The Evening Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News and the Morning News.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 16, 1875.
For the cause that lacks asnistsncp For the wrong that need:) rosistasc^ •"sr the fature in the distance, Aai the good that we can is.
The litigation at present proceeding at the Thames with reference to the Tairua struggle is nothing short of humiliating. Ib matters not what the position of the case may bs as affected by Jegai technicalities, ii; is none the less humiliating. The subject has now been brought within the sphere of legal investigation, and by the technicalities of law it mu3t iv the first instance be controlled. The duty of the magistrate investigating musfi necessarily be guided by those technicalities, and we are perfectly confident that with entire Mrnes3 and impartiality he will decide, and that his decision will be according to law. But whatever may be tha decision, the situation at the present is one calculated to make one ashamed of humanity. For it is nothing less than an organised attempt to rob, by process of law, the discoverers of the Tairua goldfield of the honest rewards of years of persevering effort. There has been something . akin to a regular rush on the discoverers' leasehold—for leasehold they have in equity, if not by formal deed; and the sharpest wits of the Thames, which seemingly have been lying dormant during the past few years of the dearth of share-swindles, appear to have awaked, and aroused themselves to fierce and preternatural energy. It can only be the hunger of starvation that has inspired this raid on Tairua, and all the sharpers at the Thames, even tho&e having no prospect of a bite are apparently licking their lips with eager glee. When we consider the distinct bargain made between the Prospectors and the Government, that they wore to have a lease of thirty acres, for the gift of a goldfield, it is curious to observe the pleas put forward by the various jumpeis for taking away the right. The chief of these, now being debated, is that some of the pegs, instead of being three inches square, were one eighth of an inch less, and relying on this point, an effort is made to take away property that may prove perhaps worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. And when we think of " gentlemen" going up to Tairua with footrule and measuring tape to see if the discoverers have erred by the fraction of an inch in the size of a peg which could be chopped down of any size in a neighbouring scrub, and if by such a lapsus they coulcl^ establish, by sharp law, a right to share in the property, we confess we know not fitting words with which to characterise the proceeding. Another point of, vast legal importance is that the length of the claim exceeds twice its breadth. We do not speak of the legality of such objections, but decidedly the morality of putting forward a claim to plunder the discoverers based on such grounds requires no comment. The other pteaa preferred are the various rights allfged to have been acquired by " jumping"- proper; and altogether the thing, in which a multitude appear to have interests, has the aspect of being tho most disgraceful conspiracy to plunder that has yet dirtied the page of mining history in New Zealand. We have heard and wft. believe
that thegreat majority of the people at the Thames are disgusted at the affair, If it were not so, and if we believed uiat the bulk of the people there had become so degraded as to render sympathy to the efforts of Fthe jumpers we should not hesitate to regard the Thames as the moral and commercial scab on the side of the Drovince.
Since the foregoing was putj in type we have received the telegram published in another column. There is nothing in it to make us modify one view expressed. It will be observed that the litigation is ended. The discoverers appear to have yielded a portion to save the rest, paying blackmail for quiet possession. Time precludes our considering or commenting further on the subject. Sharp practice appears to have had its reward, and the result is such as may point a moral and adorn a tale.
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Auckland Star, Volume VI, Issue 1662, 16 June 1875, Page 2
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720The Evening Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News and the Morning News. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 16, 1875. Auckland Star, Volume VI, Issue 1662, 16 June 1875, Page 2
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