THE HAURAKI GOLD-FIELD.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 13, Issue 656, 15 February 1869, Page 3

THE HAURAKI GOLD-FIELD.

[saoai ouij own corbespoxdext.] Shorthand, Feb. 3. In my last I anticipated an export of over 20,000 ounce" per 'Siam'j her actual freight was, I believe, 23,010 ounces. Apropos of this, the New Zealand Herald gave the export as 24,000 ounces, or nearly 990 ounces more than the correct amount, even when the true figures were obtainable. Besides this, only a week previous to that date, the name journal, in an article on our gold-fields, stated that the 'Siarn' would take away 20,000 ounces for three of the Banks, and over 30,000 ounces if the fourth Bank also shipped by her. I doubted the correctness of the fi<mres at the time ; the result shows their unreliability. If the Herald could not give the figures correctly on the very day the ship cleared at the Custom?, when could it be depended on % Either the ' Queen Bee' or 'Countess of Kintore' will probably take the next shipment; both are advertised to sail in February. If both do so sail, they ought to take say 25,000 ounces between them, or our gold-field is a duffer. Lately great complaints have been made about the loss of gold at the machines. If I offer an opinion, there is unavoidably some loss of gold, and in some cases it may be serious : but I believe in the aggregate these losses are much exaggerated. Holders by purchase, when they find the result of crushings very unsatisfactory, ask why. Original holders who have sold portions of their interest, or induced friends to bay, reply that it is the fault of the machines. The small actual loss is thus charged with the great difference between expected yields and actual ditto. If the published accounts of the great meeting at Ohinemuri are genuine, the opening of that district is not likely to be effected peaceably at present; and I suppose our rulers have plenty of scope to display their talents in military strategy in other places, without provoking another little war. When all organised armed opposition in other districts has been quelled, the opponents of Pakeha and progress in the Upper Waiho may yield peaceably to fate, and accept the coined gold of the Pakeha in exchange for that (if any) now laying in its matrix, or in the brjpoks adjacent.