MINING INTELLIGENCE.

Kumara Times, Issue 1693, 3 March 1882, Page 2

MINING INTELLIGENCE.

[By ouk Special Mining Repobteb. j Friday, March 3. “ Pull devil, pull baker,” seems to be the motto of the Mines Department, until at last all energy must bo crushed out of our Knmara miners. Not content with stringing on the repairs to the Kapitea dam and blocking of the sludge-channel, now that the weather is favorable and water plentiful, all works must be stopped again. Ani for what? Simply because the department wish to introduce a new svstem of collecting water accounts ; or, in plainer terms, Government are demanding payment for water before it is nsed or sold. There is an old axiom that the only bad payers are those who pay beforehand, and those who never pay. In the first category the miners of Knmara are to be classed: and without any just cause or reason. It is very questionable if Government have made £IOO bad debts for sale of water since Knmara broke out. It is too hard and unjust, therefore, to make a demand for payment of water in advance, and that without a minute’s An highwaj’man demands from his victim your purse or your life; but the criminal records seldom if ever pioved a case, that because the victim had no money that he was therefore maltreated. The Government demand money in advance, or no water. This to the miner is his life ; and at the present junctur e those miners opening out info the sludge-channel, after lying idle for mouths ; and, with having to construct tail-races, drive tunnels, erect machinery, etc., besides having to support themselves and families, have all their ready cash expended, and most of them have not a shilling, hut indeed are in debt. Therefore, to make this demand upon them at the present juncture is unjust and tyrramcal, and no firm conducting its business on sound commercial principles would ever dream of doing it. If notice were given that after the first washing-up the money for wafer would have to be paid in advance, or security for its payment

?iven, then there might be less grounds tor complaint. As it is, there is quite a damper thrown over the field, and the miners 'complain bitterly of the harsh treatment they are receiving at the hands of those addle-headed beings who tire in charge of the Mines Department. Now, as regards the latest ukase in connection with the sluclge-channel'j matters Are far worse; All sluicing into it must be stopped until the miners have acquired certificates for their tail; races under, the “ Minds Act, 1877.” Seeing that in every case this has alieady_ been done, it wolild appear, as though there are Some conditions or other as tp the payment that. Government wish to impose, and that fresh applications in Bach case are necessary. Now, if the department haVe been la* when these rights were acquired, that is nb reason why one hundred men should be Stopped from work.until the defect is remedied. The Government have the sole right to the channel and caii stop any party sluicing into it unless they agree to pay the amount fixed upon, namely, 15s per week per man; and also conform to the conditions as to safe working, die. 'There is not one party who would object to applying afresh for their tail-races, surrendering their present rights, and allowing fair conditions being imposed on the new certificates ] but, seeing that a month must elapse before this could be done, to remain idle that length of time would be an act wholly unjustifiable and outrageous. The miners should put their position fairly before the Government, and that without delay ; and then, perhaps, the order to stop sluicing might be rescinded. It is pure ignoi> ance of the circumstances connected with the working of the sludge-channel that Causes these egregious blunders td occur. When the Minister of Mines was here, the department in Wellington could not inform him how much thd miners were to pay for sluicing into’ channel, but had to refer back to thd columns of the KumaraTimes for what took place' at a public meeting held iti DillmaU s Town neaily two years agoi This, in the face of the department having spent some £14,000 on the Work, speaks for itself \ and, as the miners put it, “ What next!” tTndef these trying circumstances my visit through the field was Anything but pleasant, and it was naught but complaints from one end to the other, thd only pleasant news I heard being thai two ot the mates in Jones’s claim, Ross Terrace, bad hottgbt out Scott Irvine, and paid him in hard cash £450. This is the highest figure yet paid for ariy share in Eutuafa.