Great tracts are set apart on the mere probability of gold being found there at some future time, and the ploughman and shepherd are alike ex cluded from their limits ; not only are the natural water-courses allowed to be diverted from their channels for his use, but the State itself provides money and professional ability for making them available for the purposes of his pur suits. A struggle has long been going on m this colony between the miners who first took up the inland districts of the South, and the settlers whose avocations led them to press more closely day by day upon the borders of the auriferous lands ; whilo the owners of the soil along the banks of rivers have ever looked with jealous eyes upon the almost exclusive right to use and pollute the streams, which the miners claimed, and the Government to some extent confirmed. It is not to be wondered at that men should, cry out, when they see lands which they have bought and paid dearly for, overwhelmed periodically by volumes of water charged with a dense deposit of earth containing no fertilising ingredient, the debris of mining claims situated many miles above them; and thejustice of their complaint is more than half admitted by the fact that no adminis tration has ever tried to place the miner beyond the reach of legal remedy for the consequences of his work. After all, he is but a stranger and a sojourner, and everything he does is done on suf ferance. This view of the case is brought into prominent notice by an action now pending m the Supreme Court of Otago, which may be looked on as a test and example for the future, and m which undoubtedly the equiva lent of many millions sterling is at stake. Two freeholders, whose estates lie on the banks of the Maerewhenua river, claim damages to the extent of £10,000 on account of injury stated to have accrued to their lands through the pollution of the river by a company of miners m their ordinary labor; no malice is alleged or any intention of doing them a wrong ; the cause is simply a conflict between one interest and another, and on its issue will turn the fortunes of thousands. 