ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

New Zealander, Volume 9, Issue 714, 16 February 1853, Page 3

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor of the New-Zealander, Mr. Editor, —Your Janus-faced contemporary, as everybody now believes, has been prospecting of late in very uncertain diggings. Notwithstanding his double gift of " eyes behind and before" he has had the misfortune to get entangled in the supplejack scrub, and is so completely bewildered that no hope is entertained of his ever being able to flounder his way back to the wonderfully glittering creek into which he rushed so hopefully and boastfully in November last. It has certainly afforded no little fun to the lads who are up to the lie of the country, and know every creek and gully in which he would fain set up claims for his party, and for himself in particular, to watch his windings and doublings up and down the " Preserves" of the new field of Gold. The long practised ones arc shrewd fellows, and have not been slow to observe him " looking two ways at once"—keeping an eagerly prospecting eye up the creek m quest of the'"little Court"-favour diggings, and a sly peering but intensely anxious one down it, fearing to lose sight of the spot where he once flattered himself, and assured the other diggers, that, by " a long, arduous, and anxious" prospecting, "in which he had spared neither pains nor expense" he had discovered the big nugget of popularity. It is no easy work I can tell you, Mr. Editor, to prospect a creek in the New Zealand diggings. Your double-faced friend has, without doubt, prospected as much and worked as hard as any man to discover for himself whatever new diggings the country was likely to afford, —but even golddiggers are averse to little selfish tricks, and they did not at all like his movements when, after he fancied he had secured the "big popular nugget" for himself, lie scampered off to the " Wynyard diggings," with an ill-advised scheme to have the other 2>oor diggers taxed ; —and although they did not fancy the Yankee system of dealing with such cases, and hesitated about Lynching him "right off," yet I can tell you that it affords them no small satisfaction to find that all his hard labour has turned out to be but " labour in vain," and that "between two stools he has fallen to the ground." Indeed the diggers have had many an evening's korcro over the whole matter. It has been over and over again discussed at Kikawhakariri. Some of them down there, who say they have good reason to know him well, hinted that although he was a " brick" at prospecting, be never intended to become a practical digger himself, but that, as he happened to have a friend at home who had been prospecting a good deal to this country in red blankets, &c, he was very anxious that gold should be found on native lands, that; the whole of New Ulster should be thrown open to digging and prospecting according to the most liberal construction, that the best bargain that could be made, should b; made with the native owners : and, so that the whole scheme (his friend's part of it included) might be made perfect in all its parts, he had now changed his mind with respect to the license fee, and would have no other fee recognised but a blanket and tobacco fee to the natives.

There was one present who remarked, that he had too high an opinion of his sagacity to believe that he would ever have advised the licence-fee to be put on at all, if it had not been for his goodnatured concern for the interest of another friend who had been prospecting in barley. He was afraid the " harvest fields" might be deserted for the "gold fields," and his friend's brewing operations brought to a stand-still for want- of grain, although every precaution had been taken to provide against disappointment, by securing nearlyall that was growing in the district, even while it was yet in the blade—before it had reached the ear. lie thought it a great pity that sucli lorothought should be baulked by greedy labourers Hying off to Coromandel, and for this reason it was that he encouraged, as ho said, a "prompt" imposition of a licence-fee, as " a great colonial benefit, to prevent men from the prosecution of that profitless occupation" of gold-digging. I think, says another, that neither of you have got hold of the right end of the stick. I have had a good deal of *■ Colonial" experience in my time, and I take it T have as good a right as any of you to be up to the " dodges" of the old hands. I understood the whole thing when I found the Cross take up the cudgels for the native rights, and 1 think you should all know more about it before you throw blame on one who deserves better at some of your hands. It too often happens that one side of the Crow' head gets blamed for what is said by the other side ; and my advice to the side that found the " big nugget" has always been, that if he wishes to retain that "nugget" he must stick Ms initials right in Ms forehead, and stand clearly out from all identification with the side that derives its sustenance by " fingering and sacking" from the Government a share of the " Reserved money" for the natives, which he takes up for prospecting in the paper the Native Secretary sends down to the Maories here, to teach them how to manage sheep as they do in Van Diemen's Land. Now that you see how it is, can't you perceive that wdien the Cross advocated the "just and fair" demands of tho natives on all diggers and prospectors, it did what was only prudent towards one side of itself. And so the matter stood at Coromandel at latest accounts. But the diggers have not had all the Jcorero to themselves. The voters in the 1 City, who subscribed the Reward fund at last began

to "smell a rat." Some of them said, —where was the use of the subscriptions flourished down by their representatives with one hand, to encourage the discovery of gold, while some of them, from whom it was least expected, were smothering up the nuggets with the other hand ! Were the big figures all a sham J —or did they hope never to be asked for the cash * Now all this must have reached the ears of your doublefaced friend, just about the t'me the now Constitution Act arrived, and both diggers and voters are wicked enough now to whisper, loud enough to be heard, that his late Jim Crow tricks in relation to the gold regulations, were no more than just another prospecting manoeuvre in the direction of the new election diggings. But last of all, though not least, some one has overheard his colleagues grumble at his having made scape-goats of them. They don't at all fancy the kind of " prospecting" he seems to admire ; and I think it would "sarve him right" were they to deal with him after the fashion the first L. C. of New Zealand dealt with one of their number, who, the day after a debate in council, made use of a newspaper to which he had access in Auckland, in order to write up his own conduct, and impugn that of his colleagues. Above all things in public men, Mr. Editor, I admire single-mindedness, and lam determined, for my own part, as I needs must be, to regard the conduct of such men with a single-eye only to the interests of my country,—and remain, Sir, yours, &c,

CYCLors.