KARAMEA GOLDFIELDS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume III, Issue 156, 4 July 1868, Page 3

KARAMEA GOLDFIELDS.

To the Editor op the Neison Evening Mail. S_a — Having had some conversation to-day with Mr Gilchrist, an old and experienced digger, who Ihas for many months been over into tbe Karamea and its vicinity, I asked his opinion of the country. He states that there is a very extensive gold country there, and that there is no mistake about it. I referred him to the report of some diggers from the lower part of the Karameavalley about two months ago, who stated that there was room for a thousand diggers to go and set in at once, provided that they could get provisions, when he replied, « there is room for ten thousand in the country I have seen and passed over — there is the country, but no roads into it by which to get provisions.' He also declared that every road the Government had attempted to make into the country was [a complete failure, no bridle-road reaching into the valley. On asking him about Mr Hough's track, he replied that there i«t not one difficulty in it, no more, comparatively speaking, than in the streets ofNelson. Now, sir, if such a country really exists, and so near to Nelson, how is it that we are shut out of it? If I remember rightly, it is nearly seven years ago that Mr Hough made the Government acquainted with the existence of that country, and gave them at the same time a sketch of it. How is it, after all these years, that country remains to us a sealed book? If it is really so promising a country, and if the Government can afford to ignore it, the question then is, can the public afford to do so? Supposing in these hard times there were a -thousand or five or ten thousand men in that country, all to be clothed and fed from Nelson, how different would be our position compared to what it is at present; especially had had it been opened up six or seven years ago, and which could have been done at that time, according to the assistant-engineer's (Mr Dobson) own showing, for £1700, by Mr Hough's route; and yet, 'for all practical purposes, the country remains a blank, although so near. I am, &c, a sad looker-on at nelson's Down-going. Nelson, July 3.