MINING REPORT.

Kumara Times, Issue 1733, 20 April 1882, Page 2

MINING REPORT.

[By our Special Mining Reporter.] April 20, 1882. Since the telegrams appeared in the Kumara Times announcing that the Hon. Win. Kolleston’s good sense had triumphed over departmental imbecility and ml-tapeism the miners on the field have again .set to work with a will, and, if not again interfered with, will soon make up for lost time. The Woodstock rush fever is also on the wane, and we shall, ere another week have a lot of our prodigal sons returning to the homes tea 1. Of comse the fatted c-ilf will lie killed, especially if they bring hack with them a, few frieiidg. There is room for all, and plenty of spare ground yet to he taken up, and a guarantee, given against duffers. As it is there are a few stiangers on the look otlt, and rumors are afloat that the tape-line vyilf soon be at work in the fancy localities. The proposals submitted by 'Messrs Fitz Gerald and Sedd m are consideted very fair,- both to the Government and the miners and it is tisotirco of satisfaction that the principles therein laid down are to be adopted. Fiom the letter written to those gen'lemen by the Hon. the Minister of Minos (and which appeared in your issue of the 36 h inst.) it would appear that the water-race regulations previously in force are to remain in force; and so there will be no change in that respect; dnd claims opening out will be allowed the usual two months’ free water to open out with; afterwards they will only be asked to pay up after each washing. Where unforeseen circumstances arise, it will be in the discretion of the manager, as in the past, to act liberally with those who are unlucky. There is one clause of the proposals which I differ slightly with, and that is as regards priority • f right being determined alone by date of application or use of water. This may be, in the time of drought when water is scarce, worked to the disad- \ ant-age of the community at large, seeing the old identities might have the use of the whole of the water, whilst others might he idle for weeks. This would not he right, because the tace is public property and made for the benefit of all. Minms arriving at Kumara six months hence have as much interest in the race and to its Use as has the miner who. fiist set foot in Kumara. If th's were not so it would just he as well to argue that those who first arrived in the colony had a prior right to New Zealand, and that all new chums should he excluded, or, like the Chinese, 1 e called upon to pay a poll-tax. Any arbitrary • ule of this kind would piove injurious, and it would he impossible for our population to increase; and with such terms staring them in the face, seeing that it is a well-known fact that the water-supply is sure to be inadequate to the demand, many miners at present on the field would he deterred fiom opening oat their claims for sluicing. What I would suggest is that each claim should have the water turned on in rotation for a stated period, said period to be determined by the race manager, and that preference as to who should have the first water might be given to those claims longest opened out. But to say that they should have water day

after day aud others walk about idle for weeks, would-be*, monstrous. In many tbinse I‘go With “ the irrepreaand am ft thorough believer in old Fits. j but in this t di&*r, and unless some satisfactory explanation is " ive . n ,’ why I J“ Ust arrive the conclusion tbaTloo nincli traveling or perhaps a severe attack of sea-sickness had Slightly confused their reasoning faculties. - As regards for use of SaiWd principle wag the questiod of using water would' determine the use of sludge-channel, file recomraenda'tion was altogether 4 unnecessary, unless that those bright luminaries' who luxuriate under the site of Government emplby, to mkkti amends for the past have invented a method by wkick tailings are to be blown through the chad: nel instead of washed by water j or' better still, that our friend the ingenious blacksmith of concrete-block fame had discovered the only means of usin<* the two tramways at each side of till sludge-channel bdxea to advantage; Being no secret, and as no patent is to be applied for, I-will briefly explain this wonderful contrivance, which is neither diore nor leas than that all the tail-races for the first half-mile of the sludge-chajinel are to disdharge intd hoppers made on the saihe principle aS those used for dredging purposes, hav: ing wheels affixed on each side, top and bottom; dud being worked by an end: less chain, so contrived that they will come down one side tram way full, and return empty on the other, the full backets pulling tip the empty dues. If motive, power is required that one of Edison’s electric motors be sent fon When I heard this I pitched my tile id the air and shod ted “ Hurrah j there’s still hope for Kumara j” And why not I science must conquer. The ingenuity of man made si After all the science displayed iti the construction of the slddge-channel by dur local engineers, the only fitting -finishing touch would be to place side by side with it Edison’s latest discovery im : proved upon by La Fronde, f his done the Christchurch Exhibition would be put for ever in the shade; Kunlara would be the centre of attraction • and Jemmy Rngg’spile made for a certainty. In "fact the traffic on thd Christchurch r-iad would be so great that in the. end the East and West Coast Railway promoters would see the utility of at once pushing on the work without delay. Then would he the opening ceremony by his Excellency j of course he would have to visit tbd famous sludge-channel, wliick had wrought such wonders, and in the end what else but knighthood must folioW; Yes, all the diggers would with ond voioeshont “Let letters patent lie issued, and make him Sir John—and Jet old Davie be appointed equerry in waiting •’* After that shew me the. man thhfc threatened violence, and bedad I'll give him a sudden dip in the race, which will put an end to his enthusiasm and teach him to be better in the future. If that, was not sufficient to impress upOti him the necessity of. behaving like U sensible man and worshipping ability; why I’d lay. an information against him and bring him before Mr Strat s ford ; and if, after he’d been brought to the Court for six Court days in suddession without having the majesty of the law vindicated, a.nd after having the word “ adjourned” drummed into bis ears until chronic deafness had set in, why, all that I can say is. that he must be ong of the most case-hardened and obtuse evildoers that eVer located himself in any of hei* most gracious Majesty’s dominions.