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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 155, 1 July 1872, Page 2

Hokitika. Cattle .^ARKET.—MafK Sprot &C9. report ! he sale of 156 head 'of cattle* at* £7 175.; 44r'beaij at &6 14.; 51 merino wethers at 7sj -<9}.\> arid 100 ewes at ss. J '-y' : : : '' Pearl Fishery. — A rn ee ti ng , was jheld at Auckland, last Wednesday, at which it was resolved to.' form \a /P£&i*U Fishery Compact,. -with capital v £50.00- - in. '£10 shares, and fo fit out a vessel 'for; New Guinea: : . The G. R. Argus says thitfc the , nonsupply of coals at Greymouth does iiofc altogether rest with the boats, as six of them went up to the miue on Tuesday last, and found that, no coal was lo be had, and had to remain ihere some time before being able to obtain any. A Horrible Outrage has been committed at Gisborne, Hawke's Bay, on a Mrs. Hardy by aman unrated Sebricliet). He broke into the house and assaulted the iumate., and broke a female servant's arm in two places. Mrs. Hardy is not expected to live. Her husband was at Napier at the time. The body of a man named Frederick Hodges, a compositor od the West Coast, was recently fouud iu (he neighborhood of Anderson's Reef at Murray Creek, where it. was evident, ho must have fallen down in the snowdrift numbed with cold, and exhausted with the fatigue of travelling through such a country. Railway Contract. — Mr. Broaden has accepted the contract for the Newmarket and Mercer railway, Province of Auckland, 41 miles, for £166,000, exclusive of rails aLd rolling-stock, which will be purchased by the Agent-General and contractors — the latter receiving five per cent, ou the outlay. If iron maintains' its price, it is expected that the contract will considerably exceed the Parliamentary estimate. r A Northern Paper says that wheu Captain. Hutton,i the assistant, geologist, visited the KawaTTawa coalmines recently, he directed the miners to sink for a seam of coal, which he told them would be found ' 7 at' ? ia depth of 170 feet. The seam was reached at a depth of 168 .feet ; ' and we- are - told the miners , expressed great admiration at .the accuracy of .Captain . Hutton. '■'■- ."■■■ '■ ■* Novel Enterprise.— A, curious mode of turning au honest penny is indicated by a telegram from Sydney. It appears that after the execution of the Paramatta River murderers, Lester and Nichojls,.,;. their bodies were in the usual way. delivered to the Government undertaker for interment. -This worthy, however, seems to be a Barium/ who has hitlierto mistaK__t, bis vdca-* tion. It occurred to him that he had in ihie'j haads materials for ; what ', Artemus Ward called a u * moral and ihstructiy e exliibjition..' , that; w.ould : ,ot ( .oncej gratify, an . knlighiienec. public i curiosity , j.an<|: jcqnyey 1 inahy; practical lessons on^ the advantages -;of a virtuous .career. ,;^ iactjbu .this masterly^ ■by .tb© police sHowing, ji is . „* ,**iS ii bj ec t s ■" ; in. open coffins to a number of spectators in,- a 7sut>_icl&uß^jMt^^ • The enterprising undertaking .reflects great credit alike bn^iieexp flliiiiiiewaMWma^^

At thb Resident Magistrate's Court, No Town, a' wo ma n^under the varied titles of , s.;-'' I Winief ! -i.-•'■«-^a* Jones, alias Rumble, was convicted.bf selling spiritous liquors without, a license, and fined the full penalty of £50, or three months' imprisonment. A Pair of .Dogs recently made a raid upon .'the! Canterbury. Acclimatisation Gardens, and killed 17 valuable birds, consisting of pure bred Bramah fowls' — some of which cost in England aud Sydney £5 each. Upwards of 30 Bramah birds are also missing, and are supposed to have been stolen. Altogether, the loss recently incurred is about £50.

