The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE. TUESDAY, OCT. 18, 1887.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 2383, 18 October 1887, Page 2

The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE.

TUESDAY, OCT. 18, 1887.

K(|iial ;iml exact justice to all men, Ot whatsoever stale or persuasion, religious or political.

Tm' more we study ilu‘ report of tli- M aitna Tmspectiiig Association (\\ illieford and ifrown's) with relerencu to the prospects obtained from the stnlV taken by them from Mr J. If. Smiths land at Waitoa, tln* less do we believe that the Waitoa goldfield is the .swindle- they would have the public believe it to be ; and the more wo are impressed with the conviction that the plan advocated by this journal from the very first, that the Government should resume the land, was the correct one. The most that can be said as (be result of the recent borings is, that to a certain extent, and to a certain extent only, they prove that the deposit of gold is not n uniform one. Out of live borings made for the .Prospecting Association in solid i/roHnd, which therefore could not have been salted, one ass-ay, number G, Imre No n, gave ] Idwts, lOgrs. of gold, and loz. isdwt. of silver. This confirms the tests made by Mr Smith and the GauterbtuT Umnpauv. There is no

getting over the fact that one of the j’nnd - Whitaker - cum - Witheford tests has fully borne out so far as it goes all that has been claimed for I the land, that it contains gold in piyahie quantities. This evidence is i lie more valuable as coming from those who decry the character of the held. With reference to the fact that the other tour borings gave each a test of only a trace of gold and less than the average of silver, we would ask what alluvial digger would he satisfied with the prospect of a boring rod only .' Had shafts been sunk and the result been the same, a trace only, the extreme p itchiuess of the held would have linen proved ai d nothing more, for No. o boring would still have remained in evidence as to the fact that there was payable gold in the, locality. Thu gentlemen from Canterbury' aru men of exceptionally high eharactor. Wo would no more suspect, thorn of having “suited” the Waitoa stuff for tliu purpose of deceiving the public in ouo direction than wo would assume that members of the Waitoa Prospecting Association had "salted” it with coined gold filings in order to deceive the public iu another direction, for if tlioro aro " bulls ” there arc “ hoars” also. The ono wo should hopo would bo as improbable as the other, and therefore wo shall say no more upon the salting question. Lot that flea stick to the wall. Wo may, however, bo excused, if wo stay to remark that the coppery appearance (the English sovereign gold look of thn Prospecting Association theory) was not unnoticed by Mr Smith —and this is noteworthy—for ouo shaft, No. 4, was actually called by him the copper shaft. Why was not a boring made alongside this shaft by the Association ? Might not such a boro have proved the existence on the field of gold alloyed with copper and so have accounted for tho “ spiral gold filings ” ? Spiral forsooth I Who can account for tho vagaries of gohl formation? Has not gold been found on tho same peninsular like finely cut strips of gold paper, and again an exact imitation of tho most delicate moss ? Tho very fact that Mr Smith, who had noticed tho more coppery colour of the gold found in one of tho shafts, drew attention to tho matter by calling it “The copper shaft,” speaks eloquently for his ingenuousness, and was not the act of a man who know that his samples had boon “ salted ” with gold of that particular colour. The moral of all this is, that the late Government is much to blame for having allowed the opportunity for such a miserable fiasco to have occurred. It ought, as we pointed out at the first, to have stepped in as tho public guardian in a matter which was not one merely of local but of colonial concern, for the Waitoa find, if a bona lido one, and as yet there is no evidence to the contrary, is one of enormous colonial concern. What the late Government, fearful of the loss of a few Canterbury votes, neglected to do must bo done by the present holders of oilice. There need be no undue interference with the rights of private property. The Waitoa estate owners have shown a willingness to come to reasonable terms for tho prospecting and taking up of areas of their land for goldmining purposes. Till tho beginning of last week Witlioford’s Association had the monopoly of prospecting over 7,000 acres of land, with the right of purchasing bOO acres at £■> per acre. Since then smaller syndicates have obtained concessions to prospect this and other blocks, and to purchase at the higher, but still moderate price of .£lO per acre if they hud gold. The Government should step in wc think on equal terms. Let them make arrangements with the various landowners to take up the role of prospectors on behalf of tho public, respecting any arrangement already made with syndicates, but claiming a pre-emptive right to the laud at a fixed price to he first arranged between themselves and the present owners for all land within a certain proclaimed district, not being land under offer to individual purchasers or prospecting companies. Then let them employ their own experts as prospectors and analysts, and as they prove area after area throw them open as public alluvial goldtields. After the miserable outcome of leaving the work of dealing with a question of such magnitude as the finding of a presumed largo alluvial goldfield on private lauds to the snarling and roaring of the “ bulls and the bears,” to the public loss and to the scandal of the colony, there is no other solution of the question.