OMAHUTA.

Wairoa Bell, Volume IV, Issue 158, 12 August 1892, Page 2

OMAHUTA.

[FROM OCR OWN CORRESPONDENT.!

Things have greatly improved here since my last, there are now four stores on the field and provisions have in consequence been reduced twenty per cent in price and the gum has risen to 54 and 55 shillings per c-wt, for good or ordinary gums. Most of the store keepers have adopted the Very wise plan of selling stores at reduced prices for cash and thus avoiding’ the risk of Yankee starts, and having to rob their honest customers to make up for the loss. The general rule here now is cash down at the store for goods and cash down at the camp for gum, and both sides appear to be very well satisfied with their terms, the only difference between them being a strong objection on the diggers’ part to take cheques in payment, the reason being’ that on a remote gumfield like this it is very difficult to get them cashed, there beiag no Post Office, Bank or Hotel within twenty miles. Mo,t business people throughout the North seem to prefer paying’ by cheques as cash is scarce and those who are possessed of it appear to he also possessed of a strong’ Colonial resolution to stick to it no matter what comes.

The number of diggers ou the field at present is about 150 of whom only nineteen are white men, the rest being Maories. Very few are doing over one hundred of gum a week and the o-eneral average from what I can see appears to be from fifty to seventy pounds of gum weekly. This is not much hut the prices now given enable a man to make a pound or two over expenses. It is a great pity that the hush is closed to diggers during Summer as it is utterly impossible to work a great part of it in Winter, all the flats and o-ullies being flooded the whole of the season. The tree climbers are doing very liitle here this year most of the trees having been climbed and pretty well cleared of gum last year. The weather has been pretty fair for the months of May and June, all the rain having been apparently reserved until July when it came down in earnest and conlinued steadily for four days and nights, accompanied by the heaviest gale of wind we have yet had. Most of us felt as if we were living under the Shadows of Death whileit lasted, being continually reminded of our danger by falling branches, broken from trees overhead by the force of the wind. However it passed off without accident to anyone although there were some narrow escapes. Could the Government he induced to extend the digging season two months longer it would be more satisfactory to diggers, who would thereby be enabled to work the best part cf the field which is generally flooded with water from about the middle of May to November. As the Bush is closed at the end of September diggers have at present no chance of working this ground or of making up for time which they are forcod to lose owing to the wet weather dnring the three most l-ainy months in the year viz. July, August and September.