South Canterbury Times, FRIDAY, JULY 16, 1880.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2287, 16 July 1880, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, FRIDAY, JULY 16, 1880.

Thebe arc good and substantial reasons why the attention of the unemployed, who arc ranging discontentedly from town to town and from district to district, should be directed to the West Coast of this island. We are quite aware that to men with empty purses the locality we refer to seems remote, and we are keenly alive to the difficulties and hardship of a journey overland. Hut we believe that if those who arc hungering for Government work and the miserable return which it affords, could only realise the bettor prospects which they would enjoy in the mining districts between the Bullcr river and the Sounds, they would speedily find means to turn their present destitution to advantage. It is well known that the whole of the "West Coast is more or less rich in auriferous deposits. From the Sounds on the beach to the great dividing ranges that constitute the backbone of the middle Island, gold is scattered everywhere. Divers, lakes, and creeks are fringed with the precious mineral, and the sides of the mountains that rise like a barrier above the coast may he said to he gilded. Let it not he supposed that we wish to convey any false impression. Exaggeration, in this case, is as unnecessary as it would he impoliticWhat we affirm is that the West Coast, from the sea-side far inland, is impregnated with gold and other valuable minerals. The deposits, it is true, are poor in places, but there are few parts of the West Coast that would not yield the unemployed a far better return than they are likely to obtain from Government railways. The average earnings of the West Coast miner are considerably in excess of the earnings of the railway porter or surface man, and largely in excess of the earnings of the navvy. In addition to that, lie is pur suing an independent and romantic race, after wealth, and he never knows the moment that Dame Fortune may shower down her favors.

At the present time there is a somewhat alarming exodus of tire thrifty hone and sinew of the colony going on in the direction of South Africa. A word in season to intending fugitives may not be out of place. Has it occurred to them that in leaving New Zealand for Port Natal they may ho despising the substance and chasing the shadow’ ? Is it not probable that the money, enterprise, and labour,

which they will have to expend in a semi-tropical climate on the diamondfields, might be quite as advantageously laid out in New Zealand ? On the West Coast they might have to rough it but the climate is a bracing instead of an enervating one like that of South Africa. Whether the latter presents a better held for the prospector has yet to be seen. Of one thing we are thoroughly convinced —that the mineral treasures of this colony arc to a great extent undeveloped. Every other day brings tidings of new discoveries of gold, antimony, or copper from the very partially explored regions of; the lakes and Sounds. South Africa has its charms no doubt, because ‘‘ distance lends enchantment to the view,” but we believe if that valuable portion of our industrial population who arc now bent on trying their luck ontof the colony, could only be induced to give the wild romantic regions of the 'West Coast a trial, they would liud a more valuable South Africa beneath their feet than anything they arc likely to discover by a trip across the Pacific.