A dredge which has obtained 30oz per week from the land has circulated in the community an equivalent of £480 per month in bullion.
An ordinary dredge turns over on the average about an acre a month, and thus we have had bullion to the value of £480 per acre from a considerable extent of the dredged land in the Waikaka Valley.
The amount of gold obtained by dredging from the Waikaka and Little Waikaka Valleys will never be known, for many of the companies were private concerns; but it is interesting to know that from the Little Waikaka alone it is estimated that £250,000 worth of gold has been secured.
When regrets are expressed for the devastation of the very rich agricultural land in the Waikaka Valley it is therefore well to remember that a considerable area of it was swamp, and that from many acres of it approximately £500 per acre of solid gold has been obtained and circulated in the community.
The same remarks to some extent will apply to the Waikaka, Waimumu, and Charlton Valleys.
When we consider the amount of benefit that has been done by the circulation of this gold, and that the dredged tailings are now being put to considerable profit, we have cause to modify our regrets for the effect on first-class agricultural land.
• While the call to arms is being answered by Britishers in all parts of the world, it is gratifying to learn that in such a remote part of the Empire as the Chatham Islands a ready response has been made.
From this little settlement, with its population of only a few hundred people, who earn their livelihood principally by sheep-raising and the fishing industry, there arrived at Lyttelton by the steamer Himitangi on Saturday evening two fine specimens of young colonial manhood, anxious to serve with the New Zealand Expeditionary Forces.
Their action is the more noteworthy when it becomes known that one of them, a strapping young fellow of 22 years, and six feet in height, had lived all his life on the islands, and had never seen any other part of the great Empire of which he is a citizen.
Beyond the vessels that call at the Chathams from New Zealand, he had never seen a steamer, and the sight of the modern turbine steamer Maori, which he obtained from the deck of the Himitangi last night, was a revelation to him, as also were the railway trains, the first glimpse of which he got at Lyttelton upon arrival.
• There are quite a number of estimable German residents in and around Marton but there are also others who at times are a little candid in their expressions of approval, etc. if the enemy's arms are represented to have obtained a victory.
It is also currently reported that secret meetings of Germans are being held frequently, and, furthermore, exception is being taken to the fact that the services at the Lutheran Church are conducted in the German language.
The position generally was discussed at a meeting of the Marton Defence Rifle Club, and a good deal of warmth was exhibited, one member walking out of the meeting as a protest against some of the remarks made concerning an attempt to interfere with what he termed the religious liberty of the subject.
He attends the Lutheran, commonly known as the German Church.
It was suggested that efforts be made to induce the elimination of the German language from the service, but nothing definite was done in regard to that matter. - ODT, 20.1.1915.
• COPIES OF PICTURE AVAILABLE FROM ODT FRONT OFFICE, LOWER STUART ST, OR WWW.OTAGOIMAGES.CO.NZ
