CATLINS RAILWAY

Evening Star, Issue 9155, 9 June 1893, Page 4

CATLINS RAILWAY

TO THE EDITOK.

Sir,—l was pleased to note in your issue of to-night your advocacy of this work. I am familiar with this district, and have some knowledge of the extreme hardships attendant upon the efforts of the new settlers to make a home for themselves. They have to contend with execrable—in wintertimeallbutimpassable—roads. If they have tackled a virgin bush selection they may reckon on serving a probation of five years before they can get a bare living off their land. Owing to the climate, a good “ bum ” is never to be depended upon when it is wanted ; and, taking one consideration with another, this district certainly offers a field for a “hardy settler.” Ultimately I firmly believe that this district—and indeed the whole coast line down to Tautuku—will f rovc one of the best feeders of our City, n the meantime, it is our bounden duty to lend the present pioneers every assistance, and to give them every encouragement. They sorely need it.

It is a matter of patient endurance and pinching economy with many of them, and I confess there appears to me to be something very touching in the brave efforts they make to hang on to their selections and make homes for themselves. You ride through the bush and suddenly come upon an acre or two of utter desolation and appalling blackness, huge charred trees lying in all directions one across the other—here and there a few square feet of ashes,

and in the midst a modest two-roomed cottage. This is the result of many mouths of toil, and is.ihe sftart of a bush settler in the South ;*tuul I believe is what is locally com| sidered a good start. a As a body the settlers appear to poases«d extraordinary patience and pluck, and they! certainly do not clamor for outside assis|| tance, hence their wants are apt to beq overlooked ; but an immediate, expenditure in connection with the Owake Railway would be of immense assistance to them, as work off their selections for a portion of the year is an absolute necessity for some time, at least, to come. And, in my humble opinion, thiswork, fromahumanitanonpointof view, is of equal, if not of greater, importance than the Otago Central, for the life of a deferredpayment selector up the line of the Otago Central, hard as it is, is one wild round of reckless extravagance compared with the life of a bush selector without capital on the southern coast.

Similar work was of course done in the pasts and the result is to be seen in the prosperous farms up the Owake Valley, and some day, no doubt, the whole line of main road from Owake to Tautuku will be one long succession of valuable dairy farms, with fac tories and creameries every six or seven miles. This, I apprehend, is the promised land of the settler of to-day.—l am, etc., John F. M. Fhaseh. Dunedin, June!).