'WAKATIP MAIL' ENLIGHTENMENT.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 332, 16 July 1875, Page 3

'WAKATIP MAIL' ENLIGHTENMENT.

The following most amusing, and not altogether ill-natured, paragraph is found in the last issue of our Wakatip contemporary, bearing internal evidence of being padded , by one of its political friends in high places. Our friend appears to exhibit the usual symptoms of localization, and conceives that there can be only one " immense auriferous plateau," that being the one extending from "-Macetown to near Arrowtown." If £SOOO would open up this immense plateau, and it yet remains unopened, such fact says little for Wakatip enterprise. Our opinion is different. "We can remember the time when the Government works going on in the Mount Ida district were estimated as possible at about £IO,OOO. Our friend would find that if £SOOO was granted for the bringing in of water from the Shotover his estimate would be too low.' A case never occurs even among private companies where the cost of race construction is accurately estimated. It is not very surprising then that the Government head race from the Manuherikia, going through, we will not say "an immense plateau," but through sixty miles of auriferous country, and a tail race of ten miles in length, should have proved to be about £SOOO under estimated. Of course, as our readers are aware, all the direct statements in the paragraph we quote are written in error. The head race and the channel are simple works which need connecting together and completing where contractors have lagged behind. "We hope our contemporary will excuse the laugh we have at the ignorance of his informant, which we can assure him is as good natured as we believe his paragraph to be :

" £40,000 has been spent upon the Naseby water and sludge channel works out of the Government loan, and still the cry is give, give. The Provincial Council has been implored to lend a helping hand of recommendation; Mr. Reid has been anathematised by one of the hon. members for Naseby (Mr. de Lautour) for being very slow and prejudiced, and now the ' screw' is being brought to work upon his Honor the Superintendent. It is these large grants for a problematical result that injure the interests of the Goldfields collectively. The expenditure of £40,000 in the Naseby district is, of course, a 1 good thing' for that important and flourishing Goldfleld. But it is not enough; £IO,OOO more is wanted to make the scheme what P Some say a success. We sincerely hope so, but if £SOOO of this large sum of money had been expended upon the bringing in of water from the Shotover River to that immense auriferous plateau stretching from Macetown to near Arrowtown, we are confident that the results would not have been ' problematical.' They would have been assured, and would have been an encouraging feature. As it is, state loan of £300,000 has been frittered away; most of it, certainly, in Westland and Shortland. It has been of little value to the Goldfields of this part of the Colony. We do not know what is to be done with Naseby's case. We suppose a loan must be given it, and the Province charged with the interest upon it. All this is the result of the Mervyn - Macassey election. The whole of the Goldfields of the Province are duly paying their share of interest—deducted out of capitation allowance, and so it becomes a matter of serious consideration to them collectively. Of course, Mount Ida is being frightfully ill-used, and it is rank treason there to hazard even a remark that these expensive works are designed to benefit a few water race owners, and that the result is not one of general interest. Yet this move-

ment is one for general consideration. No members more actively opposed the vote of £IOOO for grant-in-aid to quartz reefs than did the representatives of that district. They fought hard to add the words 'deep sinking 1 to the item, because they have also a deep sinking company formed in that quarter, who want assistance to arrive at' problematical results. They got a £IOOO vote as a 'bonus/ but not as grant-in-aid. Of course the disgust at the fact tha.t they must work to ensure the reward is great, and indignation follows, and peremptory demands for thousands to complete the sludge channel. Cannot some of the associations here go in for a loan of £IO,OOO. We are acquainted with places that offer a certainty for that outlay—not the chance one of doubtful results. Naseby's case is the case of the Goldfields, and therefore demands consideration."