THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY SARURDAY, JULY 24, 1875.

Grey River Argus, Volume XVI, Issue 2171, 24 July 1875, Page 2

THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY SAR URD AY, JULY 24, 1875.

Ix will be seen by advertisement that the sale of the sections in the township {of Arawata, Jackson's Bay, which was with questionable discretion postponed by tl?e Waste Lands Board, ?s now to take place on the 3rd of August, at the Land Office at Hokitika. The conclusion of the Board is that there is no claim on the part of the Maoris which the Board can recognise, and they therefore comply with the request of the Superintendent that the sale should be proceeded with, such request being based on his Honor's belief, after he had communi-ated with the Native Minister, that no claim of the kind was tenable. If our understanding of the case i 3 correct, it appears probable that the doubts and delay in this matter have simply been the consequence of the unexplained action of the. authorities in substituting for the original name of Seacombe that of the not less euphonious or appropriate name of Arawata. It is the fact", we believe, that a Native Reserve has been made on the banks of the Arawata River, but that river is situated some miles to the northward' of Jackson's Bay, where fortunately no selection of land had been made for that doubtfully useful and indefinite article — Native purposes. The difference is that in the one case the name is that of a river without a township, and the other of a township without a river — a distinction sufficient for those, who are present on the spot, but which may naturally be a source of some confusion to those who are not fully acquainted with the topography of the Coast. The township as now proposed to be sold consists of as many as 207 sections ranging at various degrees between the purely horizontal and purely perpendicular, the majority affecting the perpendicular; and these are intersected by streets whose nomenclature is intended to be a record, first, of the fact of the death there of one of the pioneers of these parts of the country — Mr Ollivier ; second, of the existence in the present primi+ive timos of such benefactors to the Province as Messrs Bonar, FitzGerald, and the steamer Waipara ; and, third, of the present condition, situation, and level of the streets, such as High street, Pier street, Bay road, Cliff road, and Smoothwater road. Of course in such a situation there is also an Esplanade, and situated as it is on the sea frontage, and between the Provincial and General Government reserves, it is probably in that locality that fancy sections will be found and purchased. Both in situation and in outline the township, we understand, resembles considerably Port Chalmers, though not similarly laudlocked ; it is only to be hoped that, some day, it may in other particulars resemble that once equally insignificant but now extensive maritime port.