THE GOLDFIELDS.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XXI, Issue 1105, 5 February 1891, Page 3

THE GOLDFIELDS.

3 THE FUTURE OF THE MINING DISTRICTS OF THE INTERIOR. [By John Wkrxer.] i Dedicated to all who have the welfare of 1 their children at heart, aud who would ' strive to attain it. • Why hesitate ? you are full-bearded men, With God implanted will and courage, if ■ You dare but show it. Never yet was will i But found some nay or means to \vork it out, Nor e'er did fortune frown on him who dared. -£. It. Tailor. (Continued.) Just one hasty shoot of light into the future scene. Summer morning •iu New Zealand. The sun is already casting its hot rays along the road over the plain. A man carrying his billy and dinner-bag is wending his way to his daily toil. He islhot much past middle age, but his frame bears the mark of hard work, and his face is prematurely furrowed. Well, what of that;? That's only the mark of British serfdom so familiar in the Old Country. A cloud of dust rises as a carriage and pair comes rapidly along the road. It envelops the solitary traveller, shutting off the glances of envy aad smothering the curses that he throws after its occupants, the land owner and his family, who are going to spend the summer at the seaside. Those are now the only pulsations from a once ambitious spirit. Ambition is changed into hatred. As he pursues his way, his thoughts revert back to the days of his early boyhood. His father had been a gold-miner. When this industry began to fail he tried hard to secure sufficient land so as to provide for his family. He did not ask for much, but it was denied him ; the management of the land was hi the hands of men who had no sympathy with the working men; the land was wanted to provide dividends for a different class. He remembered how, after his brothers and sisters had scattered, some to become waifs and strays on society, he had worked at rabbiting "to provide the necessaries of life for his parents in their declining days. He had not the slightest gleam of hope that his own destiny would be any different from his parents. His childreu must help to fill the factories, or else work to swell the income of the landlord, or . perhaps go to the industrial school as vagrants. When Saturday night comes, tl.is I i man is found at the public house. But let us drop the curtain : it is almost unnecessary ! to contemplate the evil effects in our own future; we can see them iu full force at this present time in the Old Country, and.think iug men can see the thin end of the wedge is being inserted into our social system already, and as gold-mining (the only occupation that at present preserves a man's independence) will either gradually fail or demand a propoi tionately greater outlay of capital before yielding returns, the distinction between classes will becoane sharper, until at last the same social conditions of existence now obtained in the older countries are reproduced here in extremest contrasts—squalor and degradation by the side ol luxury and wealth. But it will be advanced that a man who has

capital can invest it how he pleases, by buying up land or otherwise ; that leads us ] into a more intricate question which I will ' try to make clear. Capital, in its proper ' sense should be the accumulation of labour, • and its proper function should be to assist ; labour in making use of the forces of nature ' in the production of wealth in a manner, so J as to benefit the community at large, and it ] is simply the duty of the Government of a •' state to prevent capital from being used or ] misused for the purpose of, by monopolising ' those natural forces— i.e., land—procuring \ wealth for a few to the detriment of the many; for without land the labour of the ' working man does not benefit him in any- '• thing like proportion to the work he does ; ' he only gets the wages of a bare existence, ] and all the rest goes to the owner of the soil. The reproductive forces of nature do not ' ( benefit hiin ; he cares not to count the grain ' in the ear of corn. The fragrance of flowers conveys no pleasant sensations to hi n—no- ! thing but the toil, toil, with the occasional ' beer house excitement and the workhouse in ' the end. This picture, is not by any means ' overdrawn; even as I am writing this, • I have before me au earnest appeal fiom Dr. ' Barnardo, of London, for assistance in connection with " The Homes for Destitute Children," now established in many places in the United Kingdom. Some 17,000 of the poorest class have been lifted out of the slums through the efforts of this benevolent man, who certainly appears to me a greater man than England's boasted-of statesmen, who, through their oversight and bad legislation, have permitted ihat such a state of things should come to pass. Is it desirable that New Zealand should furnish a repetition in this respect ? Where would we find a Dr. Barnardo ? Where would we send for assistance? But then it is pointed out that the squatters are the forerunners and pioneers of civilisation, aud as such are dei Tving of consideration from the state, and that it would not be right to take any areas for settlement out of the runs. Those are the arguments by the land officers of the goldfields against granting occupation licenses for settlement. I will shortly deal with them. The squatters were certainly the forerunners of civilisation, and if they had been having their way they would be so still, for civilisation would not have come. It was to the interest of dividend-paying companies to delay civilisation as long as possible. Undisturbed possession was what they wanted. They were at war with civilisation and settlement, and they are so still. In 1867 I had to ask the owner of Mt. Pisa Station for consent to lift water from a creek near the station. He consented on condition that I should take all the weter to a long : distance away near Cronuvell, "for when there is water running down the creek there are all the time fellows setting in to work there, and that is disturbing the sheep." In ' 1890 I applied for au occupation .license on J the same run. One of the runholder's ob- '■ jections, among others, was " that 1 would be going up with hoises and drays to the section, and that would disturb the sheep." Thus it appears that the squatters' views on ; settlement have not unde:gone any material change during the last quarter of a century. The rattle of the dray is as distasteful to ; him as the roar of the hydraulic nozzle: they both disturb the sheep. So much for the claim as the forerunner of civilisation. (To be continued.)