LAKE WAKATIP.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 343, 1 October 1875, Page 3

LAKE WAKATIP.

(irom our own correspondent.) There has not been much news of special importance to. report of this district lately ; so, seeing that you were flooded with Parliamentary reports and the reports of expressions of'public opinion in existence in centres! of population, I have delayed my contribu-j tions. . Nor have I much to report now,' either of incident or accident, apart from rhin-j ing, unless. I stoop to those personalities which I detest to see : iri newspapers, viz., the names and positions of- parties, who' are bankstrong or bankrupt. . But, without treating of personal eases, I may be permitted to state that every winter' since the opening of this district I have seen and heard the doleful dirge of " bad times," and every spring and summer sees business men as busy as ever, trying to impose their wares on. the unwary. I have heard one "gentleman" who had been whitewashed about half a dozen tiroes sav, " truly blessed ars those

-people who refuse to go into debt,' for"bu sueli tliii bailiff shall have no i ow^i." I have been able some times, when shore of matter, to -'uiiup" with p vdeuiaiv; of tiiu weather ; but the weather of this year's e.vpji'Lnce completely ; <iii description, and so I am "slewed." For Weeks oi' so the days have b~en summer days, and <ld women—of bocli sexes— havi been busy gardening, and expected to go on uninterruptedly. But, alas! for all hura.m calculations, on the night of the loth instant down came a fall of snow, six inches thick/ and put an end to their sport. Why that snow should have hung-up there for iho last three months, just to' come down now wiieu gardeners did not want it, ia just : the very question w-i cannot answer, and is just, one—and one only—of the many facts wii ch hin-. dermefro'm publishing' The Lakes District Almanac for 1876. Neither am I able to answer the question which the snow suggests. Do the r little lambs wish they never werd born? v "" . ~ There is so little doing up the Shotover thai the residents have instituted another little game -with Mr. Beetham, the Warden of Queenstown. They—the fellows up the Shotover—actually want that gentleman tcf go up the rivet ten or twelve times each year of his official existence. I do noli know" much about this officer's opinions ; but I hear that he objects to go up the Shotover because the miners do not attend the Court when It is held there, but flock to the Queenstown office by scores—having to travel froni 30 to 60 miles o\ er some paltry case which might be decided from the saddle in ten minutes. The miners say that that officer's leg is tied to Queenstown benches" by red tape fastened by an interesting knot Now Tknotf no reason for the advancement-of such, arguments, except that it is in accordance with the spirit of the age,' that every question should be treated exhaustively. (See. late issue erf ' Hansard' rc Abolition . .debate.) Perhaps the had temper of the miners which has been provoked by taeir treatment in--the provisions of. the Local Government Bill may have had something tc( dti with the outburst of the constitutional malady which threatens the peace of the inhabitants of the Shotover district, and which has already gone far to stifle its existence in the catalogue of prosperous districts. Continued official neglect ia doubtless the cause of the omplaint, and there is no excuse for its continuance even on the part of the Warden any more than oil the part of his employers or superiors. Let ihs Government remove this cause, and the Shotover would become one of the most thriving districts in New Zealand. And now-..1 must notice what is passing a3 gossip or gospel .amongst-residents of this district : It is that, as the miners have undertaken to point.out to the Government for thelast three years, the wrongs.they were stiff, ring under, they, the miners, ought now to ask for uueh provisons in the Local Government Bill as will meet wilh approval when passed: It ia np use waiting until. the,Bill, becomes, law, arid then finding fault with it. It is saidthat the miners "are too in iiffereiit to take any. trouble in self Government, and that they do nothing but find fault. I sincerely -crust they will redeem themselves from such an aspersion. .