AS OTHER FOLKS SEE THEM.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3910, 11 July 1881, Page 2

AS OTHER FOLKS SEE THEM.

(To the Editor of the Evening Star ) Sic, —What charitable fellows the directors of the Moanatairi Company are! Just fancy, they have been paying the amount of their contribution to tho Big Pump just for charity] They have not the remotest idea that they will ever get it back. Just fancy C. J. Stone and (Jo. turning philanthropists for the benefit of that portion of the human race dwelling on the Thames J £21,000 have been spent in company's operations, outside the £50,000 Goverumeot grant, and during the expenditure of these sums the contribution of the Nonpareil Company has been £16,000. The shareholders got off light as compared with the other contributing mines. From what I can learn the directors of the Moanatairi Company are like our Yankee Ireland, that would spend their brothers last dollar in forwarding their own interests. 1 hare heard that some of the directors have stated that they have never derived any benefit from keeping the pumps-^going. This is a different statement from that told when they asked the local bodies on the Thames to help to provide provinder for the White Elephant, that has been a continual drag on the local bodies. If the twelve or thirteen thousand pounde ; spent for the benefit of the Bay of Islands i Coal Company had been spent in opening up the back country, it would have given a fair chance to the hardy settlers. I suppose, now 4 that it has been decided to suspend operations, those warm advocates of the useless expenditure will allow that the money, so far, has been misspent, and too much has been paid for the whistle. From what I can learn of the late Pump meeting in Auckland, it seems that the directors of the Moanatairi Company had made up their minds that no further money would be paid by them; but it was pointed out to them that it would be necessary to give three months' notice, and if they did not pay their share, the other mines represented were determined that there would be no shirking of the responsibility, and if any refused to pay the unpaid capital would be called up. This brought the shirkers somewhat to their senses, so if no arrangements can be made before the 10th of October by our Auckland capitalists, it is just possible that th" proposed English Company will be in full swing. In the meantime, I would just remind the Inspector of Mines that there is some work for him to do without going to Te Aroha and the other out districts and re-entering the mines there.; that there is work for him to do nearer home, in looking after some of the large holdings, where nothing but a few tributers are to be found working in the majority of cases, for the benefit of others, such as the shirking directors and shareholders of the Moanatairi Company. —I am, &c, Wokkman.

(To the Editor of the Evening Stab.)

Stk, —This morning's Advertiser draws its readers' attention to the almost absolute necessity there is for thoroughly testing the deep levels at the foot of the Moana* tairi and other claims, by the employment of English capital in order "to advance the welfare of the field which lies before us." "At any rate something should be done without delay in order to preserve mining from decay," but it is hardly credible that a respectable journal should so befoul its own nest as to not only discourage pioneer prospecting of new country (within its own district, mark you), but to say that " the discovery of a few loose stones showing gold on any part of the peninsula is sufficient to estrange capital from a well tried, auriferous district," and to designate those energetic men who, moved by that spirit which has made our nation and our colonies so great, who go out into the wilds accepting cheerfully every discomfort, buoyed up by the hope that they may, and most likely will be rewarded by the successful discovery of something good, are " a class of adventurers who make periodical rises out of the credulity of investors by magnifying the prospects of these untried localities " is really too bad. To my mind the pioneer prospectors and they who subsequently to a supposed payable find expend money and time in pegging out, obtaining licenses and bona fide testing the ground, are the very men who develop the whole field and prevent the necessity of the Advertiser packing up its type and flitting to pastures new. I defy your contemporary to name a single case in support of his statements. Iv all the districts that have been opened since the commencement of mining at the Thames there have been good grounds for the expenditure of oapital. It takes time to develop every locality, and it is not because the first investors lose their money, that the prospectors and those immediately following in their steps, are to be called swindlers. Look at Waitekauri and Owharoa, how many people lost money in opening up these fields P Can you call these districts "duffers?" Then again take Te Aroha- I have no doubt that some time hence, it may be years, this will be a very extensive and payable field. It may not be so, but the prospects justified people in investing capital in testing it; and so on with Puriri, Tairua, Tapu and other districts, not one a duffer. The Advertiser it seems, has made a dead set on Waihi, why or wherefore caonot be ascertained. It may be because the prospectors, respecting their Sunday's rest, refused to allow that paper's "own to inspect their works on that day. Such a paper does not deserve any support, and I shall be very much surprised if it gains much from the country districts. The information referred to in a local this morning respecting the result of the first trial crushing from the Prospector's claim at Waihi is evidently disbelieved, although the news was brought into, town by a near relative of the leading mine manager of this field. This of itself is sufficient evidence of there being some animus on the part of the paper in question.—l am, <&c, Waitkte.

