The New-Zealander. AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, FEB. 5, 1853. THE AUCKLAND GOLD FIELD.

New Zealander, Volume 9, Issue 711, 5 February 1853, Page 2

The New-Zealander.

AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, FEB. 5, 1853. THE AUCKLAND GOLD FIELD.

Be just and fear not: Let nil the ends thou aim'st at, be thy Country's, Thy God's, and Truth's.

Pursuant to Advertisement, a General Meeting of the Subscribers to the Gold Reward Fund was held in the Hall of the Mechanics' Institute on Wednesday evening last. Dr. Bennett was called upon to preside. The Chairman opened the business by reading the advertisement convening the Meeting, and having intimated that only subscribers were privileged to take a part in the proceedings, called on Mr. T. S. Forsaith as Secretary of the Reward Committee to read the Report. Mr. Forsaith read a circumstantial and ably drawn up narrative of the various steps which had been taken by the Committee from their appointment up to the present, which it is unnecessary to recapitulate in any detail here, as our readers generally are already acquainted with most of them. It appeared that three sepcratc claims for the Reward had been lodged, by Messrs. Ring, Messrs. I)e Thierry and McDowell, and Mr. Francis White, respectively. The second of these claims was not considered admissible as the locality to which it related was regarded as included in the tract covered by the previously preferred claim of Messrs. Ring. The third (that of Mr. Francis White) had not been substantiated by evidence,—for the production of which he had been allowed a fortnight's time. Only that of Messrs. Ring

remained, and l,ie y* as tuC acknowledged discoverers of the Coroniandel Gold Field, had called upon the Committee to hand over to them the Reward; but the Committee, acting as without bias between the Subscribers on the one hand and the claimants on the other, decided that they could not conscientiously do so, until there was fuller evidence that the field was " valuable" according to the terms of the advertised oCfer. Believing, however, that the settlement of the question as to the value of the field was greatly hindered by the continuance of license fees, the Committee had determined to address the Lieutenant-Governor with a view of obtaining at least such an alteration of the Regulations of Nov. 271h as would permit prospecting to be carried on free of charge. Mr. Forsaith here read the Resolutions of the Committee, the letter which was presented by the Deputation appointed to wait on His Excellency and the official reply. It appeared from this reply, as well as from communications made by His Excellency during the interview, that previously to this application, the attention of the Government had been directed to the subject, and the whole had issued in the adoption of the amended Regulations (which were published in Tuesday's Gazette, and copied in the .New of Wednesday.) This was the substance of what may properly be termed the Report ; there was added to it~ however, a suggestion that—as the payment of the Reward must still be made contingent on the production of further proofs of the value of the Field—a seperate subscription should be opened to present to the Messrs. Ring some recompense for the exertions they had already made, and the amount of success they had attained by the discovery of gold in the district. After a discussion, in which several subscribers took part, and which sometimes was of a rather desultory character, a majority of the meeting determined against the adoption of the suggestion as to opening a subscription to be presented to Messrs. Ring. The sense of the Meeting, however, clearly was that the Report, properly so called, should be received and approved of, and that the Committee was entitled to the thanks of the Subscribers and the public. Accordingly the following Resolution was passed unanimously.— " That the (hanks of the Subscribers (o the Gold Reward Fund are justly due to the Committee for the most able and efficient manner in which they have conducted the affairs of the Fund up to the present date, and, although not adopting the suggestion contained in the concluding paragraph of the Report, are highly satisfied with the information it contains, and do tender their thanks accordingly." We; see no reason to retract or modify the favourable judgment pronounced in our last on the liberality and worth of the alterations made in the Regulations as to Licenses, although our contemporary the Southern Cross pronounces them "a feeble and fallacious attempt to amend them, little better than a distinction without any difference." What? Is there no difference between Regulations which rendered the 11 searching for gold," unless a License fee had been "previously paid, an offence liable to a heavy penalty!! and Regulations which permit full freedom u to dig and search for gold" without any charge whatever ?■ Under these free prospecting licenses,, the holder may explore wherever he pleases within the limits ceded by the Natives to the Government, and he may employ such machinery or other means and appliances as he thinks fit in pursuit of his object. If he is so successful as to find a spot so auriferous as to make it his interest to establish a claim there, he may, at any time, on paying the License fee, have that particular portion of ground marked outand secured to him ; but unless he deems it sufficiently rich to be for his own advantage to do this, he may still search on without any obligation to pny T and, we presume, would find no difficulty in getting his prospecting license renewed at the end of the month, if he desires it. If this liberty, granted for the first time by the amended Regulations, constitutes no "difference," it seems difficult to say what would constitute a difference, unless Regulations and superintendence of the Field were to be swept away altogether. The whole tone and tenor of the article in the Cross of yesterday is so much at variance with its own previous views on the subject, that the inconsistency cannot fail le> strike the most superficial reader. We may, however, help the reader's memory by comparing—or rather contrasting—a few passages. Yesterdays the Southern Cross condemns the (original) Regulations as "utterly subversive of the prosperity of the gold fields,'* and accuses the Government of "by its premature and ill-advised arrangements, inconsiderately strangling the discovery in its birth." Aid again says ; «'TheGold Fields are not as yet sufficiently developed either for restriction or taxation." On the 50th of November, the"Southern Cross said, amongst other things of like import,— "Now although some persons may imagine that 30s. a month may be somewhat too high for a license fee, it must not be forgotten that the Government will be required to pay out of this 2s. a month as compensation for damage to native lands and forests, for every license issued. The receipts derived from the diggers will then be reduced to 28s. for each license ; and as bySir John Pakingtons Bill, the gold revenue will be rendered applicable to purely local purposes. We cannot but think that the arrangement will prove in the long run, as beneficial to the inhabitants of Auckland as just to their native fellow-subjects." Further information and deliberation on the matter seemed only to have strengthened our contemporary's approbation both of the amount of the license-fee and of its early imposition. On the 3rd of December, in an editorial article based on a letter in his own columns signed X. Y., the Cross thus earnestly contends in support of these "premature and ill-advised arrangements,"—The extract is rather long, but, as we consider the tendency of his article of yesterday highly mischievous in fomenting bad feeling when harmony is of the utmost moment, we think it best to let him answer himself. On the 3rd of December then the Cross said,