forwarded tb the General; Government, in whiqh,.the. mejmoriaHslSr'Complained of the general conduct of affairs on the, goldfields by tbe Nelson Provincial Government, and'eßpeciall.y of their action in respect to the quantity of mining leases, and concluded by praying tbatHis Excellency the Governor would be pleased to withdraw the delegated powers from the Superintendent. lOn the receipt, of the petition it was forwarded to Mr. Curtis for his remarks thereon, and he has written the following reply .:— Superintendent's Office, NelsoD, 26th June, ,1872.. Sir, — I have the honor to acknowledge the.recei.pt of your letter of the 13th inst., covering copy, of a petition addressed to His Excellency the Governor, signed by 950 persons describing' themselves as inhabitants of the Inangahua district, praying^that the powers under the Goldfields Act, delegated by His Excellency to myself as Superintendent of the Proy i in I ce,..maytbe ,]withdrjawn,, and. that the : Under-Secretary for Public Works, on Goldfields an e d*',the Warden at the. Inangahua district, .Bhould 1 be. instructed to enquiry into the, allegations contained in tbe''petitio r n with a view to the ( preparation nf ( a for the..eßtablisbraept of the Nelson South- West under, a new form of government. In accordance with, your , suggestion I proceed to make^a few remarks upon the statements contained in tbo petition, but propose on the present occasion to coufine myself chiefly to the question of administration by the,, Provincial Government under the delegated powers leaving the question of the action of- the Provincial Council and Executive Government in the management and application of provincial revenues for future consideration, if tbe Colonial Government should think it desirable to enter upon that subject. I will, however, observe that the considerable population estimated by the petitioners, probably with sufficient cor- , rectness, at 3000 persons now assembled in the , Inangahua. valley, have for the most part collected there within the last nine months, and in reference to the statements of the petitioners that the Provincial Government has been "drawing monthly an almost incredibly large revenue from the miners, " it is sufficient to state that the total revenue the Provincial Government has derived from that district from all sources during the twelve months ending (he 31st March last (the petition having been drawn up in April) did not exceed £3600, and that so far from the Provincial revenue from the South - west Goldfields having increased in consequence of the discovery of the Inangahua reefs, it has on the contrary diminished during the past year, from that very cause, by the withdrawal of a large number of miners from claims already in profitable operation. The action of the General Assembly during the last session in devoting a sum of £24,000 to expenditure upon roads within, these goldfields, and of the Colonial Government in deciding in accordance with my recommendation to expend £16;000 (£16,000) of that amount (and subsequently the lemaining £8000) for the benefit of the Inangahua district made it imperative, in justice to other districts of the goldfields contributing much more largely to the revenue, that some portion at least of the remaining funds available for public works should be allotted to them. The petition, however, has its origin in. and is in reality grounded upon the action taken by the Provincial Government in refusing some. of the applications for leases of portions, of the lately discovered reefr, and . in .other cases reducing the area applied for. Inreply to the allegations of the petitioner^! Jiave the -.honor to state that previously to- ahese applications coming before the Provincial Executive, I received two petitions from miners and others resident in the' Inangahua district, protesting against* -any* leases whatever, being granted. These petitions were signed by 964 persons, a somewhat larger number than those who thave signed the petition now under,consideration. Iu reply to these_first-named petitions, the Provincial iExpcutivft deelined for the reasons stated in a letter addressed to the petitioners by the Provincial Secretary to comply wjith', their xequegt, but at the same time laid 'frown at f "length' the" conditions and restrictions under which some leases would be grapjt^d. Copies of the„-e-*petiti6nßt and of the reply of therßrovinoial Government were, forwarded 'aishort' time^sibce at his own' •request ■ ioss|e J^ffderi'SWc^iir^ Jojr public 1 : ... .works oa;!gg|s^ presume, -it; 'is. ; therefore/unijeceßßary ,that I should now y^orwaf^ , [yy . .YY ',;•'" ■■'■■",> *, •££i£^ f has . '• since >$|been|ils . ;poßsible -. iu j *

dealing with all applications for leaseß for quartz-mining in* the. lnangahua district. ; No lease has been refused except on the recommendation of the Wurden, or in cases where no work had teen done and .the application was obviously of a purely speculative character, or in cases of repeated applications for several leasei of large blocks of kind by the same pe.soos; and in all cases of reduction of tbe area applied for, the number of the applicaut?, the amount of work donp, and the genuineness or otherwise of the application, have been carefully taken into consideration and proportionate areas granted. In the cases of the prospectors or discoverers of reefs large areas have in all instances been conceded, in several cases by special grant under the 12th Section of " The Goldfields Act 1866," in excess of tbe extreme area which can by law by granted on lease, namely, sixteen and a-half acres, or forty men's ground under the regulations for ordinary claims. To the general language and character of the statements contained in this memorial, I do not think it necessary to advert, but the following paragraph contains explicit statements contained in this memorial, which, if left uncontradicted, might, be calculated to do mischief. " In many of the cases the areas claimed were, and for long periods have been held under miners' rights, and large and expensive preparatory works have been performed aud undertaken. The eflect of this erratic and unjustifiable action of the Superintendent, if ' tolerated, would be most illegally to deprive t.he men of pround they would be entitled to hold under miuers' rights." ' In every case of application for a lease of ground held under miners' rights, a larger area of ground than that so held has been granted, and even were it not so, I am not aware that the lights of miners so previously holding the ground, could in any degree be prejudiced by the refusal to grant a lease over the same land. The remainder of the paragraph T have quoted is equally without foundation. I have only further to say that .the object of the Provincial Government has been to arrest the improper and mischiveous locking up of block after block of the reefs in the hands of mere speculators in a manner equally unjust and injurious to tbe bona fide capitalist and the miner, and calculated most seriously to damage the character, and retard the progress of the district. In support, of the policy which the Provincial Government has pursued in this matter, and of the views I have expressed i in this letter. I ask your attention to tho following extract from the official report upon the Auckland Goldfields for tbe year 1870-71, furnished by order of the Houso of Representatives, and printed in the Appendix to the Journals 1871, vol. 2. G 31. * * * * * ■ * " The cause of tlie depression thus briefly referred to is not far to seek. It is to be found in the wholesale taking up of supposed auriferous country in the hope of selling it for large sums of money, aud the formation of companies based on value utterly fallacious, tbe country being entirely unproved or rather UDprospected." -*** * * * * # * The same report (Table H) shews that, the average area of the mining leases in operation upon the Thames Goldfield on 30th June 1871, was slightly under „ five acres — while the average area of the mining leases and special claims granted by the Provincial Government; in the Inangahua, district to which the petition refers, exceeds eight, acres. Should the Colonial Government wish for any further information respecting the allegations contained in the petition, I shall be most happy to furnish it. I have, &c. s Oswald Curtis, Superintendent.