G.—No. 3

alone is authorised to use, have been exercised by a subordinate officer in a manner that your Petitioners deem disrespectful to His Excellency, as well as to your Petitioners. A gentleman holding the position as Gold-fields Secretary has made and unmade officials on the Gold-fields iu. the most erratic and illegal manner. Several of these actions have been productive of evil to the interest of the miners, in regard of the vexatious delays caused by removals from place to place of various officers to supply the vacancies thus created. And all of the Gold-fields Secretary's proceedings arc hurtful to your Petitioners, inasmuch as that they are illegal and despotic ; and your Petitioners feel insulted by the fact that your Excellency's delegated power should have been exercised by an inferior and irresponsible official, thus throwing contempt upon your Petitioners, and implying that they are not worthy of respectful or legal treatment. Thai your Petitioners would further beg humbly to bring under the notice of your^Honorable House, that subsequent to, and your Petitioners believe in consequence of, the acts before alluded to of the Gold-fields Seei'etary, a motion was brought before the Provincial Council, urging it to elect a Gold-fields Secretary, who should be a member of and responsible to the Government. This motion was carried, and your Petitioners were consequently in hopes that the wants of those on the Gold-fields would then be more cared for, and the attention given to them which their importance as a producing clement entities them to. Owing to some informality, however, in the form of procedure, it was necessary that the vote should pass again ; :md advantage was taken in the absence of BOme of those who* had supported the motion, to re-open the question, aad it was negatived. Thus a measure which would have gone far to have put an end to the. misgofernment of those fields, deliberately debated and arrived at, was thrown overboard. That it has pleased an all-wise Providence to visit the miners o'nthe Shotover with a season of great severity. Accidents have been rife, and disease, superinduced by exposure and vant, has done its work. The violent deaths occasioned by landslips and floods alone exceed in number those that have been killed in the Maori war iu the Northern Island ; and the majority pf deaths from diseases brought on by want and exposure, we charge at the door of the Provincial authorities. Those deaths especially caused by scurvy, however they may be looked upott by legal authorities, in the eyes of a moralist cannot he spoken of except as deaths resulting f-om cruel and criminal mismanagement. That your Petitioners beg humbly to state in conclusion, that they hare no confidence m the Provincial Governmen: —that they have proved themselves utt ei-ly incapable of managing the Goldfields, and that the state of matters on these fields is luch as to call for the immediate attention of I [is Excellency and the Honorable House. And they humbly pray that your Excellency will withdraw the powers delegated toHis Honor the Superintendent of the Province of Otago, and take into your own hands theimmedate control of the Gold-fields, or do otherwise as your Excellency and the Honorable House may d.em proper. Hi re follow seventeen hundred and fifty signatures.]

4

PETITION OF MINERS, PROVINCE OF OTAGO.