South Canterbury Times. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1880.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2430, 31 December 1880, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1880.

The proposed railway between Canterbury and the West Coast has for some time past been hanging fire, but it has also been gathering force. It is one of the few schemes in Neiv Zealand that will bear the strictest investigation and hence its vitality. It has received many hard blows at the hands of successive Governments, and their accredited engineers, but it has survived them all. 8o far from losing ground it is gathering strength, and it is making converts in every direction. If the project is regarded with favor in Canterbury, it has aroused a feeling of enthusiasm among the residents of the West. What the issue will be is no matter of doubt. A railway line to connect Canterbury with Westland is a work of necessity. Its construction is essential to the growth and prosperity of two of the most important settlements in the Colony, as well as to the development of our principal industrial interests. Whether it is constructed by Government alone, or by private enterprise, assisted by the State, or simply by private enterprise unaided, it is one of those works which, unless the colony is to come to a dead standstill, must be prosecuted. Its feasibility and advantages have taken such an effect on the minds of the communities directly interested that its construction can hardly be delayed much longer. One great reason why tills transinsnlar line is regarded with public favor and general confidence is that there is nothing Utopian nor visionary about it. It is not projected for the purpose of improving a few large estates, or to enable the remnant of New Zealand’s amiable land-marks and pioneer cormorants to pocket the fruits of a liberal public works policy. The design is very different, and hence the difficulties, so far as Government patronage is concerned, which it has had to encounter. This transinsular line has for its object the opening up of a vast area of country in the interior, which has hitherto been inaccessible but to a small adventurous fragment of the population and the bringing of the severely divided agricultural and pastoral communities of the East Coast into immediate contact with the mining population of the West. In a strictly national point of view the design is a grand one—so grand that its accomplishment would justify a large expenditure, even if there were no prospect whatever of that expenditure becoming reproductive. During the past year a large amount of money has been spent on relief works—keeping the unemployed from starving. This line to the West Coast is designed not merely to give relief to the labor market, but to open up fresh channels of employment for the people. In Otago, Southland, and all over the North Island the charmingly foolisli experiment of tapping mountain fastnesses and cultivating railway townships on arid sheep runs has been tried till the public works policy of the colony has been getting into disrepute. The railway to the West Coast is not a political line, but it is a popular one. It is intended to benefit the people, not the venerable land-marks, who like Mount Cook, rear their hoary crowns against progress and settlement. Its advantages are too apparent fo require much reference. Besides opening up a vast area of Crown Lands now running waste, and widening the area for settlement, it will stimulate the trade and commerce of the two sides of the Middle Island to an extent which can hardly be appreciated or conjectured at present. The opening up of markets for farm, dairy, and station produce that may be said to be locked up against Canterbury at present, will be an immediate blessing to the cultivators of tins district. It will also, by cheapening the cost of living along the West Coast, enable thousands of miners to ply their vocation on fields that are now regarded as unremunerative. We do not refer to gold mining alone, but to mining in tiie general sense of the term, for the West Coast is as rich in minerals of every kind, from gold and silver to coal and marble, as this side of the Middle Island is wealthy from an agricultural and pastoral point of view. A coach road between two such important divisions is simply a mockery, and the marine highway is roundabout and dangerous. But a railway that will enable the products and commerce of the mining and agricultural interests to dovetail will impart a strength and solidity to the industrial structure such as has not been felt on this island for years past.

Aftkk the lapse of: a few more hours the year 1880 will pass away, with all its cares and anxieties. In the annals of New Zealand it will, in the future, be remembered as a year that brought sorrow and desolation to many a

domestic hearth. Through the comdepression, extending from month to'month, many a person, enjoying u high position, lias had to succumb, relinquishing a situation that he had fondly looked upon for the support of himself ~ and family. When the last stroke of midnight has knelled the fleeting year, few will regret its demise. Hope is the great mainstay of man, without it many a fallen fortune would not be retrieved, and many a mariner would not reach the haven which he earnestly anticipates. Such of the people of New Zealand as still possess some faith in their adopted country will hail the; first morn of the year 1881, hoping that the new year will bring with it brighter prospects. The commercial depression that has existed throughout the year now nearly ended, has conveyed a salutary lesson, colonists are too apt to look upon their adopted country as “ a land flowing with milk and honey,” and rarely give a thought to the fact that although tjhey may be enjoying the good things of'this life, beside their cup of happiness filled to overflowing, there is also a cup of bitterness, and that when adversity comes upon them they must drink the latter even to its very dregs. The immediate past has taught us a great lesson in the art of economy, and should the new year bring with it a return of prosperity, both personal and national, let us use it in a proper manner. To-morrow we celebrate the advent of the new year in a joyous, festive manner, we hope our numerous readers will thoroughly enjoy themselves, and we wish one and all A HAPPY NEW YEAR.