BENDIGO GULLY.

Dunstan Times, Issue 425, 10 June 1870, Page 3

BENDIGO GULLY.

(from our own correspondent.) June 8. I have again to apologise for my nonappearance last week in your columns, but being under the impression that anything I had to impart would be “basket” news when it reached you, I refrained from writing, hoping that something new or startling might turn up in the interim. Vain and delusive hope ! Wo are very much addicted to the Micauher philosophy in this place, and really, judging from contemporaneous accounts, the province generally appears to be afflicted in the same way. Our legislators tell us of our great prosperity—l wish some of them could demonstrate it. A country prosperous with an over stocked labor market sounds rather ambiguous. I trust such wonderful statesmen as Mr. Ashcroft and his intelligent confreres will enable us to realise the fact of an Utopia in Otago. I mention this general name with a charitable hope that his apparent rancour against the mining community is not due to the present failure of Ills hoped for Eldorado at the Maerewhenua. The weather to-day is very bad. and rain has been falling steadily for ten hours. As a natural consequence, the prevailing feature is dullness. The Aurora Companj'’s mill breaks the monotony by its ceaseless clatter, this Company having both batteries engaged on their own stone, the trial crushings, with the exception of. that from the Alto claim (now being carted), having apparently come to an. end, Logan and Company’s one hundred and thirty tons yielded two and a half ounces to'the ton. A parcel of twenty tons _from Specimen Gully (Logan’s line) two ounces and a half to the ton. Eight tons from No. 4 west (Aurora line) one ounce to the ton. Other reefing claims “in statu quo.” This comprised all the reefing nows. The few parties s’u’eing in Bendigo Gully appear to be well satisfied with their returns, but I am sorry to a id that this branch of mining industry has received a severe check by the decision given lately in the case “Cromwell Company v. Alklread and Company,” by which the latter party have been compelled to entirely cease sluicing operation; it has also deterred others from setting in for fear of litigation. The wisdom of such judgments will surely manifest itself at some future date—until then R.J. P. I see the principal subject of discussion in Dunedin is the “enormous” wages paid for labor in the province, and as the subject is, iu consequence, being debated here, I may be excused for departing from the ordinary course of correspond -nts to offer a few remarks thereon. We have in the district a few of those “large” employers so pleasantly alluded to by “Banners Turnipsbcll,” in the “Witness” issue of the 2Sth May, who employ on an average one man, or possibly one man and a girl per annum. These gentlemen, fired by the suggestions thrown out by the Solons of Dunedin, attempted, at one fell swoop, to reduce the working miners pay one-fonrth from £4 to £3 per week. The attempt coming as it did from men who live by the miner, met with the success it deserved, and one of the clique came very near being burned in effigy for bis temerity. All descriptions of mining at the present day, and especially quartz mining, require a certain amount of practical skill. This can only be found among a superior class of miners who, after years of application, are able to undertake the work. The working day consists of ten hours, and living is very little cheaper than it was five years ago. Combine with this the lost time from severe weather, stoppages of machinery, &c., and the privations generally attending a life in such a bleak inhospitable country, and will any unprejudiced person say that the remuneration is excessive ? I trow not. Rc°fs which will not afford £4 per week wages to the miner will not pay at £1 per week. From practical experience I can assure our “one-horse” capitalists of this fact. I believe the true reason of the present outcry down country is the depressed state of trade in Dunedllli caused probably by overtrading, the Taieri floods, or what not, and the appearance of two or three hundred unemployed men in the city at this unlucky junction, brought thither in the hope of getting employment on the proposed railway works, which may possibly be commenced when the incandescent ray, which the sun is reported to be shooting out to devour the earth, reaches us, the date of which I am, unfortunately not able to predict. lam aware that the price of labor must always be regulated by the law of supply and demand. lam well satisfied that, if no political juggling takes place, the present evil will soon mitigate itself, and the two or three hundred unfortunates already mentioned will become absorbed in steady industries, and the cry of reduction, so often raised by the old identity throats, will sink into that proper receptacle for all unpleasant subjects—oblivion. I cannot say that Logantown presents a decidedly lively appearance, or that business is extremely brisk. The principal feature is the daily elongation of the facial muscles of our honest Bonifaces and business men generally. It is useless to talk to them of Mark Taploy, witk a hard winter and a tight money market staring them in the face. Doubtless it is difficult to be ‘ ‘alwkys jolly.” However, I now say unto them • hope on !