The Lake Wakatip Mail. Queenstown, Saturday Sept. 23, 1865.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 251, 23 September 1865, Page 2

The Lake Wakatip Mail. Queenstown, Saturday Sept. 23, 1865.

Had the policy this journal has consistently advocated from the first been pursued, the prospects of the Province would be more re-assuring than they are at present. The most cheering feature presented is that, for a limited number of men on the goldfields, the wages of laborers are high—ranging from £4 to £5 per week. At least, our metropolitan contemporary, the Dunedin * Times,' in its Summary, dwells at length upon this as a most satisfactory matter, and, to meet the scarcity of labor, alludes to the proposition made by the Chamber of Commerce to encourage the introduction of Chinese. Such then is the present stage of Otago. Mining pays the rate of wages named to a few men, and it is, therefore argued as a consequence that clairabolders are doing exceedingly well. If so, and we grant in several instances many are doing well, why should the Province have to seek Asiatic help to promote its prosperity ? Why is it asserted that the Province must look to the industrious habits and the cheap cost of living of the Chinamen as a source of strength? There is an apparent contradiction —dear labor held up on the one hand as a most satisfactory proof that the mining interest is most prosperous, while the merchants of Dunedin on the other hand are crying out for cheap Chinese labor •* to produce large quantities of gold" We find, in another portion of our contemporary's columns that the export of gold has been 1,800,631 ounces, or over 70 tons weight since the 1861. The export value of which has been over £7,000,000 sterling. Of the value of imported bullion—whether brought in by the hands of miners or speculators—it is impossible to form the vaguest conception of the enormous amount of wealth thus brought into this Province. Neither the few isolated cases of a small section of the community obtaining a high rate of wage, the exodus of the laboring and Industrious European Miners, the desire to replace them by an inferior population, are by any means what we consider satisfactory features. It certainly shows very good taste, that when the merchants of Dunedin had the opportunity of benefitting by so large a production of wealth they should have been unmindful of the men who raised Otago to importance, and many of their class to a state of affluence which they might never otherwise, in the course of their existence, have arrived at. It is certainly a most handsome way to appreciate such services. We ask them is this the soundest and wisest policy they can enunciate for the future weal of Otago—the introduction of their muchlauded pets, the Chinese ? We venture to put another question. Is the production of large quantities of gold a guarantee of permanent advantage; and if so, how is it that no real public advantages have been derived by the Province from the production of so much wealth ? Such is then the inward satisfactory feature of Otago, if we may judge from the

facts presented to us, The production of gold, not the settlement of the soil, or the opening up of the West Coast country is to continue to be the policy that shall guide Otago. European labor is to be depieciated, or at least, slightly esteemed, when compared to Chinese. The Province is to proceed on its course of success and production, by digging out gold. We assert that gold is not wealth to the Province unless it can be encouraged to remain in the Province, and that to pay it away in taxes, or for goods, breadstuff's, &c, will never make but a few of the trading class prosperous. Outside the Provinces matters are not a whit more cheering. The political action of the Province for separation has produced its effects. A new and more closely cemented party have sprung up, and the Government of the General Assembly have provided by means of their financial measures to put a stop to vain and foolish aspirations. The panaceas to be adopted, if the province is to flourish must be the liberal line of policy we have ever enunciated. We have no objection to high wages, or to the introduction of Chinese, provided that we have some signs of broad and sound legislation, and absence of tinkering arrangements.