The gold yield of Otago has fallen off 15,000 ozs during the last year. The Dunedin "Evening Star" commenting on this says : —lt cannot be too often repeated that the Provincial Government have not taken means to encourage min ing, but have supinely seen the people leave the goldfields without preparing others to take their place. It is evident, from our Customs revenue, we have been advancing in other respects : it is as evident our gold workings have not kept pace with the development of other industries. Had they done so, all would have been more prosperous, for there would have a large consuming as well as a producing population. The " Wanganui Chronicle" says : —We have made particular inquiry regarding the state of native feeling along the Tara naki coast, and, so far as we can learn, there is no likelihood of the least distur bance in that quarter, and no cause for the least alarm. The natives are not prepared for fighting and do not wish for it. It is quite true that they are anxious to get back to portions of land which they consider as belonging to them, and their unsettledness in regard to location will always be a source more or less of danger, but beyond this there is nothing in native affairs to excite a shadow of apprehension. Tho ninth of December last concluded thetwelfthyearof the existence of Queens land as a colony having self-government. Since separation the population has in creased, in round numbers, from 28.000 to 120,000, and the revenue from £178,589 to an amount that has not been over estimated at £783,800. In the Auckland Provincial Council, amongst the various goldfield matters that came up for discussion was the subsidy in aid of the steam launch Fairy, when Mr C. F. Mitchell asked the Goldfields Secre tary whether in this vote the prayer of the European and native inhabitants of Ohinemuri, as set forth in a petition pre sented by him to the House a day or two previously, would be taken into considera tion ? This part of his constituency, he said, consisted of most respectable Hau haus, and they would be much disap pointed if it was found that the little steamer—picaninny teamer —could not maintain herself upon the river. 