8 The Fraser River Mines.

unless more extended privileges were granted; therefore it was to open
these mines and encourage the men on that induced me to comply with
their wisiies. There is plenty of ground that pays, even up to the foot
of the mountain, about one and a quarter mile back. I trust you will
confirm the action I have thus taken.

I have very many difficulties to contend with, especially with
regard to Water grants. Men are almost at times out of their cences
and are determined to infringe on the privileges granted to others.
I was compelled to issue Injunction notices to Messrs. Williams, Burns,
and six others to restrain them from carrying a ditch from Santa Clara
Creek on to the bar and flat, and very much interfering with other
operations in progress.

All that can be done to carry on the mining operations of this
Colony I will do to the utmost of my power. There are many elements
that would, if possible, stay its progress, but I trust to overcome
them all.

I stated to Your Excellency my opinion in a former Letter that
the reduction on mining Licences would operate most beneficially.
I mean that, instead of a monthly licence,” a Quarterly one be substi-
tuted of the amount of Five dollars. All miners can pay that amount,
no complaint would be made, and I assure Your Excellency a sufficient
revenue can be collected to support the Colony, because the poorest
claim can afford and must pay the licence; as it is now, the miner
cannot do it. I would also respectfully beg to observe that the collec-
tion of the licence will be more easy; it now takes upwards of a month
to go over my district and I am called off to different points of my
district to settle disputes, which retards the collecting considerably.
All these obsticles could be remedied, and if the monthly system is to
be retained, Your Excellency will, I am sure, allow me to appoint
deputies to assist; these collectors must be paid, and it would be much
better that the hard-working miner should have the advantage, if any.

In granting water privileges I have not neglected the interests of
this new Colony; they will all be subject to taxation, monthly, when
completed. I have fixed the amount at Five dollars for each sluce and
flume, on some of the large flats forty or fifty sluces will receive water.
I have little doubt but that next year more than two thousand sluce
boxes will be in operation in this district.

A meeting of the miners on Hill’s Bar was held last evening and a
memorial (signed by the Chairman) to Your Excellency adopted.
I beg to state that I have only done my duty in marking out the boundry

(23) The original license fee as fixed by the regulations of December 29, 1857, had been ten
shillings a month, but in 1858 it had been raised to twenty-one shillings a month.