Thanks to the promoters of the proposed "Oamaru Stone Quarrying and Export Company," we have had placed in our hands the evidence collected by them, and at once and frankly we desire to express our hearty thanks for such an accumulation of valuable evidence from highly qualified witnesses respecting our stone quarries as takes us altogether by surprise. Great as we regarded the resources of Oamaru, we did not dream that such untold wealth was stored up in our stony ridges, and cropping up in almost every field in our neighbourhood. To utilize such gratuitous gifts of a beneficent nature is the mission of this Company; and while gladly acknowledging our great obligations to the committee, we earnestly recommend our readers to study the evidence, and report carefully for themselves. This evidence settles some, at least, of the questions referred to the committee once and for ever, while in every point it is most clear, convincing, and overwhelming. No one can now doubt the vast extent and page 11 importance of our stone deposits, covering as they do, in the words of one of the witnesses, "the whole of the vast territory extending from the Kakanui River to the Waitaki Plains, an area of not less than one hundred square miles." That such unbounded wealth should remain so comparatively undeveloped may, at first sight, excite surprise. The difficulties, however, are clearly shown to have been, until quite recently perfectly insuperable. We observe in the evidence that a contract for 400,000 feet, at 4s. per foot (representing £80,000), delivered in Melbourne, was abandoned simply because the Breakwater was not at the time sufficiently advanced. What a loss to the district! And who can estimate the sum total of such losses during the years that are gone? The same authority further states that the difficulties then interposing are now wholly removed. The Breakwater, the railways, and now the advent of a public company, with improved appliances, and every contrivance which capital and skill can introduce, cheapening and facilitating the operations at every stage, will put the future prosperity of this great and important enterprise beyond all doubt. We are pleased to observe, moreover, that it is proposed to cheapen the price of the commodity in Melbourne and elsewhere, and we are quite convinced that "a large and profitable trade awaits the formation of the Company." In our own town, as well as in the neighbouring towns, the effect of such a reduction will stimulate building enterprise; and in Melbourne, which, from our own knowledge, is perfectly destitute of building material, the prospect of an abundant supply so eminently suited for such highly ornamental and elaborate designs as they affect in the metropolis of the South, will be hailed as a great boon. We cannot over-estimate, also, the immense importance of such an increase to out-population and currency as such a Company will confer upon us, for, like the quality of mercy,

"'Tis twice blessed:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes!"