THISTLEDOWN.

Te Aroha News, Volume XII, Issue 1754, 27 July 1895, Page 2

THISTLEDOWN.

“ A man may jest and tell the truth. —Horace. Whoever may object to the prese: Government it is not for the mining coi munity or those who live on them t-\ «goi plain. Had they been in office some fi years ago we should not have seen tl magnificient plant at Waiorongomai -di mantled and sold piecemeal, leaving tl work to be done all afresh. The request - the Te Aroha G. S. Mining Company w: modest enough in all conscience, especial considering how much money they ha already spent. All they wanted wST-J&az for pound up to five to aid : thoroughly -testing the Waiorongonu reefs, and even this was to be a first charg on all gold recovered. Auckland was the represented-in the Ministry by Mr Mitche son, and the. bulk of the provincial men bers were Government supporters, yet tl request met with a curt refusal. Row di ferent the action of the present Cabinet Not to speak of- the large sums provide for roads and tracks in Ohinemuri the have now made the dream of yesterday deep sinking at the Thames, the fact of t( morrow’. Some time ago they offered M C. A. Harris to supplement any capital'll might raise for this purpose on the poun for pound principal up to =£25,000 ; he ha just cabled that he has raised the fundi and the Minister for Mines has replied tha the offer will be. carried out. All the ev: dence goes to show that deep sinking mus pay if operations are only carried out on sufficiently large scale, that surface worl ings here and in Australia are invariabl succeeded by-a barren area, under whic again is invariably the gold-bearing strat re-appear. We may then look forward t a return within a measurable period of th prosperous days of the early sixties a the Thames. o e o •*’’ A further indication of convalescence ii our staple industry is to be seen in th highly favourably estimate formed of ou reef system by all the representat.ves o English capital, without exception, wh have visited us. The whole country i one regular! system, full -of - reps fror one end of the Peninsula to the other. ‘ The low grade of the reefs offers the mos satisfactory guarantee of their permanence. ■‘ It is the most extensive goldfield I lmv ever seen.' ‘With capital and other ap pliances for treatment on a large scale "necessitated by the low grade of most of.th ore, success i 3 a certainty.' Such are : few of the comments of pur English friends Nor are they speaking without evidencample even for the most sceptical. Karang akake and Waihl have both endorsed these statements in a meat emphatic manner And while we rejoice at the coming pros ; perity of our frienls at the Thames, we ar< glad that everything points to- great days for Waiorongomai also, and by implieatior for Te Aroha.And none should rejoice more in the prosperity of the miner than the farming community, for whom he lays his golden eggs. With the prices ruling at home for all products of the farm everj increase in our homo consumption of beef, mutton, butter, and eggs is an enoimous gain to the producer, and no class is a better customer of the farmer than the goldminer. Already he must have experienced ; a pleasant shock in one respect- The i amount of oats and chaff jjf cessary to conI vey machinery, timber, and other requisites up to Waihi and contiguous districts must have swelled someone’s banking ac- . count, not to speak of the earnings from the same articles of the bu3hmen, the mill? hand, the ship-owner, the iron-worker, and the artisan.

Some time ago I commended to my -readers’ attendance the weekly column in the Herald by Colonus, which is really worth the rest of the paper bar the news. I am, therefore, glad to see that he takes on one point at lea-.t the same unfashionable view-as myself. We always hear war denounced as a relic of the barbarous ages, aud. such enthusiasts as Mrs Aldis and her confreres of the Peace Society look forward to a rapidly approaching millennium when, war shall be no more. It is, I think, Sidonia in Disraeli’s Coningsby, who sayson the same. object, speaking as a Jew, ‘My God is the Lord of Hosts.’ Yes, • the Lord is a man of war,’ and He knows we want a war badly enough now. War has it horrors, so has the hurricane, but as the hurricane clears the air of* the Isles of Eden’ of the pestilential, miasuia of yollow fever, so war clears the moral atmosphere of the no less pestilential miasuiaxof greed and selfishness, and griping ' competition and luxurious indolence and the * accursed thirst of gold,’ which sees no shame in national dishonour if it opens a new or retains an old market. Talk of the victims of war! Which were the worst off, the three hundred who fell at Balaclava, or the three hundred who died since in the workhouse or of semi-starvation? Better be mangled by a Russian shell, than starving in a London garret that your empty belly may swell your employer’s charity cheque.

Arbor Day will he on us soon 'wlien our school children will plant a tree or two, or a hedge or a flowerbed, wriggle uneasily during an oration on the all important value of their efforts, and enjoy themselves with the sports provided by a child loving public. What I want to know, however, is if this is to be the last work in the restoration of our fast vanishing forests. A dozen or two years will see the greater pact's! New Zealand hare of timber trees; is our future supply to depend on the annual efforts of our school-children:. Health and wealth are both involved in the replacement of our forests as we destroy them, and it would be but wisdom to set about the replacement in time.. ‘ When you have nothing else to do, aye be putting in a tree; it will be growing While yon are rotting.’ And there are few things more profitable to those who are able and wise enough to look a few years ahead than tree planting. o o 9 o

A Bill to promote the effitibnfM. tories in our public cemeteries before Parliament, and will, I hope, not only pass hut be taken advantage of. Tt i£„about time we stopped'poisoning the living by our revolting treatment of the dead. The strongest objection to burning the dead comes from so-called Christians, who seem always attempting to belittle the power of the Almighty, whether the question is the salvation of anon-believed, or the resurrection of a believer. As all matter is indestructible the resurrection of the body would appear quite unaffected by the question whether its organic elements were converted .into gases by the decent, cleanly, action of fire or the loathsome process. of corruption. But there is a class which looks down bn such as I as irreligious Whose constant text appears to be, ‘ With God nothing is possible.’ lapyx.