ALTERATION OF GRADES IN TAIL-RACES.

Kumara Times, Issue 2606, 13 January 1885, Page 2

ALTERATION OF GRADES IN TAIL-RACES.

We understand that ail parties having claims whose tail races connect with the sludge-channel and the fall of whose such tail-race exceeds 8| inches to the 12 feet have been notified that the fall must be reduced, or they will not be supplied with Government water for sluicing purposes. “Justice ” writes to a contemporary on the subject as follows:

John Grow, Esq., Manager of the Wairnea-Kawhaka and Kumara WaterRaces, and Kumara Slough of Despond, or Kumara Curse, has again been troubled with a severe bilious attack—strange to say these ever recurring attacks always come on at the expiration of the temporary permits.. On this occasion, no doubt, the severity of the attack has been accelerated owing to the appointment of a brand new Minister of Mines, J. O. fondly hopes, by causing dissension amongst the miners on the field, that the past maladministration and incompetence will be forgotten and not brought under the new Minister’s notice on the occasion of his shortly contemplated visit. The question of priority or non-priority having been for the time amicably settled, the next move to ferment is the question of large and small grade. The men are again set at each others throats. Illfeeling, imprecations, loss of time and ultimate poverty mast inevitably ensue. The storekeepers are lately fairly getting in their accounts; honest people were becoming more cheerful at the prospect of getting out of debt • wives and mothers were happy at seeing the bread winners contented, the children decently clad, and the clothes paid for; not a few of the young bachelors were thinking of matrimony; castles in the air had been erected. Alas, all bright hopes and expectations are suddenly blasted, dark gloom and misery again stares the majority in the face, the Tuislreet autocrat has issued his edict. All tail-races with more than Bfin, fall to the 12ft. box must be altered; or otherwise no water. “Put down the gauge, Davie !” « Aye, aye, sir,” says the factotum ; and thus are fifty men thrown out of employment, or made to swallow the alternative of working for 30s per week, one pound of which goes to Government for water and use of channel, and ten shillings to the miner. The life of a Siberian convict is preferable to that of a Kumara digger under such circumstances. Wet from top to toe for three hours a day. The other five hours rolling, lifting and blasting boulders, occasionally using dynamite, and daily running the risk of being blown to kingdom come, and all for 2s fid per day. Moore and party have only Din. fall to the 12ft. in their tailboxes, yet for the |in. fall to the box, or a total of l-|iu. in sixty feet they are ordered to do a fortnight’s dead work costing .£36. This loss is to be borne by them in the face of .a. • regulation which says, “ JL'ho cost oi any alterations

