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Hokitika Guardian, 12 March 1923, Page 2

Tun meeting which is to be held at the Town Hall to-night is a very important one and specially so been use the public will be given tile benefit of the advice of visiting gentlemen who have full knowledge of the running of exhibitions, and who are boro in a friendly way to help the Coast project. Their action is horn of that new feeling of unity which has sprung up between the peoples of Canterbury and Westland as a result of the reunion which the railway connection will bring about. On that account alone their presence is to ho welcomed and certainly appreciated. The visitors were both very intimately associated with the late very successful industrial exhibition at Christchurch, the one as President of the F.xhiJution and the other ns the Organiser. They were thus closely identified with the internal management from which grew the outward and material success of the venture which we now know is a matter of record. Advice and guidance first hand from such a source will be invaluable, and the community is beholden to our friends for their kindness in giving up their time for a special visit here to help in the project proposed to be put in band.

j Tun Hon. Minister of Alines is making another flitting visit to the Coast but as usual it is a case of here today and gone to-morrow. It is the desire of a community such as this we are sure that the State should turn something more than passing attention to its mineral wealth. The enormous output of the past, is justification enough t-o hope for the Alines Department becoming one of the most active in the whole internal administration. It is expected that the Alines Department should devote itself to the unending task of mineral research. But it is chiefly a. department of officials continually going and coming, never ending in the task of making reports, hut never settling down to a developmental task. Here in Westland there is nothing beyond promises with regard to alluvial development. Subsidies are offering, but the class of prospecting is not destined to the opening up of new fields. Something comprehensive requires to be done. For four years or more the district has been agitating in the direction of State-aided prospecting on a new scale but the project has never passed beyond the stage where promises are made, and the scheme kept steadily in view. Cannot something good come out of the present visit in the way of a practical prospecting scheme.