The Sun.
London, England, 1859-01-17 00:00:00

MINERAL. WEALTH OF AUSTRALIA,

(From the Colonial Mining Journal of Australia, Nor. 4)
VICTORIA.—SeveraI specimens of iron ore have
been handed to us, which have been obtained from
different spots on the Avoca River ; they have been
assayed, and have yielded from 40 to 57 per cent. of
pure iron. There cannot be any doubt that when
gold-mining operations are conducted on a larger
scale the large quantity of machinery required will
create a necessity for manufacturing our own iron ;
and perhaps this would have already taken place
under the large demand of the present iron trade
in this colony had those necessary fluxes required
in the manufacture of this article also been found.
Nature has so arranged it, generally, that where
iron ore has been found, there also the required
fluxes for its reduction have likewise been at hand ;
we have no doubt that now iron in the ore has been
found, and in conjunction the requisite fluxes, the
manufacture of iron will prove profitable even in
this colony, provided the place of manufacture is
easily accessible and convenient for such operations.
We have been informed of localities where iron ore
has been found contiguous to the sea, yet it ap-
pears that its value has not been sufficiently appre-
ciated to have led to any systematic exploration of
the localities in question ; we have also heard from
a reliable source that alluvial tin, as well as tin
ore, have been found in the valley of the Avoca, but
we have not received detailed particulars ; all we
learn is, that the district where the ore was found
is granite, and that the alluvial tin is similar to
that found on the Ovens, being intermixed with
auriferous deposits. This is the first instance which
has come under our observation in this colony of
the discovery of tin ore in its matrix. The alluvial
tin procured at the Ovens, usually called black
sand, is generally of a very fine quality, and has
realised as much as £BO to £9O per ton in England;
still the search for alluvial tin has received no at-
tention except what has been obtained from gold-
washings.

SOUTH AUSTRALIA.—The late rise in the copper
standard in England, and on the continent of
Europe, has given a great impetus to copper min-
ing in this colony. The success attending the sale
of the shares of the North Rhine Copper Mining
Company on the London Stock Exchange has led
many persons to prosper for new copper lodes,
and we have no doubt that in the course of time
other " Burras Burras" will be found in this colony,
already so famous for its copper mines. The North
Rhine Copper Company had a parcel of 100 tons of
ore, the result of four.men's labour, sent to London
to be tested, and the average percentage was found
to be 32 per cent. of fine copper. Owing to the rise
of the copper standard, less productive copper ores
are being worked and smelted on the mine. The
North Rhine Copper Mine is said to be favourably
situated, and equally rich, if not richer, than the
Burra Mine, and is likely to prove a powerful rival
to the latter. A gentleman who has been a resi-
dent of South Australia for many years, during
which time he explored that colony in various direc-
tions, informs us that it is also rich in other mine-
rals, and he expresses no doubt that the eastern
portion of that country, where it joins Victoria,
contains auriferous deposits and quartz veins. We
are promised further particulars.
The marble quarries are likely to prove a source
of wealth. Several orders for marble from Victoria
are now being completed, and there is no doubt that
a great demand for this article will take place in
England when once the qualities of this splendid
building stone are properly known.
NEW SOUTH WALES.—We learn the important
fact that the new mining regulations, giving fixity
of tenure of considerable areas of auriferous lands,
and for long periods, is already manifesting a salu-
tary influence in the revival of the mining interests
of tliis colony. Although the late Port Curtis rush
has considerably interfered with the progress of
mining industry, still it is gratifying to know that
most of the miners are now returning, and, as a
necessary consequence of their dearly-bought expe-
rience, will most likely become steady occupiers of
the mining districts of this province, with every
prospect of obtaining good and permanent employ-
ment in connection with the many mining compa-
nies now in process of formation ; or, if their means
will admit, they may obtain fixity of tenure for
themselves of more than one likely patch of auri-
ferous ground, with the cheering prospect of work-
ing the same profitably and undisturbed for a consi-
derable time. In Sydney many capitalists are now
ready to invest in mining speculations ; and there
is a general impression current that capitalists in
Great Britain, once assured of the safe and profit-
able investments which New South Wales now
offers to the world, there will be no lack of money
forthcoming.
TASMANIA.—This beautiful island, which has so
justly been styled the " Garden of Australia," is now
anxiously engaged in the search for a workable
gold field, which we have no doubt, sooner or later,
will be found, as the geological stratum is but a
continuation of that of the Australian continent.
We are told that a large tract of the western por-
tion of Tasmania belongs to the schistose and
quartzose formation, and would in all probability,
if properly explored, be found auriferous. Since
Victoria has turned attention more to agriculture,
the demand for Tasmania produce has somewhat
declined, and disappointed the sanguine expecta-
tions of those who at one time almost exclusively
supplied us with agricultural produce. This may be
assigned as the chief reason why Tasmania is now
applying her energies in the search for mineral
wealth, and we have no doubt she will be rewarded
ere long, not only with the discovery of a permanent
gold field, but also with deposits of other profitable
minerals. We propose dwelling more minutely on
the geological characteristics of Tasmania.

