OHINEMURI GOLDFIELD.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XV, Issue 2102, 17 February 1887, Page 2

OHINEMURI GOLDFIELD.

. FBOM OUR OWN COBB3SPONDEHT. That] august; body, the/ Ohinemuri County Council held their ordinary monthly meeting on Saturday last. The business chiefly comprised the passing of resolutions recmding resolutions? passed at former meetings, evading important business by "referring it to the Board of "Works" and generally wasting ratepayers time and money by desultory conversation of such a character as must have disgusted the spirit of the late Sir Eskine May had he been within hearing. It is a generally believed maxim that a corporation has no soul to save and nothing substantial to use shoe leather upon and if this were not true the soul and body of the Ohinemuri County Council would stand in jeopardy "every loom" after a considerable amount of hard fighting the long suffering Ohiuemuri people got themselves sawn off from the Thames folk fondly expecting the millenium to commence forthwith. The Council was elected and at their first meeting there was a crowd of ratepayers present to hear the writ of read. Then they cheered and bee red. Then the money commenced to flow in, nice little cheques from the Paymaster Q-eneral, 1/ttl© plums from the Treasury of one ;Bort and another were to be found on the right side of the pass book.- Then contracts were let and taken at j absurdly low prices with the usual result and thousands of pounds were wasted, the County rushed into debt and to crown all a liability of, £2,000 was created by the award of the Auditor Q-anerai under section 22 of the Counties Act to the Thames Council as the new Counties . quota of th© joint liabilities. Thus with everything in their favour at the start,

the Council has managed or rather mismanaged things so that it is now in an infini-ely worse position than ever it was under the old regime. A loan of £9000 is to be obtained from Government under the twin loan acts the resolution to borrow £6000 being rescinded without any notice of motion. The £2000 owing to the Thames County will be paid thus, £1000 on March 14th 1887 (to be borrowed) £338 6s 8d |in October, 1887 March Ist, and December Ist, 1888 respectively, to bear Bank interest. The gold fields are going ahead, not by "leaps and bounds" but by that more steady going pace which betokens a permanent improvement. Two more Quartz Eeduction Works on Bailley's system are mooted, one for Waihi and one at the head of navigation, Paeroa, at which point dirt from all the surrounding small gold fields, the Tui (Te Aroha) and other places may be treated. There have been a great number of bush and swamp fires all around Ohinemuri during this past week. For three days the smoke was extremely dense in the township. All the feed is dried up, there having been no rain since the middle of October last.

The action of the Public Works Department in stopping the navigation of the river by the proposed truss railway bridge is much commented on.