EIGHTS OF AGRICULTURISTS AGAINST SLUICERS.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 416, 29 March 1877, Page 3

EIGHTS OF AGRICULTURISTS AGAINST SLUICERS.

A few days ago we called attention to the question of riparian rights, showing that the law was in a very unsatisfactory state as between the riparian proprietor and those who might require to use a stream or river for mining or manufacturing purposes. There is, however, another phase of this matter of very great importance in this Colony, and especially in this Provincial district, which our attention has been directed in consequence of recent litigation in the American Courts. We refer to the position as between agriculturists and miners ; when a river, running through agricultural country is used in its higher levels as a means for the discharge of tailings either by sluicing directly into its bed or by the accumulated debris from mines reaching it in the natural course of things. It may be recollected, although we have not heard so much about it lately, that it has been a long-standing grievance with the farmers in the Taieri that the periodical floods are in no slight degree caused by the Mount Ida, Hamilton, and other workings where hydraulic sluicing ia mainly employed, and the consequent discharge into the river of quantities of fine silt which it is alleged to have perceptibly altered the original level of its bed. There used to be an annual fight over this every session of the Provincial Council between the Goldfields members and the old bucolic party, the former asserting that the tailings never reached the river at all, and the latter that all the evils the plains were subject to from inundation were owing exclusively to the goldfields of the Maniototo. It was now and again expected that attempts would be made to obtain a legal remedy, but the damages and the presumed sources of them were so very indefinite that it probably was found even too much for the accomplished gentlemen of the long robe to suggest any initiation of proceedings likely to have a practical result. In California a case has lately been tried which, although it can scarcely, owing to the special circumstances be considered a test case, has yet given occasion in the pleadings and arguments for very many important matters involved in the general question of sluicing into rivers, to be discussed and judicially settled so far as the District Mining Court is concerned, and we will endeavor therefore to give a brief digest of the proceedings so far as they can be gathered from the local papers at our disposal. The complainant Atkinson sued the Sacramento and Canadian Branch Company, in the Sacramento District Court, for damages done to his farming land by the deposition on it of mud and gravel washed from the defendants' hydraulic mine. Arkansas Creek, into which the tailings were discharged, is a comparatively insignificant stream, into which few if any companies except the defendants run their tailings, and it appeared to have been thus proved by implication that the deposits upon the complainant's land could therefore be traced to this source. Tn charging the jury, Judge Sexton dwelt very strongly upon this point, instructing them to find for plaintiff if they were satisfied that his lands were directly damaged by the deposit resulting from the defendants' sluicing operations, notwithstanding the mine had been worked in accordance with mining law and custom; and he went on to say that if the defendants had discharged the tailings upon the banks of the creek at places remote from plaintiff* land, the defendant would not be liable to. damages ; but if the tailings were carried directly upon the lands by the water used in the mine, or if they were deposited in such close proximity that they must of necessity pass upon the land the defendant would be liable for all damages. The jury found for the plaintiff, with full damages, 4,000 dollars, and the defendant has appealed to the Supreme Court upon the grounds that the judge refused to admit evidence upon certain points, and especially the following:—l. That defendants hold a grant from Government to construct a ditch ante-dated to plaintiffs title to his land, and that this grant gives the right to run the water upon the land. 2. That in accordance with the custom, rules, and decisions of the Courts defendants have a right to discbarge tail water into Arkansas Creek, which right ante-dated plaintiffs title to his land. 3. That it ha 3 been and is the custom of miners to discharge tailings into the natural outlets and water-courses leading from the mines. A reversal of the judgment by the Supreme Court is confidently anticipated, but it will be seen that the issues raised are of vital importance to the mining community, and the decision is naturally looked forward to with great anxiety, and, as usual in America, although the subjeet is tub judice, is being fought out " tooth and nail" by the Press. The ' Record Union ' says—"No doubt this is the commencement of extensive and costly litigation; but should the Supreme Court dismiss the appeal the mining corporations will find it cheaper to devise some method of disposing of their tailings without destroying the property of their neighbors." Papers in the mining interest quote statistics to the effect that there are 50,000 acres of gravel deposits in California, which can only be worked by sluicing, and is calculated to produce 152,000,000d015., whilst all the agricultural land does not exceed in value 200,000 dols., and that therefore all questions of right, apart as a matter of public policy, the loss to farming i 3 a small matter as compared with the profit in mining. We shall look with interest for the ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States in this matter, for although the tenure . of mining property and the privileges of water rights are not precisely upon the same basis in the Colony, there is sufficient analogy to render the judicial settlement of the points involved exceedingly useful, especially in view of the proposed amendment of the goldfields law next session.— * Evening Star.'