THE WEEK.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2859, 13 April 1878, Page 2

THE WEEK.

We hare not heard much lately cf the proposed Government Assay Office, but it is to be hoped that this important matter will not be permitted to sink into oblivion. The agitation concerning it which was got up some weeks ago, resulted in the breaking, for the time at least, of the gold-buy-ing combination of the banks, but if common rumour is worth anything the baaks understand each other again. The only thing to abolish this bank monopoly or combination, and give justice to the hardworking gold producer is the appointment of a GoTernment Assayer, and after all the trouble taken in connection with it, the prime movers in the matter should keep the pot boiling. What with gold duty, miners' rights and sundry other taxes on the mining industry, miners will have to see that they get the full value for their gold if they wish to carry on at all. The work of wholesale forfeiture of unworked mining leases is progressing in a more satisfactory manner, and if the Mining Inspector goes on as be has begun, there will be plenty of ground available for small claims for the working iminer. There are several compauies. who work their large areas in a half-hearted kind of manner with one or two tri outers, which the preliminary notices of forfeiture might have a beneficial effect on.

As might be expected, the wear and tear of eight or ten jeara has considerablj deteriorated the efficiency of the sercral wooden tramways which form the means of conveying quartz down the creeks from the claims to the batteriei, and two of them, the ELaraka and the Hape, are in such a dangerous state that really something should be done either in the matter of dosing them up, or repairing them. There is nothing like the traffic on these two now as there was formerly, but the Moanatairi tramway, which is now, perhaps, as much used as ever it was, is in a very ricketty condition, and the appliances are in such bad order that occasionally a truck bounds over one of the bridges, smashing itself to pieces and scattering its not unfrequently rather ▼aluable freight. The extension of the present dray road as far as the foot of the Alburnia incline, at any rate, should be considered by the County Council, as it is the heavy, tramway and other conveyance charges that make one ounce stuff from the head of the Moanatairi unremunerativc.