THE RIOT 01 COLLIERS ON STRIKE
AT WIGAN.

In consequence of the strike amongst the colliers
of the Wigan district for an advance of 2d. in the
shilling, Wigan is at present in a very unsatisfac-
tory and unsettled state. The nightly meetings
during the past week have been looked upon by
the- authorities with no small degree of alarm, as
several of the men at work, termed " knobsticks,"
have been severely beaten at such hours and locali-
ties as to render it almost impossible that a proper
identification of their assailants can be effected.
On Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday,
attempts were made to stop the colliers who were
'going to work, and these attempts in some instances
were successful, though in others the parties at-
tacked have been victorious. Nothing, however,
of importance occurred until Thursday morning,
when a large mob assembled near St. Patrick's
Chapel, Hardybutts, and, after extinguishing the
gas lamps in the neighbourhood, brutally attacked
two men, assistants at the Ince-hall Colliery, kick-
ing them severely about the head and shoulders.
On Thursday a meeting of the men was held at
Hindley, when about 3,000 assembled,
.and
meeting was also held the same day at the Horse
and Jockey, Scholes, At the conclusion of these
assemblages a procession was formed, which pro-
ceeded through the, principal streets of the town,
with a band of music at their head, finally directing
their steps towards the Scholes. The number of
this procession was between 1,000 and 1,500.
After marching through Scholes and Ince
this mob, whose numbers were swelled to
2,000, about 12 o'clock took possession of the Bri-
tannia-bridge, over the Leeds and Liverpool Canal,
and on the road to the works of the Ince Hall Coal
and Cannel Company, over which the men there
employed—in number. about 500, and who, after
remaining on strike for a few days determined to
return to work, thus incurring the obnoxious appel-
lation of knobsticks,"--Lmust pass on their way to
work. Mr. Peters, the police inspector of the dis-
trict, having received information of this assembly,
marshalled his men, 23 in number, and proceeded
in the direction of the bridge, halting at a distance
of 40 or 50 yards from the mob, and near a cartroad
leading to the pits of the Ince Hall Coal Company,
which are here situated between the Leeds and
Liverpool Canal and the Lancashire and Yorkshire
Railway. The inspector, leaving his men at this
spot, boldly marched forward, confronted the turn-
outs, and -asked what they intended to do. A re-
presentative of the colliers was soon found, who
stepped forward to the front, bearing in his hand a
large bludgeon. Addressing the inspector, he said
—" So thou'rt Peters, th' sergeant " (the inspector
had been recently promoted from the rank of a ser-
geant) ; "if thou're not off wi' thee, I'll split thy
skull in two." " Why, lam not going to do any-
thing," said the inspector ; and was advancing,
when the fellow menaced him with the bludgeon,
shouting, " Stand back, or down the goes." So,
finding it impossible to make any impression upon
the colliers, he called to his force to advance, on
which one of the turnouts said, " If you do, we'll
certainly fire upon you." The inspector retired, and
had no sooner joined the other officers, than a heavy
shower of stones was discharged at the little body.
The inspector was struck on his arm and back, and
several of the force also received heavy blows.
They; however, stood their ground for some time,
but were, of course, utterly unable to cope with the
immense concourse, who completely achieved the
object for which they assembled, viz., the preven-
tion of the colliers going to work, as scarcely half
a dozen out of the 600 employed reached the works
that morning. The police force then retired to the
pits of the company, while various bodies of turn-
outs guarded the different approaches to the town.
In this state affairs continued until morning—the
turnouts remaining in complete possession of the
bridge till near five o'clock, at which hour they
dispersed. During_this time their shouts were
plainly heard in Wigan, but the pollee were so

completely hemmed in that they could not com-
municate with the authorities.

