CALIFORNIAN EXTRACTS.

New Zealander, Volume 9, Issue 780, 5 October 1853, Page 3

CALIFORNIAN EXTRACTS.

THE LEGISLATURE AND THE MINES. [From the "Alta California,’’ May 20.] Among the important measures that have been before the Legislature during the session, there is no tone of more importance to the welfare of California than the bill of Mr. Redding of Yuba, providing for a greater uniformity in the laws regulating the mines. It is a source of extreme regret to us, and we doubt not to all well-wishers ofthe State, that the bill failed to pass and become a law. It passed the House, and we believe the Senate with amendments, but such was the indifference felt for its fate that it expired on the Clerk’s table. Several attempts were made to get final action upon it, but what did the most of the Legislature care for the miners 1 What for California’s permanent interest! It was not from opposition to the bill that it failed to become a law. It commanded itself, in its features, to the sense ofthe most offtie members, and it was from sheer neglect and indifference that it failed to become a law. The miners may be said to have had nothing done for them during the entire session of nearly five months. We cannot reaall the first act that is to benefit them directly as a c’ass Incidental advantages will result to them from building roads and highways. There will be less (longer of starvation during the rainy season, and the “price of freight, and consequently of provisions, will be less; but no one will say that it is for this that the bills were passed. It was because there was capital behind that sought investment for purposes of speculation, and the influence and talent of outsiders were brought to bear, not only in framing and drawing bills, but in pricking up members to attend to them and got action upon them. Hut who was to prick them up to attend to the interest of the miners 2 They had no organization and they could have no agents to look to their interests. A few —but a very lew practical miners, w r ho bad the interests of the class they represented at heart, and were not so puffed up with their position as to be good lor nothing,

endeavored to do something for their constituents* But they were not supported, and the Legislature has adjourned, and there has been nothing done for this class. It has not been from a desire on the part of those from the agricultural and commercial towns to do any injustice to the miners that this has happened, so much as from the neglect of the representatives from the mining counties. They, as a general thing, have taken no interest in the welfare of their continents They have been willing and earnest in most instances to oppose special acts for the benefit of individuals or the other counties of the State, but they have lacked the application and determined zeal essential to press through the important measures which the interest of their constituents required. It is not from any querulous spirit that these remarks are drawn forth, but it is rather because they are true, and because we hope that another winter shall witness a more industrious and faithful representation from the mines. If any person shall question the justness of these remarks we ask them to consider what has been done during the entire session which is calculated, in the least degree, to directly benefit the laboring miner.

During the last autumn there was a very general call for a Miner’s State Convention. Such a convention would have doubtless occurred had not the Legislature in the earlier stages of the session given promise of doing something to render such an assemblage unnecessary. But all these promises have been belied. The miners have been shamefully trifled with, and now for another year there must be the same uncertainty—the same conflicting of laws and claims —the same roving and thriftless habits that always have prevailed, and always will prevail, so long as the regulation of the mines is left to the bare majority that may happen to be at any time in any little camp or neighborhood. The laws of to day may be repealed to-morrow —the holder of a claim when the water gives out in the spring, may be obliged to lay by, at great disadvantage, and watch it through the summer, for he knows not but the laws, under which he holds it, may be repealed as soon as he leaves to look for employment tor a time elsewhere. And if he spends months in prospecting and by deep digging, and extensive explorations he lights on something which would if justice were done, pay him well for his labor, Levi Muggins will settle down on one side of him, and John Chinaman on the other, and will limit him to sixteen or twenty feet, while his neighbours will have equally good claims with himself, even though he may h.ave spent months in his search or in sinking his shaft. He has no security of holding anything that will justify his expenditures of time and money in prospecting, except the good nature of his neighbors. While this is the case men will not so frequently sink deep shafts and thoroughly prospect the auriferous hills around them, for it is not the hand that beats the bush that catches the bird.

While this state of things exists, we do not see how the members from the mining counties can face their constituents, and tell them that during all this long session they have failed to do anything to put things on a more stable and permanent basis. We ask if they could not have done something looking towards a better social condition in the mines? But ’tis idle to ask such a question. The most of the members from the mountains never were troubled with a thought of the kind, and we presume that they will go back to their constituents feeling that they have claims upon them for their everlasting gratitude, and will be entitled to a seat in all future Legislative bodies for what they have done the past session. But we hope to see the next Legislature composed as a general thing of older men. —Of men who have families, or at least have a deep and abiding Interest In the welfare of the State, and who will have chosen California for their home and mean that California shall be their grave.