THE GOLDFIELDS ESSAYS,

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 525, 3 July 1869, Page 2

THE GOLDFIELDS ESSAYS,

The Wellington correspondent of the Hokitika Daily News, in noticing proceedings in the House of Representatives, says : —The essays upon the permanent settlement of the gold-fields of the colony have been laid upon the table; and a few evenings since I was allowed the privilege of looking through them, and I must say that it occurs to me that a majority of the writers have never visited a gold-field. Many of the essays are complete " rot," although a few of them appear to have been written by men of sense, but of limited experience. I was much struck by the truthfulness of the scenes depicted in one which appears to have been written in Ch: istchurch. The disadvantages and miseries of a digger's life are portrayed by a master hand, and the causes which retard the settlement of goldfields are carefully ard correctly shewn, but no sufficient remedies are proposed. I have not yet seen the prize essays, but the one idea of the writers of a majority of the remainder appears to be that the land law alone is quite sufficient to settle the business. One essayist goes so far as to say that the Westland Gold-fields cannot by any possibility be ever properly settled, and that "in a very short time Hokitika will contain only a few houses for tbe accommodation of tourists !"