THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi.` MONDAY, OCTOBEE 11, 1875.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2112, 11 October 1875, Page 2

THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi.` MONDAY, OCTOBEE 11, 1875.

The unfortunate stoppage of the Bright Smile pumps is beginning to be felt with more and more severity, which must inevitably increase.further still unless some satisfactory- arrangement for continuing their -working is come to—and that speedily. It has been found necessary to discharge the men from the City of London mine on. account of the rise of water, and the Queen of Beauty and Queen of the May must sooner or later follow suit. This sudden loss of work to a number of men —many of them breadwinners, and sole breadwinners of wives and families—is a calamity of so serious a public character that it affects the whole community; nay ! the Southern Cross goes further still and declares that it concerns the whole province of Auckland. The prospect, at any rate, is sufficiently alarming to demand that every one who can in any way, however small, either in a public or private capacity, do anything to remedy matters as they at present stand should try his best to do so. The loss of actual gold to the district is of itself important. The stoppage of works, the check given to industries, the stand still of trade as the result of this loss is more important still. But the sudden deprivation to a large body of men-a body still further to be increased when the other mines on the flat stop work —•of their means of livelihood is the most serious and most important of all. Enforced idleness to many men, means simply starvation to themselves and families, or at the best a large, if not an exhaustive drain on that provision for a rainy day which their industry, and prudence may have enabled,. them to accumulate. The manager of the City of London has, gone to Auckland to meet the directors-'of that company, and to see if some arrangement can be effected. One thing seems obvious—all the mines interested in the well-being of the Bright Smile pumps must pay their fair and

proper amount to maiutain these pumps and their working. It has been pointed out that at present they have only contributed about £1500 per annum, or, deducting £450, which the Bright Smile pay to the Pumping Association, about one fifth only of the amount which these pumps cost to maintain. Some arrange" xnent must be come to, that is certain, or these valuable mines will be lost to the Thames. But until that arrangement is made, the mining community and through them the whole district are in a state of suffering, daily increasing. Something immediate is required, lest this suffering become unendurable. The Bright Smile arc no doubt right to refuse to work their pumps at a loss, and perhaps consider that stopping them altogether is the only way to make the other mines fair contributors to the expense. But, perhaps, having shown their power they might be induced, as the need is so urgent, by fair offers on the part of the other mines, to set their machinery to work at once to avert the present calamity in the district, on the understanding that a fair and binding agreement will be speedily arrived at or the pumps apain stopped. Every day is of importance. With- some two hundred miners out of work, and a probabilitynay, a certainty—of speedy additions to their numbers, any arrangement, even of a temporary nature, which is possible should be tried, even ivere it only to patch up affairs until the whole matter is settled.