FUNDS FOR THE MINING LEAGUE COMMITTEE.

Westport Times, Volume IV, Issue 640, 2 April 1870, Page 2

FUNDS FOR THE MINING LEAGUE COMMITTEE.

(To the Editor of the Westport Times.)

Sib, —The Mining League Commit, tee have determined to hold a ball in Westport, for the purpose of raising the necessary funds for carrying out the programme which they have marked out. They have decided on this simple mode to give the fair sex an opportunity of assisting them, bein« gallant enough to imagine that the many fair ladies in town will readily assist them, and by their presence and example, and that enchantment which they only can command, attract the ruder sex, and,besides giving the gentlemen the pleasure of being attracted, testifying in a public manner to the New Zealand world how they appreciate the objects the Committee have in view. I can imagine the future historian, after having recapitulated all the great benefits conferred by the mining community on the colony, proceed at this period of her history and say.—" In the year '7O the miners began to exert their mental as well as their physical energies, and thereby discover the injustice with which they were treated, and cast about for some means to emancipate themselves from the thraldom of the self-aggrandising narrow-minded policy which had hitherto obtained through the political power being in the hands of the squatters and farmers, who thought they had a divine right to tax and neglect the miners and make their condition no better than that of galley slaves. Against this, to a man, they rebelled, and the women of Westport actually improvised a hall to raise funds towards defraying the expense of petitions, &c, to the Governor, who at once advised the Government to pass the necessary Eeform Bill granting the miners equal privileges with the other colonists, and so secured peace, prosperity, and justice, the foundation of future greatness."— Apologising, I am, &c, One of the Committee.