"Noquestion could:well he more perplexing to Government than lhat of licensing miners in a country whose soil is vested in the aborigines, ami those aborigines split up into numerous rival Iribes or elans. Our correspondent; and others whom we have heard, decry the imposition of a license fee as precipitate, because of its immediate exaction, and unjust because of its amount. "We dissent from both interpretations of this measure. With respect to the first, the Government had no alternative bid to enter into immediate arrangements with the natives, m order that the races should he fully assured, irgold had been at first discovered, as it now seems likely to he, in large quantities, and had a large and uncontrolled mass of diggers and prospectors rushed indiscriminately upon native lands, the probability is that disputes and disagreements would speedily have ensued, thaf broils would have arisen, and that the peaceful and friendly intercourse of years would have been forgotten in the heat of a feverish and dangerous struggle. These were contingencies against which it behoved the Government instantaneously to provide; and although the exaction of a license fee may appear to be rather grasping in the yet undetermined resources of the gold field, still when we reflect upon the scenes of which the gold fields of California and Victoria have borne frightful witness, we think m reasonable person will consider any measure too prompt or too stringent, which has for its object the maintaining the lights of one race, the securing a great and undoubted privilege for the other, and preserving, by seasonable anticipation, (he repose of the colony at large. " There is no earthly analogy between (he gold fields of Victoria and those of Auckland. There are no native claimants to dispute the prospectors' progress, or to imperil the miners* industry in the first. There are both, to render the intervention of Government mediation imperative, in the last. But for lhat paramount necessity, we feet perfectly convinced that every facility would have been afforded to the full and ample development of the gold field, before a single license fee was demanded. *' With respect to the amount of the license fee, ive can discover nothing at all unfair or illiberal in that. The miners will, for some lime, in all probability, be few, whilst the necessary expenses of the Government must be considerable. The payment of twenty shillings per square mile, and of two shillings per license, to the native proprietary, will reduce the ammount considerably below that charged in Victoria and New South Wales, and raise a fund in all probability inadequate to the expenses that will be incurred. " The pioneers of this golden discovery have been allowed a fair and liberal term to pursue their prospecting experiments, and to determine the available riches of the field they are occupied in mining. * * If their reports of the auriferous resources of Coromandel be correct, despite the license fee, the new year will behold numberless diggers in active employment. If, on the other hand, it prove grossly exaggerated or incorrect, the imposition of a license fee, by deterring men from the prosecution of a profitless occupation, will have proved a great Colonial benefit." So far upon one or two points made prominent by our contemporary yesterday. A few weeks since he "could discover nothing <it all unfair or illiberal in the amount of the license fee,"—and he maintained that ''the pioneers had been allowed a fair and liberal term to pursue their prospecting experiments,"--and so forth. So far as we can discover the remedy which he proposes for what he designates " the present hasty and most injudicious arrangements," it is virtually that the prospectors and diggers should be allowed to make their own bargains with the Natives, and that the Government should sanction those bargains. We do not know what other meaning to attach to the recommendation lhat the Government should "act the part of mediators between the Natives and the Miners," as it plainly cannot mean that the Government should endeavour to induce other Tribes to come into the arrangements, it being well known lhat the Government are doing this, and have been doing it all along. Now, we really thought that if there was one point above all others on which there was a general agreement of opinion, it was that the whole control and management of this part of the matter should be left in the bands of the Government. But let us once more judge our contemporary out of his own mouth. On the 20th of November, he thus eulogizes the plan adopted by the Government with the concurrence of the elected members of the Provincial Council, and ominously warns his "fellow-colonists" of the "perils" into which they might plunge themselves and the country by any intrusive interference between the Natives and the Government: "His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor having relumed from Coromandel late on Wednesday evening has lost no lime in placing the resull of his negotiations with the native owners of the gold fields before the public. A meeting of the gentlemen elected to serve as members of Ihc Provincial Council was yesterday invited ; and lo them, as the only representatives of the people, His Excellency submitted a precis of the very successful and judicious arrangements into which he has so far been enabled to enter. Of Ihose arrangements we think every right thinking person must approve, and as their scope is likely to be speedily and largely extended by the assent of other tribes as yet in a stale of dubiety, we trust every person will perceive the importance of a faithful adherence to the Government Regulations. * * * These then are the arrangements that have been proposed. In our opinion nothing can be more fair or judicious lo both races ; and we sincerely trust that both will maintain the utmost good faith in their observance. It cannot be too strongly impressed on our fellow-colonists how important it must be not to intrude upon the lands of natives not yet parlies lo these arrangements. Should they do so, whether for the purpose of prospecting, or else, they may incur peril to themselves, and plunge the colony and the Government into wanton and unnecessary danger." With a remark or two we conclude for the present. The Southern Cross takes the Reward Committee to task for not having s'ooncr " urged the government toa prompt abandonment" of the Regulations. Now, some may possibly doubt whether any interference in this matter came within the province of the Committee at all; and, were it not for the general and great importance of the subject, it mighthave been questioned (as indeed was suggested in their own Report) whether they did not outstrip the strict limits of their duty in the "course they at length adopted. The public, no doubt, will approve (as the Sub-

