FREE TRADE IN GOLD MINING.

Cromwell Argus, Volume VI, Issue 298, 28 July 1875, Page 7

FREE TRADE IN GOLD MINING.

The nalmy days of gold mining are at an ;®nd. Victoria and New Zealand have had their day, but the delirium of the "gold fever" has long since passed away, leaving the mining industry comparatively prostrate. I And it has been unskilfully treated by the I .experts. The legislative doctors have botched! and bungled, varying their treatment occasionally, but always having resort to the lancet. The main question apparently was : mucK blood can the patient lose?" and that once decided they bled him within an inch of his life. Every possible device was resorted to for the purpose of extracting money from the gold miner. The fruits of lus industry were not only regarded as clear profit, but in a measure, as the property of some one else. There were wardens and bailiffs to look after him ; receivers of revenue to impoverish him ; cast-iron regulations to harass him; and " jumpers" to put thorn in force, without remorse, and under color of law rob him of his hard-earned property. Security in mining property there wasnone. Although some change for the better in this .respect was made by the Mining Districts Act, in force in Auckland, on the whole it may be said the cure was worse than the disease. It was an exceptional piece of legislation, and like all exceptional laws, it does ■not work smoothly or equitably when generally applied. To be Bure, it certainly does protect mining associations from the hourly dread of plunder through some trifling neglect, on the part of their servants, of some minute point of detail in the regulations, and to that extent it has been a boon. ,'.v, . t The question arises : " What should be done to encourage gold mining?" Otago empirics have hit upon a device of paying a bonus, by evading the law ; but it is a roundabout and ineffectual method at best, and as the recently enacted Ordinance is in fraud of the Customs Duties Act, and in contravention of the Constitution Act, we can hardly think the Governor will be advised to leave it to its operation, the Colonial Secretary's letter to Superintendent Macandrew notwithstanding. But on other grounds the plan is imperfect. It is partial in its operation, and were it to do all that its advocates claim for it in Otago, which we take leave to donbt, it would depress the cold mining industries in other provinces in the same ratio. However well meant' and "kindly intended, the Otago Ordinance providing for the payment of a bonus on every ounce of gold raised in that provinee, must •fail in its object. • We write for the colony, and not for a ■division of it. From a colonial point of view, we say, let gold mining be as free and untrammelled as any other industry. Gold is not taken from the earth for nothing. The cost of every ounce of gold produced bears a very large proportion to its standard value; The spocial taxes, therefore, which are imposed upon gold mining, to.maintain an army oi non-producing officials, should be abolished. This would enable the men engaged in gold-mining pursuits, North and South, to work lio greater advantage; The rent, in the shape of miner's right, license, and registration fees, and the income tax, in the shape of export duty on gold, would make the difference, in nine cases out of ten, between a profit and a loss on the year's operations. In the case of companies or associations, it would go far towards the turning point between dividends and calls ; and in general, private enterprise would be stimulated to greater exertions. In other words, we should stimulate gold mining by applying to it as far as practicable, the principles of Free Trade. There is no reason why the administration of goldfields should be exceptional. Wardens and Wardens' Courts, and the whole system of goldfields administration, appears to us to be costly, cumbrous, and unnecessary. What have the gold miners done that they should be compelled to carry such an official load ? Are they a lawless, reckless, abandoned body of men ? Are they not, on the contrary, the most law-abiding, patient, longsuftering body of men that it is possible to find ? There is in reality no crime on the New Zealand goldfields. On the other hand, ■there is nothing in the avocation of gold miners, or in the species of property created by them, that should prevent causes arising out of it from being determined in the ordinary courts of the colony. Let the law Under which gold mining is pursued be simplified, and the litigation which occupies the Warden's Courts would be at an end. The country would be the gainer, as well as the miner, by this change. Money spent in litigation is wasted, just as money spent in maintaining a battalion of useless officials might as well be flung into the sea, to say nothing of the amount of skill and energy locked up, which might be usefully employed. But we would go yet further, and give the gold miner an opportunity of acquiring a freehold title to his mining area, within a reasonable limit. This would tie him to the country. He would have a vested interest in his claim. He could build his house thereon, and while he was engaged in mining pursuits his family could cultivate the surface. Mining would then be conducted on a totally different method from what it is at present. The one thought now is to get the gold and clear out as soon as possible, leaving the land unfit for any useful purpose. But were the land the property of the miner, care would be taken, on working out a spot, to fill up the workings and restore the surface. It would pay to do so. The land would remain, a valuable and improvable commodity, after the gold had been removed ; and in process of time the worked-out ground wouUi come to be occupied by a large producing population, instead of the unsightly and dangerous pitfalls we now see. The country

would get, in exchange for its gold, a settled population, and new industries would spring up, giving employment as the gold produce fell off. In this way, Now Zealand would not be compelled to lament the falling-off in mining pursuits, nor would future economists point to solitary wastes as the only permanent result of its golden harvest. —iV. Z. Timy, 16th inst. *