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Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 233, 22 July 1865, Page 2

A change in the Goldfields department in our neighborhood is about to be made under very peculiar circumstances. We intend to refer to the subject hereafter as part and parcel of a thoroughly rotten system. The present case stands something like the following:—When the Wardens' salaries were reduced to £4OO per annum—at which rate no magistrate could support himself becomingly on the Upper Shotover —Mr Aylmer applied for removal to a less expensive district. The upshot, we learn, is the removal of Mr Aymler as a sub-warden to Mount Ida - his pay to be £4OO, as heretofore—and Mr Simpson is to take Mr Ay)mer's place as subwarden, at a salary of £550 per annum; and Mr Anderson—who was to have been removed—remains to assist Mr Simpson! Proceedings like these must demoralise any body, and we consider reflect great discredit upon the Goldfields Department, who have acted very peculiarly, to use no severer term. We have not a word to say against Mr Simpson, whose rapid progress in the service testifies to his ability and usefulness; but it does seem strange that a gentleman like Mr Aylmer should have his salary cut down to £4OO, and that when he applies to be removed to another district —merely for the sake of economising his expenses—should not have had the first offer now made to Mr Warden Simpson. Mr Aylmer has given general satisfaction in his district, and is much respected. We learn that action is to be taken in the matter, and public meetings are to be held on the Upper Shotover. The reduction made in the police pay has been sufficient to cause the resignation of some of the married members of the force in the district. The case stands thus :—Pay for August, £3 10s per week; out of which a man has to pay 2s 4d per week for uniform and other expenses, leaving £3 7s 8d for rent, firewood, living, &c.—a sum totally inadequate to meet the ordinary liabilities of a man with a family, and thus the force is losing many of its ablest men. In the case of Cameron v Cochrane, heard in the Resident Magistrate's Court, before R. Beetham, Esq., the Couit gave a judgment in favor of the plaintiff for £7 10s as the defendant was unable to sustain the plea he had raised of a defective title. The first and second numbers of the 'Dunedin Herald' have reached us. The spirit and tone seem to be liberal, and altogether, it is very creditably brought out. We wish our new contemporary every success.