The Lake Wakatip Mail. Queenstown, Saturday, July 9, 1864.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 125, 9 July 1864, Page 2

The Lake Wakatip Mail. Queenstown, Saturday, July 9, 1864.

Discarding political matters for a period, no more interesting subject can present itself than a concise examination of the position the district holds in reference to co-operative companies and associated labor. This necessarily involves an examination of the past and some reference to the future. We shall therefore have to divide the matter into two articles. It may safely be asserted that the Wakatip gold mining district has passed through the first phase of its existence. A few river claims remain to be worked out, but all, otherwise, is changed from the first commencement, and we are fast entering upon a fresh era. So gradual, as in all things sublunary, is the change that many fail to truly recognise its importance. Complaints of depression and dull times are current enough, and they are accounted for in various ways, and various reasons assigned for the change, but few ascribe the result to the true causes. The business man tells you that there is nothing doing and that he hopes something will soon break out. The digger strains every nerve and lends attention to rumors of West Coast Dorados or some other whispered rush. Each is hopeful that something new like the first stage i s always coming to pass again; each fails, however, to recognise the times. Nurtured in the bosom of the wild excitement, and prosperity attendant upon a successful rush, those who remain cannot or will not understand that they are now living upon a portion of the legacy left them from that brilliant beginning, that the era of golden dreams and rich harvests, gained almost without exertion, is past, and that the hard practical every day work period has arrived. To longer cherish extravagant hopes would show the possession of little wisdom. The real work has now to be done, and those who are not willing to assist in it will in the end find little encouragement to remain. The welfare of the district will have for the future to be fostered by its every inhabitant. To receive, one will now have first to give. This reaction may be to many a disagreeable circumstance, but it is none the less true. It has to be met and grappled with, and in no way more successfully than by the promotion of sound co-opera-tive companies. The example of Victorian goldfields illustrates this fully, and Tuapeka and the older goldfields to some further extent also. In some places the legacy a large rush left has not proved worth accepting. In others, where something might have been made of it, mismanagemant and false ideas of economy havj rendered it equally valueless, but in a few places the energy of those who

partook of the first advantages combined with the effusion of liberal ideas, has turned the legacy into a valuable field in which all can reap some advantage. We are on this turnpoint, and the residents of the district have, to a great extent, to decide at a critical period which of the last two positions they will occupy. Any pause in a transient state is so much lost time not to be recovered. We cannot help urging upon all the value of being up and doing. That the district affords a vast field for associated labor few will deny. The river claims yet require to be worked upon a systematic and extended scale. The terraces are untouched, literally speaking, and what little is known of them is extremely favorable. Quartz reefs, copper, and coal resources are a more difficult subject to dwell upon. Gold workings of the kind we have mentioned will always receive some attention though that may comparatively be very slight. We are glad to see, therefore, that a commencement has been made in the attempt to work one of the first named resources—viz, the Arrow Quartz Reef Company by a public association. We have nothing to do with the formation, plan, or extent of that company ; it may be well or ill arranged, but it remains still a step in the right direction. The extravagant ideas entertained by those who hold properties that are of general good and yet are privately possessed, cannot escape passing through the same ordeal like the rush on the larger scale we are now dwelling upon is passing through. The time will come sooner or later. The ordeal of examination is so extended, and people are now so thoroughly versed in the mysteries of mining companies that they may be safely left to take care of themselves. That room exists for several quartz mining companies we have ample proof, and the time will probably arrive when our copper ore resources will prove equally valuable. To attain at any satisfactory results we must obtain the introduction of capital. In a remote district like this a too liberal encouragement can hardly be offered to it. We have stated before, a fiuer field for its investment never existed, but any attempt to take advantage of that position and dictate extraordinary terms must, in the end, prove prejudicial. To this we cannot lend ourselves. Many promising enterprises are nipped in the bud for want of assistance in the shape of means to carry on necessary works. The Queenstown Prospecting Association are teaching a useful lesson, and showing the use that may be made of small contributions. Through all parts of the district the want of capital is felt. Our second stage of existence therefore depends on our lending a helping hand and carefully looking at the security tendered. The more—viewing the matter as a whole—that security is examined the better it will be appreciated.

The report, we lelieve, forwarded by Mr Wright, upon the resources and capabilities of this district will prove corroborative of all we can urge upon the people to take a part in developing the immense natural resources of the district they live in. Unfortunately, '

though this district contributes a large share of the revenue and the major portion of each gold escort, no information can be obtained from the government authorities on the spot, as to any fact that might more conclusively illustrate any movement. It is for a time buried in the mausoleum of the goldfields department. The General Government never withhold information about escort returns, &c< In the meantime, though this corroborative evidence may be wanting, it is the duty of every man who means to make this place his residence to take the position that through the natural altered state of affairs devolves upon him. The field is so large that apathy is inexcusable. The value of associated capital is shown by the few already at work, and while the past has been productive in many respects we should like to see present efforts more generally directed to conserve and maintain the supremacy of the Wakatip as the richest and most lasting goldfield of New Zealand. The subject is of so much importance that we shall return to it at an early date, as no opportunity should be neglected to turn to some advantage the large and profitable field that is open on the Wakatip.