The Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 1806.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume I, Issue 29, 7 April 1866, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 1806.

Tme disgraceful scenes which sigualisecl tlie breaking up of the late rush lo Bruce Bay, were a disgrace to the whole of the mining community. That there might be among a body of men collected from all quarters, many scouuclrels, who finding themselves in a majority at a place destitute of police protection, should commit some excesses, would perhaps not excite much surprise : but that they should be joined in their work of plunder by the whole body of the very people who I ought to be the foremost in upholding the law, as they are those who eventually suffer the most by a disturbed state of the countiy, shows of what a lawless element the goldminiug community is composed. The Westland authorities are very much to blame by allowing a district which had been attracting so large a population, and to which so much wealth had been conveyed in the shape of stores, to be eutirely without police protection. The nature of the goldfields' population must be well known to them, and also, the general tendency of those who live by plunder, to congregate in considerable numbers at newly settled localities. It caunot be doubted that if they had provided proper police protection for the Bruce Bay district, these scenes would never have been enacted. The general policy however, of the Canterbury authorities towards their gold-fields' population, strongly reminds us of that pursued by the Government of New South Wales iu the early days of the Turou; where the ow'yers jiever saw a

policeman, or any oiher Government official, except upou the occasions of issuing new licenses and the collection of revenue.