The Westport Times. SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 1870.

Westport Times, Volume IV, Issue 634, 19 March 1870, Page 2

The Westport Times. SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 1870.

It is highly significant ©f the earnestness of the movement that on each occasion on which meetings have been called in Westport to promote the institution of a Miners' League, the meetings have been both largely attended and unanimous. It is also creditable to the spirit of the community, if it is not very suggestive of the richness of the district, and of that recklessness which is presumed to form a part of the character of diggers, that it has been on holiday occasions that these sober and deliberate meetings have assembled. The fact of similar meetings having been so readily held in the Charleston and Grey districts is in an equal degree suggestive of the prevalence of the feelings by which the meetings have been inspired, and of the sympathy which exists between the different districts as to the existence of grievances and as to urgent necessity for their amendment. So far, the original promoters of the League, or those who primarily and prominently iaterested themselves in its objects, have great reason to be satisfied. Their purpose has been promoted without cavil and dissension, and, though there may be diversity of feeling as to the programmo of wants to be stated in the petition agreed upon on Thursday evening, we do not anticipate that there will be in other districts sufficient diversity of feeling to prevent a universal signature of the petition when it is once prepared.

The only subject on which there may be a diffieronce of feeling will be the institution, or, at aayrv.te, the constitution of Mining Boards. But that will arise more from deficiency of information as to their abuses than from aay diversity of opinion as to the uses which they are meant to serve. It will be generally admitted that a Mining Board, Mining Conference, or Meeting of Delegates, whatever it may be called, would prove a useful institution, even if it should exist only under limited conditions, and meet only at distant, but stated, intervals. Even though Mining Boards should not exist as a piece of administrative machinery, always in the active exercise of duty, they would be equally serviceable to the mining interests as are Trade Protection Societies and Chambers of Commerce to the commercial interests, or as other and incorporated bodies are in connection with the everyday business of the world. If their necessity or propriety be admitted, the precise basis upon which they shduld be initiated may form matter of discussion at another time. Meantime we understand it to be the desire of the Westport Committee to have, from other local committees, or from the constituencies whom they represent, fresh expression of feeling as to the propositions which they contemplate including in the text of the petition about to be prepared; and, if it cannot be done by letter, or can be better done by delegates, they have appointed AVestport, and Saturday the 16th proximo, as the placo and time at which they shall be glad to meet representatives both from Charleston and the Grey. It may then be with propriety discussed whether any petition which may be prepared should not be presented personally by one or more representatives of the League, and whether, to secure cohesion and unanimity of action on the part of its members, it would not be wise that they should be identified by the enrolment of names and the payment of a merely nominal fee. It is certainly desirable that it should acquire as much of a corporate character as possible, and that any of its representations should be made, not as the suddenly inspired or merely incidental expressions of a company of " wayfarers," but as the deliberate appeal of a community whose capital and labor are considerable in amount, and by no means slightly affected by the laws of the country and the manner of their administration.