BEACH AND RIVER CLAIMS.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Volume I, Issue 6, 20 May 1863, Page 5

BEACH AND RIVER CLAIMS.

To the Editor of the Lake Wakatip Mail. Sir,—ln your leading columns of the 9th inst., you adverted to the subject of River and Beach Claims, which in this portion of the district is looked upon as one of great importance ; and as probably the public generally are not aware of the difficulties we labour under, I venture to inform them, through the medium of your paper. 'Tis too true, I regret to say, that considerable loss must accrue to many of us who have built huts for habitation, and laid in winter supplies of provisions, to find that after investing our capital we can obtain no protection for River Claims. Certainly blame must be attributable to some branch of the Government service, yet it would be premature to ofter censure to any officer in connection with the Goldfields before ascertaining to whom the responsibility has been entrusted of framing laws of such importance to the mining community and interests of the Province; and as a long time must necessarily elapse before the present Rules and Regulations can be amended, I would beg to ofter some suggestions on the best manner of working under these Rules, which are, in so many respects, unadapted for the peculiar nature of the Shotover. I cannot imagine how the Government can have left it entirely to one person to compile these Rules, without practical knowledge: for although they may be applicable to other goldfields, still it is quite apparent that they are unsuited to this one,—and must consequently place

the "Warden here in no enviable position. In fact, I may say, that that officer is to a degree powerless, as one section of the Rules almost, if not quite, negatives another. For instance, suppose that A takes up a beach claim to-day, from high water mark to the edge of the river, and B obtains a grant from the Warden for a river claim to-morrow, a few days after which the river recedes, and A, not having his full claim, takes advantage of this and shifts his pegs to the water's edge; the river again recedes and A shifts his pegs till he monopolizes, perhaps, nearly half the width of the stream. C, who holds a similar beach claim on the opposite side, adopts the same method of obtaining his full amount of ground, by which means the river is taken up by A and C, and B finds by the time that he has perhaps expended a good deal of his capital, that he has next to no claim left. As many of the upper tributaries will, in all probability, shortly be dry, and consequently cause a considerable fall in the river—as we are informed by the settlers here, that last winter the river was so low that bullock sledges crossed without wetting their contents —I would ask of what value would river claims on the Shotover be, if low water mark could not be defined ? Here lies the difficulty—-in the utter impossibility of the Warden defining low water mark, which is set forth by the New Regulations as the boundary of beach claims; and therefore it is quite impossible to define, at any given time, the boundary between riyer and beach claims. The old Rules worked satisfactorily here, and it was in a great measure from the inducement they offered, that we went to so much expense, as we would have been entitled to 50 feet by the breadth of the river (which is termed a river claim), but as I have shown that the New Regulations, allowing the beach claims to go to low water mark, may leave nothing but a few feet, it would not be worth the while of the miners to expend their time and money in diverting the course of the river, to find that they have comparatively no claim left to work. At present the only method apparent, of at all obviating the difficulty, is to ignore river claims, and to divide the river between the beach claim holders. They can then amalgamate themseives into one party, and when they have worked out the beach that is dry, turn the river, and effectually work the bed, though by these means, only 30 feet of frontage is obtaired. These Rules, as I have already stated, may work well on the Molyneux River, for which they seem to have been framed, and appear to be applicable, but the streams in this district are of so different a character, that special rules are required for their effectual working. Yours faithfully, Shotover Pyke. Maori Point, Shotover, 18th May, 1863.