THE NELSON GOLD FIELDS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VIII, Issue 488, 8 July 1857, Page 3

THE NELSON GOLD FIELDS.

fTroua the Empire, Hay 19. The reports which of late have reached us of the promising results of the Nelson gold fields, should be received by the public with great caution. The quantity said to have been brought to town, together with the amount estimated to remain with the diggers in the neighbourhood of the Aorere, is but a poor return for the numbers employed and the time over which their labours hase extended to procure it. For the last four years nearly, the few who

possessed cattle at Massacre Buy have all along asserted that the precious metal was to be found in the lands adjacent to it. Such statements had their effect on the scattered population from Motueka thither, who were all eagerness and activity in their researches. At last their hopes have been in some sort realised. From the nature of the country around, we think it very probable that a remunerative gold field will eventually crown the continued exertions of ils occupants. But 500 men, or even half that number working hard for several weeks upon strata—such as the ' Nelson Evaminer' describes, and which closely resemble the richest layers that have ever been worked on the banks of our Turon—ought to have | procured thence something beyond the : quantity it is calculated they have obtained. ■ • Moreover, by the Nelson press having sanctioned a certain declaration imputed to Australian diggers, viz., that " the gold is" not merely us heavy and as fine but " both heavier and finer than that of Ballaarat" doubts will naturally enough float on the mind of the reader as to the other inferences which have caused it to confidently pronounce the Aorere District a remunerative gold field. Yet will the movement thither from the northern and southern provinces be productive of some good. It will serve to develop the mineral resources of a country, the revelation of whose wealth—in iron or copper, tin or lead—awaits but the pick of the pioneer to make it manifest to the light. It will call into exercise the activity of~the Wellington people whose jealousy has been fully aroused by the prospects which Nelson assumes to possess. Nor will it fail, we imagine, to sharpen the foresight of that Government which, in neglecting the legitimate requirements of the Ahuriri district, has provoked its to so soon agitate for local separation from it. It has already excited the Aucklanders to obtain now at a large price what might have been purchased four years ago at a sum scarcely worth speaking of. Coromandel is with them again in the ascendant. The indecision lately so conspicuous of the provincial shareholders on the subject of extricating the William Denny from its perilous position has been fgravely commented (upon by all the well-wishers of Auckland. But here, again, hesitation steps in to thwart the future interests of the colonists. Their desire is to purchase land about Coromandel solely for the purpose of possessing its auriferous soil. But, say they : —the natives will not agree to sell us the good land only—the bad must go with it. Certainly ; and would any experienced gold digger prefer the grain-growing plain to broken ground on the immediate vicinity of a mountain chain to procure the object of his vocation? The impulse given to Auckland by even the present attractiveness of Massacre Bay will not, we trust, be suffered to flag. The former prospects of the province were blighted by its land mismanagement. We fpresume it will not at this time, for want of an effort to possess it, let the opportunity ready for its acceptance be neglected; and so see vessels depart from the Manakau for the Aorere, because it had not spirit enough to possess a similar, perhaps a far superior field of attraction within its own territory.