BALD HILL FLAT SLUDGE CHANNEL.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 285, 17 July 1873, Page 6

BALD HILL FLAT SLUDGE CHANNEL.

(To the Editor.) Sir, — I notice in your issue of the 19th ult., two letters signed "Miner's Eight" and "Eeliable." Permit me to say a few words in reply. " Miner's Eight " says " payable sluicing prospects have been traced from these gullies right into the flat. There are several reasons why such land was allowed to be leased, the principle one was the absence of water for sluicing purposes, and that there was no purchasing clause in the regulations." But he omitted to state what he knew perfectly well that the Goldfields Act of 1866 made a provision to that effect. Now, if payable prospects were traced into the flat, how was it that Messrs, Simmonds, Mackersy, and I believe Mr. Forrest, signed a petition to get the land thrown open for settlement, With regard to the absence of water, let me inform " Miner's Eight " of what he knew weU when writing hia ',

letter, that there was a water race constructed from Butchers Gully, and brought in at an elevation to command the whole of the Bald Hill Flat. This race had the first right to three sluice heads of - water out of Butchers. I believe the owners of this race are alleged to have traced go-Id into the sections referred to by "Miner's 1 Eight " Bat what seems strange seeing there were no obstacles in the way of working the Plat, and that they had a supply of water for nine months of the year, and the payable prospects referred to before them, they should dispose of their water right out of Butchers Gully for £60 or £80, and leave this wonderful Eldorado, about which there is so much puffing. There is another race owned by Mr. Kemp, which commands the Flat, and is capable of discharging two sluice heads of water for eight months of the year ; but strange to say, with the exception of a few months for the past six years, this water has not been used to unearth the puffed up golden deposits of Bald Hill Flat. " Miner's Right " has wandered from the subject from one end of the Flat to the other, his object evidently being to get as far away as possible from that dirty h*ansaction, the proposed Bald Hill Flat Sludge Channel, upon which this controversy started ; and as I do not intend to be further led away from that subject, I will make a few remarks concerning it. No payable ground was proved to exist along the course of the proposed sludge channel. The usual custom of prospecting the ground before expending money on it was altogether ignored. The scheme was like — heads I win, tails you lose ; or, in others words, the public were to pay for its construction; the Gorge Creek Company were to be paid for the use of their water to assist in its construction ; and the promoters were to be employed on its construction at the public expense, and if no payable ground was found, the public to be the losers by its construction ; and when abandoned by the public, it could be used by order of the philanthropic chief of the Gorge-'ern-all Company, one Cvr — i — see — to wash what he calls the sanguinary cockatoos into the Molyneux. In answer to "Reliable," or more correctly speaking v unreliable," who accuses me of falsehood, and states •* He knows that the correspondent has been working in Butchers Gully for the past three years, and has constructed nearly half a mlie of tailrace." This is an old dodge of the detected pickpocket running away and crying out, " Stop thief ;" for this wilful mistatement is so patent to nearly all the inhabitants, and can be so easily proved by referring to Mr. Theyers, merchant, Alexandra, in whose service the unreliable person was a good part of the time. He now alleges he was working in Butoheis Gully. He only left Mr. Theyers in April, 1871. lie was about six months in the Earnsclough Grand Juuction Claim, and has now been about eight months working on the Gorge Creek race ; this will leave about twelve months for him to have worked in Butchers Creek, and will prove him to be a very " unreliable correspondent," and whose productions appearing from time to time in the columns of your paper have been written with a desire to further his own ends, regardless of justicej ustice to others ; and in future unless he affixes his name to his effusions, I shall treat them with the contempt they merit. — I am, &c, M. J. M'Ginnis. Butchers Creek, June 30.