that can be found at Waikava .Jacob's River, or Stewart's Island, and country for which, we believe, occupants would be found, under all the disadvantages of its situation and soil, were it made available for free selection upon such terms as those which the Province of Otago offers. To Jackson's Bay, it is true, the special settlement clauses of the Westland Waste Lands Act, such as they are, have by resolution of the County Council last .year been made applicable, but who except a mere minority of even the population of the County are aware of the fact ? Has the ordinary expedient of everyone who has either land or goods to sell — has the example of the Province of Wellington, for instance — been faintly imitated ? In the Province of Nelson no disposition has been exhibited to go even the length of the County Council and the framers of the Westlaud Act, if we except the offers made to the Messr3 Broaden, and now necessarily abandoned, or the Land Act which was last session,- for a second time, introduced into the Assembly, and for the second time rendered abortive, we believe, by the action of the Legislative Council. Possessing a better climate, rough and broken as it is, the eastern seaboard of Nelson cannot but be as inhabitable, and as capable of yielding a livelihood to the settler, as such situations as Martin's Bay and Jacob's River. At Martin's Bay, indeed, the land was iuevitably dear as a gift, being a mere patch severed from other settlements by the Southern Alps, and by the absence of all steam communication along that part of the coast. Along the shores of Nelson the conditions are just a shade fmore favorable, though only so far favorable to warrant its occupation on the most easy terms to the settler, aud these terms it should be the ambition of the Provincial authorities to afford, if they have not abandoned the work of colonisation which it is part of their duty to promote.