THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY. MONDAY, MARCH 23, 1874.

Grey River Argus, Volume XIV, Issue 1757, 23 March 1874, Page 2

THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY. MONDAY, MARCH 23, 1874.

It will tax all the ingenuity snd knowledge of both the Provincial Governments and the Colonial Government to provide a panacea for the disposition now rife amongst the miners of the West Coast to emigrate to the newly discovered goldfields in the far north of Australia. Chimerical schemes such as the Special Settlements so much favored by Mr Yogel and the Provincial Governments of Nelson and Westland will not do it, for it is no use disguising the fact that the miners on the Coast are all anxious to leave it, and that the best class of miners are leaving and will leave. The news by telegraph which we publish to-day will assuredly lead to a very considerable exodna of the very kind of population that can be least spared. The road and railway works will no doubt find employment for a few hundreds of wages men for a short periodj and the reefs at the Inangahua will "help to retain some pf the miners, but it is a truth that with the exception of those miners who by fortuitous circumstances have got hold of good ground and plenty of water to work it, a very large proportion of our mining population will migrate to other places. And what are the remedies proposed by those in authority ? Special Settlements in the far bush for inexperienced immigrants and their families, and quack propositions with regard to forest workings ! The utter want of practical knowledge which has hitherto guided the management of the West Coast gold-fields of New Zealand, is amazing to those who really know what is wanted, but it appears almost hopeless to expect anything better until some one with the knowledge and the courage to expose the truth comes to the rescue. The other day over half a hundred of the best class of miners— men with capital— left this district alone, to Bay nothing of the many othera who have departed from other places. They will be followed by others, and it matters little whether the change they make is for the better or not. They seldom, if ever, come back. The rushes to the Thames, and to Queensland, were examples in point. How many of those who left have come back again? Scarcely a number worth mentioning, and so it will be in regard to the Palmer rush. We shall lose hundreds, if not thousands, of our people, not a tithe of whom will ever return. Will assisted or free immigration supply in any palpable proportion the loss of these men? Certainly not. The only passible means for counteracting the tendency to Jeaye is by exhausting every effort to make it worth the while of the miners to remain. To open upihe unexplored territory, to provide easy access to existing diggings, to encourage in every possible way the construction of water-races, and to afford the most liberal facilities for settling upon tha ao£l, is the only true policy to save the West Coast. It is madness to talk of curjpg the evil by introducing hundreds or thousands of immigrants indiscriminately selected jn J?ngland.and placed on the soil in a state of semi-pauperism, and under conditions which they will assuredly ignore as soon ## th#y can find a better and more comfortable ptate pf existence. If the mining population j&jecrAas.e, aa it is decreasing, what are agriculturar'jabor.ers to do, or farmers either? : The West £»oast .c.anno ( fc hope for years to export produce profit? ably, and if the mining markets are gone farming will become utterly unprofitable. Merchants, traders, and every branch of £he commercial class will equally suffer, and what injfjht. under judicious management havei beea g. gtate of prosperity, must inevitably become'one of .disaster. We regret to have to say these" things, but they are the truth; and are known to be such by everyone who has any practfoal knowledge of the conditions of colonization to this part of the colony. The General G-oVernment have exhibited a most unaccountable delay jn the construction of those large water schema which will no doubt be of enormous advantage wherj completed. Whilst every celerity is shown jn the supply of railways to other parts of ihg Colony, the water works for the West Coast hang fire, and the difficulties oppo^d to private enterprise, and the procrastination ! with regard to public works are causing the miniog population to lose both heart and confidence, ft is sad and at the same time amusing to look upon the expedients adopted by the Government in £hjs matter. Some years ago the Colonial Government offered prizes for [essays upon the best mean* of retaining the mining population in the Colony, and a number of crude, unpractical, and yjaionary suggestions were the result ; wheseaa all that was needed was within the compass of any Government which would loyally and de.terminedly set to work to solve the problem. We have over and over said, and we repeat it, that the gold-fields of New Zealand will never be properly administered .yntil their charge becomes a responsible department of the State, aud recognised as such by the Colony. The result of the absence of such responsibility has been the bringing .forth of a variety

of empirical measures and schemes which have from timo to time been proposed, not one of which has done any good. At the same time'thoses means which any Government fairly determined to improve the condition of the mining population could use have been scrupulously neglected.