A VOICE FROM TROGLODYTE CREEK.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 305, 19 November 1873, Page 3

A VOICE FROM TROGLODYTE CREEK.

The' general feeling Up here is in favor of the movement lately made by the Government in throwing open the various blocks of land in j the neighborhood for settlement Although I, in a great measure, concur in the aphorism of " better late than never," one can scarcely avoid regretting that the policy was not adopted earlier, and our district placed on a level with others that had not a tithe of its claims to the consideration jpf the Provincial Executive-. Their present measure for our benefit is something on a par with the sick man's kind friends who were asked for a bottle of milk to aid him on to convalescence. Of course they immediately complied with the request, and sent him the milk as desired; but the cream had been taken from it, and the invalid was expected to recover at once on the Bkimmed apology. At the same time, we have every disposition to give credit to the Governmerit for the tardy justice they are about to deal Out to us ; but the favors they arc conferring are of that kind that the people up here can only receive them with the same spirit of reluctance with which they were granted. Well, you will say, we are allowed to growl, and are making the most of the privilege. At any .rate, wo are only doing what more highly favored communities have done, and are doing, and succeeding in getting their wants supplied by these very means which in others J supposed to be reprehensible. Howt owr growling did not get us a bridge at Teviot, as I see the vote has lapsed. It not restore to us the splendid blocks of . erable land that have been sold from us. It wjllnot givems the opportunity of openingup and working, by means of the water power we possess, the well-known auriferous ground below the Dumbarton Bock, as, by the sale of the 20,000 acres to the runholders, possessors of water rights will not be permitted to cross the property "of those gentlemen with their water races. Applications for that purpose have made to them, and have been refused, although it was stated at the time of the sale of that land there should be no obstacles placed in the way of the miners for the carrying out of their legitimate occupations. Will our growling restore to us the lost time and caused hj the delays, through the promises held out tq us so often, and as often broken ? And now, when we ask for land, they give us rocks. All our growling will not bring back the men and money that would have remained amongst us had. the land gazetted years gone by been occupied by the very best class of settlers that were procurable out of Great Britain : Men who pioneered the prosperity that has since ensued to the province, and who were compelled to leave it because they had been deceived and disappointed by the various Governments we Wye been cursed with, whose vaccilation in connection with the land policy ha 3 forced upon us an amount of taxation for immigration and public works that could and would have been, in a great measure, avoided had they been only sufficiently consistent in their administration of the Waste Lands Acts, by fulfilling the promises through which they were placed in effice; and retained the men who had made the means in Otago for settling, but who could not by any possibility" procure sufficient ground beyond the area allowed by their miners' rights to grow a cabbage upon ; end now, when we can no longer be put off by vague promises, they offer for our acceptance ft block or two of country that the squatters can very comfortably dispense with. Well, it cannot be remedied now, so I suppose, like jfi^TOst of the world, we should be humbly Thankful for the small blessing (?) doled out -Jfco us. Thbodosius G-lttodebbutz. Troglodyte Creek, Koekhopper House, 15th Nov, 1873. [We have divided the foregoing letter into two parts, and the second part will appear in Saturday's issue.— Edv « T,T>"