The Temuka Leader SATURDAY, JULY 25, 1885. THE KAKAHU COAL.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1370, 25 July 1885, Page 2

The Temuka Leader SATURDAY, JULY 25, 1885. THE KAKAHU COAL.

We notice that on last Thursday Mr Cowan, member for Hokonui, asked the Government whether they would be prepared to place a sufficient sum on the Estimates for the purpose of boring for coal in the Forest Hill district in Southland, and that the reply was more or less favorable. We think the representative of this district would do well to back this up, and make an effort to have the Kakahu district also tested. An application has already been made to the Government to grant the use of a boring machine to test the district, but the reply has besn sent that the Government have no control over any boring machine in the colony. A further request has also been made to send down a competent scientific man to make a geological survey of the district, and a reply has been received to the effect that the Government could not spare any one at present, but that a great deal of information had already been collected, and that this would be supplied. So far the Government have not assisted to the extent they ought. Private enterprise was ready to undertake the work of testing the place thoroughly if the Government would supply scientific assistance, and they might very well have gone to that extent. Money is being squandered in the most reckless manner all over the colony, on all kinds of works : but while this is the most thickly populated rural district in New Zealand, and consequently the best tax-producing one, wo never get a penny of public money spent here. Mr Steward, of Waimate, the other day got £2OO for the Waimate Borough Council from the Government to spend in giving employment to the unemployed of the tswn. Why should this be done for Waimate, when we in this district cannot get even the services of a scientific man to test whether our district has within it a great industrial field ! For the last two years we have time after time urged the absolute neaessity of a Court houso being buih in Geraldine, but nothing but proin se.R have been received. We gel nothing, although vr# pay more taxes than any other

district in New Zealand in proportion to area ; and all we get is the poor satiafacof knowing that the colony is sinking deeper and deeper into indebtedness, through reckless waste of public money elsewhere. It is certainly a poor consolation. We do not deem it* necessary to inquire into the cause of the district being thus neglected. We shall only say that it is so, and that if the mineral wealth of the Kakahu existed in other parts of the colony a railway would have been made to it long ago., Rail ways have been made at enormous expense through districts in which only a few squatters live, and where the traffic consists principally of the wool belonging to those squatters. The Kakahu district is thickly populated by a farming population, it is extensively cultivated, and even if it possessed no minerals at all we believe a railway to it would pay. But we do not desire to push the railway question just yet. What we think ought to be the first step is to urge upon our representative in Parliament to have a thorough geological survey made of the district, Some years ago a scientific ' man visited the district. His tools consisted of a scientific hammer about the weight of an overgrown pea, and a pair of scientific spectacles, and a few more light portable articles of the same kind. He went leisurely through the district, cast his scientific eye about him, and where he saw a piece of loose rock be struck it off leisurely and scienlificially with his hammer. He never sunk one inch beneath the surface of the ground, but he made a report, and it is that report that Government have graciously agreed to supply to those who have taken steps to have the district tested. This is not enough. It is necessary to know what is deep down in the bowels of the Earth, and the best way in which that can be done is in accordance with the suggestion contained in Mr Cowan's question. We trust, therefore, the Hon Mr Rolleston wiil see his way to pushing this matter in every legitimate way.