The Lake Wakatip Mail. Queenstown, Wednesday, Dec. 23, 1863.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Volume II, Issue 68, 23 December 1863, Page 4

The Lake Wakatip Mail. Queenstown, Wednesday, Dec. 23, 1863.

It occasionally happens to people to be told very great truths in a very unpalatable manner—indeed, there is a very severe form of truth-telling which appears to be the special province of the most disagreeable class of mortals. It is not every body who would like to officiate at an execution, and to hang, or decapitate, or burn, or brand, or flog the wretch who undoubtedly deserves the penalty; 80 also, it is not every one who likes telling a man to his face under what moral category his conduct must come. Society has no right to resent the severity and excessive plain spokenness of the language in which a just sentence is pronounced and punishment inflicted. It is a part of the ceremony, like the grim decency of the scaffold, the ugly ingenuity of the noose, and the vile adroitness of the executioner. Individuals who have had abundance of warning from within and without, and who would not listen to wisdom when she whispered and smiled, cannot complain if alarm and condemnation itself come at last in sounds harsh and grating, nay, even terrible —in the shout of indignation or the crash of sudden ruin.

Now, the word that can be said of the Lake Wakatip Petition, which seems to have proved such a bite noir to the Dunedin journals, (for the Times, Witness, and Telegraph have devoted not one, but many leading articles to its annihilation) is that it has not been made pleasant to the taste of these organs, which evil seems to us, have systematically concurred — and when they do agree, as Sneer says in 44 The Critic," *' their unanimity is wonderful" in ignoring the interests of the miners in every possible form. Even if it be conceded, that our view of the case is onesided, and entirely subservient to the furtherance of our own interests, still it must also be admitted that the allegations and grievances which are embodied in the Petition are true, and that, in fact, we may lay claim to the credit of prediction fulfilled. Our Dunedin contemporaries have long been living in fool's Paradise, and the illusion is now rudely dispelled. Of that rudeness it is unwise for them to complain. If a man will not wake otherwise for watch and parade, it is kind, or at least necessary to strike him, or drench him, or set his alarum going. Let them not quarrel with their steru monitor; it is their interest to take the hint, somewhat ungentle though it may have been. If they had wished to save their honor, they should have anticipated the result. It required the "fifty-feet long" Petition, as the Telegraph terms it, with a grim facetiousness which is simply amusing, to show the world that the miners could act with a will, and unanimously too.

The Daily Timet of the 21st ultimo, in its leading article of that date makes reference to the two ill-fated Bills which were sent up by the Provincial Council for the consideration of the General Government, and which have been consigned to the parliamentary waste-paper basket, and it then bursts forth into an indignant rhapsody, denouncing this act as a most flagrant outrage on the Provincial Government, and as a direct insult to the miners of Otago. There is, however, much to be said on the other side of the question. It would seem that these two Bills—that for the better management of the gold fields aud that for better administration of justice

—were sent up without any ostensible patronage, and were left to find their own course through the stormy ways of the General Assembly without a helping hand. We believe we are betraying no secret in stating that it was intended that to the franier of the new Gold Fields Bill should be confided the task of fathering and conducting its progress through the House. For this reason it was not placed iu the hands of either of the gold fields' representatives, nor even in those of the executive officer recognised by the Government. Can we wonder that Captain Baldwin and his colleagues felt not a little disgusted at such treatment, and thus called down upon themselves the very undeserved censure which the Teleyraph of ihe 11th inst. passes upon thein for tneii seeming apathy and neglect of the mining iuterests in the matter. Besides, theie may have been, and doubtless was, a still more potent reason for their conduct, and it is this: these two bills, before they could have become law, must have been sent home for the Royal Assent. Now, the Gold Fields' Act of 18£2 has only

just come into force—its working has, therefore, not yet been tested, and it was hardly courteous, or even respectful, to request the Royal Assent to a new gold fields' act before any sufficient trial had been made of the former one, which was still in its infancy and untried.

It will, doubtless, produce no slight chagrin in the minds of our Dunedin contemporaries, to find that Mr Fox has already redeemed the promise which he gave to Captain Baldwin when, in pursuance, as he imagined, of his duty to his constituents, he made a solitary effort to force the consideration of this question upon the Government. Uu that occasion the New Zealand Secretary stated that "it was the intention of the Govern- " ment to take action as soon as possible, ■ " when the session was terminated." The " fifty-feet" Petition had done its work: the General Government, in its superior sagacity, at once discovered that the demands of the miners were not so senseless and unreasonable as the Dunediu press would have them suppose, and that their behests could not be neglected with impunity. A judge was therefore appointed for Southland, " whose duty it will " be to make a circuit of the gold fields, and " who, being a judge of the gold fields' court, " may dispose of all cases of a weightier class that may occur within his jurisdction." What is this, we would ask, but virtually giving us at once a Court of Appeal, the very thing for which we have so long and so vainly clamored. a resolution is before the House, authorising the Government to set aside certain agricultural lands on proclaimed gold fields, to be offered lor sale forthwith—a measure which will facilitate most essentially the settlement of the mining population. We happen, also, to be aware that the General Government has given express.on to its anxiety, that the mining community should enjoy lair representation, and, in fact, will not object to the appointment of a responsible executive officer, a concession which it will be remembered was strangled in its birth during the late session ot the Provincial Council. j If then, the Dunedin press has preached to the miners too much in the tone of the statue iu "Don Giovanni," warning the reckless libertine, it may take a salutary lesson from the temperate auil conciliating tone in which our demands have been treated by the General Government. One thing, however, is certain, if Otago desires to retain the sympathies of the mining community the members of the Provincial Council must display infinitely more anxiety in their regard than they have hitherto done. We would have it understood that we do not desire to throw blame upon every member of the present Provincial executive for the misdeeds of their predecessors, or of the Council; but we do most unhesitatingly condemn the system that, directly or indirectly, hands over the interests of the miners into the uufettered hands of an irresponsible officer.