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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 181, 2 August 1871, Page 2

In connection with the recommendation contained in a message to his Honor the Superintendent of Otago to the Provincial Council, to the effect that application, should be made to bring Stewart's Island under the provisions of the Otago Settlements Act, the following remarks of the Riverton correspondent of the Southland News are of interest: —l am surprised that a whale and seal fishing party has not been equipped long ago and landed on the Snares, to the southward of the South Cape of Stewart's Island. That used to be a favorite and highly successful station in old times, and has not, I am informed, been worked for twenty-eight years. Inshore fishing, by means of boat stations, has been neglected for a long series of years; but the cause which led to its abandonment, scarcity of fish &c, can hardly exist now. The natural iucrease consequent upon the undisturbed possession of their feeding and breeding grounds, must long siuce have more than filled up the thinned ranks of both whales and seala. I am couvinced that hardly anywhere else in the world could so good an opening for a few hundred industrious families be found as the bays of Stewart's Island, supposing them to be of the right stamp to develop the resources which would lie at their doors. Men from the Orkneys, Shetland, or the Hebrides, or from Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, or Prince Edward's Island, inheriting maritime instincts and inured to the hardships of a rigorous climate, could not fail —a fair start being given them —of establishing themselves in thriving settlements, and turning to good account their skill as boatmen, boatbuilders, aud agriculturists.