MINING BOARDS.

Westport Times, Volume II, Issue 219, 14 April 1868, Page 3

MINING BOARDS.

(To the Editor of the Westport Times and Charleston Argus.) Sir, —When you allow individuals or communities to bo attacked through the columns of your paper, you, I presume, extend to those so attacked the privilege ■of answering ; then Sir, if you can find room, I should like to comment on a •few passages in Mr Cameron's letter, he&ded " Mining Boards," and I promise to say as little either for or against Mining Boards as he has done. It is evident to me, and must be to every reader of that letter, that Mr C. is ignorant on the subject of Mining Boards, their construction and power. He says, " the evils do not lie so much in the rottenness, but in the arbitrary manner in which they are interpreted." Then the evils must be in the Wardens, and how is a Mining Board to alter the difficulty 1 Does Mr C. imagine the Mining Board to be a Court of Appeal from a Warden's decision ; or that the Mining Board appoints the Wardens, and can dismiss them at pleasure, if their arbitrary reading of the bylaws should displease their sapient legislators 1 This, at least, is the only conclusion anyone reading Mr C.'s letter could arrive at, if common-sense did not teach them better. And the writer of that letter, "of all but childish prattle void," sets himself up as judge of the Wardens on the West Coast; and so will every churl that chances to lose a case in the Warden's Court, no matter who framed the laws that guided his decision. What he means by "hemmed in," 1 am at a loss to comprehend. If the Wardens are ignorant and incapable under the existing laws, what better would the same men be under a Mining Board? As for the bull about the Brighton Conference held at Charleston, it does not possess the usual merit of an Irish bull, and hardly could, coming from where it does. If in calling the members of the late conference "semi-drapery," Mr C. means that they attended it washed and dressed, I admit the charge, and tell Mr C. that it would have been more to his credit if he had undergone both operations before entering the Court-house on the 29th of February last. If he means that we are draper's assistants he conveys no insult, for, let me tell Mr C, that a draper's assistant occupies a position of trust, that Mr C. would aspire to in vain. I take no objection to anything that letter contains in favor of Mining Boards, but I do object to a letter being edged into a leading journal under a false pre-

tence, for that letter is low, scurrilous, and pusilanimous, for it attacks those whose position del aw them from defending themselves. In the attempted slut on the members of the late conference, Mr 0. has overstepped the mark, for there was not a single member but what was Mr C.'s superior, either as a miner or a man. The miners of Brighton sent delegates to the late conference to revise the bylaws, fully believing that if they waited for a Mining Board, they would have to wait for twelve or eighteen months, and that it would be an act of madness to let the opportunity slip, and cotft'nue to work on under the laws imperfect as they were. A Mining Board, under the present Groldfields Act would be almost a useless 'body ; but if the miners'had exerted themselves and every thirty sent a delegate to the conference, the 'wants of the miners could have been laid before the Government in such a manner that it would have gained immediate attention. But no ; the cry that originated with Charleston publicans, and was disseminated by] their satellites, turned the finest chance of bringing the weight of such a body to bear on the Government. And that was the cry against the conference. Such a body of men could have got the Goldfields Act amended, : a Mining Board established, and have had workable laws in the meantime ; and "the community have Mr C. and those joined with him, to thank fjr the present state of affairs. Mr. Cameron and his confreres started on wrong premises, resulting from ignorance of the clauses of the ; G-oldfields Act, which states distinctly ■ that each Mining Board shall make laws for its own district ; consequently a central Board cannot be established till \ the'Goidfieids Act is amended. ! I am, &c.,

William Payne Belfast Terrace, Brighton, April 1,4868.