LOCAL TROUBLES.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2870, 27 April 1878, Page 2

LOCAL TROUBLES.

(To tbe Editor of ttie Evening Star.) Bib,-~Now that the surplus cash has been left; in Auckland this Easter, and we return with poor months for another few months' perish, we ought td ookour position fairly in the face. We hare been going back since Christmas. We hare no outlying settlement to nourish us; no land of bur own to till. We cannot all get Borough or County contracts, so we must fall back on our one local industrygold raising. Various are the schemes proposed for our enlightenment in pros* pecting for fresh fields; but I fear that the want of capital will be a drawback. The cheapest way that the County Conncil can go to work is to give us pack tracks on the ranges. This ought to be done, eren were Jt not a necessity, as at S resent. Had this been accomplished uring the good times on the field, we should hare had something; to turn our hands to at this dull season. But it is not so much the outlying distrusts we should look to as the ground that is now looked up. The companies' work for wages men here is very small; and tributing cannot last for ever. It is all Tery well for any fortunate miner who knows where a block of payable stuff has been left; or that has an obliging mania* ger to put Mm on to a good thing for a sleeping share; but the system must coma to grief in the long run, for, after the known patches are worked out, it simply means prospecting at the expense of the storekeeper. That's not so bad for a single man; but when it comes into play on a married man's field like this, it means sorrow to the butcher nnd baker. We are simply a suburb of Auckland; our best claims are managed in Auckland; our business people,are tied to Auckland, with few exceptions; and Auckland has the strings in her hands. It is only by a combination of working miners, whose capital is their labor, that we can have any influence as to the working of the held. If the directors of a claim let it lie idle, let some one put in an application for reentry; The Warden and Mining Inspector are only too ready to ventilate any grievance of non-working; so that it really is our own fault in not working this up. To wages men, I ask them to consider what their own status will be if, say three or four claims amalgamate a la Alburnia and Moanatairi. What is to prevent them in uniting to rmr your wages down to five or six shillings a day, knowing as they all do you are to a great extent tied here? This is worth looking into, and stirring up the miners union—that has not been heard of for some time. These are the men who should handle the jobs', as a public-spirited man is seldom found amongst jour ranks if .there's half a shift to be lost by a little trouble ; at any rate if anything is to be

done in the matter it should be done at once, lest the cancer eating its way in our midst should grow too large to be cut, and you and yours would awake too late .—to find yourselves sunk into the serfdom that many of you experienced in Auckland province previous to the breaking out of tho field. Although knowing your independent columns are ever open to ventilate our local troubles, I beg to apologise for encroaching on your other matter.—l am, &c,

Pliix Tbuth.

Thames, April 20th.