West Coast Times. AND WESTLAND OBSERVER. TUESDAY, JANUARY 24.

West Coast Times, Issue 1659, 24 January 1871, Page 2

West Coast Times. AND WESTLAND OBSERVER. TUESDAY, JANUARY 24.

No one on the West Coast can read the telegrams which we published yesterday regarding the prevalence of distress in the Province of Auckland, without a feeling of pain at the existence of such poverty in a Colony possessing such redundant natural resources, or without a feeling of regret that population should be so unequally distributed as to inrolve the hardship of hundreds upon hundreds remaining unemployed. The regret at such a circumstance must be enhanced by the knowledge that there are, in other parts of the Colony, districts whose one want is population, and districts where such a populatiou as is now represented at the mobmeetings of Auckland would without difficulty find abundant mean? of honest subsistence. It is pitiful to think that, on the West Coast or the Middlelsland, there should be thousands of acres of auriferous and agricultural land, capable of sustaining people in more than a mere condition of bone and sinew, lying unbroken and undeveloped, while in the streets of Auckland a starving multitude is craving for almost eleemosynary employment. The too often empty streets of our West Coast towns are, indeed, suggestive spectacles when compared with the crowded streets oi the would-be capital of the Colony in its present, if not in its chronic condition. Fortunately their suggestiveness is, in some respects, all in our favor. It certainly cannot be said for a moiinen* that, for the able-bodied mag, 1 <■• .' I „. - • '< i» ' -\>

there is a lack of employment on any part of the West Coast. It may as certainly be said that there arc, iv I its goldfiekls alone, sources of employmcut lor many more than ( the present numbers of population. The almost entire absence of idle men, and U*e existence of numerous natural ! sources of move or less remunerative 1 employment, are two of the features of the district which strike the stranger more than any other features of the country or of the community. As compared with Auckland — as compared with even other districts in the Colony — these features are most marked and observable.' They are features which are, no doubt, attributable to the reckless rush which was made two yeai's ago from the Coast to a Province which was then, and has since been, populated in excess of its immediate necessities, j and to the consequent abandonment of f ground the richness of which it only required the presence of a population to demonstrate. It may be safely said that to hundreds, if not to thousands, the change from Westland to Auckland was, in a very marked degree, for the worse. The statement may be as fearlessly and faithfully made now that a change from Auckland to Westland would be, to an equal if not to a greater degree, for the better. If there is nothing of an especial character to induce a rush, there is between Cape Farewell and Martin's ! Bay a general prevalence of alluvial !

ground, many portions of which have as yet been very slightly utilised, while others have been altogether un- j touched; and were it simply possible for the Auckland unemployed to be cheaply transferred to the Coast, and distributed over its extensive area, there is every reason to believe that their existence as unemployed would then and there cease. The result would certainly be more conducive to the interests of all concerned than would be the result of any such scheme as that of the unemployed transferring themselves and their labor to the Colony of Victoria, as has been hastily and net very reasonably proposed. Without advocating any such aided transportation of labor from one part of the Colony to another, it is impossible to ignore the defects which, in connection with the management of the labor market in this Colony, have always more or less prevailed. A remedy was, in Otago, recently instituted by the transmission throughout the Province of information as to localities where labor was in demand or in excess of the supply, and, so far as is known, the system had some satisfactory results. The extension of the system throughout the Colony— the institution, in fact, of a Labor Exchange — would only be an imitation of what has already been adopted in Britain and in America, in consequence of exigencies of the labor market similar to those which at present prevail in Auckland ; and its institution or its encouragement by the General Government would be one more worthy scheme among" the excellent schemes the introduction of which, as features of our social economy, is attributable to action on the part of the Ministry at present in power. I

In the short report of the case of Guinness v. Drury, heard in the Supreme Court on Friday last, the words "judgment was reversed," was misprinted for the words "judgment was reserved."

It will be seen that Mr Salomon, jeweller, of Dunedin, is at present on a visit to Hokitika with his stock, and intends only to remain for a few days.

