THE QUEENSLAND GOLDFIELDS.

Westport Times, Volume II, Issue 186, 5 March 1868, Page 2

THE QUEENSLAND GOLDFIELDS.

Subjoined is the information that we can gather respecting the gold fields : DISCOVERT OP A NUGGET WEIGHING 1000 OUNCES.

(From the Maryborough Chronicle, Feb. 7th.) Since the discovery of the Mary River goldfield itself, we have not had more startling intelligence to announce than we have to-day. Our townsman, Mr George Curtis, who has a claim on Sailor's Gully, at the head of Nash's Creek, was at work yesterday*(Thursday) afternoon, when he had the good fortune to drive his pick into a monster nugget, the weight of which was reported to us to be variously 70 lbs, 75 lbs, and 80 lbs. "We at first refused credence to the report; it seemed like one of those wild rumors often set afloat now-a-days ; but after making inquiry we found the report to be correct. There can be no mistake about it. "We had it on good authority before, but our last authority is Mr Pockley, the manager of the Commercial Bank at Nashville, who writes to the manager here that the nugget has been lodged in the bank, and he estimates that it contains about 1000 ounces of gold. The claim in which the nugget was found had been worked and abandoned when Mr Curtis took possession of it. Since he has worked the claim it has never yielded more than £3 to £4 per week, and he had some thought of leaving it and trying his fortune elsewhere. Lucky for him he did not. The nugget was found but a few inches, we understand, below the surface. There was great excitement on the discovery becoming known, and in a few hours every inch of the neighboring ground was pegged out into claims ; and from our impression of the spot we should be surprised if a large extent of payable surfacing—nuggetty and patchy—is not found there. We should have said that Mr Curtis is Scab Inspector for this district, on leave of absence. It is a singular circumstance that Mr Goodchap, the discover of the Caledonia Reef, which has yielded so many rich specimens, was at the time of the discovery in the Government service on furlough. The Queensland Guardian mentions that the party of gentlemen who started overland to the Gympie Creek diggings from Brisbane, last Wednesday week, for the purpose of endeavoring to find an available road from this town to the goldfield, hava returned, and their efforts have been successful; a perfectly available passage between the range and the river having been discovered by cutting through a small scrub. The distance by the proposed route is estimated at about one hundred miles through a well-grassed and watered country. The escort which arrived at Maryborough on Feb. 11th, brought 3481 ounces of gold. The s.s. Alexandra left Sydney on February 14th, with over one hundred and fifty passengers for the Maryborough diggings, Queensland. A new goldfield has been discovered about fifteen miles from Brisbane." The prospectors brought in five ounces.

(IProm the Launceston Examiner.) Sib, —To tell you something of the things about Queensland may not be unacceptable in your columns—that is if the news factory is idle, or the laborers out on strike. To commence with the gold-fever into which we have been suddenly immersed by the fabulous finds of the stuff. About 120 miles from Brisbane, and 60 from Maryborough an old miner, after a laborious search for weeks, perhaps months, discovered a creek called Gympie Creek, or more properly

speaking, discovered in this creek at first the color of gold. Elated at his success, further search was made, until at last he came upon one of those abominable (to the majority) patches of gold that has at different times in our history drawn friends asunder (money and the love for it), pluuged thousands into distress. Our Queensland goldfields are all subject alike; all or none is the order of our diggings. In a small piece of ground some few feet square the prospector and his party are to be seen digging up nuggets of gold (without washing) only about two feet from the surface, in the way a man would dig young potatoes. Q-old news, like the toad fish, only wants well rolling to magnify. When this fact became known in Brisbane, Maryborough, and the surrounding districts, people rose as one man, and in two days the wild bush tracks were thronged with all conceivable means of exit ; and still they go. Shops, manufactories, and ships lost their workmen, and for ten days this mad excitement continued, and it was not until some hundred of holes had been bottomed that it abated. The southern colonies appear to have caught the infection, and are sending their freights of diggers to this delusive scene. I hope your colonists have not forgotten the smart lesson taught to those who wildly rushed to the Fitzroy and Canoona some years ago. Six months ago we were flooded out of house and home, and now we are parched for water, for we have had none since. Our potato crop has completely failed, and we must therefore import from Tasmania this year more largely than we have yet done. After a struggling existence of several years our cotton enterprise has almost died out, save one or two instances where planters had the means of procuring slaves from the South Seas. Our sugar-growing gives better promise of snecess than the cotton. The estimate of this season's crushing will be all out 500 tons, while large areas are being planted with cane from which there will be no return for eighteen months. Sugar will grow as luxuriantly in this colony as in the Mauritius, and as sure as eggs are eggs Queensland will supply the Australian demand before long; but it is not going to benefit this colony as many would suppose, because planters will not employ white labor; they are now importing slaves from the South Sea Islands, who work for nothing and live upon almost nothing to it; they will work when they are flogged to it, and as that is a cheap way of getting work out of them the planters are satisfied. Ships loaded with this abject race have taken the place of the British immigration in Queensland. An attempt to utilise our natives has been tried but failed. The wheat crops in this colony have not, taking the average of the last few years, been remunerative to the growers, therefore it is not likely that we shall support ourselves in breadstuffs. We shall always be a market for your flour, while sending you sugar and rum in return.

Our immigration is stayed. The inducement giveu to the capitalist to commence a new life in the Australian bush was insufficient to secure a population so much needed. To treat the pauper and the capitalist alike is a mistake, to import the farmer is a mistake also. Now that I hear you contemplate inaugurating a system, let the failure of others be improved upon. The laborers in Tasmania are without doubt better paid and better fed than those in tbe other colonies. The capitalist alone can improve, and if improvement is wanted they are the class to overcome the difficulties that follow migration; they would also absorb the labor of the youngsters that are growing up in the colony in a state discreditable to it. A model farm whereon these youths could be placed previous to their being sent to settlers would facilitate the object; the Government would be relieved of a large unnecessary expense in a manner most conducive to the best interests of society. In commercial affairs Queensland has taken a deplorable retrogressive step. Our mushroom-like growth has fallen, and we are at this time in a state of hopeless ruin. A third of the houses in the city, are witheut tenants, and rents have fallen within two years six hundred per cent. A good house can now be got for ten shillings a week, for which fifteen shillings be got a short time ago. An odd steamer or two supplies our wants that at one time occupied a daily line. Our summer has set in with vengeance. Fires, fevers, and sunstrokes are common occurences; and I hope soon to be able to return to dear old Tasmania, if not a richer a wiser man, for what is the world to a man if his wife is a widow ? A Brisbane Man.