A MINT FOR NEW ZEALAND.

Evening Star, Issue 3038, 13 November 1872, Page 3

A MINT FOR NEW ZEALAND.

The Mint Committee of the House of Representatives, in the report brought up by them, direct attention to the valuable information given and the documents supplied by the Deputy Masters of the Royal Branch Mints of Sydney and Melbourne : lind that the cost of the necessary buildings and plant required for carrying on successfully all the operations in connection with minting would be about forty thousand pounds (L 40,000), and that annual expenditure required to be recouped to the Imperial Treasury for management and working expenses would be about ten thousand pounds (LIDO,060). The amounts paid respectively by Sydney and Melbourne are fifteen thousand and twenty thousand pounds per annum. Col. Ward, R.E., in one of his reports, states that the immediate and sensible effect of the establishment of the mint in Melbourne will be to further limit the fluctuations in the price of gold and to sustain it throughout the year a shilling an ounce above the average price of late years. That the quantity of gold exported from New Zealand for the year 1871 was 73'»,029 ounces, valued at L 2,787,520. The advantages to be gained by the country in the establishment of a branch of the Royal Mint in New Zealand, are the increased price in the value of gold to the extent of at least 1,60,000 a year, find the profits arising from charges for reliniug, coining, melting, and assaying. The committee strongly recommend that further enquiry should he made by the Government during the recess to ascertain whether the Imperial Government would consent to the establishment of a branch 5 and also that if such consent should be obtained, proposals of a practical character should he submitted to Parliament at its next session. It will not be inappropriate to republish she remarks of the Victor km Mining Journal relating to the .advantages connected with the opening of tho branch mint in Melbourne. That journal says “An increase in the price of gold is the first and greatest advantage which will result from the opening of this institution Hitherto banks have been enabled to make such terms as they thought proper, by mutual arrangement between themselves, relative to the price to be paid for gold. Now, miners and mining companies will bo in a position to hand over their gold—should they prefer doing so—to the officer in charge of cither of the subtreasuries thioughout the Colony, and will be enabled, ten days afterwards, to receive its full value in sovereigns, less the mint charge of 4£d per ounce. Circumstances will of course compel many individuals and companies still to transact their business through the banks in their different localities, and thus the bank price for gold will necessarily be less than the mint price, although bankers will, for the future, rcquiie to be satisfied with much smaller profits than they have hitherto been receiving. The mint net price for gold will he L 3 17s 6-1 per standard ounce, the standard ounce of gold being 22 carats fine. The richness of alluvial and quartz gold varies considerably in different districts, Ballarat alluvial gold being as much, in some instances, as 23 carats 8J gr ; the greater portion, however, averages 23 carats 2*' gr, which, at L 3 17a 6d per ounce, would he equal to a shade over L 4 3s per ounce; so that, after making allowance for dirt, or, speaking more correctly, “slag,” the net value of alluvial gold dust in the Ballarat district will he £4 2k pp oupo, instead of L 4 0s 6d, as paid by the Leal hiuika.”