&.— No. 20.

quartz reefs is limited to such quartz reefs as are old or abandoned.* Again, clause 62 of the Regulations of September 1869 says that "no occupant of a business allotment shall be permitted to alienate or sublet any portion thereof." His Honor Judge Josephson, no longer ago than in November of last year, held, upon the construction of this clause, that according to the rule expressio unius exclusio alterius, inasmuch as the prohibition merely expressed " any portion thereof," it permitted an alienation or subletting of the whole thereof. It may possibly be thought that this ruling of Judge Josephson's is erroneous, but we have it from one of the ablest, as certainly one of the most experienced of the framers of these Regulations, Mr. Harold Maclean, that, erroneous or not in point of law, His Honor's ruling exactly gave effect to the intention of those who in the first instance framed this rule; such intention being not to prohibit the transfer of the whole undivided allotment from one holder to another, but merely to prevent the splitting up of such holdings. Your Commissioners are of opinion that it would be well to entrust the framing of Regulations in future to some person or persons somewhat less likely than the framers of this Regulation (if this was the object they had in view) seem to have been to forget that the whole includes its parts. 23. The case of ex parte M'lnnes and ofs. (a case valuable for another purpose, to which we need not now allude), reported in the ninth volume of the Supreme Court Reports, p. 28, furnishes another instance of the unfortunate inability in the framers of the Regulations to give expression to the intention in view. It is now clear that the 45th Regulation of September, 1869, was intended to allow on a quartz reef to one party of six miners desiring in the first instance to take up together that area, the extent of six men's ground as one entire claim. From the defective wording of the clause, however, the Judges, while remarking upon the difficulty of construing the Regulation at all, were constrained to give it a construction entirely at variance with what really was the actual (though not the expressed) intention of the framer of that Regulation. Immediately upon this decision the 45th Regulation of September, 1869, was repealed, and by Regulation 6 of February, 1870, a more successful expression of the intention entertained all through was accomplished. Though not altogether a case of shutting the stable-door after the horse had been stolen, it is a matter of very grave regret that through carelessness or inaccuracy in framing the earlier Regulation many persons should have been exposed to most vexatious delay and to very costly litigation. While adverting to this case, we may be allowed to call attention to a dictum of the learned Chief Justice upon the effect of clause 14 of September, 1869, the " amalgamation of claims" clause. The Chief Justice says: " The amalgamation of several claims does not give each member of the party a title to or interest in the claim of every other." If this be law—and coming as it does from the highest judicial authority it cannot be doubted to be law—the whole intended beneficial operation of amalgamation must be negatived. 24. Besides pointing out the evils of ignorance of the wants of the various kinds of mining, and of inability to express legislative intention in clear and unambigious language, we would again revert to our former mention of the practical irresponsibility which, under the present system, seems to exist upon this most important question, the framing of Regulations. In our remarks upon the necessity for the institution of a separate Department of Mines, we pointed out the exceeding difficulty of tracing Regulations to any parent source. The nominal responsibility of the Minister for Lands for the Regulations is merely nominal—no Under Secretary or Clerk in the Lands Department seems to know anything about their origin—while the Commissioners, one and all, repudiate any connexion with them. Obviously, then, this state of things cannot be defended, nor could its continuance be justified. 25. (2.) We proceed to consider the second suggested alternative—.the creation of local elective bodies to frame By-laws or Regulation* for their respective districts. Such bodies would be constituted upon the model of the Mining Boards of Victoria, a certain number of paid memh^i elected periodically by the holders of miners'rights, or leases, or business licenses, and possessing 1' very large legislative powers. 26. The one great advantage which may fairly be admitted as being likely to flow from the adoption of such a system would be that the members of such bodies would probably be men of practical knowledge and experience, and more especially would possess an acquaintance with the local requirements of the particular Fields or Districts within the geographical limits of their legislative functions. A large proportion of the Witnesses, —as many as forty-two out of ninety-six individual witnesses examined before the Commission, and no less than thirteen out of twenty-one deputations received by the Commission, —expressed themselves in favour of local bodies in preference to any other scheme. The witnesses and deputations entertained very conflicting ideas as to the details of the constitution of these Local Bodies ; and only one ground of advocacy was common to all. That one ground was, that the physical circumstances of different localities differ so much as to render it impossible to make one general comprehensive code applicable to all localities. This reason, at first sight apparently sound, seems to us not to bear examination. Your Commissioners have, in the execution of duty imposed upon them, had the advantage of visiting nearly every Gold Field in the Colony, and with this proposition before them, have diligently examined the physical features of all these different localities; but they have been unable to see wherein consist such distinctive circumstances as to necessitate the special legislation of merely local application which is advocated. * Clause Bof Gold Fields Regulations of February, 1870 :—" Leases will be granted of from Ito 25 acres of old or abandoned alluvial ground or quartz reefs * * * at an annual rent of £2 per acre."

Case of ex parte M'lnnes.

Absence of responsibility in framers.

Local elective Boards.

One argument in favour of.

Fallacy iv principal reason adduced for establishment of Local Bodies.

8

REPORT OE GOLD EIELDS COMMISSION,