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Southland Times, Issue 1073, 14 December 1868, Page 2

According to the West Coast ' Times ' there is a great dearth in the labour market in Westland just now, the construction of the Leviathan Water-race having been stoped in consequence. The ' New Zealand Sun ' (Dunedin) Bth Dec. says: — "The latest account from the Salmon Ponds at the Waiwera is to the effect that the fish, numbering between 400 and 500, are thriving most satisfactorily ; their average length being now 3£in or 4in. — Mr Gh Duncan, in his boxes at the Water of Leith f has half a dozen fine young salmon — at least equal to those at the Waiwera, The Show to be held in Dunedin under the auspices of the Agricultural aud Pastoral Society of Otago, is definitely fixed to be held on Thursday, the 14th January, 1869— instead of the 7th as originally agreed upon. The next anniversary of New Zealand ■will be the centennial, Captain Cook having landed on these shores on the Bth October, 17 69. Some of the Northern papers suggest that a general demonstration should be got up to celebrate it throughout the colony in a suitable manner. The ' Daily Times/ of the 9th inst., speaking of the Panama Mail Service, says : — " Amongst the telegrams which appear in our columns this morning is one which is fraught with the deepest interest to the entire colony. It states that Mr Marshall, the agent sent out by the Royal Mail Company to watch^their interests in the Panama Company on this side of the globe, had taken possession at Sydney of the latter company's steamship Mataura, which was advertised to sail for London. The ' Sydney Morning Herald,' remarking upon this action the part of Mr Marshall declared that the Rakaia, which conveys the outward mail to Panama this month, would be the last vessel that would do so. Hopes, however were expressed in private letters received at Wellington that such a disastrous result might be avoided by some arrangement being entered into for the conveyance of the mails, the Tararua being spoken of as likely to be put on the line to meet the emergency." From Dunedin papers we learn that the Otago Provincial G-overnment has received intelligence, through Mr Warden Pyke, of the discovery of a payable goldfield. It appears that Mr William Green, of Tapanui, prospected for a field, and succeeded in finding good ground on Mr Ainsley's run, on the Waikaka, near the Pomahaka. In a letter to Mr Pyke, he Bays : — " The whole of the ground is new, except some few gullies which have been cradled. I was prospecting the terraces for six weeks, and everj one that I tried contained payable gold with water upon them. We have some first-class ground. We have ground below our race which will not be worked out for twenty years, although 100 men were employed at it every week. We are about twenty miles from Switzers." The 30th ult. was the last day appointed by the N.Z.S.N. Co. for the sending in of tenders for purchasing the wreck of the Taranaki. Not a Bingle offer, however was received. The Canterbury ' Press ' came out on the let December in a reduced form as a penny paper. The late rush to the old Greenstone diggings, Westland, appears to have assumed large proportions, no less than 2000 men, according to last account, being on the ground. The report that a Hauhau Missionary had been for some time making converts among the Maories in Otago, which appeared in the Dunedin papers, has been indignantly denied in a letter sent from the Maori Kaik, and signed by fourteen of the head men, to the ' Daily Times,' in which we find the following emphatic sentence : — " We feel that there has been a great slur cast upon vs — that a great cloud has come over us ; and we beg to state that we utterly abhor the conduce of the Hauhaus in the North Island."