The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1894.

Auckland Star, Volume XXV, Issue 222, 17 September 1894, Page 2

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1894.

far the cause that lacks aasistancs, For tin -sTrong that needs resistance, For the future in th« distancs. And tie good that we can ao.

Off to Coolgardie! The gold-mining fever is in the air, and the three steamers which leave for Sydney to-day and to-morrow will, it ,is said, be crowded with adventurers bent upon I seeking their fortunes on the parched goldfields of Western Australia. We cannot wonder that the easilywon fortunes which our telegrams speak of as having fallen to the lot of a few lucky miners at I Coolgardie fascinate the minds of thousands who see nothing beyond a bare subsistence as a reward for the hard toil of their lives. Gambling of every kind draws many of its votaries from the class whose prospects of success in business seem remote, and who hope to win by some lucky stroke the wealth whidh is denied to steady plodding industry. Not all gambling, is due to that cause, for there are gamblers who realise that it is an unprofitable game, but who love the excitement which is yielded by the rapid exchange of fortunes upon the castof the hazard that carries theirstake and determines their luck. There are gamblers who care little or nothing for money, and who literally throw it away when they win. Native races, communistic in their habits, to whom winnings and losings signify nothing, are often inveterate gamblers for the pure excitement of play. But, under civilised conditions, the gambler, whether he favours the totalisator, the Stock Exchange, or some promising goldfield, may be considered the natural product of a state of society in which there are great disparities in the wealth of the people, and great social advantages on the side of wealth. While these conditions re-main-rand the genius who can show i any practicable method of getting rid of them vvhile human nature remains as it is has not yet been born —we need not wonder at the wide prevalence of. the gambling spirit, nor hope to keep under control any but its most vicious and demoralising developments. ' About gold-mining there is a peculiar fascination. It is gambling under a form that is least of all objectionable. Unlike the planting of toil-won pounds ori the totalisator, the chaffering with bookmakers, the shuffling of cards, or the rolling of the ball on the roulette table, it is a pursuit calling forth many manly qualities, involving courage, hard work, and self-sacrifice. It is ,a fine, free, open life, which, if it yields fortunes to but few of its votaries, does not necessarily cast them back upon society physical and moral wrecks, Miners everywhere—that is, the genuine breed, not the harpies who fasten upon tnining as upon all other industries, or those who fall victims to drink—are usually sturdy, independent men, who do not trouble our charitable aid boards-unless under the stress of sickness.

The search for buried treasure has a magical charm. Few of us can read wholly unmoved the story of the roan at Coolgardie whoj pitching his tent on an old camping ground, accidentally discovered that beneath his feet, where hundreds of other eager miners had trod, there was buried wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, These splendid prizes, which every man believeshehasafairchancof winning, are what lead men on, oblivious of the fact that they are few and far between, and that hardship and unremunerated toil is inevitably the lot of many on every goldfield, from California to Bendigo, from Ballarat to Otago, from the West Coast to the Thames, Mount Morgan, or any of the finds of later years.

We know that, as the early settlers of Auckland departed by the hundred to far-off California more than forty years ago, every mining discovery will draw off so.rae of our most enterprising population. We need feel neither surprise nor serious regret at this j many of them will come back, as those early adventurers did—a few of them wealthier, all of them wiser, and more contented perhaps to pursue the quiet ways which once seemed so monotonous. But it is right that those who are meditating a flight to Coolgardie should understand what sort of a place it is. The district is not an alluvial 'goldfield like those auriferous areas which in Victoria and on the West Coast of this colony yielded rapid fortunes to "the possessors of pick and shovel. According to reliable reports it is not a poor man's field, Thames miners, who understand their business, have come back here within the last three months, satisfied after giving Coolgardie a fair trial that they can do better at home. For young men without responsibilities, who find themselves struggling with the odds all against them, a dip in the lucky bag of Coolgardie may be worth trying, but the chances are not nearly good enough to justify men who now possess even a moderateliving, or who have others dependent upon them, in embarking upon a speculation which offers but small chances of fortune against the certainty of much hardship and risk,