THE Thames Guardian AND MINING RECORD. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1871.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 64, 20 December 1871, Page 2

THE Thames Guardian AND MINING RECORD. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1871.

The preference of the Waikato settlers for the Piako line of communication over the proposed route to the head waters of the Thames, is not to be wondered at. In the former, there is short and level land transport; in the second, the land carriage is much longer, and the country hilly and broken in many places. The Piako route would he available for produce; the Thames route would only be used for driving live stock, such as cattle, horses, and sheep. The memorial from the Hamilton settlers to the Provincial Council, is therefore, one to which the Council should attend. They set forth the respective merits of both lines, and end in a request that both should be made ; and we sec no reason why their request should not he complied with. As the memorial states, the European population in the Waikato, numbers between 3,000 and 4,000 souls, who are principally producers. A large breadth of land has been prepared for wheat and other cereals, and we have been informed by a. lending Waikato settler that the district will produce a surplus next season. How, this is a highly important consideration to the Thames population. The Waikato settlements are much nearer the Thames, by way of the Piako, than to Auckland, to which the trade of the Waikato has necessarily been gravitating. We say “necessarily,” because, heretofore, the Waikato has bad no other outlet. The Thames population, however, on the goldfield, furnishes a large and regular market for the Waikato producers, if they could only send us their commodities direct, without passing through the Auckland scive. At present, the cost of transport from Auckland to the Upper Waikato settlements is £4 a ton, and vice versa. This is simply a prohibition to agricultural development in the Waikato. The settlers there cannot pay this charge together with the agent’s charges in Auckland, and compete with Australian or Southern producers, whose freight charges arc trifling in comparison; but let them have ready access to Graliamstown and Shorthand by short land and water carriage, and they will be able to farm profitably on a large scale. We are deeply interested in this matter on the goldfield. It is of the utmost importance to the goldfield’s population, that this question should he decided favourably to the mcmoralists. We cannot afford to pay double for all necessaries of life produced in the country simply that Auckland dealers may live. If the town of Auckland has grown too large for the country surrounding it, and on which it must ultimately depend, as it undoubtedly has, the remedy is simple. Let the surplus population who make a precarious living by trade and half-yearly balances in the Bankruptcy Court, go out into the country and become producers. This would at once benefit the country, and relieve those communities, such as the goldfield’s population, from paying several profits on what should only he one transaction. Meanwhile, our effort should steadily he to connect the Upper Waikato district with the Thames, and this may he done at small cost. The way is plain. Will the Auckland Provincial Council render it possible ? Or in the interests of Auckland dealers, money-lenders, and speculators, will they refuse to provide the necessary funds, preferring that the Waikato should remain undeveloped, and the Thames goldfield illsupplied, until, at the charge of the whole population of the province they get their Waikato railway made, to divert, in perpetuity, the Waikato traffic to the over-grown and misgoverned town on the banks of tlie Waitemata ? We shall see. Meanwhile, Mr Wm. Hay has charge of the memorial.