(To the Editor of the Evbmins bTAB.)

Sin, —I see by the Parliamentary returns that the South Island has had some millions more expended on railway work than our North Island. Whose fault is it that we, the Forth Island settlers, have been taxed yearly to pay on the expenditure of such an out of the way large proportion of public money P When the Grey Ministry was in office it passed two Totes for the making of a railway to connect us with Waikato, Taupo, Wanganui, and the West Coast of the Island, but the said work was strangled by Auckland in-

fluence, and the Attonn-y-General's in particular : he was so prudent he could not move in the matter, because he had a 40 acre section at Kopu, within two or three miles of Shorlland. Had the railway been carried through to Waikato that section would have been, worthless. Just so, sir, the County must suffer in the meantime; and that gent has such power he got the local authorities to move in the matter, and so, instead of the railway traversing and opeuing up a grand pastoral and agricultural country, those local bodies have brought forth a mouse of a railway to open up the great Attor-ney-General's 40 acre section, that will be no use to any class of the human race, unless it be for the amuse* ment of the local bodies at the Grahamstown to take an airing to recruit their exhausted energies after a night's spree. Well, I suppose after the Attor-ney-General directs those elastic local rulers to spend thousands of the public money, to advance the value of his swampy 40-acre section, the dictator may allow the railway to . be ; . ,con> „, structed to the hundreds of thousands of ' acres of the public estate his son and company have purchased at Patetere, Kawia, Hunga Hunga, and several other blocki, extending away to the interior of the County. Sir, tho North Island is a huge aud gigantic swindle, carried out by i well organised land ring, to the injury of three-fourths of the unfortunate colonist! „.-- of it. Well, all I can say is that the "■ people of the North Island are a tame lot to be trampled on by such a set of despots. I say we are the most despoticly ruled power in Her Majesty's great dominions. We have a nominated Gover* nor, a nominated Upper House, nominated Land Boards, who pick the eyes out of the blocks before they are offered to the public, and 60 odd lilliputiau powers that cost about a quarter of a million to keep vp —a loafing society in the oolony. These powers rule the country, and the great obstructing Attorney-General rules the lot, although he was rejected by the people of Auckland—for a Boy.—t am, &c., A Colonist.

Thames, July 7th, 1881.

(To the Editor of the Evening Star.)

Sib, —I think the following extract from J. Ruskin, the seer, will be interesting to you and your readers. He says:—" To every rich man's sod, he would hare this early said to him by his tutor—Sir, you are so placed in society—it may be for your misfortune, it must be for your trial —that you are likely to be maintained all your life by the labor of other men. You; will have to make shoes for nobody, but** some one will have to make a great many for you ; you will have to dig ground for nobody, but some one will hare to dig through every summer's hot day for you; you will build houses and make clothes for no one, but many a rough hand must knead clay, and many an elbow be crooked in the stitch, to keep that body of your's w»rm and fine. Now, remember whatever you and your work may be worth, the less your costs the better. It does not cost money only, it costs degradation. You do not merely employ these people, you also tread upon them. It cannot be helped—you have your place and they hare theirs ; but see that you tread upon them as lightly as possible, and on as few a» possible. What food, clothing, and lodging you honestly need for your health and peace, you may righteously take. See that you take the plainest you can serve yourself with—that you waste nor wear nothing vainly; and that you employ no man in furnishing you with any useless luxury." He-adds: —" It should be'part ;'■ of my scheme of physical education,' that every youth in the State, from the ' Sing's son downwards, should learn to do something finely and thoroughly with his hands, so as to let him know what touch meant and what stout craftsmanship meant, and to inform him of many things besides, which no man cau learn but, by some severely accurate discipline in doing. Let him once learn to take a straight shaveing off a plank, or draw a* fine curve without faltering, or lay a brick level in its morter, and he has learnt m multitude of other matters, which no lips could ever teach him. He might choose his craft, but whatever it was he should learn it to some sufficient degree of true dexterity."—l am, &c, J. Horn.