THE SLUDGE-CHANNEL AND TAILINGS SITE TROUBLES.

Kumara Times, Issue 2398, 9 May 1884, Page 2

THE SLUDGE-CHANNEL AND TAILINGS SITE TROUBLES.

[to the editor.] Sir—l perceive that a great calamity is likely to come od our special settlement up the Teremakau by means of the sludge-channel. So our engineer stated on Friday last in the Warden’s Court. If this settlement is flooded, it is likely the Government will have to pay heavy damages as compensation, as there are three settlers, with 50 acres each, and not ten of that cleared. Why, this discovery is as great as that of the engineer in Victoria who found he could make water run down hill through a tunnel. But he can prevent all this by means of a grating. Happy thought 1 Well, the channel engineering and management speaks for itself; it has turned one of the richest goldfields in New Zealand to be one of the poorest; and turned what would be a happy and wealthy community to be poor and discontented, and filled with the most bitter feelings that T have ever witnessed against the ruling power since the days of the Ballarat or Lambing Flat riots. And what wonder ! There are thirty claims opened into the proverbial channel, at, say, a cost of .£I2OO each, and before the claim.owners have got their debts paid, without any return for their hard work, they find that the manager is trying in every possible way to injure them—in fact, to virtually close the channel by means of the most arbitrary regulations, for there is not the least doubt that he has written every line of them ; and when defeated on code, he tries to bring in far worse in their place. It was stated by Warden Giles at the opening of the Commission of Inquiry that the regulations would stand in abeyance to the meeting of Parliament. What do we find in a few weeks 1 The most obnoxious code brought forward yet; and why? because he knows that they will be coi> sidered by the Goldfields Committee, in which there are practical men—some of them that are not ashamed to own that they wielded the pick and shovel as gold miners and know the grievances that miners suffer under, through the ignorance of those who administer the affairs of the goldfields. But we have a hope tin the present Government will soon see the end of their rope, and then we might get a new manager that would not know where the special settlement was, and rather encourage the miners than try to ruin them.

If the water and channel were in the hands of a company there would not be such paltry property in New Zealand, Instead of the per cent, that it now pays, it would pay 40 per cent, per annum. You will say, Why such a difference? Simply, a company would have their work done by contract instead of the standing army that is kept in connection with the water-race and channel, which swallows up the earnincs of both, and has done so since this field opened; and brings discredit on the place with the Government. And no can wonder at it. We might hope for better times if it was not for the discovery that we were going to swamp the special settlement tvhich is miles up the river, and 40 feet higher than the channel. No doubt the new Taipo bridge will be in danger when the next code comes on for consideration, with a resumption clause to claim back all grants, as he tried to take our certilicates of registration—the only protection the Mines Act gives us for the costly work we undertake. Hoping you will excuse my trespass—. I remain, yours, A Miner, Kumara, May 8, 18S4.