THE PROSPECTS OF WESTLAND.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4188, 22 August 1874, Page 3

THE PROSPECTS OF WESTLAND.

■ l , Mr. Roberts, o£ the Bank of New Zealand, at the banquet given, to him at Hokitika prior to his departure for Dunedin, made the following reference to the prospects of the Province of Westland :—He might speak a few words on the place he was leaving. He had been intimately connected for. the last nine years with the Coast from one end to the other. The prospects of some places in it were certainly not of the brightest at the present time, but he could not help remembering that eleven years ago at Bendigo things were far worse than they are here. Barefooted children were running about, and a currency of pence and half-pence was established. At Ballarat things were similar at two periods, during both of which the sight of a digger was a rarity. When he left Maryborough, years ago, it was said to be going to the dogs fast, but when he came back he found stone and brick houses, and persons walking about the streets with kid gloves on. At Queenstown a few years ago, all wanted to come to the West Coast, but that place too had altered vastly for the better, and had now a brick Town Hall and handsome private buildings. All these instances showed that vitality existed where goldfields could be found. They had been going down hill for some time, but they now hail reached a level plain, with an upward tendency. To the northward the magnificent coalfields would yet prove the coalfields of the Colonies—not of this Colony, hut of the Colonies. In the vicinity of Greymouth and Westport they were almost illimitable, and coal was the active element of all classes of industry in the Colonies. Further South they possessed unlimited wealth in their timber, and he was very much mistaken if in the South they did not yet find a New Zealand Cornwall, rich in all kinds of metals that only require increased population to develop. On the West Coast it was too common to underrate their resources, as they had been underrated outside. It was premature to form an opinion on the Waimea Water Eace, but they had seen the success of the Hohonu at the Greenstone. He looked forward to the future of this part with every hope. He trusted that they would pardon him for dwelling .on matters that he had been connected with for years in which his interests were involved. A correspondent of the Lyttelton Times who recently passed through Hokitika on his way from England to Canterbury, writes: —Expecting to see a sort of deserted village, with “Ichabod” written at every street corner, I was agreeably surprised to find everywhere evidences of material prosperity, the shops wellsupplied and well-patronised, the people apparently well-to-do, and certainly well-dressed, the barmaids unexceptionable and merry, and bedecked as barmaids should be; no houses to be let except an occasional public-house that, judging from its appearance, had ceased to' keep pace with the respectability of the town; the places of worship pretty clean and commodious; and the Institute, a building that for size and internal fittings and management, heats that at Olu-istchuroh hollow. Fuchsias of all varieties grew everywhere in abundance, and here and there well-kept lawns, looking green and velvety everything bright and pleasant; Since I have seen Hokitika, I have ceased to pity the people who live there. Think of a place so homely and social, that His Honor the Superintendent going to see a friend off in the steamer, carries that friend's baby (a little lump about four months old) in his arms before everybody. Superintendents must be degenerating, I fancy.