NELSON.
From the latest papers received, we take the following paragraphs:— Council.—Since Tuesday the Council has got through a considerable amount of business. The Debentures Bill, the Education Loan Bill, and the Nelson Gold Fields Occupation Bill, are either passed or have reached their last stage ; the Waste Lands Bill has been read a second time,
and other measures are before the Council. The only debate of any great public interest since that on the address on Tuesday, was on a motion of Mr. Saimdors, on Thursday evening, who, in a roundabout manner, got up**a debate upon the hind credit system, which the Council negatived by twelve to eleven.— Examiner, Jan. 10.
" Presentation of a Purse to the Rev. F. H. Butt. —A purse of 165 sovereigns, collected principally from amongst his late parishioners, was presented to the Key. F. H. Butt, and Mrs. Butt, on Thursday last, as a token of respect and regard. The reverend gentleman, who has, for about thirteen years, been the resident Church of England clergj'man in the town !of Nelson, is about to remove to the Wairau, to take charge of the spiritual interests of that important district, and the purse which has been presented to him was collected in the course of a few days from amongst those friends whose esteem the reverend gentleman has won in the vocation in which he has hitherto labored here.— lbid, Jan. 23. THE AORERE GOLD FIELDS. The following is a letter to the Editor of the f Wellington Independent': —
Sir, —I am a digger just returned to Wellington from the Nelson Gold Fields, where I worked at tomming, sluicing*, and turning the Slate River, from the 3rd of September up to Christmas Day; and, as I was nearly four years on the Victorian Gold Fields, I am requested to give the people of Wellington (through the medium of your paper) my opinion as to the probability or otherwise of the Nelson district ever becoming a rich gold field, and I do so with pleasure. From the time I arrived on the field up to December, the labour of the diggers and the-search for gold was greatly.retarded by aMnost a continual fall of rain. Surfacing in dry spots in gullies and flats was the principal employment of the diggers during that period. And as far as yet discovered, the heaviest deposits and richest spots of gold lay in the beds of rivers and g-ullies, which during the heavy rains could not be got at. In some few instances, > parties succeeded by personal exertion, and at a great expense, in turning the Slate River for short distances from its natural course, and by the means of pumps got at the wash dirt, and were amply rewarded; still they must have lost much of the gold, as is always the case when the wash dirt is taken up with a shovel from water. Other parties again worked hard for months in trying to turn the river by means of dams formed b} r large boulders and earthworks, and just as the river was turned, and the rich deposits seen, down comes a heavy night's rain, and away go the dams; and in the morning when these unfortunate parties turned out, discovered, to their horror, that all their long cherished hope of a rich harvest was washed away while they lay fast asleep. Thus many parties suffered on the Nelson Gold Fields while I was there. The surfacing in dry patches in the rivers and creeks is very poor indeed. A party with a sluice can barely earn enough to pay for their food, and ' many did not do even that. These causes, no doubt, gave rise to the rumour pre- | valent here that the Nelson Gold Fields j have turned out a failure. This is not I true; the Nelson Gold Fields are rich and very remunerative, and when the proper method of working them • and the talent and capital wanted to apply machinery is once brought to bear upon them, the yield will be such as to greatly enrich the parties themselves, as well as all the British settlements of New Zealand, and raise the value of labour in all parts of New Zealand; and that fact once established, the influx of immigration to New Zealand will be great, and the sale and occupation of land in all the settlements will be in proportion no doubt. The class of people now on these diggings are generally honest and hard working men. But they have not the capital, though some may have the talent, to employ the machinery requisite to work the field scientifically and profitably. What would the Melbourne Gold Fields now be if it were not for the introduction of machinery there ? Nothing at all equal to what they are, and it is not unlikely that they would ere now have been abandoned except by a few Chinamen-like diggers, picking up , what was left by others. For these reasons I would humbly suggest that the merchants and wealthy people of all the settlements of New Zealand, having the interests of the colony at heart, might form themselves into a company or companies of shareholders, and get out steam
engines and quartz crushing machines, and other requisite appliances to work the field with. The diggers at present are too poor to do so. The quartz on the quartz ranges and in other localities at the heads of the rivers is deeply and richly impregnated with gold, but very fine. Deep sinking and tunnelling the hills hare been tried but very partially; I feel sure that both would pay well. There again capital is wanted. A few storekeepers and grog-sellers living among the diggers have now and then subscribed small sums to encourage prospecting. But that is not all that is wanted, it is not fifty, sixty, or even a hundred pounds that will gain the end in view. Let all the settlers, and especially the wealthy, subscribe towards a general fund to pay for trying the field in every way and in every direction, and I venture to predict that the result will pay them a million-fold by the increase it will give to business, and the rise in wages which the discovery of a rich gold field at their doors will and must produce. It is not fair that the wealthy amongst us should hoard up their wealth to make use of hereafter, when the poor man unaided by them finds, by much labour hard living and dangerous travelling, a sure commodity for him to speculate with hereafter.
Your's, respectfully, G. M. Lever. Jan. 7, 1858.
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Lyttelton Times, Volume IX, Issue 550, 10 February 1858, Page 4
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1,109NELSON. Lyttelton Times, Volume IX, Issue 550, 10 February 1858, Page 4
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