MINING REPORT.

Kumara Times, Issue 1712, 25 March 1882, Page 2

MINING REPORT.

[By our Special Mining Reporter.] Saturday, March 24. Growl ! growl ! growl ! Yes, an everlasting growl ! That is about the nearest description you reporter cau give as to the stale of the field this week. And no one whu is sane can find fault with the miners for feeling annoyed. Unfortunate Knmara! always something incurring to mar it* prosperity and advancement. Wait till the sludge-channel is finished, and the dam repaired, and then three months will tell a tule ! Old times will be revived, and the place will be itself again. What mockery ! The sludge-channel is completed, the dam is" re| aired, and mark the result—all hands are idle ! One hundred heads of water, value to the colony £SO per day, are running to waste down the Ivapitea Creek ! The coaches to Hokitik* are filled with our miners going to the Woodstouk rush. The usual good-bye is given ; and so at present may good-bye be given to the good things expected from the completion of the public works at Knmara. No wonder water-races have not paid 1 per cent, oh coat of construction. It is impossible for them to pay so long as red tape and imbecility reign supreme. If a private company were the owners of the very valuable property now held by the Government in the shape of the Waimea water-race and, Knmara sludgechannel, it would in twelve months from this declare a dividend of 10 petcent., and carry forward a nice sum to the reserve fund. But the directors would, in their exercise of common sense, consider it advisable to change their officers. It is root and branch requires changing, otherwise it is impossible any good can follow. There are too many drones in the hive ; there are too many bush-wood spoilers hanging ou and putting in their time; thei°e are too many family parties tendoning privately; there is too much favoritism*; and there is too much of the tax-payers' money wilfully and negligently squandered. Desperate diseases require desperate remedies, aid the oidy efficient remedy would be to have an inquiry held by competent and impartial men into the following matters : First,. Why is it that £36,0:;0 of the public moneys have been expended, and that at the present time no title for the properties upon which this amount has been'expanded can be shewn? or why the Government cannot sue for moneys owing for benefits derived fur" sale of wateu and use of sludge-channel ? Second, Why it is that that a work estimated to cost £SOOO should have cost £15.000? Third, Why it is that an orifice has beeu i>ored into the bowels of the earth forty chains long by six feet high by twelve feet wide tocairy a sluice t>ox three feet high hy three feet wide? and that after going the distance of j forty chains, where op to that distance j there were no parties to use the sludge- j channel, it was discovered that eight '

feet wide was sufficient for tbe part of the work where all the sluicing was to be done 1 Fourth, Why is the lamentable fact recorded that four meu were, without warning, hurried into eternity, and that the sorrow-stricken widows mourn the loss of their husbands, and whenever the sludge-channel is mentioned, a tear springs to their eyes as they look upou their fatherless children, and spontaneously the words spring to their lips—- " Curse the sludge-channel ?" Fifth, Why is it that men have been coaxed into driving tunnels ten or twelve huDdted feet long, and have, with the full knowledge of the race management, acquired titles to these tunnels, and that now they are asked to commence anew, and by intimidation are forced to wrong themselves by making application for rights which are entirelv unnecessary 1 Sixth, Why it is that at a time when every drop of water could be sold, that valuable water is running to waste down the Kapitea Creek 1 Seventh, Why it is that every yard of earth in the Kapitea dam has cost the colony ten shillings? and thut any navvies would perform the work and consider themselves well paid at 2s 6d per yard 1 Eighth, Why it is that on three occasions the Kapitea dam has broken away, and that the only problem to solve is how can a dam be built in the Kapitea Creek that will staucl—dimensions, 1| chains wide, 20 feet in length < earthwork preferred ? The timber in the past having turned shoe-pile up, with care. What a frightful exhibition those shoes exposed ; aucl yet they were snpposed to be eight feet in the ground. Eighteen inches was the average when the unexpected, and to Kuraara ' the fortunate, exposure took place. And so, ad infinitum, could a volume be filled of similar exposures of the wilful waste caused by ignorance and incapability. The week ending March 25th, 1882, is and should be chronicled as a black spot on the Mines Depart, ment of the colony of New Zealand ; and no matter who is to blame, it discloses a iiittdt unfortunate state of affairs. The Civil Service has all but put the colony into the Bankruptcy Court, and the race management has done its level best to ruin the miners of Kumara. Al! things must end, and so perhaps abruptly will end the present blundering.