THE Mount Ida Chronicle FRIDAY, JUNE 9, 1871.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 119, 9 June 1871, Page 4

THE Mount Ida Chronicle FRIDAY, JUNE 9, 1871.

One of the principal drawbacks to the present satisfactory working, and future and prospective settlement, as well of this as of many other portions of our Groldfields, is the absence of timber. The want of this essential is keenly felt in every branch of industry, whether mining, agricultural or domestic, and, as we have said, militates greatly against the advancement of each and every interest. In many places, however, and fortunately in this place, Nature has, in a very bounteous manner, supplied a substitute for the want of timber, by having distributed throughout its length and breadth an abundant supply of coal fit for all ordinary purposes. The difficulties with which the obtaining of this great necessary of life has, by some means or other, become hedged in, is a matter which is at the present time engaging not only our attention, but the attention of the entire district and, we doubt not, of other districts also similarly situated as ourselves. Now, fuel is absolutely essential not only to the successful prosecution of the mining industry, but necessary even to the very existence of the entire community —then, should unnecessary difficulties be placed in the way of its being procured for the general use of the miners and the public? The difficulties to which we have alluded arises principally from the necessity of any applicant for a coal lease being compelled to obtain the written consent of the runholder upon whose rua the coal seam may be situate, before his apph-1 cation will be entertained by the i Waste Land Board. We know not in what Act a clause rendering the conJ sent of the runholder in such cases necessary is to be found. We fancy in none; but look upon it as a sort of bye law of the Waste Land Board, which the sooner abrogated the better. There can be no doubt that the necessity for obtaining the consent of the runholder before granting any application for a coal lease, places in his hands a dangerous monopolistic power, and one which he, if he thinks fit, can at any time use to the injury of the district. We will suppose, for the sake of example, that there were but one single coal area within an available distance of this place, the runholder might, if he chose, by refusing his consent to any person but a nominee or, perhaps, friend, or even agent, of his own, actually retain in his hands the virtual supply of coal to this town and district. There must be something radically wrong in such a state of affairs, and we fail to see in what way a runholder, whose lease is a pastoral one, and entitles him merely to the use of grass which grows within a certaiD area, upon certain specified conditions, can acquire, or honestly desire to exercise, an authority to which he cannot have and has no legal right whatever, and which he has it at present- in his power to exercise to the manifest in-

jury and prejunice of the district. We are surprised that the Mining Conference have not given more prominence to this matter in their late report. We are of opinion that all coal found within the Groldfields should be worked in a somewhat similar manner as gold in certain cases. That is to say, that the discoverer should apply to the Warden, in a prescribed form, as in the case of a gold mining lease; that the Warden should then cause the area to be surveyed and reported upon by the local surveyor, and upon his report recommend or not the granting of such lease, subject to any conditions which he might deem desirable. The recent attempt of the runholders of the Eden Creek station to extort fr >in the discoverers of the coal seam in that run the sum of £4O for their consent to the granting of a lease, clearly demonstrates that the power at present vested in the lessees of runs, to grant or refuse consent to the working of coal seams, is a dangerous one, and one which is liable to be abused, and one which should be as soon as possible abrogated, and the matter placed upon a better and more satisfactory footing. As particularly affecting this district we would call the special attention of our representatives to the subject.