The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. FRIDAY, JANUARY 31, 1930. A GREAT ASSET.

Hokitika Guardian, 31 January 1930, Page 4

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. FRIDAY, JANUARY 31, 1930. A GREAT ASSET.

The great asset the store of timber Is in Westland, was revealed in part at tlie puLfic meeyng on Wednesday night when the South Westland railwa was under discussion. Mr Murdoch stated that there are five thousand million feet of commercial timber in Westland, and the bulk of it will he avilable for transport by the railway when constructed. Another estimate of the timber in Westland is that four-fifths of the commercial timber in New Zealand is on the West Coast, and of that proportion, fourfifths of the Coast total is’south of the Teremakau river. The great store of timber can be realised also by anyone passing up and down the district. This great asset is there for transport, and is an immediate inducement for the building of the railway. Tne resolution adopted at the public meeting, a meeting which might well have drawn a larger and more representative attendance by the way, took up the subject where it was dropped in 1911. In that year the railway was authorised and the survey put in hand. 'Hie next year with me change of Government the railway was dropped, and favoured lines in the North Island took its place. Sir Joseph 'Ward led the Government when the railway was authorised, and ti.e motion now asks that the railway lie reinstated on the Statute Book, and the vote he replaced on the appropriations to allow the work to proceed. All the speakers at the public meeting were sanguine as to the prospects j of the line. Each is well versed in .

the requirements of the district and a knowledge of its possibilities. The southern district has its friends off the Coast as well, and some notes in the thoughts for the times, printed this week, reveal what an Auckland paper on inks of the prospects of South Westand. Its capacity for production has •een proved, and as the country is opened up and settlement expands, production will grow rapidly. It has possihiiTies equal to the North Island where a trunk railway opened up the district. So useful a line with such payable prospects, direct and indirect suggests the work could be started -very opportunely now. With the surplus labour available, much of it could be employed most usefully without any thought of relief works just to create employment.' On this score alone the work would he of advantage to the Dominion as a whole. It was good to have the whole-hearted support of the settlers at Harihari. That fact indicates that the farmers realise the importance of the line to the south residents. The railway would be helpful to the producers, not only in the export of their stock and dairy produce, but also in importing lime and fertilisers, and so increasing their production, and in turn adding to the freightage for the railway. When it is realised how private enterprise met the situation by budding some fourteen miles of private tramway to get out timber from tklir holdings, it can he seen that facilities provided, the freight is available. The firm which undertook the enterprise spent a very large simp : ip .-bidding their line, and the Industry thereby created has been of vast advantage to, the district. Prior to ,the tramway going south a couple of small mills with a Ismail staff operated, now there are several large mills employing scores of men. What lias been done by this ' short tramway will be magnified man}’ times as the railway pushes south, and’ the industrial advantage will be reflected all round. The promising prospects of the, prrj-hsal are such that the requejt from the public meeting should be most favourably entertained by the Government.