MINING REPRESENTATION.

Southland Times, Issue 1201, 25 January 1870, Page 3

MINING REPRESENTATION.

- ■ ♦■ ;Mr Broad, one of the candidates for the representation of the Thames district in the Auckland Provincial Council, in one of his speeches said : — Before I Bit down I will use an argument — and, to my mind an unanswerable one — in support of increased representation to the miners through the length and breadth of New Zealand. Look back with me to the year 1861, when the old Scotch settlers of Otago looked out of their windows with great fear and dislike upon those men — those strange men — toiling their way up to the goldfields at Gabriel's Gully. A few months saw the rapid strides Otago made, and in a very short time the purses of those old settlers were filled with " bawbees ;" and at last with that true honesty of feeling and sense of justice which I thoroughly believe their j countrymen nearly always possess, they "confessed that the miners were not a bad lot of fellows after all— (Cheers.) The first thing they did after admitting that fact was to give them a share in the representation in the Provincial Council — that was the thin end of the wedge, and we have been trying to drive it home ever since. Shortly after the discovery of gold in Otago came the discovery on the "West Coast. Now, look through New Zealand— look at Dunedin, which a few years ago was a miserable villiage ;.it is now a splendid city. Look through the length and breadth of Otago, and you will find thousands of acres now nnder ttie plough, which, but a few years ago, were in a state of nature. Look at Hokitika, Greymouth, "Westport, and the place where we now are, which two short years ago was a miserable swamp, and tell me have not the miners done something for the country ? — (Cheers.) Are they not justly entitled to a fair share of the representation? Look, gentlemen, at the wonderful machine, which, starting from the Bluff and Invercargill, will shortly reach Auckland, and enable you to send messages in less time than you can write them to your most distant friends. And I say, but for the exertions of the miners, the electric telegraph of New Zealand would still be a thing of the future— (Loud cheers.) Gentlemen, I have mentioned these things, not only to show you with what interest I have watched the progress of the country, but as an unanswerable argument to my mind in favor of your claim for a larger share in the representation — (Applause.)