The New Zealand Times. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1923. “THE COAST”

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11705, 18 December 1923, Page 6

The New Zealand Times. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1923. “THE COAST”

Wo are reminded of “The Coast” by the report of a certain jubilee. It is the jubilee of “The Coast.” It in a diamond Jubilee. Its history one has to take by and large. Gold was found in the Nelson province in the ’fifties, and there was digging for seven years, beginning in 1857 with an export of £40,422, and reaching in 1863—for which year the export was £37,120 —a total. of £239,764. Gabriel’s—the historic first Otago goldfield—opened in sensational fashion in 1861, and very soon after, early in 1863, the indomitable digger, attracted by the reports of finds on the West Coast, was over the “Big Divide,” and wrestling with the Western forests and taking his chances in the Western rivers. He had heard the talk of the Nelson diggers of that now-forgotten seven-year period, who discussed learnedly of leads and pockets, and quoted from the reports of scientific men things about schists, conglomerates, tertiary deposits, and even wrestled speculatively with the “pleistocene” and the “miocene,” and other slabs cut from the ordered strata of geology. The great Hochstetter had written an illuminating report of the Aorere goldfield and hung predictions all over the site. But the digger, who had by that time heard the stories of wanderers returned from further south, with glib references to the Buller and the Grey, hankered after something more practical than prediction, and tried his luck with pick and shovel. He brought back shuddering references to wild mountains, trackless forests, fordless torrents, a country that offered little substance even to the Maori, a past master of life in the wilds. In his stories there was much of the herald Death, who waited on the frontiers of this grim region for the rash seeker after riches. But men did find gold, in spite of that waiting herald, and the talk of their finds began to be uppermost what time there was roaring and mania at Gabriel’s. Very soon, as we have said, the digger tackled the “Big Divide,” and the West Coast began. Thus we can speak to-day of the diamond jubilee. We are speaking of course generally, hut the “Coast” has its definite ideas of dates and places, and knows to-day what it is about, just as well as it did sixty years ago.

The Coast celebrates this jubilee with an exhibition—British and international. We see that still the Coast does nothing by halves. Nobody, we are happy to say, does that. For example, the people of Dunedin, two years after the amazing outbreak of Gabriel’s, celebrated with an exhibition, advertising their brief past, their

pleasant present, and their grandiloquent future. The future had most to d° with the celebration, after the manner of all exhibitions, which are designed to attract population and commerce to the localities of which they are the head centres. The same applies to Westland. It is a thing especially notable, because Westland has waited sixty years, unlike Otago, which has had many exhibitions in the period that began with its first great effort. For the present Westland effort there is a special reason. Everyone knows the wonderful history of early Westland. It is the history of those men who, attracted by the talk of the Nelson men above referred to, reinforced by evidence of the finds made by the more adventurous among them, shouldered their way past the grim herald on the frontier, who had led many to their death, plunged into the forests, and conquered the wilderness. Everyone knows what a great school of men was formed by that amazing reckless fight with the great forests and the big mountains. But it has been long the fashion to believe that this school which is passing away has done it's work; that it dwells in a country worked out, with little hope for the future, offering no encouragement to enterprise. Tin's kind of thing is reflected in almost every session of Parliament when the votes for expenditure in Westland are discussed. One might think from the. things said that Westland is a sort of morass into which public money has been thrown at the instance of certain exceptionally strong men bred in the great school of the West, who have held power and distributed largesse in bolstering up a worked-out country. This is an insult to the “Coast,” implying that the West is no longer a golden West, but a country falling hack after a wild flash of greatness into the hopelessly barren barbarism of its early inhospitable days. Against that insult the exhibition of Hokitika is a strong protest. It is, of course, more than that. It is a proclamation of the solid resources of the rich Western country ready to the hands of a population as vigorous and enterprising as its fathers, and certain to make as'great a success of their country as their fathers made of it. The public records show that by 1873—about nine years after the first rush—Westland had exported £11,671,049 worth of gold, a total raised by 1905 to over £26,000,000, and to-day that total stands at some millions higher. Those exports of the first nine years were not the work entirely of the digger who had plunged over the divide early in 1864. Men came from all parts of New Zealand and Australia to swell the swarming rushes, exploiting every plain and gully and forest-clad mountain-side in what to-day is Westland. Westland advanced politically, as did the rest of New Zealand. Of that the great school of manhood (one being the late Hon. B. J. Seddon) created in that difficult country took care. It took care also to secure its share in the expenditure under the great public works and immigration policy, and the railways of Westland justified this instance in the end by standing near the top of the list of the lines which paid their capital charges. But the men of Westland were determined believers in the country from which they had wrested those golden millions. Urged by that belief they agitated for railway communication with the Eastern districts. They succeeded after ono of the toughest fights of our political history, in spite of the feeling derogatory to Westland which we have shown above to have been mistaken. The great tunnel making this communication between the coasts was opened the other day, and the Hokitika Exhibition follows in due course. The keynote was sounded by the Hon. Downie Stewart and by Sir F. H. D. Bell in their speeches. Both men are cognisant of the past history of Westland through its connection with Otago, which in their young days was their home, permanently in one case for a time, the critical early education period in the other. They eulogised‘the past of Westland; they bowed with sincere appreciation to its present; and they recognised the determination of the Westland folk to develop the vast resources of this country, which are great enough to ensure their district a prosperous future of agriculture, forestry, and coal-mining. The exhibition closes one of the great chapters of our local history, and opens another in which everything is ready for the greater development the fine resources of the West are sure, with enterprising, enlightened treatment, to effect.