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Dunstan Times, Issue 931, 20 February 1880, Page 2

Thk advertisement calling for tenders for a crushing plant and all the other tools and appliances re quisite and necessary fur working a quartz reef, to which we refer our readers, is one worth attention, and we think it should not be long in the market without a purchaser. At Conroy’s and Blackman’s Gullies, along the slopes of the Old Man flange, as also on the table land between Conroy’s and Butcher's Gullies, there are reefs known to exist, but which are necessarily compelled to lay idle for the want of crushing power. In one and all splendid prospects have been obtained, and no end of capital and labour expended in their development. But, strange to say, energy at this stage becomes dead, and the capital and labour expended is allowed to lie idle. The cause for this state of things is doubtless the want of capital with the proprietors, or doubtless ere now we should have heard the clatter of the stampers in many a place. Where such is, and doubtless it is the case with regard to the reefs I cited, we think it then becomes the para- ; mount, .liitjr i.—,- *eiy nre anti prosperity depends on the gold extracted from the soil—we allude to the merchants and traders in general—to take the matter | in hand and erect the motive power required. As a rule, instead of advocating j the system of outside capital being called in to aid in the developing of any one industry, whether it was the construction of water-races, building of dredges, or erection of crushing batteries, we have persistently and consistently set our faces against it, that is, ns a general thing, our argument being that a company' can no more make a sluicing claim or a quartz lode pay than can private enterprise ; but under circumstances of an exceptional character, whe-e for the want of a few hundreds of pounds an industry that would employ a large number of men is to bo strangled, then we say that it becomes a duty to a cost. We won't say that every one of thrnefs noticed will pay at the present time, whatever they may do in the future. Vet we are fully alive to the fact that the whole combine 1, if the crushing mill were put in some central position, would. We cannot too strongly advocate this subject, and rerommend it to the consideration of those whose very lives and fortunes depend on the welfare of the gold miners.