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Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1303, 2 October 1872, Page 2

The West Coast of this one of the two islands of New Zealand is the worst conceivable country for the enterprise of King Cobb,and it therefore is that coach conveyance is only available along the beaches, or along the one main road which, at great expense, was formed to connect the eastern with the western settlements. There are not wanting, however, men who are prepared even to penetrate the bush with wheeled vehicles and four-horse teams, if anything like fair encouragement is given to their enterprise, and among those are Messrs Cassidy and Ashton, the present contractors for the conveyance of mails betweeu Greymouth and Hokitika. Lately Mr Cassidy has been on a prospecting tour in the direction of Reefton, with a view of ascertaining the possibility of driving a coach from the seaboard to the reefing centre, and we understand that he is sufficiently encouraged by the results of his investigation to offer, in conjunction with his Greymouth partner, to carry the inland mails by coach as far as Reeflon, and, in course of time, as far beyond it, in the direction of the Lyell, as the Postal Department may desire. The experiment is a pretty bold ono, considering the circumstance that a made road neither exists nor is likely to exist for same time through the particular piece of country with which the Superintendent of Nelson, and present Postmaster-Gene-xal, has to deal. Messrs Gassidy and Ashton are, however, satisfied that what the Nelson Government has failed to afford, they will themselves be enabled to provide, if they only receive sufficient encouragement to do so, at no cost to the country beyond a small per-centage above the cost of carrying the mails on horseback. It is to be hoped that their enterprise, or the equal enterprise of " any other man," will be appreciated by the Post Office, and that, if the conveyance, of the mails by coach is only a trifle more than their conveyance by horse, a preference will be given to that form of conveyance which is likely to prove of the greatest public convenience. It will be a sure trial for coach-springs and horse-flesh to drive a coach to Reefton, but by the New Year

the present impediments to that mode of conveyance > will, it is hoped, be materially reduced. The costly and doubtfully profitable contract which Mr O'Driscoll is at present carrying out, between Greymouth and the Omotumotu, is expected to be by that time finished. Mr Garven's contract for the formation of a road from the Omotnmotu to the Arnold mil also be completed ; and there already exists a road, formed by Nature and the General Government between the Ahaura and Reefton. The only obstacle is on Nelson territory — a stretch of four or five miles between the Twelve-Mile and Nelson Creek — but this obstacle, we understand, Messrs Cassidy and Ashtou tire prepared to remove, if it may be so termed, on their own responsibility and at their own cost. That is to say they are prepared to form a road capable of permitting the passage of wheeled vehicles — a work the cost of which will be more than equal to any difference between the expense of conveying the mails by horse and by coach. Why they should require to do so is, of course, a question to be asked of the x^elson Government, and which should be asked of that Government, pointedly and persistently, by the [ inhabitants of Reefton and Greymouth. But it is sufficient that they make the proposition and the promise attached. They are the members of a firm which have hitherto faithfully carried out what they they have engaged to undertake, and, with reasonable encouragement, there is little doubt that they will do so in this instance. We take notice of their design thus prominently, in the belief that the providing of such facilities of communication as they propose to provide is of quite as much importance as the election of a Superintendent, the dereliction of a County Chairman, or other stock subjects indigenous to the district, and in the hope that, by receiving attention from the public, and from the servants of the public, it is a design which may very soon become an accomplished and enjoyable fact.