NEVIS.

Cromwell Argus, Volume IV, Issue 170, 11 February 1873, Page 5

NEVIS.

( From a Correspondent.) February 4, 1873. From the quietness that pervades mining affairs it may be assumed that they are going on favourably : if there is no reason for jubilation there is none for depression : we keep jogging on in the even tenor of our way, content with what we can get, and thankful if anything extra comes in our way. The water supply is still abundant, and is likely to be so for the remainder of the season, as the unsettled weather which we have had lately, and which still continues, has saturated the ground and supplied the mountain springs afresh. The rains have not been so copious as to materially affect the river ; an 1, therefore, those claims which were damaged by the last flood have continued the work of repairing uninterruptedly. The Chinese have during the last week been holding high festival. The demand for fowls and pigs has been great. John has come out in his gala attire ; and the sight of the Asiatic costume, although it pleasantly 7 leads the imagination to the land of gay flowers, gilded pagodas, and antediluvian histories, is suggestive of the fact that John is not the higlily civilised being he is usually said to be ; that is if the capacity of adapting one’s self to circumstances be an evidence of civilisation. For I cannot conceive how any human being possessed of any considerable degree of enlightment should persist in weaving the Chinese garb in such a climate as this, when by following the example set him by his European neighbours, he can cover his shivering limbs in garments almost impervious to wet or cold. In the matter of eatables and drinkables, John lias not been so slow to imitate us, and when the state of his finances will afford it, he can eat and drink with the best (or worst) of ns. Some of the Chinese here have been doing well for some time ; especially one party whose claim is situated in the river bed. lam informed on good authority that they have been making from £7 to £lO per man per week for months ; and that out of ground that has been partly worked and abandoned by white men years ago. If this claim is a fair sample of how the bed of the Nevis river has been wrought, there is plenty of gold in it yet.

I see from the Government advertisements that two small squatting runs, situated at the head of the Nevis river, are to be sold by auction on the 4th hist. It is anticipated here that there will be sharp competition among some of our local men for the possession of them. It is pleasant to note the progress made in pastoral pursuits in the district during the last nine years. At the commencement of that period the traveller might traverse the country about for many miles, in any direction he choose, without hearing the bleat of sheep or the lowing of kine : silence reigned supreme, and the solitude was awful. Now, turn where we may, we are greeted with the sight of innumerable flocks and countless herds. This is true progress, and contrasts favourably with that made in mining affairs.

The most of miners will read with astonishment the report of the case W. .7. Barry versus Bradshaw and Howarth. Surely there is something utterly wrong in the management of gold-fields affairs when an application for the survey of a lease is allowed to be unattended to for seven years, and when at the end of that time an enterprising projector

attempts to obtain the ground concerned in the unattended-to application for survey, fur the jturpose of developing the minerals dr metals contained in it, he finds himself con ■ fronted with the seven-years dormant application for survey. This is not the way to encourage mining enterprise ; on the contrary, it is the way to burk it. The case looks all the worse from the fact that a lai e member of the Provincial Executive is one of the party that made the dormant application.