Cromwell Argus, AND NORTHERN GOLD-FIELDS GAZETTE. CROMWELL: TUESDAY, APRIL 30.

Cromwell Argus, Volume III, Issue 129, 30 April 1872, Page 4

Cromwell Argus, AND NORTHERN GOLD-FIELDS GAZETTE. CROMWELL: TUESDAY, APRIL 30.

One of Uic valedictory nets of the Provinci:il Council, it is suggested, should he the endowment of Municipal Institutions. As to the nature of such endowment, we do not profess to oiler an opinion,—save tin; passing one that it is extremely improbable that General Government revenue will bo allowed to be dealt with even by so august a body as oar own Provincial Council. Wo will not offer any opinion as to the advantages that will result from Mr If mil's Conference; but may state that it is not at all likely our Corporations will benefit by the self-denial of Mr lusu and his Councillors. The Province is divided, as is well known, not only into municipalities, but into districts. In districts, cue or more municipalities may exist; and should such district boundaries bo perpetuated, perchance in some eases half a dozen such i institutions may struggle into life. Conj nected with our districts, and not with our municipalities, are our country hospitals; one such institution suHieing, when centrally situated, for the wants of each district. Tin; claims for the relief and skillful treatmoul of the sick cannot ho ignored i hv any community possessing such a large | migratory clement as our own. lienee we i find that Otago and Westland spend more ! money nor head for this purpose than any j other Province. Otago, with a diminished . afinds that she is unable to con--1 > :nr k. :.r. notary grants us she hitherto

has made. Our readers well know tliat the Government aid to country hospitals has lately been decreased one half: where forty shillings previously were given twenty shillings are now promised. We use the word “ promised,” as it appears to us highly problematical whether the aid expected will ever be obtained. The past dealings of the Government in no wise tend to make us confident of such being the case. If Municipal Institutions require permanent revenue or landed estates for their maintanance, it appears to us indispensable that our hospitals should either belong to such endowed municipalities, or have endowments of their own. From our landed estate in Otago, we have taken care to provide for school, university, and in some cases religious instruction. One hundred thousand acres of valuable land have been reserved for the endowment of the Otago University in the To Anau country ; while for a multitude of purposes, from Onehunga to Invercargill, similar reserves of a lesser extent have been made. It is as much a public duty to provide for the indigent sick as to see that our children ar’o taught the elements of general and useful knowledge. By the collapse of Provincial revenue, our upcountry hospitals arc placed in difficult monetary straits; Queenstown, Tuapska, and Clyde are similarly situated. The public are called on to make good the defalcation of the Government; private charity making good what the Government had led us to expect as a right. If it had been foreseen, and it most certainly should have been, that the aid to hospitals could not be maintained, the public should have been warned of the fact, —-or piovisiou made by the Government in another way. Country hospitals cannot bo allowed to collapse, and unless some public provision for their support be made, we fear the strain on the purses of the charitable will be found to be sever.?. At the public meeting held in Grom well on Friday last to consider what steps should be taken to relieve the Clyde District Hospital from its monetary difficulties, it was proposed that the following resolution should be sent to the Mayors ol Clyde, Cromwell, and Alexandra, for theii consideration and advocacy at the Mayor’s Conference to be; Judd in Dunedin ; “That nt the mooting of the Mayors of tin various Municipalities to ho held iu Dnnodii next week, the Mayors of Cromwell, Clyde, am Alexandra ho requested to consider the expo dieney of .obtaining a permanent maintenance o. endowment for countin' hospitals in connection with the endowment of municipal institutions.” We imagine, such a proposition will commend itself to all ; and as the control of the Provincial Government over the waste lauds of the Province will sooner or later pass away, we see no time more titling than the present to ask for such a provision being made. Of the justice of such a demand there can be no doubt. We do not ask for anything that the Provincial Government cannot give,—only tliat 1 certain lauds may be devoted to such purposes. In many towns there are large public reserves made, —larger than the present stat ?of the Colony demands. It is surely not too much to ask that individuals occupying such reserves with or without licenses should bo compelled to pay rent for the privileges of occupancy. One of the great wants of our district is com-1 mouage ; the revenue derived from su li purposes of public utility could not, we imagine, be better employed than in helping to maintain our hospital institutions. Such endowments maybe, perchance, of small yearly value at first ; but it will be! be patent that their value and rental will yearly increase, and form in the future a large clement in that noble endowment of Public Charities the Anglo-Saxon population delight to found and perpetuate.

Mr James Division, tlio railway contractor, arrived here from Queenstown in company with Mr I). Powell, <>ii Sunday night, and left for Clyde, en rouit' for Dunedin, at three o’clock yesterday morning. I Our local representative, Mr Hickey, M.P.C., was solicited to give an account of his past stewardship when Mr Shepherd addressed the inhabitants of Cromwell last Tuesday. An exit from our town by the Dunedin coach presented, however, more attractive features than facing neglected constituents ; and as our representative remarked that he had nothing to say, (and wo knew ho was powerless to perform if ho ! promised,) and declared that lie considered we wanted nothing, it may he considered his absence was dictated only by the respect he had for the time and patience of Ids supporters. Wo trust those gentlemen who arc responsible for his | return will take this view of the case, and will i not consider any other reason can be given for I his reluctance to address them. Local represen- | ] tatives sometimes find it a tedious and protracted I j journey from 1 Mined in to their homes. We trust j j they are never inlhiencod by mileage considera-; i J . to choose :: the lonu‘-r road.

