100 Auckland Provincial Government Gazette.

now employed on the new road between Mackay-
town and Waitekauri, in the Ohinemuri District.

2. That the funds provided by the General Government to furnish employment for your Memorialists will apparently be exhausted in a week or ten days.

3. That when these funds shall be exhausted a large majority of your Memorialists see no other prospect before them but to return to the Thames, where so much depression at present exists; that they will be unable to find employment, and this would undoubtedly add to the very great distress and even misery, which largely prevails there.

4. That the road now being constructed to Waitekauri for the more immediate purpose of enabling machinery to be conveyed there has already more than realized expectations, inasmuch as valuable gold discoveries have recently been made in the new ground along the line of road, and a large area has been opened up for agricultural settlement.

5. That as the new ground above referred to would probably have remained undeveloped for a long time but for the construction of this road, and even now some months must necessarily elapse before the requisite machinery can be procured and erected.

6. That as the first half of the Waitekauri road has been designed, and appears well adapted, to form a portion of the main trunk road to Tauranga, thus avoiding the difficult country through the gorge, your memorialists respectfully submit that the labour now in this district might be wisely and cheaply utilised in further extending the said road over the Waihi Plains, and they desire most strongly to urge this view of the subject upon the immediate attention of the Government, in order that further employment may be found forthwith.

7. Your Memorialists would further beg to bring under your special notice that the distress arising from want of employment at the Thames has been, and now is, far more widely spread than is generally believed; and that many hard-working, respectable, and useful men with their families are from this cause alone preparing to leave the country, whenever they shall be enabled to do so.

Signed by your Memorialists, in public meeting assembled, at Mackaytown, this 12th day of February, 1876.

Here follow signatures.

Adam Porter,
James Mrino,
Certified by Gno. Woodward.
A committee appointed by Memorialists.

Ohinemuri to Katikati; nor is the making of these roads a work of such urgency that the Government would be justified in expending money upon them in order to retain in a particular locality labour which is urgently needed in other parts of the colony. If there be no prospect of immediate resumption of work on the mines at Grahamstown, the Government will, if your Honor desires it, at once make arrangements with Messrs. McKirdy and Oakes for the employment of such number of workmen, and for their selection and removal temporarily from the Thames to Wellington, as may be found necessary to afford immediate relief.

Daniel Pollen.

(30.)
Auckland, 18th February, 1876.
To Hon. Colonial Secretary,
Wellington.

You are mistaken upon some points alluded to in your telegram. The road on which the people are now employed at the Thames is really a work of great urgency, and of necessity for the progress of this part of the Colony: it is the main highway to Tauranga, and you have already recognised the importance of this road by ordering working parties of the Armed Constabulary to be employed upon it. Assistance such as that now asked for, under circumstances unforeseen and of great emergency, is a matter of ordinary business with all Governments.

I could have met the emergency myself without asking for any extraneous aid, had the financial arrangements made by the late Colonial Treasurer with my Provincial Treasurer, during the last session of Parliament, been carried out. They were made upon the lowest possible scale, to enable me to conduct the ordinary and necessary business of the Province; but the deductions made monthly from the capitation allowance and from the goldfields revenue, are so serious, and the want of security that I feel from month to month as to the funds that I may have at my disposal is so great, as to make it impossible for me to enter upon the most temporary and trifling expenditure without the prospect of embarrassment before me, unless I either have the funds, or a definite promise of them. As regards the removal of the men temporarily to Wellington, it is a course which I think would be very hard upon the people, separating them from their homes and their families; and as in all probability work will be renewed at the mines, which have now stopped working, in about two months' time, and employment in this way afforded again to the men now out of work, it seems to me that the simplest as well as the best course would be to furnish the assistance asked for, and continue the men on the main road towards Tauranga. If Government does not see its way to adopt this recommendation, there is a railway work urgently required, namely the extension of the existing Kaipara Railway, a distance of less than a mile, to the spot indicated by Mr. Carruthers as the proper place for the Helensville terminus. The want of this renders the present line almost useless to the timber merchants of the Kaipara.

G. Grey.

(28.)
Auckland, February 17th, 1876.
To Hon. Colonial Secretary,
Wellington.

Since my telegram of 15th, copy of a Petition addressed to you has been received from two hundred and fifty people at Ohinemuri, saying funds provided for unemployed at Thames will soon be exhausted, that great distress will follow, that many hard-working men are leaving the district, and they pray that further employment may be found forthwith.

Reader Wood,
For the Superintendent.

(29.)
Government Buildings,
February 17th, 1876.

His Honor the Superintendent,
Auckland.

Re Mr. Wood’s telegram, this Government has no legal authority for expenditure on roads in the Thames gold mining district, or on the line from...

(31.)
Grahamstown, 18th February, 1876.
R. G. Wood, Esq.,
Provincial Secretary, Auckland.

I see in this day’s Advertiser, quoting Herald of few days back, that you have handed the business of transportation of unemployed to Wellington over to me. Surely this is an error. Your only communication to me is letter with enclosure of 14th.