THE RESOURCES OF WEST NELSON.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 470, 25 February 1869, Page 3

THE RESOURCES OF WEST NELSON.

In advocating the at present ridiculous project of the Nelson and Cobden railway, the Nelson Examiner has the following remarks on the resources of the district:— The valleys of the Buller and Grey only need population to develop one of the largest and richest goldfields ever opened, and without a trunk line of road (and a narrow gauge railway is the cheapest road that could be made) the great mass of wealth contained therein will never be won, from the otherwise impossibility of supplying miners with the means of living at anything like a reasonable cost. And oeyond this, as bearing more directly upon the construction of the railway, a company which should undertake the work and receive for its outlay the vast estate which contains hundreds of millions sterling of gold, ex-

tensive beds of coal—superior to any known in the Southern Hemisphere, and equal to the very best in England —rich in a variety of minerals, and abounding with timber and other natural products necessary to man, ivould acquire a property that, with proper management, must yield re;urns which would make the profits rom all ordinary commercial enteririses appear insignificant. This is no :ervid picture of the imagination, but nay be demonstrated as a fact by any person who will take the trouble to exirnine the country. The seam of coal opened on the banks of the liiver Grey iias been tried and reported upon not snly by the local steamers engaged on the coast which get their supplies | from it, but by the Admiralty Surveyor at Woolwich ; and the superiority of the beds at Mount Rochfort, near the Buller, has also been testified to at home by the same high authorits. The value of the gold field is equally susceptible of proof. Labouring under all the disadvantages of high living, and the immense labour caused by carrying their provisions on their backs through a country without roads for distances of ten and twenty miles, several hundred men are engaged in mining on the Buller, and in spite of all this, those who steadily pursue their work may acquire a moderate independence. It is true the wear and tear is so great that it is only the physically strong who can follow the work for any time, nor will any but very rich ground enable miners to live in a country where the drawbacks are so great. Eender these valleys habitable for miners by opening them with roads, and the whole aspect of affairs will change. Take as an example what is now being done in more favored situations in the same district, where, being near the coast, provisions are obtained more cheaply, and without the same waste of time and labor to convey them to spots where they are wanted. In the neighborhood of Charleston and Brighton ten steam engines and two hundred and fifty water-wheels are used as motive power in mining purposes, and produce considerably over a quarter of a million of gold annually. What chance of works of this nature in the Matakitaki, the Maruia, or the hundred other inaccessible tributary valleys to the Grey and Buller, all abounding in gold? The great difficulty in the way of getting our railway undertaken, is inability to convince capitalists of the value of the estate we are willing to bestow on them if they will only make it accessible, and it will be a great point gained if Mr Morrison can sufficiently interest a body of gentlemen to induce them to send out an agent to examine and report upon what we offer them.