SETTLEMENT OF WESTLAND.

West Coast Times, Issue 681, 29 November 1867, Page 2

SETTLEMENT OF WESTLAND.

TO THE EDITOR OP THE WEST COAST TIMES. Sib — In these dull and unsettled tunes in Westland, perhaps a few remarks may not come amiss from a man who has long lived amongst a nvning community, and who knows the manners and customs of the miners perhaps better than most men on the coast. We want a settled population. This is only to be done by judicious management. You can never force the miners to settle. First show them a good goldfield, and then give them sufficient ground for mining purposes to induce them to remain for many years in the locality. Machinery of all kinds, water races, and large mining works ought to be encouraged, and do obstacle thrown in any way to the construction of tramways, tracks, or anything that will conduce to the opening up of this almost inaccessible country. When such a goldfield is established a3 I point , out, gardens will spring up, and as the field becomes more permanent the said gardens will grow into fields, and fields into farms. You have a fine energetic race of men to deal with. Keep them, and years hence you will find your forests cleared away, and the miners and farmers pulling together hand in hand. Never raise a foud between the two classes. Remember tho miners stand first, for on them depend tho farmers, and no land should bo parted with in any way to the disadvantage of thominers. Never raise the same ul feeling that lias # always ex-

isted between the squatters and the farmers in New Zealand and Australia. Do all for the majority, and you will then take the best steps for the advantage of the farming and gardening class. You must remember that the farmers' market is in Westland alone. They cannot compete with Adelaide, Tasmania, and other places. IVy cannot load large bottoms with grain f<>r England, owing to our bar harbors. They must only grow for home consumption, and their consumers are the Gainers. Make Westland a place that the miners will remain in, if possible, and in a few years you will see one of the most flourishing settlements in New Zealand. Take the other course, and I, for one, will be off in the first ship to the newest rush to seek for a country where I can make a home as a miner. Our goldfields are falling off. We want nrw. ground. Prospecting is expensive. So spend no more money on Hokitika or Greymouth ; let their Corporations look after tho 'towns we keep alive. But spend the money taken from the country in opening up the country, and so allow the miners to have their provisions at a moderate rate. Not as now, toiling through thick bush and over mountains to fill the hungry maws of the camp followers. If some steps of this kind are not taken, little will be seen or heard the once flourishing town. The idle, who cannot get away, will have to take to picking pockets and garrotting. Do not think me a croaker. I have setn goldfields and goldfields towns before, and I never saw so overbuilt, so mushroom a town asHokitika. Nothing but public houses and dance rooms, depending upon the miners rushing backwards aud forwards. All our hardearned gold goes away to pay for bad grog and finery for the soiled doves. We work in wet, cold, and misery, with bad tracks and dear provisions. No settled home to go to, so that our spare time and spare cash is spent in town in vice. Will not the Government help us by making the country fit to live in ? Yours faithfully. A. B. November 21, 1867.