WATER SUPPLY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 38, 14 October 1871, Page 15

WATER SUPPLY.

[lndependent, October 9.]

We have before alluded to the vote of £IOO,OOO a year for water supply passed last session, of which only two districts have as yet obtained any share, and that to the insignificant extent of less than £2OOO. We may well ask how it is that so little progress has been made in the application of this vote, seeing that it is one which would be more immediately reproductive than any other, and for the want of which our auriferous alluvial districts —notably Westland —have suffered a diminution of population, by the emigration of the very class which in other districts we are recruiting by paid immigration. It may be necessary to point out in what way water is essential and valuable to the gold miners. Its chief application is in separating the gold from its associates, but it is largely used also as a power both in driving machinery and in scouring away masses of auriferous earth. There is no practical process of separating gold in which water does not do the chief part, but in quartz mining the amount of water used is much less than in ordinary alluvial digging. It acts simply by weighing all matter subjected to it, when the heaviest is first precipitated ; but it is also used to dislodge masses of earth by running it over steep faces, and by conducting it under pressure by hose or pipes so as to act as a jet. In this form in some Californian mines as much as a thousand tons of water per hour are used, and are calculated to do as much work as 300 men with picks and shovels ; its economy is shown by the fact recorded authoritatively that with abundance of water at a good height' it is profitable to wash earth containing only a cent’s worth of gold to the bushel. In all this the miner only follows nature, as all true science does. When he enters a new country he prospects the river beds, and if he does not succeed in finding gold there, he knows the country to be barren of alluvial gold, for the rivers have been natiWs sluices, working through countless years, busily cutting gorges and washing away mountains, carrying their lighter portion away to ocean, and depositing the heavier pretty near the place of dislodgement. He, therefore, works the river and creek beds first, and when these are exhausted he makes fresh rivers, as it were, by directing streams on to the ground which he judges to be richest. This process commences on a small scale, but as all easily utilised streams are soon monopolised, there comes a period when large arterial works are necessary if the population is to be retained, and at this stage most of our goldfields have now arrived. We have no hesitation in asserting that the whole colony is a goldfield which pays to work wherever facility of access and water are provided. It is as yet but scratched, although £14,000,000 worth of gold has been exported, and if those necessaries are supplied, thousands of immigrants of the best class would flock to our shores, without cost to the State and without asking for housing and nursing on arrival—men who would shoulder their tents and tools and boldly face their work, shirking neither hardships nor danger, so long as they could see a prospect of success. They, if aided with roads, would work thousands of acres now idle, and if large water supplies at high levels were available, the country would soon he denuded of its auriferous deposits and quartz reefs, and other minerals laid hare. It may be asked how long will the gold last to pay for costly water supplies. The answer is,look to the Californian, Australian, Otago, and other gold diggings. They are not deserted, and prove that an infinitesimal amount of gold, scattered through the deposits, will pay the miner if water is plentiful —that virtually gold-mining will last for an indefinite period. But even if this industry failed in any particular locality, it should in its first few years have recouped the outlay for water supply which would remain to give the most convenient and valuable motive power for any description of machinery, agricultural and manufacturing, yet invented. This power, so little used yet, is eminently suited to our climate —so free from hard frosts—and must sooner or later be employed for every purpose, from giving power to a knife cleaner to the giant efforts such as it per-

forms in the hydraulic press, notably shown when the Britannia tube bridge was lifted by a trickle of water to its proud position, 100 feet above the sea. When such a simple fact that a hogshead of water per minute falling 100 feet gives two horse-power is as well known as some of the fictions taught in our schools, water will be no longer undervalued. It is perpetual motion, for bounteous nature is constantly lifting it in vapor to be condensed and precipitated on the frigid hills, and thence again to flow in all directions for the use of man. But to return to the value of the vote of last session for water supply, believing as we do, that its importance has been little appreciated. It is in our opinion far too small for the purpose, and unless increased should be rigidly kept to its original purpose, that of making additional water available for our goldfields. In that direction it will do infinite good, for it will make the gold and other minerals now useless in our mountains valuable, in giving a field for the labor of thousands, the best class of taxpayers, and consumers of the products of other parts of the colony.

Of course the advocates of the laissez faire system of government will cry out against the interference of Government in this direction. They would leave all' this to private enterprise. In other words, the riches of this country are to lie in great part undeveloped for ever, or those who first invest their all in the attempt, and who by their expenditure in bringing in water power, or introducing manufactures,make the fortunes of those to come after them are to be themselves ruined for their generous and daring enterprise. This Government interference is nothing but the concentrated action of the wisdom and power of the whole society, and we are forsooth to assume that this latent power when brought into exercise will always be inefficient or necessarily injurious, because men should be left to themselves to be taught by experience—that is to say, to be ruined first and taught afterwards. The vigorous policy of the present Government gives the lie to this cold-hearted philosophy, and promises a greater material advancement in a decade than under the laissez faire policy of “ the wretched past ” we could make in a century. In older countries, such as Great Britain, we see this artificial and concentrated action of the whole community taking new directions, and the day is not far distant when the evils arising from the fheories of political economists will be exploded, and Government railroads, telegraphs, emigration, encouragement to new industries, and provision for the fuller employment of people on the land will he discussed in the Parliament of Great Britain, as for two sessions they have been in ours. This new force in the future will produce grand dynamical results. What steam has done in practical mechanics, it will effect in the national economy. It and it alone can infuse new life and energy into old states sinking into decrepitude, as it and it alone can give spirit and robustness to nationalities struggling into existence.