OF THE GOLD FIELDS.

25

D.— No. G.

" Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune : Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is found in shallows and in miseries ; On such a full sea are we now afloat; And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our venture." "VVe have pulled against the current too long, and if we persist in doing so much longer the tide will have turned, and the opportunity once offered —the glorious opportunity of settling thousands of prosperous and contented settlers oil land which would otherwise bo but a sheep-walk —will have passed away for ever. Guided by considerations of ultimate rather than of immediate profit, it would probably be advantageous to allow of the occupation of larger individual areas of auriferous land than are at present allowed. The gold fields might then maintain a smaller population; but there would be a much greater probability of the bulk of that population settling here permanently. Men who acquired such an extent of payable ground as would find them profitable emplo) r ment for a series of years, would insensibly come to regard this Colony as their home, and direct their attention to preparing a homestead to retire to when digging was given up. Indeed, it may be taken as a general rule that the longer we can induce the miners to stay here, the greater the probability of their staying here altogether. Old associations become weaker with them, and new ones grow up ; old ties become looser, and new ones spring into existence. In districts where mining leases have been granted, an unmistakeable tendency to permanent settlement has been exhibited. To work large areas successfully, expensive machinery and appliances are required, and when these are procured there is a certainty of employment for some years, during which the miner becomes reconciled to the prospect of adopting New Zealand as his home, and a chain of associations is forged which nothing but a very determined effort can break—■ an effort which is not likely to be made in the majority of cases. An extension of the system of mining leases, and an enlargement of the size of claims, would tend much to promote settlement, by removing many of the temptations to join in new rushes, and would make mining a more settled industry, although it might lessen the number of chance residents on our gold fields. In connection with this part of the subject—the means and the desirability of making mining a settled pursuit, as well as of making the miner a permanent settler —it will not be out of place to refer to a project which was alluded to in the speech with which His Excellency Sir George Grey opened the Assembly in July, 1867. He said, " A Bill will also be submitted to you for extending the benefits of the Colonial credit to enterprises calculated to foster and extend the important industry of the gold fields by offering a guarantee of interest (under proper restrictions and supervision) in procuring supplies of water for the operations of gold mining. The very special character of the taxation and laws of the gold fields justifies and requires such provision for their interests." The party contests which marked that session of Parliament rendered any attempt to carry out this proposal impossible ; but if the spirit of faction could be so far banished as to allow the Legislature to indulge in a little useful legislation, consideration of this subject would probably lead a majority to indorse the opinion expressed by the Government in the concluding sentence of the paragraph above quoted. There are, both in Wcstland and Otago, large areas of known auriferous ground which only require a supply of water to enable them to be most profitably worked, and the extent to which individual and private enterprise has been directed to the removal of this difficulty is a proof of the vast importance of the subject. The perseverance, skill, and ingenuity displayed in the construction of water-races, many of them twenty or thirty miles in length, and some of them nearly fifty miles long, and the handsome returns which such races yield to their proprietors, show that judicious governmental assistance towards procuring a more abundant supply of water for mining purposes would be of immense advantage to the miners, and indirectly if not directly profitable to the Colony, by increasing the facilities for, and inducements to, permanent settlement. It has been suggested that the establishment of a New Zealand branch of the Royal Mint would prove advantageous, by retaining in the Colony the profits made by the various foreign brokers and persons through whose hands the gold passes, from the original sale by the digger to its final conversion into coin. There is abundant evidence to show that large profits are made in this way ; but it may be doubted whether we could afford to save them by establishing a Mint of our own, even in the event of such a scheme receiving the sanction of the Imperial Government. The geographical distribution of the gold mines of this Colony is such as to render it impossible to select any site on which a Mint, if erected, would be serviceable to all the gold fields. If erected at Dunedin, Auckland, or Hokitika, it would only be practically useful to the gold fields of the district of which the favoured town is the port or outlet; the other two gold-producing districts would probably find it more convenient to ship to Melbourne, Sydney, or England, as they do at present. If the Mint was erected at a central point, such as "Wellington, the probability is that all the gold fields would still send the bulk of their gold either to Australia or England, and the amount which would reach the New Zealand Mint would be far too small to repay the cost of establishing and maintaining such an institution. Colonial Mints are but branches of the Eoyal Mint, and are under the immediate control and management of the Imperial authorities, although the Colony has to bear the whole cost of establishment and maintenance. Considering the relations now subsisting between the Colonial and Imperial Governments, a partnership on such terms would probably not be regarded as desirable by the Colonial Legislature ; but, even if it was, the experiment would be too costly a one to be entered on without better data to go upon and a better prospect of success, than at present exists. The cost of living in this Colony has already been incidentally alluded to as one of the causes which militate against the choice of New Zealand as a place of permanent settlement by the miner. As a matter of course the same cause operates to the disadvantage of the Colony in the case of persons in Britain, who, having made up their mind to emigrate, are on the look-out as to which Colony it is most desirable to go ; but it does not operate as in the latter as in the former case, and for this reason — the miner already resident here knows, from an exaggerated experience, how heavily the taxation of the country bears on its inhabitants. The term " exaggerated experience "is used, because, as a rule, 7