THE GOLD FIEDS WATER SUPPLY SCHEME.

Grey River Argus, Volume X, Issue 866, 6 May 1871, Page 2

THE GOLD FIEDS WATER SUPPLY SCHEME.

Our opinions on the Gold Fields Water Supply question are fully shared, in Otago. One of the Dunedin papers — the Evening Stor — and which has latterly been credited with drawing its inspiration from the Government, writes as follows :— Our present question is, how to make our share of the L 300,000, whatever it may be, go the furthest. If whatever portion falls to our lot is to be invested in lumps, the advantage derivable from it will be partial and unequal. As soon as it is known to be available, there will be a scramble amongst our mining districts as to where it shall be laid out. The Council will be inundated with petitions. Our new members will be charged with commissions to represent the claims of their constituents, and woe be to the man

who does not succeed by log-rolling, or any other means fair or unfair, to secure a pretty large share of the money. The question the Council will be called upon to decide then is, how the money proposed to be lent by the General Government can be reproductively invested, with equal advantage to the different mining districts of the Province. It must be evident that tnis recoupment must be kept steadily in view. The Province will have to act upon precisely similar principles t3 a manufacturer investing money in plant, from the use of which he not only calculates upon deriving an income, but on receiving back the principle in a given number of years. In the case of a gold field, the problem is whether the two, principal and interest, can be repaid, at a stated price per head for water, by the time the gold field is worked out, where the mining is alluvial ; or in a specilied time on quartz reefs. In order to secure this, and extend the benefits of water supply as widely as possible, it seems probable that the best plan would be for the Government to act on a similar principle to building societies, and make advances on security of the works themselves on such terms as to ensure the repayment of principal and interest within given periods. We believe we are correct in stating that through the absence of aid of this sort several projected races have not been begun, and others already started and partially cut, remain unfinished. In fact, it seems so plain and palpable that the co-operative principle, as applied by building and land societies and insurance companies, is equally applicable to works like water races, that it seems to have been an oversight on our parts, as a mining community, not to have thought of it before. There are manifest advantages in this style of dealing with the money. The necessity that, as a prior condition to its advance, a certain amount of private capital should be invested, will ensure that no work of the sort will be projected like the Oamaru Dock, for the mere purpose of having money expended in the locality ; and the care required not to advance money on ill-conceived or illcontrived works will be a security against the projectors themselves being assisted in unprofitable undertakings. It is plain that both the Provincial and General Governments are bound before consenting to make the advance, to have the necessary surveys made ; and as these must be entrusted to competent men, such a system presents the best security against those engineering blunders that have not been uncommon, in the uncientific methods followed by many who have attempted such works. The laying down of such a system, we imagine, would meet with the concurrence of the General Government, with which it is becoming absolutely the Province should work in harmony.