MINISTER OF MINES.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 381, 30 June 1876, Page 2

MINISTER OF MINES.

Goldfields, and what are generallycalled Goldfields, questions have been, hanging in abeyance of late. Ministers have yet to get posted in the history of alluvial fields. The only rumor that reaches us is that Mr. Pyke is spoken of as Minister for Mines. The. usual resort sf our New Zealand Government of expediency, when troubled with a difficulty, is to create a department. No doubt Goldfields will prove no exception. If they are troublesome straightway they will be trundled into a department. In such a case, perhaps Mr. Pyke can do the trundling as well as any one else. An Under-Sec-retary exists already, so that, beyond the political head, no extensive creation of offices is probable. We do not particularly incline to this new appointment, or, indeed,; to' the rumored appointee. In Provincial politics a special department has been the greatest enemy to justice upon the Otago Goldfields. The speciality of the office to Goldfields Members was, of course; greatly to blame. Independently of that the special office, absolving as it has done other members :of the Executive of the /'slightest responsibility for what was under the special charge of a specially-selected Goldfields Member, has been most disastrous. The same characteristics of evil may be anticipated from the higher appointment of Minister of Mines, which there will be a tendency to keep open as a bait for Members from mining districts. That they would be vrpof against such a bait we may hope,, but their will be a tendency in most jninds to believe that, judging from the past, the future will \>q as ithaa been.