to tail-races shall be defrayed by Government.” Those injured waited upon his Majesty the Czar, and, like free men, demanded the reasons why and wherefore this wrong was done them. Owing perhaps to not having doffed the bonnet or tugged the lock, the follow, ing is a summary of the answer given : No, I have no instructions from Wellington ; I am doing this on my own responsibility, Seddon’s the cause of no allowance for stoppages ; ask him why the tail-races have to be altered. Why don’t you agitate for cheaper water. Oh, you’ll get over this in time; the sluice and boxes in the paddock don’t form part of the tail-race so you can’t claim compensation. This is a splendid time to make the alteration ; you have all all just washed up and the blocks are out of the boxes. There’s a few more who have too much fall that drop out in time. I’ll drop their fall and tar you all with the same brush. These are only a few of the pleasantries that men have to listen to and swallow, the converting of a payable claim into one that wont pay tucker, the ruin of a man and his family are made the subject of coarse brutal jests, It is not therefore to be wondered at that men have determined to resent such treatment. In no place upon God’s earth would men having a spark of manhood in them and loving their freedom put up with such treatment, The bushranger who cried “Stand and deliver” only took the valuables upon you at the time, you were then free to depart in peace. The nigger driver or galley slave overseer of Tui street week after week plies the lash: men may withe and groan under the torture. More I want, thud goes the lash ; more I’ll have, thud goes the lash. You’re too well off; you’re putting too much stuff through ; brace him up to the triangle in the order given : swish comes down the lash. At last in desperation, the slave on being freed rhakes a bolt. Yes, what had been honourable men previousls, at the dead of night pack up their swrgs and take the insolvent track. Several did so this Christmas. Others sold out in disgust. A few* months ago, a claim at Larrikins was worth .£IOSO ; last week a change of owners took place, the value given, being £250. The ground is just as good, little has been washed away ; the workings are fairly opened out; £2OO worth of plant in the claim ; the menhave spent three years labor ; yet all is thrown up in disgust, owing to the inroads of the Tni-street blight. Sane men will naturally ask why is all this done, and for whose benefit ? Surely Government cannot wish such a stale of things to exist. In a few lines I will point out why it is done and the effect of it:— Ist. It sets man against man; the man with small fall in bis tail-race is made to believe that the men with greater fall is his enemy and injuring him by causing the channel to block. This hides the real cause of the channel blocking, which is the uneven paving and the want of flush water at the head. As a proof of this, last Saturday there was no big grade fall claims on, yet the channel blocked for over half an hour. 2nd. Reducing the grade makes the profit of the contractors for extension, maintenance, and attendance, whilst working, greater. It is a well-known fact that the lowest tenderers for these jobs are those who, in the past, have been designated pensioners, hangers on, etc. These terms have been wrongfully applied, for the Government employes, like Caesar’s wife, are above suspicion. One of the tenderers was so elated at the prospect of the grades being reduced, and his tender being accepted, that at the sports on the Recreation Ground he shouted, “Hurrah John Gow’s an angel; bless Dick Seddon ; come on boys ! let’s all whisky up!” Joking apart, if the grades had been reduced before the tenders closed, no doubt the price of the work would have been lowered. No one knows this better than the Manager. Reducing the grades now profits alone the contractors and is no saving to the Government. 3rd, Reducing the grades and giving each claim only five heads of water means preventing the construction cf the second sludge-channel. If there is to be a uniformity in grades there must necessarily follow a uniformity in the amount of water supplied to each claim. Where is the water to come from if the supply is not increased, but decreased. Hence, those with small fall now using eight heads will bo reduced to six; this the Manager has publicly stated. In such u case, no benefit but a loss to the small grade claim-holders will ensue, if all are tarred with the same brush, each claim having only five heads of water and a grating nine inches square, for submit to lower the grades and the grating comes next. The second channel will »ot be required, and the Manager will

get an extra stripe and fifty extra upon his five hundred for having saved the expenditure of £2OOO. 4th, The strange work of petitioning against the second channel has been done by..private tail-race owners, of course none connected with the sludgechannel or especially the manager would besmudge themselves with such questionable employment. Still ’tis strange that the reduction in grades, or virtually the enlargement of the old channel, should be con temporaneons with the endeavour to stop the construction of the new channel. Strange coincidence ! passing strange, very ! sth. Will the claims having large grades pay if the grades are reduced ? No; in six cases out of eight, no. Reduction of grade means extra water, and extra water means extra gold, and it is not in the ground, and if it was,

extra water is not available without depriving others of it. Lastly, what is the cure for this ever recurring disease with which Kuraara has been eternally blasted 1 Eno’s Fruit Salt, Hop Bitters, Siegel’s Syrup, Holloway’s and Ayer’s Pills all are advertised to cure each and every disease under the sun, but in this case their curative properties might just as well be tried on a granite boulder. The advice given though with these medicines, to first remove the cause, and then the disease is easily got rid of, would well apply. It has been thought wise in the public interest to remove wardens. Why not remove watei-raco managers. Cheaper water might come, peace and contentment would come. A civil water man might arrive with a change of manager. Therefore, like men, hold to your rights. The new Minister of Mines, Mr Larnach, is just, firm, and generous, and will stand no humbug. Stand together, and demand the removal of Mr Gow, and the observance of your just rights.