Grey River Argus and Blackball News FRIDAY, JULY 7, 1922 PROSPECTS AND PROFITS.

Grey River Argus, 7 July 1922, Page 4

Grey River Argus and Blackball News

FRIDAY, JULY 7, 1922 PROSPECTS AND PROFITS.

Delivered every mo. ning in Gr- »uth K -a. Hokitika, Dobson. Wallsend, Taylv./illc. Ngaberc. 81.-.ckball, Nelson Creek, Brunner, Te Kingha kvtoiuanu. Poerua, Inchbonnie, Patara, Ruru, Kaimata. Kotukr Moina, Aratika, Bunantfa. Dunollie, Cobden. Baxter's. Kokiri. Ahaura, Ikamatua. Stnlwalci, Waiuta, Reef ton, Ross. Ruatapua. Mananut. Hari Hart, Waiho Gorge, Weheka, Rewaaui. Otira. Inangahua Junction. Westport, Waimangaroa. Denniston, Granity. Millerton. Ngakawau. Hectoc« Seddon villi Cape Foul wind, and Karams

IT is only natural that the approaching completion of the Otira Tunnel should give rise to much speculation as to the progress of the West Coast. So far as it has been confined to verbal speculation, the wordy warfare lately between our local and Hokitika contemporaries helps little, except insofar as its humorous aspect may improve our tempers. A writer in another column, hits the. nail squarely on the head in saying there is too much regard for individual interests in local agitations for what are alleged to be auxiliaries towards the general prosperity. Thus, one journal talks about “vigorous iniportunacy ” as the ideal for Greymouth in order to “buttress its undoubted merits.” Another gets beside the point in this fashion: — “We should have thought that the Member for Westland, being now domiciled in the. cheerful city of Greymouth, would have flattered the vanity of the people.” Insofar as both favour a spirit of public enterprise, their discussion may do good; but it is just as well to point out the towns arc not the source of prosperity, but at best the results of it. The worker is the, efficient cause of progress, and while the Labour Movement has often been accused of depending on the State induly, wo find its critics, in the shape of the journals mentioned, arguing as if everything depended upon tho Government of the day. Tho most tho Government can do is to second or retard the people’s efforts, by either fairly or unfairly treating and

discriminating between class and class or locality and locality. The present Government, by its bias, lias largely retarded progress generally. Its squandering of money lias resulted in making a Premier who was a professing optimist to become a practical pessimist. He takes the view of the class who are trying to make money on the grand scale out of somebody else. There are here and in Cantotbury many such awaiting the completion of the railway, but they may find it a weary vigil before it is over. The time is coming when the exploitation of new areas by mere monopolies will be more difficult than before. Likewise the towns that hope in future by some artifice or agitation to beggar their neighbours will find they are more likely that way to beggar themselves, if that activity is their hope of prosperity. Press bickerings between towns may prove boomerangs. To point out how industry may be extended equitably for the general benefit would pay far better. Progress Leagues and chambers of commerce should have enough foresight to advocate opening up the land and prospecting for minerals, as that is the way to accommodate properly a bigger population in a decent degree of general affluence. Prosperity surely means more than bigger profits for the few—and it may be the absentee —in fact, a higher standard of living all round. To secure a dozen big emporiums, for instance, in a town, is inadequate compensation for bad housing conditions, low wages, or an increase in unhealthy occupations! It is on an occasion like this that the question of a correct definition of prosperity can be most aptly raised. The Member for the District should be advocating the cutting up of large estates, and thus by facilitating an cveu distribution of the prospective growth in population, prevent monopoly from characterising the new conditions. The State should certainly be induced to extend prospecting, and to put money at the disposal of new settlers. That is the way Taranaki was settled so successfully and evenly. The Member for the District should declare for a progressive land policy in preference to so called “relief” works at 10s or 12s a day for the unemployed. Before chambers of commerce, newspapers, or others begin hankering for a large growth in population, they should first endeavour to secure the welfare of the present population, each and all. The West Coast has undoubtedly great potentialities in its land, minerals and power resources, but neither press, nor public men, nor members of Parliament can be said to take a comprehensive view of its future when they so consistently ignore the primary factor of Labour in the way they have shown themselves so prone to do.