DISCOVERY OF GOLD AT HIKUTAIA.

Auckland Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 202, 30 August 1887, Page 8

DISCOVERY OF GOLD AT HIKUTAIA.

(from our special reporter.)

This discovery is of so important a nature that had it been made at Kimberley, it would have been published with big cable headings in every paper in the colonies. Special steamers would have been laid on, special parties organised, and the digger's millennium -would have been regarded as a certainty for Western Australia. But New Zealand is a different country, and has been governed hy people with fads. _ It is also a place where living is comparatively cheap, the climate is luxurious and possibly enervating. Ik is a land flowing with milk and honey, and its mineral resources are vast, but not? yet rightly esteemed. _ The landed proprietary have had power in the House to get millions spent in a way which may be profitable to themselves, but _in many cases unprofitable and unreproductive to the country; 'but here, in the simple discovery of a prospector, lies the solution of the financial difficulties of the colony— by exposing to the public gaze a deposit^of the world's most fashionable product. Not that this find is in itself the panacea, for, though remarkably rich, it is not, in the writer's opinion, to be pronounced permanent until it is proved to be so, and there is a chance of the reef making richer or poorer as driven on. It is not with a view to magnify the richness of this particular dis- ' 0 -^cry that these remarks are made, but it ■I '.'^h a desire that proper colonial recog•w o 'xould be made of the great and noble «X«, man renders to his country by service a . , . tl Bolitude of tne forest, spendmg wet . ifci hm ftb ever . and in the cold, . chin | for the « treaßures flowxng creeks seau , £ revealing of which whichliehid below, : j fc struggling had done so much to ; worid > a &„£ towns to the position of the . , th * cities. And who is it leads to .„ °~ discoveries? Is it the philosophy/ .„ th statesman, or the geologist ? No ;it v „ hardy miners. It is the like of Chas. Kin&> the first discoverer of gold in New Zealand, and Mcßrinn, the last discoverer of the precious metal in an obscure place at Hikutaia. It is these men to whom the country owes so much of its solid progress. Yet what reward or assistance do they get ? King got nothing, and made his own road at Kapanga. Mcßrinn will probably have to do likewise at Hikutaia. But a change must come, and miners will occupy a different position as regards appreciation by tho powers that be. Reflecting on the class which receives the highest honour of the land, we see it is often those who have been a curse rather than a blessing to the country. When a man in charge of the exhibition of our country's resource s exhibits birds' eggs instead of nuggets, and petrified beetles instead of specimens of auriferous quartz ; when, in place of showing valuable proofs of the productiveness of the soil and the great mineral wealth of our ranges, the chief feature is the noncommercial, unattractive classification of fosails, etc., the man is knighted by Her Majesty, and paid liberally for his services by the country, we cannot but feel mortified and .ashamed to reflect that the working miners who invariably discover the gold go on their way unrequited. No wonder if, in the face of such injustice, we hear hints of abolishing the Department of Mines, and a further wrong inflicted on tho special class referred to. But it is to be hoped this will not be done. Our miners are likely yet to prove our saviours, and must be supported. More national sympathy and support should be extended to those resolute workers in the goldfields. The public should be invited to contribute a little toward carrying out some systematic scheme for developing the mineral wealth of the land. Gold and silver are thefonly products which a man can exchange at the nearest bank for coin of tho realm or bank notes, and the search for these precious metals should become a more popular pursuit. Perhaps our public men may yet see some way to aid in organising and supporting parties of vigorous men to search the unprospected ranges of Cape Colville, and become in a limited sense Stanleys and Livingstones. What a reward they would get by finding a claim like "Hunts" pioneer claim of the Thames, of which there are many more in the untraversed gullies of the Coromandel golden peninsula! What a pleasure to vigorous manhood there would be in scaling Cap Colvill'3 highest peaks, and finding the f olden reefs from which the specimens have een detached, which have been found in nearly every creek running down from the main range to the sea ! How does the glory resulting from a game won by kicked snins and broken noses compare with the solid satisfaction and honour flowing from a discovery whioh ■ helps to enrich a community and imparts the blessings of wealth to the people ? And so McBrinn is acting as a benefactor to Auckland by working in the cold wintry sjiadows of a mountain range, to find that mineral wealth we all sigh for, but really do so little practically to obtain. Auckland people should endeavour to contribute a little help to a more complete exploration of the peninsula. Mcßrinn traced the lopse gold which came from his reef, following the trail, speck by speck; for three miles up the ranges to an altitude of 800 feet ; the same as did George McLeod, who traced the Tokatea gold from Kennedy Bay to the top of the Tokatea Hill, 1,300 feet above the sea level. These are the men deserving our kindest remembrance. This is representing them to be great benefactors, and such is exactly the impression intended to be conveyed.