WATER SUPPLY ON THE GOLDFIELDS.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 62, 8 April 1870, Page 3

WATER SUPPLY ON THE GOLDFIELDS.

There is a tide in the affairs' of Pro'vinces as well as those of men, and it must be evident to every person accustomed to a little reflection that a point will so on be reach ea in the history of the Province of Otago where a pause must be made, and t%e matter settled as to whether »ve are Ravelling to fortune or otherwise. "We have been progressing at a high . pressure speed Ave know, under the pleasing impression that we were fast becoming a wealthy people—can we not point to a Port Chalmers railway actually under contract, to a Clutha railway on paper, to our roads, to our bridges ; can we not prove beyond contradiction that we are. the most heavily taxed community in the world, and smile'while demonstrating it j and yet/withal there is a painful suspicion growing in "men's mindsjthat, as a people, we have mostly as yet been on an imperfect trackthat we have, in fact,-been, living on our , capital instead of the interest. Looking at the matter from a goldfields point of view, we must confess that we have 'adopted the latter, and that in a somewhat extended sense; We have allowed ourselves, and been allowed by our rulers, to scatter over the face of the country, , as, if our main business was to earn sufficient to take us away from it, and not as it really should*be, to form ever - increasingly comfortable homes for ourselves in the first place, and for our children and our children's children after-us. On the goldfields we have reached a point (the point J already spoken of) beyond which, I without assistance from'. without, we cannot further go". Our available alienated, and are -rapidly undergoing annihilation; 6'uf water rights are-granted almost to the last procurable head ; and private local en-, terprise is exhausted or. discouraged, 'or—which in the end is equal to the same thing—is already fully occupied. And yet we believe in our inmost heart that we never had a prospect of a more prosperous ; future as Mr. Macandrew remarked, when opening the. Proviiicial.:Council lately—"The auriferous resources of the Province have scarcely been touched—there are literally mountains-of gold." There are many things in which the Government has come" far short in respect to the G-oldfields, but we think the question of a cheap-and abundant water supply deserves to take preeminence. Three or four years ago, the Provincial Council did make an effort in that direction, and engaged the services "of Mr. Millar, F.5.A.," to survey and report on the practicability of securing permanent and" inexhaustible supplies for the various goldfields districts. That gentleman's work began "aha ended at one place:—Tuapeka. The report of his careful survey no doubt may found, duly and'properly redtaped in some pigeon-hole in the office ofithe' Secretary; for : Land and Works, and so the question .was ...for. that time shelved^- -to tlje. great rqlief ofitheover-

burdened Executive, we may suppose. Is ifc to be always thus ? The Government offers bonuses, and wisely too, to flax '•spinners and wool manufacturers, to glassblowers, to brewers, to every description of workmen under the sun, and they leave the staple industry of the Province to perish for want of assistance. They have in words, as well as in effect, said again and again to the miners—" We have made roads for you, and we have built bridges for you; you have cost far more than you are worth already; you must in-future depend upon private enterprise, and that alone." Private enterprise, forsooth! Why, even the Peruvians two hundred years ago were wiser in their generation. Instances are numerous where they conveyed small streams of water a distance of sixty miles for the purpose of irrigation only, and, in two instances, races were constructed, one 360 and the other 450 miles in length. The two last mentioned were works worthy of a Government, for they watered a tract of country upwards of fifty miles in breadth. Let it not again be said, then, that the question of water supply must be left to private enterprise, for we find that is precisely the question which engaged the attention and formed the chief work of all the nations which ever attained a standing in the world. They required water chiefly for irrigation and domestic use. ¥e "require "it on "our goldnelds for irrigation, for gold washing, and.for machine r driving purposes, and need only expend a few thousands where they expend millions of pounds. —' Cromwell Guardian.'