Pohangina Gold Prospectors' Meeting.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1575, 7 December 1885, Page 4

Pohangina Gold Prospectors' Meeting.

At -the above meeting held on Saturday last there . were present— Messrs •Hankins. Grammar, Page, Saunders, Leigh, Wylds, Macdonald, and Haultain (Secretary). . Mr Armstrong was voted to the chair, and the Secretary informed the meeting that the report which they had met together to consider was not likely to be to hand, Mr Cotter, who was to have brought it down from Messrs Relf and Anderson, having lost his horses m the morning. He further said that it was proposed to go further into the reef, say 10 feet. If the leaseholders would not agree to this then the association would undertake the matter. Re the Government subsidy, he had written to the Kiwitea Road Board, but was not as yet m receipt of any reply. Mr Sharpe, one of the shareholders m the Bassett claim, just applied for, had promised to subscribe to. the expenses. It was here stated that the Ashnrst Company had said that the work was not going on satisfactorily, and that they had had enough of it. Mr Hanfcins said he did not think 30 feet bad work at all if it waa anything ] like driving. Mr McDonald wag asked to state to the meeting his opinion of the prospects m the Pohangina, and m reply made a speech, the main theme of which seemed to be the fallacy of keeping a man engaged m the work of driving for a reef which was not, and paying him a good weekly screw for doing very little. The opening remarks of this . gentleman were directed at the Chairman for some statements ho made at the last meeting, re the casing stone sent away, the results obtained, and alleged causes of the small proportion of gold found. He (the speaker) always found when there was gold m thi reef it was m the casing. He maintained there was no reef m the Pohangina, and that he' had crushed a quantity of various strata formations he . had' obtained without even getting the color. After further adverse expressions of opinion from McDonald, the chairman said tSat they had employed Anderson to do a certain work, and that if ho did not perform that work he was not carrying put his instructions received from the Association. It was impossible for them at sucli a distance to ascertain facts, and they to a certain extent had to depend on the men themselves. After some further general conversation the meeting adjourned.