scribers have formally done already) of their having made the application, and it is evident that the Lieutenant-Governor looked upon it in a friendly and favourable light. But, as to the cavil of the Southern Cross it may he asked in reply,—why did not that journalist himself bring- the subject forward, even when our distinct advocacy of a relaxation might have reminded him of it? If all these evils about which he now declaims were going on, why was our contemporary himself silent, until both the government and the Reward Committee had, of l heir own accord respectively, taken the subject into consideration ? and why has he only made his appearance when the question was thus far settled without his aid and then appeared to complain that it was not done sooner? We have sufficient confidence in the good sense of our community to believe that these attempts to prevent the co-operation and confidence which are so essential in this case will not succeed. Every facility is now afforded to all who desire prospecti ng licenses to obtain them—free, and without any real restriction. For we cannot regard the requirement that the application should be countersigned by a Justice of the Peace, as in any fair sense restrictive, except, indeed, to persons who would be only agents of evil and disorder at the diggings. The practical working of the arrangement will be little short of empowering the Justices themselves to issue prospecting licenses, and we may anticipate that they will not refuse the endorsement in any ease where there is not such a reason for the refusal as would commend itself to the judgment of all rightminded men. We hope soon to hear of a large number of prospectors at the diggings, and of rich results of their efforts; and we shall especially rejoice whenever the negociations which it is well known the Government are anxious to forward with the Natives shall have issued in the opening of a wider extent of country for exploration.