IMPORTANCE OF THE MOUNT IDA GOLDFIELD.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 163, 19 April 1872, Page 5

IMPORTANCE OF THE MOUNT IDA GOLDFIELD.

At the eve of another session of the General Assembly it behoves the Press to publish fairly and honestly the requirements of the Colony, and the boon conferred on those settlements who have a newspaper in their midst is undoubtedly very great, and should be more appreciated than it is. The "Rags" and the "Thunderers J '—so called—are not only to be used as advertising vehicles, but as legitimate levers of pressure upon the Governments to expend the public money where it is most urgently required by the Colonists, as long as it can be shown that this expenditure is for a useful purpose, and remunerative in some way or other, either to advance settlement or reproduce money or specie to the Treasury. Our desire in publishing the tabular statement below, which we have recently received from the Greneral Government in another shape —slightly altered by us for reasons hereafter explained—has been already set forth above, and we are prepared—using as our only argument this return —to prove that-the Mount Ida District deserves the first place in the consideration of the Government the Public Works Department, and the Assembly, when support towards the works of, or expenditure on, the Otago Goldfields is the matter under notice We are understood of course to mean especially mining works. • By this return it will be shown that INaseby, or, more properly speaking, i the Mount Ida District, yields the i largest revenue of the Otago districts for actual mining pursuits. Duhedin occupying the first eolunn is simply a \ trick •—a fiction—Jov though the halfcrowns for gold duty are received in I the Custom House, Duhedin, and the [ revenue ostensibly belongs to that place, jthe £60.571- should be-undoubtedly on j this return distributed among the Gcld- ! fields columns according to the contribution of gold, during the period over which the return extends. We are unable at the present moment to report authoritatively the share to which each district is entitled of the £60,571, but we have ascertained that Mount Ida is entitled to claim 54,0000z5., or £6750, as her contribution to the fund. A glance at the columns -if the sources from which the information ha*, been obtained can be relied on, and we have no reason to doubt the correctness ourselves—will bear us out in our claim to be considered the most profitable mining district; but there is yet more to be urged, certainly not on proof, but on reasonable hypothesis, that the expenditure of forty thousand pounds by the Government in a water supply and discharging channel would prove immediately remunerative, at an interest on the capital of not less than twentyfive to thirty per cent. The works we refer to would be a channel for dudge, brought up from a point about seven miles below Naseby, to work all the auriferous terraces on both sides ; and a race for the two-fold purposes of mining and flushing from the Manuherikia. In regard to the channel we have little more to say than has been already discussed f-nom time to time. It is almost unanimously agreed that it is a necessary work to save Hogburn from decay, and if constructed (with a flushing race at its head), would revive mining to an extent of about an increase of fifty per cent, of population. As to the race from the Manuherikia, we believe it truly to be a great undertaking, and, if only for a flushing race, we could not advocate a supply from that source; but there is auriferous ground nearly

the whole way from Du stun v>c-ek Diggings to Naseby. mi'.uy' parts of which are rich as sluicing localities. About Pennyweight, Peg Leg, and Blackstone Hill Diggings it is well known that, if water in any quantity could be brought in, the ground would prove more than ordinarily payable, and judging from the nature of the ground, we might have fair reason to expect the opening up of several diggings under the course of the race in our own immediate neighborhood. We do not desire to disparage other places that have received a lion's sliarj of the public funds, but we must be pardoned for remarking that there are fair grounds for assuming that the schemelaid down has a more reliable prospectus than an Oamaru dock, a Port Chalmers railway, or Tuapeka line. \\ r e retrain-, from further remarks until we we see the report of the Engineer (Mr. W. L. Simpson) who, we believe, is now engaged in inspecting the line of proposed works from Kyeburn to Naseby:—■

The following is a return to an Order of the House of Representatives, showing the amount of revenue collected in the Province of Otago under the " The Gold Duty Act, 1858," " The G-old Duty Act, 1-70," the Mining Companies Acts, 1865 and 1869, "The Goldfields Act, 1866," and the several Goldfields Acts passed by the House since 1866, and any Regulations made in conformity with the said Acts, for a period of three years, ending 30th June, 1871. . I . ,

The subjoined statement has been extracted from the Government printed return, and separated that explanation may be afforded as to how Lawrence and Queenstown so far exceed other places in their revenue receipts. It will be at once discovered that no agricultural land has been declared open at Naseby—that the Clyde Receiver collects for the Tiger Hill or BJack's depasturing area, and that an immense extent of agricultural country has been

oponed at Tuanekn nndrWafc itipu. Ill' t,.»e hittt-r didti-icfc, we believe, &»,i)0O acres were purchased, at a cost of £9OOO, from Mr. W. G. h'ees for commonage and agricultural country ; and' the account of the revenue derived from those sources should be in fairnessplaced alongside an account of assessment on sheep and stock paid by our neighboring depasturing licensees. We are purely a mining district, —and the most important one in Utago, looked upon in that light—and we trust that the residents of the district will exert themselves to gain a hearing at the next Assembly, before inditference and neglect set in to blot us out of the Public Works map :

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Goldmining Leases, Rents and Roy alties Depasturing, Licenses and Asseisments. Naseby .. 1133 9 4 _ Blacks . . .. 360 13 7. "■ ■ ■' Manuherikia .. 203 6 1 1-18 6 Clyde ... .. 791 11 5 255 5 11 St. Bathans .. 115 18 6 — Cromwell .. 33 5 0 _ ' ■ Queensto\\n 5900 3 5 2454 11 11 Arrowtown .. 2914 5 2 1400 9 6 Lawrence .. 8432 7 4 3631 12 8