CORRESPONDENCE.

Cromwell Argus, Volume 1, Issue 49, 19 October 1870, Page 5

CORRESPONDENCE.

[We do not hold ourselves responsible, for the opinions expressed by our correspondents. | MR BRADSHAW, M.H.R. {To the Editor of the Cromwell Sik, —My attention has been drawn to three letters, published in your paper, the JDunstan Times, and the Bruce Herald, in reference to Mr Bradshaw, member in the General Assembly for the Goldfields Boroughs. , As they have ail evidently emanated from one pen, I will reply to them briefly. Mr Bradshaw may well quote the old proverb, " Save me from my friends," for had not the writer of the letters above referred to rushed imprudently into print, I should not have reminded the electors of the Goldfields of certain acts of his which reflect little credit on his political career in connection with this province.

Many of your readers will doubtless remember the year 1867, when Bradshaw, jointly with another member representing a Goldfields constituency, succeeded in inducing the Stafford ministry to withdraw the Goldfields from the management of the Superintendent and Provincial legislature, in order that he might get the billet of Goldfields Agent for the General Government, at a salary of £fi!)o a year, which income he actually received for one year. Your readers and the electors on the Goldfields will also remember that the intrigues of Mr Bradshaw and his confederates cost the Provincial coffers a large sum of money for a ple'oiscite, and threw the administration of the Wardens' Courts into confusion for several months—order only returning upon the Goldfields being restored to the management of the Provincial legislature, with the concurrence and wish of nearly every miner and resident on the Goldfields, as evidence 1 by the votes taken in the plebiscite. Audit will also be remembered how Mr Bradshaw travelled through the Goldfields in a hired buggy (paid for out of the Goldfields revenue) as Goldfields Agent,: being hooted by the inhabitants of the Teviot, Alexandra, and Cromwell districts. In the latter place, he was iguntniuiously burnt in edigy at an early hour in the morning, he having passed through in the dark to avoid the execrations of an enraged constituency.

i £jl will not dwell upon the eloquent speeches i delivered by the honourable member in die Asj sembly or elsewhere, for the simple reason chat ! lie never delivered any. The honorable gentleI man was only "eloquent in his silence," which [' may partly account-tor that unjust tax on the | miners of the province, known as the gold duty, | being still unrepealed. 1 will now ask a tew I questions, and return truthful answers to'them. | Did the honorable member take any steps to I prevent that injurious act entitled the Hundreds • \ct from passing in the session of 18(59 '! or did he call for a division, and record his vote against 1 it? No; ami Hansard also says No. Did the ! honorable member under said Act vote for the ; smallest compensation to the squatter ? No ; I and Mr Driver, a squatting representative in the I Asscmbl.*, publicly asserted that the honorable j member voted for a larger compensation than ! 2s 61 per acre, the sum fixed upon the' m t oa \ of one of the Southland members, Mr' : Wood.— I Wherehis Mr Bradshiw been since he .was re- ! turned for the Uoldliclds by a majority o' one I over a s platter '! Not on the lioldiicldd of ; Otago, but in Auckland, whence he has jiist arj rived ola Wellington, and with which place, it ; is rep >rted, he is couueeted through its i/itu leml- ! miybuj quartz-mining companies. 1 will conclude for the present by stating that • 1 sincerely trust chat when the forthcoming elee- ; tions take place, the '.ioldiields electors will have ! the choke given them .of selecting men of tried : ability, courage, and political honesty ; and that i they will at the same time say by their yotvs to '' the place-hunter, time-server, and absentee, " (in hence ; be no longer o licer of ours."-—I am, ' &e , Bona Fide Misiiit. j Shotover, Oct. 10, IS7O. j M'LIUX V. ALL NATIONS COMPANY. To the. &JUorof the Ckomwkll Arqus. Sir, —In your Banuocklmrn correspondent's report of last week, he refers to a case, then I pending in the Warden's Court ;(that of M'Leati I otrxati All Nations Company, in which the coni- ! plaiuants sought to compel the raceholders to ! allow two heads of water to run down a creek j if required. 1 certainly do not think, to say ! the least of it, that it was very good taste on I your correspondent's part to advert to this in I the w.-,y he did while it was awaiting legal | decision. From the tone of his remarks, the public would be led to believe that there was a ! quantity of ground not payable in the earlier j (lays, but, in the present state of things, would j afford a comfortable subsistence for a number of men, but the water being taken out of the creek debars people from working it. •• Now, sir, in this case the facts are quite opposite. The creek has been repeatedly prospected for the laot seven years—latterly by both Europeans and Chinese—and no one could make a living out of it ; there has been the colour of gold found, and that was all. Parties have now taken up claims (at least marked them out) anil require us to allow the water to How down the creek. We (the All Nations Company), a party of seven, got a grant for the water after the creek had been well prospected, and cut a race from it about nine miles in length. We have been working ourselves, as I well as employing labour, for the last six years (and, I imagine, in that time we have contributed something to the revenue, as well as added our fraction to the gold returns), built homes, and settled down. If the water had been running down the creek until this it would have benefited no one. Now, a party has set in, who say we must allow the water to run down the creek ; and, in all probability, as others have done, in a few weeks they will leave, and the ground be again abandoned. Now, sir, I contend this is not a satisfactory state of things for raceholders if thev are at the mercy of any one who may have an ill-feeling against them, or wish to prospect ground. I do not say "but there may be cases where ground has been proved, and would support a number of moh : in such a case the law would be perfectly right in doing the greatest good for the greatest number. But without proof of payable gofrl being got, and some extent of gnu ml, it would bo very arbitrary to dispossess men

who have been to groat expense anil labor. I imagine it should be the policy of the Government to offer inducements to men to settle down, make homes for themselves, and become good colonists by guaranteeing them some title to their property, rather than to encourage the (jenus fossicker, who does very little good for himself or the country he lives in.—Apologising for the length of this,

I am, sir, yours &c., 'Robert Scott, All Nations Company Smith's Gully, Bannockburu, Oct. 15.