About two o'clock in the morning information was
received at the Wigan borough police-office of the
disordered state of Ince, when Mr. Simm, the chief
constable, immediately summoned to his aid Mr.
Henry Woodcock, mayor, Mr. Thomas Cook, and Mr.
Joseph Ingram, deputy mayor. The whole of the
borough police force were immediatelycalled together
and placed under arms, put through their exercises,
and made ready for immediate action, if necessary ;
but as there was no outbreak in the borough—
Britannia-bridge being just beyond the boundary
—it was deemed advisable, as there had been no
previous arrangement, not to take the men to
the spot to act upon the offensive, as the place
was out of their jurisdiction. The three magis-
tiates above mentioned remained at the police-
office until five o'clock, when Mr. Part, the clerk to
the magistrates arrived, and in his charge the force
was left until nine o'clock.
A special meeting of the magistrates—borough
and county—was held at nine o'clock in the Town-
hall, when evidence of the unsettled and unsatis-
factory state of the town having been brought
foward, it was resolved, about half-past 10 o'clock,
to telegraph to Manchester for a company of sol-
diers, who would be prepared for any emergency
that might arise. A message was accordingly sent
to Col. Wilbraham, the assistant adjutant-general,
and a few minutes after one o'clock a special train
arrived on the London and North-Western Railway,
bringing a company numbering 100 of the 22d
Regiment, who are now stationed in the town. No
actual violence was then being committed by the
colliers ; and to allay any excitement which might
be produced by the appearance of the military, they
were at once marched to the Grammar School,
where they were to hold themselves in readiness
should there be any further disturbance.
We learn that a number of the workmen of
Messrs. Case and Morris, who were proceeding to
the pits on Friday morning, under the escort of Mr.
Bryham, the manager, and Police-constable Wilson,
of Ince, were attacked by a body of the turn-outs ;
but they were completely repulsed by the exertions
of the men, with little or no injury to themselves.
This being the state of things in the district, it
may be supposed that the feeling of security of
the inhabitants of the town was in no wise
strengthened by the assemblage, about nine
o'clock, of several hundreds of colliers at the
Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Station, to wel-
come Mr. W. P. Roberts, solicitor, Manchester,
who had been engaged to defend 14 colliers, sum-
moned for leaving work without notice by Messrs.
Pearson, Knowles, and Co. He arrived soon after
half-past nine, and was accompanied through the
streets by a large number of colliers.
At 11 o'clock, the hour at which the court opens,
a dense mob surrounded the Moot-hall, rendering
it extremely difficult for pedestrians or vehicles to
pass in the street below, and as soon as the doors
were thrown open to the public every available
spot was occupied. So great was the excitement
that it was a very general impression that had a
conviction taken place a riot would have ensued.
Mr. Mayhew, however, the solicitor for the prose-
cutors, having consulted with Mr. Roberts, applied
for an adjournment for a fortnight. Mr. Acton said
it was exceedingly satisfactory for them to perceive
the course which had been taken. Even had an
adjournment not been asked for, it was their inten-
tion not to go into the cases for a fortnight.
On Mr. Roberts leaving the court he was loudly
cheered by the dense crowd which filled the court
and its approaches. He was escorted down to the
Clarence Hotel, on his entering which he was again
cheered. The crowd waited outside the hotel until
his departure by rail to Manchester, when the col-
liers lined the walls of the station—the train
departing amidst the waving of caps and loud
acclamation. Manchester Guardian.

THE NEW _REFORM BILL.

(From the Daily Hews.)

After vainly waiting for Many months, we have
at length a voice from the late Administration on
the impending question of Parliamentary Reform.
The tone is low but sufficiently clear; the tenor of
its utterance, cold, niggardly, and doctrinaire ; but
its drift, like its authorship, admits of no question,
and it is at least satisfactory to know what we
should have got had the late Ministers ever brought
forward a bill, and what manner of a bill they are
now ready to oppose. The horn pane through
which this light is now shed on the country's poli-
tical path is an article in the latest number of the
Edinburgh. Review, professing to give the history
and prospects of Reform in Parliament. With
an elaborate show of particularity as to dates
and successive proposals on the subject, a nar-
rative is presented of bald and colourless facts,
calculated only to discourage and mislead all earnest
constitutional progress. Many interesting and im-
portant facts are studiously omitted ; in not a few
instances grave mis-statements are made ; and
throughout the design is palpably revealed of try-
ing to persuade us that all Lord Chatham, Mr.
Fox, and the men of their time, valued in Reform
was its tendency to curb the jobbing power of the
Crown ; and that the only motive which impelled
Lord John Russell, Mr. Lambton, and Earl Grey
to advocate electoral change from 1819 to 1831, was
the desire of breaking up the close borough system,
which prevented the passing of salutary measures.
This desire we are told was accomplished by the
Bill of 1832, under which Parliament has become
a faithful and adequate representation of the wants
and feelings of the nation ; nearly everything has
been done which ought to be done, and hardly
anything done which ought not to be done. " That
the existing House of Commons has reflected with
fidelity the predominant opinions of the great body
of the community we hold to be a matter of fact
established by the evidence of general notoriety.
We defy any person to produce an instance where
the House of Commons since 1832 has shown an
undue disregard of public opinion." If this asser-
tion be good for anything, it is good for resistance
to any measure of essential change. It is a clumsy
and prolix reproduction of the old stock argument
of anti-reformers during the reigns of George 111.
and George IV.—never mind anomalies, the system
works well. The ex-Ministerial reviewer does not
venture to make such an induction in terms ; but
he avows plainly enough that he and his frier ds
consider the Act of 1832 final and conclusive
against all fur' her claim of popular power. What-
ever revision of minor details may have become
necessary through lapse of time and the heat in
which the Act of 1832 was passed, a .t measure,
we are gravely assured "has become a great con-
stitutional landmark, and has finally settled ques-
tions as to the boundaries of aristocratic and demo-
cratic power which were previously in a fluctuating
state."