We have received a letter from Mr A. Fredric, of Queenstown, the fac-simile of tf printed in the columns of our Dimstau conte porary. It is stated that ‘‘ a portion of the « tract of the Arthur’s Point road from Quee town has been subdet to a party of Chines We do not understand any reason whatever w this should be regarded as “contrary to the j tentions of the Minister of Public Works.” Q namcn cannot be prevented from cooking, m a ing roads, or growing cabbages ; and if they a in our midst we do not expect to see legislati enactments made prohibiting their employing Their importation for such a purpose is anoth question. The public will doubtless bo glad to hei that the Carrick Range Water Supply Compai have arranged with Mr Wilson, the Distri Surveyor, to lay oil' a portion of the Carrii Race, and check the levels already taken, only wanted such a step being taken to confit the confidence of the public in the bona fules, the undertaking. There is but little of importance | chronicle this week regarding the Carrick lieei A clcaning-np for the Star of the East was t: peeted to have been finished on Saturday, t a temporary stoppage of the battery was t cessitated in consequence of the water becomii so turbid as to be no longer fit for use on t! tables. The result of the crushing will prohal he known to-day. The Elizabeth battery 1 been working steadily for the past three wed and the manager expects to wash up on Safe ■ day next. This company is sinking a shaft i connect with the long tunnel driven some moat! | since. This work will he linishod in the coat | of a few days, and the mine will afterwards I worked from below, —thus enabling the compai | to get out a large quantity of stone at compai tively small expense. The Royal Standi Company’s enlarged battery is now ready ( crushing, and prospectors will lie glad to lea that a reduced scale of charges has been adopt I The rates now charged for crushing at this n I chine are advertised in another part of our n sent issqc. Mr R. Reid has taken the manm incut of the company’s plant and claim, as \i as of the New Royal Standard mine. Wo bi the Standard Company has undertaken thc« struetiou of a dray-track to connect the Fir clay road with the battery at Quart/,ville. It ! intended to nr.mo the outlay by imposin' .i extra charge upon every ton of quartz brmi; 1 the machine from the right-hand branch j Smith’s Cully and head of Pipeclay. The Jn ! bull will send down fifty tons for crushingi j mediately the road is completed. j Thu (Iruiigu belonging to Messrs Good! Inu I party, which was brought up from I ■ j Teviot to aim Kawarau junction last winter, j lay tor many months at anchor a short distal below the bridge, was lately hedged a few In dred yards up the Kawarau, and is now at w prospecting the river-bottom above the site the old ferry. live men arc engaged in work) her, and they seem thoroughly “up” to I business. Rut we are sorry to hear that t! have not yet struck the gravel, the deposit tailings being many feet in depth, and the polity of the current, which fills up the cxca thins almost as soon as made, seriously imped their progress. The Wakatip Provincial election suited in the return of Air Alexander limosi Mr !’>. Mallonstcin. The number of votes corded for the several candidates were—lni If>!); Ifalleustciii, 122; Mauders, US; M'Dri OS ; Tyree (■lames), OS. P>y the removal of Mr Pews, C. R, fr Cromwell to Invercargill, we have only oner dent J.P, in our midst: we allude, of course his Worship) the Mayor. Private and pn business, however, frequently necessitates absence. A\ e feel that it is expo.bent mint •b R. should bo created who will he a resident Cromwell; so that when 1 1 is services are tic; sary in the absence of the Mayor, public busin may not be delayed. Dealers in kerosene are perhaps not gel rally aware of the provisions of the Kerosenes Raraiiin Oils Ordinance, ISO,”. Section 1 off Ordinance provides that “No person hem dealer in kerosene shall have or keep) at any j time more than 00 gallons of kerosene or pan oil in any house, storehouse, warehouse, si | cellar, yard, wharf, or any other building place occupied by him.” Two charges is i tills -Wet were recently heard in the May i Court, Dunedin. In each case a penally ol was inflicted, and the surplus quantities of hj sene oil, —iu one case 12S gallons, and in other 1 .”0 gallons,—were ordered to be forfeit the act leaving the Magistrate no alternative that of forfeiture iu the matter. It rosy mentioned that any one not a dealer is not lowed to have more than ten gallons on his mises. The Daily Times of the fZ-Ttli inst. < tains the following : A case of more than 1 nary importance, as affecting tlie powers sessed by the Superintendent to cancel lease Goldfields, and also as to the validity of ■ leases, was commenced iu the Supreme f yesterday. It came before the Court in the si of a motion to dissolve an injunction rostra' the defendants’, the Superintendent and 3 hers of the Waste Land Hoard, from with a run of the plaintiffs, Mr Maclean another, —namely, the run known as Bd M .li inn. Tn.-mr-M.-