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Otago Daily Times, Issue 7, 22 November 1861, Page 2

In the description of the improvements recently effected in Dunedin, in last week's issue, a misprint occurred in the name of Messrs. H. Driver & Co., when referring to the stores they had lately erected in Staffordstreet.

The Argus, in a most amusing leader, gives the Otago gold fields a desperately bad character, and then, assuming as a matter of course that the Victorian miners desire to return, vehemently objects to their expenses back being paid by Government. Our contemporary seems to forget the.fable of the sour grapes, and that the Victorian Government should be glad enough to get the miners back on any terms if they would only go. To object to assisted immigration of experienced colonists from Otago, and yet advocate, as the Argus does, the bringing out new chums from horne —as many thousands of miles as New Zealand is hundreds—is surely very inconsistent. Mr. Argus, it won't do; you would be glad enough to get your miners back at £3 10s. a head, but Otago offers them greater attractions, and is likely to get more from you before you obtain your number back again. We extract from our contemporary: "°The gold field is as patchy aud as soon exhausted as tnose at Canoona and Kiandra; the climate is ungenial; the roads impassable ; there is as remarkable an absence of timber as Dr. Johnson used to complain of in Scotland ; and the probability is, that every vessel which arrives from Otago during the next fortnight will bring back as many passengers as it conveyed from these shores. In order to facilitate this reflux of population—this colonial " retreat of the ten thousand"—it has been proposed that the Government should lend its assistance, and should place free passages at the disposal of those who cannot afford to defray their own. But such a proceeding would be as impolitic as uncalled for. . The errant spirits who proceeded to Otao-o did so in" defiance of warnings and remonstrances innumerable, and they ought not to be humoured, like spoiled children, and besought to return home, with the promise that their passage should be franked, and that all should be forgiven and forgotten."