The Evening Star SATURDAY, MARCH 26, 1870.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2149, 26 March 1870, Page 2

The Evening Star SATURDAY, MARCH 26, 1870.

Private enterprise has clone ■wonders in supplying water to mining districts ; and with great advantage to raceowners and miners. But there are limits to private means, and where quartz mining is concerned, the heavy expense of machinery, even where the prospects are brilliant, presents a barrier to investments in other directions. We know that it is an accepted axiom with many that the construction of reproductive works is not within the province of the Government to interfere with. But this, even if true within given limitations, is not applicable to the question of supplying water to the goldfields. There are certain works in all Colonies that, not done by the Government or encouraged by it, would never be done at all. It is purely a commercial question, which the Province can easily answer, and involves a principle that is applicable alike to roads, railways, bridges, and other means of internal development. Land without roads is comparatively valueless, because, however plentiful, the cost of conveying its produce to a market is greater than the price obtainable for it. In like manner the rich reefs at Cromwell, unless the means of extracting the gold are provided, may be considered valueless ; for if the mining companies have each to be at the expense of obtaining water supply for their needs, although ultimately the enterprise might prove profitable, it would be beyond their ability to achieve. The goldfields form a very valuable portion of the public estate, but they are like land without roads if the requisites for working them are not present. A farmer when buying land calculates whether accessibility to a market will enable him to farm to a profit; and if he finds the cost of carriage exceeds the price he can get for his produce, he will not buy. It is necessary, therefore, to construct a road in order to give value to the public estate. Without such access there can be no settlement of the country, for people will not nowadays go into a wilderness to be shut out from society, and grow their own food, spin the wool they require, and manufacture the fabrics they wear. It is a pure question of cost. And so with gold. Water is as necessary to its cheap production as roads to the cultivation of land, A full supply renders a comparatively poor goldfield valuable—without water the richest ground is valueless for it cannot be worked. The prospects of the Cromwell Reefs are equal to the richest in Auckland, and their extent is such that an enormous population can be profitably employed upon them for many years to come. But they require water to work them, and it is absent. It manifestly therefore comes as truly within the definition of a public work to supply the goldfields with water as to make a road. It is giving value to that which would otherwise he useless; for a miner in making his calculation of chances, says, “ I could work the ground on the “ the terms prescribed by the Govern- “ ment if there were water; but as there is not it will not pay me.” There is, however, a peculiarity about water supply to the goldfields which ought not to be lost sight of. In dry districts were such supply is requisite, when the gold is worked out the water supply remains useful for irrigation and domestic purposes. Nor must it be supposed that this is a small advantage. With the prospect of many years of mining before us, a large population will inevitably be gathered together in those rich spots which will thus become centres of population. As time rolls on, lines of communication converging there will give permanence to them as places of trade, and in all probability, centuries after the last ounce of gold has been taken from the soil, the water race will yield its store to generations who will have almost forgotten the golden tradition connected with it. If, therefore, the Government were to construct the races and reservoirs, they would only be acting in the spirit of a landholder improving Ids estate in order that his revenue might be increased ; but according to the plan proposed at Cromwell, all that is asked is a guarantee of interest to those who will provide the capital. This may be very safely granted, for with such well founded prospects as are presented by the Cromwell reefs, if the commonest prudence is exercised on the part of the projectors, there is little danger that the Government will ever be called upon to contribute a sixpence.