CROMWELL.

Dunstan Times, Issue 671, 26 February 1875, Page 3

CROMWELL.

(FROM OUR OWK CORRESPONDENT.) In another column will be fonnd the conclusion of report of the Bannockburn meeting. Freedom of thought and action is an Englishman’s prerogative, and when these are abused, it becomes necessary, in the interests of society to take the offender to task, especially when he assumes the character of a public benefactor. Mr Buchan, in his modesty in the Mining Association, thought fit to propose a vote of censure upon the Goldfields’ Secretary, which vote culminated in the convention of a public meeting. At this meeting the member for the Kawarau attended, and never secured a more signal victory. In vain did he ask for his accusers, in vain did he point out to the auditory that he was no criminal. To the credit of Mr Moore be it said, that when others stood like “ greyhounds in the slips ”he ventured to bring a charge. Mr Buchan felt himself warranted in bringing his never-dying, never-ending cat’s-paw of a resolution, harping upon “my wife, my daughter,” and like Polonius, he may he checked with the rebuke so pointedly administered by the ancient Prince of Denmark. At the recent election of President of the Bannockburn and Garrick Miners’ Association Mr Buchan polled seventeen votes, being the exact number who voted on his amendment against Mr McKellar. I would ask Messrs Buchan and Company the time that has been spent, the amount of cash expended re delegations, &c., the Government subsidy to the same, and the beneficial results to the bona fide miner? They are evidently endeavoring to gull. If placed in the scale on what side will the balance he found ? It may become a question as to whether this “Saviour of Mankind ” is not at the present moment doing more to prevent the development of the Goldfields than the colonists ever did ? Through the action of the Mining Association, and by their everlasting agitation claims are being taken up in large blocks and residence areas are at every sitting of the Court applied for. At the present time, and in accordance with the existing Goldsfields’ Acts and Eegnlations 1000 miners can monopolize 2000 acres. In the face of this I would ask what chance remains for a striving, but hard-up miner, to acquire a claim. The political agitators of the Bannockburn have much to learn, and while Mr Buchan professes to hold in sovereign contempt all scribes, and characterizes not only the local journal but also the Dunstan Times as a “rag,” I must admit that lam not thereby influenced. The opinion, ti-aced to its source, is worth little and by condescending to notice the efforts of this “ Simon Pure ” 1 should but insult the feeling of your more refined readers. I would ask sober-minded men to pause. Men who ought to study to afford a chance for the rising generation ; and those miners who follow perhaps" the most independent and. legitimate calling in the world would do well to remeral er that they are hut a section, and that the storekeeper, the butcher, and the baker are as essential to their existence as is the gold for which they seek. To remove the income tax from off these large mining claims, and place the same upon the man who is surrounded by a large family, who invested his all and cannot move, who has to train and educate those children is, to my mind, a shifting of the saddle from off the right horse to the hack of the wrong. If the Mining Association’s views were held by the authorities to be sound, the duty imposed upon the necessary domestic articles would have to suffer a considerable increase. It is all very well for Mr Buchan to cajole and hoodwink people ; it is all very well for him to pride himself and spread his wings, but I hope he is ot a different stamp to that which 1 conceive, and that he will prove what he would fondly have others believe he is—- “ the benefactor,” the regenerator of the mining community. The opportunities for acquiring claims are not what they were, and I think a stranger on any well-defined lead would experience a little difficulty in “ pegging out his ground and, however distressing it may he, it nevertheless remains as a naked fact that our goldfields are fast drifting into the hands of capitalists. The alluvial workings in this district are speedily being wrought out, and the quartz reefs and commanding water races are now held by the capitalists. In the face of this what excuse can be urged by these demagogues against the gold tax.