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New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4485, 4 August 1875, Page 2

Three petitions from the goldmining district of the Thames were presented yesterday to the House of Representatives by Mr. Charles O’Neill, M.H.R., the member for the district. The first petition was in favor of a railway in the valley of the Thames, a numerously-signed petition in favor of which having been presented to the House of Representatives last session by the people of the Thames, Waikato, and Tanranga, which embodied valuable statistical information. At present the only practical route from the Thames to Upper Waikato is by Auckland, which besides being costly and uncertain, incurs sea and river carriage, and extends to one hundred and fifty miles. An easy line of railway could be formed, which would have no works of unusual magnitude, and would only he fifty miles in length. If this line were constructed it would encourage settlement, and enable merchandise to be freely exchanged between Tanranga and Waikato, and the rapidly increasing thirteen thousand inhabitants of the Thames, Ohinemuri, and. Tairua, by far the largest constituency of New Zealand. It would also develope the agricultural, pastoral, and other industries of the whole district, embracing farming, goldmining, coalmining, flax dressing, gum digging, and the timber trade. A favorable report was made on this line for the Government by the late Mr. Daniel Simpson, C.E., an engineer of much experience, and who was for some years a resident of the district.—The second petition advocating the formation of roads in connection with the goldfields. A very large amount of capital had been spent in erecting machinery and prospecting for gold. Rich gold had been discovered at Tairua, hut which cannot be properly worked for want of sufficient roads, the construction of which, would give employment, to several thousand people. Those roads are absolutely required for the transit of machinery, provisions, and mining recpiisites. Within the last three months two hundred and fifty acres of the Tairua goldfield had been applied for, which represented a thousand pounds paid into the Warden’s office, and employment for a thousand skilled miners. The Ohiuemuri goldfield would also require main roads for goldmining purposes and settlement. The value of tho gold on which duty has been paid since the opening of the Thames goldfields, has exceeded £3,270,101, which has been principally obtained from those portions which have good roads to the crushing mills. The Thames borough has seven miles of road, over which heavy goldfields’traffic is carried; and the highway districts of Waiotahi, Kanauanga, Coromandel, and Parawai have also long lines_ of roads to maintain for the same purpose, which have been made almost entirely by the residents and miners taxing themselves under the provisions of the Municipal Corporations Act and Highway Boards Act. It is believed that reefs as rich as those from which tho beforementioned amount of gold (paying duty to the Government) was taken exist, but which can-

not be profitably worked until proper roads be made. To make and form those roads, so imperatively necessary to the welfare of the district, to the province of Auckland, and to a great extent of the colony generally, and to maintain for a period of one year those now made, over which quartz in large quantities is daily carted, will cost thirty thousand pounds.— The third petition was by the Waiotahi Highway District Board at the Thames, praying for the extension of the present Waiotahi road to a point about Nolan’s Candlelight goldmining claim, which is estimated to cost five thousand pounds. The district has an area of about four square miles, with a number of gold-producing reefs. The late Judge Beckham decided that on the 4th clause of the second part of the Highway Boards Empowering Act, the goldfield lands at the Thames are not liable to be rated. The reefs in the centre and back part of the district, although yielding 2oz. of gold to the ton of quartz, will not pay, from the entire absence of dray roads, although mines yielding loss than half an ounce to the ton have paid. It has been ascertained that a rich belt of gold country lies in an easterly direction from Nolan’s Candlelight claim.

In addition to our special telegraphic summary of contemporary opinion on the great measures now before the country, we may notice that by the Press Association’s telegrams it appears as if the opinions of the Lyttelton Times were undergoing a modification. In lleefton, popular feeling is altogether in favor of the proposed changes. By a telegram from Dunedin, we learn that the eccentric Wellington correspondent of the Otayo Daily Times is at those eld practices which had disappeared for a time before certain gentle admonition and chastening on our part. He gives the number of the Opposition at thirty, although only some one-and-twenty were present at their caucus.