THE Mount Ida Chronicle FRIDAY, JULY 21, 1871.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 125, 21 July 1871, Page 4

THE Mount Ida Chronicle FRIDAY, JULY 21, 1871.

We published in a recent issue a letter from Mr. AVarden .Robinson, written under the authority of the Provincial Government, in reply to a letter from a number of gentlemen styling themselves the Naseby Sludge Channel Company, suggesting that the Company should submit for the consideration of the Government some definite and specific terms upon which they would be willing to construct this much-needed work. We have not been made acquainted with the original proposition made to the Government—to which the letter of the Warden above referred to is doubtlessly a reply—nor are we aware whether, since the receipt of such letter, any definite and specific proposals have been submitted to the Warden for transmission to the Government, as requested. Neither do we know, except f.'om hearsay, who are the gentlemen who contemplate forming the Sludge Channel Company, nor have we been favored with anything like a hint as to the terms and conditions upon which they would undertake the construction of the channel, or the mode in which they propose to construct it. Indeed, with the exception of the bare fact that a letter has been written to the Government by a company of gentlemen upon the subject, and is at the present time forming a matter of correspondence between them, we know absolutely nothing. The taking up of the Sludge Channel question by a quasi company will, we fear, do much to defer its construction at all —we say at all, for we fear that unless the work be taken up and carried out by the Go\ eminent, there will be little chance of its being constructed by private speculation. Nor, indeed, should we desire to see a work so important as a Sludge Channel, when once constructed, would necessarily become, in tie hands of brokers, jobbers, aid sp< cilators in mining shares. We should like to see the work constructed, but constructed for the benefit of the miners and the district, and for that purpose only ; and we feel that this can only be done when the work is undertaken by the Government, with public funds, and for the benefit of the public at large. Already has his Honor the Superintendent recommended that, in the t vent of certain alterations in the Loan allocation the construction of a Sludge Channel at Naseby shall be one of the woiks to be executed, and already have the Provincial Council, by a unanimous vote, endorsed the recommendation of his Honor. Already, also, has the House assented to the proposal—under the circumstances to which we have referred—to subsidise the cutting of a race to bring in the Kyeburn, so as to be available for flushing purposes (and without additional water for such a purpose many of our most practical miners hold that a sludge channel could not bv any possibility work). We say that, considering that the whole matter appears to be in as fair a train as possible, and that a few weeks will determine whether or not the Assembly will assent to such a modification of the Water on Goldfields Supply Act as will place the necessary funds at the disposal of the Government to commence. and carry through this great work—a work without which, his Honor stated in a late message, " one or the most gold-pro- " ducing and populous districts must " necessarily collapse;" considering that the action taken by this quasi company is already casting a damp upon the whole affair in the minds of those who have been actively engaged in advocating and supporting the work as a Government work, if we may place any reliance upon letters from Dunedin lately received, having special reference to this matter; considering, we say, all these thing's, it would be far better that the gentlemen forming the company—if they really mean fairly and honestly to the miners and the district, and are not what some persons regard them to be, a mere bubble or a sham—should come Lrward with a public programme, and let the people know what they propose to do and how they purpose to do it. Unless some such ac-

tion be taken, the public will have neither faith nor confidence in them or their scheme, while the fact that such a scheme, however shallow, is in contemplation, cannot fail to operate prejudicially against the work being carried out at an early date as a Government work. We trust, therefore, that there may be no further mystery or concealment in the matter, but that, if there be a real company in existence, formed with the honest desire of advancing the mining interests of the district, such company will publish its names, together with a prospectus of what they contemplate doing, and how they contemplate to do it. Then will the publie be able to form an opinion not only of the work itself, the manner of construction, and the general terms of working, but also whether the names of the gentlemen forming the company are such as to justify them in placing any confidence either in them or in the success of their scheme.