Here then we have it at last. There is no longer
any room for mistake or denial. Anti-Real-Reform
is the standard unfurled from Cambridge House ;
and beneath it are ostentatiously piled all the
rusty weapons of attack and defence which the
Eldons and Castlereaghs, Cannings and Peels, made
use of in their day. \ From the historic narrative
of the question every hearty or generous, states-
manlike or patriotic thought is jealously eliminated.
Of the burning words of Chatham or Pitt, Fox or
Grey, Brougham or Plunket, Durham, Stanley,
Macaulay, or O'Connell, not a fragment is recalled.
Believe the , organ of Sir Cornewall Lewis, and
reform of Parliament was at first but a war cry
between the landed oligarchy and the Court, and
subsequently between the Whigs and the Tories ;
and the Court and the Tories being no longer for-
midable, the Whigs are coolly reminded that they
have no longer a motive for wishing any material
change in the present mechanism of rule. As for
the contentment of intelligent and industrious mil-
lions now in, olently excluded from every pretence
of a share in political rights, the oligarchic reviewer
does not even condescend to allude to the vulgar
theme. That matter was " finally settler in 1832
when the Court was compelled to take back Earl
Grey and his colleagues, and the Duke of Welling-
ton was obliged to strike the colours of Toryism in
the House of Lords. A parenthetical exception is
made, indeed, in favour of what may be called the
claims of the commercial magnates. We are in-
formed that there are not a sufficient number of
great monied men in the House of Commons—that
a few more millowners, bankers, and brewers might
be an improvement ; they are declared to be a per-
fectly safe and docile element, and some provision
ought to be made for increasing their strength in
Parliament. But as for conceding anything what-
ever to mere intellect or mere industry, working
loyalty or moral worth, the notion is not even
hinted at in the manifesto of the Clarendon-Clanri-
carde faction. If the measure about to be produced
by Lord Derby is in accordance with the mending
and darning principles of strict finality thus
avowed, it may as well be allowed to pass. But if
it attempts to go in the least beyond these prin•
ciples, it ought by all means to be rejected. The
article concludes with these words :—" The question
has been already three times postponed with the
approbation of Parliament ; and a further delay
would be preferable to a tame acquiescence in an im-
perfect and unnsatisfactory measure, which would
only lay the foundation for a renewed agitation of
the subject at an early period." Slam the door in
the people's faces, and bolt it; such is the "Edin-
burgh" order of the day.

We have not space to enter at any length into
an exposure of the multiplied misrepresentations
which the article referred to contains. To make
out a case in favour of the adequacy of the present
constitution of Parliament, and of the inefficiency
of that which preceded• it, a blank schedule is pre-
sented of legislation for the first thirty years of the
Century; while raiSCCII4IIOOU.B Cittgoglie of VA

bad, and indifferent measures, all labelled "
benefits," are set down to the account of the sub`
quent period What class of readers this sort
historical caricature is meant to deceive ivear
somewhat at a loss to imagine; but most peqt
now-a-days are aware that, bad as the old borothil
mongering Parliament was, it abolished the 51,5
Trade—it repealed the Test and Corporation .2'c
—it commenced the great series of tentative ll'
sures of Free Trade ; it passt'd Catholic emancii}
tion —it consolidated and purified the Crinill3
Law and it sanctioned the establishment.
National Education in Ireland mpon neutral pi:,
ciples. As against these great measures it 1:0
vain to set up an invidious comparison byuj'
enumeration of those that have since been enact;
yet they are all coolly omitted by the candid ~,'
viewer. Why do we recur to them ? Assam
not to prove that nomination boroughs were al
tageous or beneficial ; but simply to illustrate t
hollowness of the argument as to the sufficienci
the existing representative system, which
sought to found upon various useful things v
have been accomplished by means of it.