THE IRON MINES OF NELSON.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4187, 21 August 1874, Page 3

THE IRON MINES OF NELSON.

o _ Mr. W. Akersten addresses the following letter to tlie Nelson Colonist :— Sin, —Permit me through the medium of your journal, to draw attention to a matter of extreme importance to the Colony, that is in great danger of being overlooked in the general scramble for railways. In the Province of Nelson, close to the shore of Golden Bay (itself a magnificent anchorage on a weather shore), there are deposited many millions of tons of hematite iron ore high above sea level, and easily workable at free level, with coal and ironstone adjacent. Par down in the. bowels of the earth in the British Isles, there are also immense deposits of iron ore (not nearly so good), and which have to be delved for to a depth of many hundreds of feet at great cost for drainage and ventilation, &c. The railway and other iron manufactured from it, after long land carriage, has to be sea-borne to us, over 17,000 miles, and for which we have to send hard cash in payment. Putting these things together, and working them out, so that the Colony can make its own railway iron, seems to me an easy problem for a statesman of the business capacity of Mr. Vogel, having the means at "Ins command that lie has. As to its being a benefit to this Province, that, I should hope, would not stand in the way of its being worked for the benefit of the whole Colony. The establishment of such an industry is of great Colonial importance, and this portion of the public estate should not remain undeveloped. The sum of money required to start this industry, sinks into significance beside the sums asked for railways, some of them, possibly, lines that may never pay working expenses (though mind I don't say so of a railway to connect the immensely rich interior of this Province with a good port), and I sincerely trust this mine, or rather "these mountains of iron ore," will be turned to account, and some of the 100,000 miners now on strike will be induced to ■come out here and work it. These would be the class of emigrants suited for Nelson. Agricultural and unskilled laborers are not required here in great numbers at present. .