OTAGO GOLDFIELDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 June 1939, Page 7

OTAGO GOLDFIELDS

CONDITIONS IN EARLY DAYS. First-hand accounts of conditions on the goldfields in New Zealand are less frequent than we could wish. In 1862 two brothers named Walker, men .of education, were in New Zealand seeking their fortune. Copies of their letters have been made available to the National Historical Committee by relatives, which throw the most vivid light on the life of the digger. As one might expect in a gold-rush, there was crowding competition for worthwhile claims and very high prices for provisions. Flour was 9d a.lb. sugar Is 3d a lb, and bacon 2s Gd a lb. while the essential tools of the miner’s trade were even more disproportionately overvalued—a pick selling for 15s Gd. a shovel for 10s, and 6s was the price of a tin dish. The brothers were continually finding new gullies full of men. or else of old holes, proving that the ground had been tried already. In spite of the large number of people scattered over the hills of the Dunstan Diggings, more or less independent of organised gov ernment, there was a surprisingly high standard of public order and even good fellowship, though there was definitely , a spirit of every man for. himself, which would allow a chance companion to perish alone if he should be unlucky enough to lag behind„on the march. The brothers Walker soon gave up prospecting and themselves went into business as store-keepers. The hazards of gold-mining were certainly greater than the mere stress of wind and weather. A young man had his nose bitten by rats while his arms were immovable from rheumatism, though "he managed to frighten them away by shouting and blowing and yelling at them." Conditions were bit Icily hard at the diggings: "The river rose 10 feet last week and stopped all

the working; people in England make a fuss about Lancashire distress; why some of these poor fellows on the river have but one meal a day, and that very often nothing but flour. Still they say nothing. Perhaps they arcwise. because if they did there is nobody to help them.”