Mr Barff advertises a committee meeting this evening at Lockhart's store, Weld-street, at seven o'clock, and announces his intention to address the electors at Hansen's Assembly Booms at eight o'clock.

It is notified by advertisement that Mr John White will address the electors at the Terminus Hotel, Hau Hau, this evening, at eight o'clock.

From Queenstown we learn that reports have been received there of the discovery of a rich quartz reef at the foot of Mount Earnslaw.

A lamentable accident has happened at Inch Clutha. The eldest son of Mr C. V. Brewer, storekeeper, Inch Clutha, while bathing in company with another lad, was unfortunately drowned.

The Eclio is informed on the best authority that there is almost an absolute certainty that Mr D. Hied will have an overwhelming majority of votes in Dunedin at the election for the Superintendency.

The Otago representatives in the forthcoming Interprovincial Match arrived in Lyttelton Friday per s.s. Maori, and proceeded through to Christchurch by train. The match takes place to-day, and Tuesday and Wednesday.

Auother line of reef, containing very payable stone, has been discovered at the Inangahau, near to the reefs already exposed.

We notice an announcement of the death, at Sydney, on the 31st December, of Mr Alexander Kerr, late manager of the Wei* lington, and formerly of the Auckland branch of the Union Bank of Australia, Mr Kerr was one of the oldest New Zealand colonists, having come out with the first band of settlers to Nelson in the Fifeshire, arriving in the early part of 1842.

Afire occurred on January 18th in Tura-naki-street, Wellington, by which the premises of Mr levy, grocer, and Mr Fraser, stationer, were destroyed. Mr Levy's premises were insured in the Imperial, but not ths a,tock, Mr Eraser's vaß uninsured:.

A telegram daled from Tarauaki, January | 3, to the effect tlial " On Christmas there was a duel," appeared lately iv the Wellington Independent, on which the Herald re- , marks: — This is most ridiculous, and we can ' scarcely believe lhat any one could have for- \ warded such a statement. Probably word has been scut that " Christmas was dull." The Maoris, with their usual audacity, have bestowed n " tiu pot" name on the Commissioner of Armed Constabulary. The Alexandria correspondent o? an Auckland journal says :—": — " Nini Kukutai lias just returned . He stales that the Kingites say that if the Government require the murderers they can send Panniken (Mr Branigan) and his soldiers, and take them. Morton Quinn, late Captain and SubTreasurer of the Wellington Five 'Brigade, has been committed for trial on two charges of embezzlement. It is reported by the Wesfjiort Times that the working shareholders in the Waimangaroa Quartz Mining Company struck the reef on Saturday last, in the new shaft recently sunk by them. It has long been the opinion of many, interested and disinterested in this reef, that it will yet prove one of the richest in this district. Some of the shareholders have perseveringly stuck to it, and deserve reward. The distinguishing fetiture of life in Quecnstown, Otago, appears to be the number ,of meetings held there. A correspondent writes :—"I: — "I took the trouble to register the meetings held in the month of December } and, apart from public entertainments, they averaged twenty weekly — not bad for a town containing a populatiou of 200 adults. This month the number of political meetings, to which there seems no limit, will cause the figures I have given to be greatly exceeded." ( Mr Macandrew, as a candidate for reelection as Superintendent of Otago, has addressed a very large meeting in Dunedin. In the course of his speech he said : — He was I not there for the purpose of sounding the trumpet of Mr Yogel. Many of them knew that he had no cause to do so, but he should i consider himself more than a coward, notwithstanding the injury he on cc sustained at his hands, if he were to shut his eyes to the fact that Mr Yogel was one of the ablest men in this community. (Applause and laughter.) His was a master mind, that neither the jealousies nor the bawling — if they liked to call it so— which emanated from certain Provincial Councillors, who attempted to put him down at the Princess Theatre — could overcome. (Applause and 1 hisses.) He repeated that Mr Vogel's was a master mind that could uot be put down, and he believed that before many years had expired, they would hear of him occupying a prominent position iv the arena of Imperial politics.