OPEN COLUMN,

Inangahua Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1290, 29 August 1883, Page 2

OPEN COLUMN,

Our columns are open to the discussion of all matters of public interest, but we are in no way identified with the views of our correspondents.

"THE COMING MINE, OR THE WELCOME SUCCESSOR."

«. (To the Editor, Inangahua Times.) Sir. — Will you kindly permit 1110 to refer to an article under the above sug gestive heading, which appears in a recent issue of the Dunedin Herald. The article from beginning to end is nothing but a bit of special pleading in fact an advertisement after the style of Hop Bitters and Woolf's Schnapa. Tarn not of a dog-in-the-manger disposition, but, at the same time, I must protest against such a style of pushing one mine into public notice at the expense of another. What are the facts of the case ? The Homeward Bound and the Eureka companies both : adjoin the Welcome Company's lease on the north. Each company is confident of getting the continuation of the Welcome reef. They cannot both get it to any extent, but if the stone lives, as it doubtless does,' the company through whose lease it does cross will truly enough be the "Welcome Successor." Now the proof of the pudding is in the eating, let us see what the shareholders of each company have done to prove their confidence in their property. The Homeward Bound Company have been waiting about eighteen months or two years for the arrival of a diamond drill purchased at the expense of the ratepayers of the County. The drill arrived on the West Coast, but owing to a dispute of a few hundred pounds between the County Council and the importer, the machine lay at Brunnerton for nearly six months. At lust '

the Council gave in, and generously paid the extra sum demanded, and the drill, with the aid of the ratepayers' money again, got as far as Boatman's. Then the Homeward Bound Company wrote to the Council asking them to appoint (at the public expense mind) a competent person to work the drill. The Council agreed to this very moderate request also. What the company will next ask the Council to do, time only can tell, but as grease for the machine is about the only thing left to be provided, the company I dare say will furnish this necessary commodity. Turning to the other side of the picture the ureka Company have after the most careful surveys which have been checked and re-checked, decided to take in a tunnel of 2500 ft in lengthattheirownexpense. They have also procured at the cost of some thousands of the shareholders money the most effective machinery for prosecuting the work. They have committed themselves to the payment of a sixpenny call per month to carry on the work, and if this does not show their confidence in their possession of a "Welcome Successor" nothing could. It is by enterprise of this kind that the Inangahua reefs have been developed, and not by waiting for the results of diamond drills imported at the public expense, and writing stupid letters to distant newspapers. Let the writer then roll himself up in a wet blanket, and lie by till the Homeward Bound overtakes the enterprise of the Eureka, and it will be time enough then for him to again blow his trumpet amongst the " East Coast gudgeons." I am etc., Spurts No. 2.