The Nelson Evening Mail. THURSDAY, MAY 17, 1866.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume I, Issue 63, 17 May 1866, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. THURSDAY, MAY 17, 1866.

qne of the disadvantages uuder which the commercial community at Hokitika labor consists in the nature of the surrounding country, which is unfavorable to land traffic; and as the chief centres of population are settled at short distances from the sea — although the entrances to the various small ports are proverbially bad — the great bulk of the traffic is by water; this, together with the unsafe entrance to Hokitika itself, enables merchants at a distance to supply more cheaply than at Hokitika the smaller settlements that are in its close proximity, and which would obtain their supplies from there if the means existed for cheap and reliable land communication. Our recent files of West Coast papers inform us that steps are about to he taken by the enterprising community who have made Hokitika the scene of their labors to lemedy this state of things by the construction of railway and tramway lines to the chief of the mining districts around them. A company is now being formed to construct a line of railway to Greymouth, and steps are being taken to lay down a tramway to Kanieri, an important mining district a few miles inland from the port of Hokitika. The most important of these works is the railway to Greymouth :iu the. first place, as it will pass through several important districts it will greatly assist to develope the resources of these places by cheapening the cost of provisions, and at the same time it will obtain a large share of traffic thereby. But at Greymouth the railway will enter the largest nnd most productive gold-field in New Zealand, which seems capable of supporting a much larger population than it at present has, if assisted by reliable means for the transit of provisions at a reasonable rate. This railway will also be of additional value to the Hokitika people, as the means of bringing them coal at a moderate price, without which many industries cannot bo domesticated. The prosecution of mining enterprises by steam machinery, will also be greatly assisted by that valuable mineral being procurable at a reasonable rate. The carrying out these enterprises in different directions from Hokitika will he of the greatest benefit to that town, as by concentrating the bulk of the shipping business at the one port, it will be the meaus of making that port the commercial centre of the West Coat, and perhaps eventually the most important in New Zealand.