The Evening Star TUESDAY, JANUARY 14, 1873

Evening Star, Issue 3090, 14 January 1873, Page 2

The Evening Star TUESDAY, JANUARY 14, 1873

The report of our correspondent respecting the gold workings on the Arrow and Shotover Rivers is worthy of more than a passing notice. It tells of a rich field for labor, incompletely worked in most instances, and barely touched. The few short sentences in which the story is told of the persevering and successful efforts of men almost without capital, but with full confidence in the payable character of their labor, point to a field for investment that promises rapid and rich return. There is also another suggestion which is full of significance: — The amount of gold which leaves Queenstown by the monthly escort is something like 2,000 ounces. Of this amount Grace’s claim, Boyle’s, Aspinall’s at Skipper’s Point, and the Chinese claims on the Big Beach, Shotover, and a few others I could name also on the Shotover, contribute —as could bo proved on enquiry --about 1,500 ounces. So that only 500 ounces are realised among the whole of the remaining mining population here. This statement points sternly to the conclusion that individual mining does not pay on the average. But it also establishes the fact that the judicious investment of capital on the Shotover has yielded and would—if extensively brought to bear—realise princely fortunes to the investors, without the risks which have been found to attend deep sinking and quartz mining : for it is certain that claims which yield at the rate of L' 2,000 or L3.00U per man annually, like Grace’s, while being worked on a limited seal*, would, if on a comprehensive one, with economy and the aid of engineering skill, produce the results predicted.

We prefer our correspondent's own words to any version that we ourselves might give of the prospects of the district, and we may add that they express the opinion of an able and intelligent man. practically acquainted with what he is describing, who has been engaged in mining several years, and follows it as an occupation. We have frequently endeavoured to impress upon the people of Otago that, taking into consideration the capital invested, where successful, gold mining yields the largest return. Jt is perfectly true that raanv of the companies that have been formed nave not been successful Some languished for a time,

and, ceasing to pay working expenses, have been wound up; others have not yielded dividends sufficient to repay interest and risk, while, in some instances, the projectors have evidently liiisropiesented the prospects of success, either through being themselves too sanguine, or through a'deliberate design to float a few shares and pocket the money. On these grounds, and because of the unreliability of the information on which companies have been formed, capitalists are naturally averse to advance money in ventures in which they part with all control over it, in faith that others will use it to the best advantage. The mining community are suffering through the consequences of confidence abused, and, although it may be that only few instances have occurred in which this has been done with deliberate intention to dcfi aud, the fact that misrepresentations have been made, necessarily leads to such disinclination to investment in mining as seriously to retard the development of the mining districts. No doubt it may bo aigued that it is hard a whole class of industrious men should suffer because of the fault of a few : we agree it is hard, but it is equally hard that those who wish to help on a branch of industry, even although it bo with an ultimate eye to their own profit, should be victimised by men of no principle. Wc Im-ve st&tecl tlio difficulty —it is one that is not easy to deal with—yet it is evidently solvable if only proper means are adopted to test tlio piouud. That there is a vast area of auriferous ground untouched; that in all probability more valuable deposits than have yet been discovered lie hid in several districts, is a very fair inference from Wardens reports, our correspondents’ letters, and other sources of information ; and if a mode could bo hit upon by which reliable information could bo given of the character and prospects of particular claims, the difficulty would to a great extent be bridged over. Our correspondent points out, with great force, that out of 2,000 ounces of gold forwarded monthly from Queenstown, 1,500 are procured from three European claims and the Chinese workings. It follows that there are some hundreds of the population of Otago laboring for the most scanty wages. This ought not to be. It is a waste of labor, and a frittering away of the public estate. The labor of those men, if the ground were worked on system, would place them in comfortable circumstances, and yield a largely increased capital to the resources of the Province. When we say it is the duty of the Provincial Government to look to remedying this state of affairs, we shall be met with the opposition of men who deprecate all Government interference in what they arc pleased to term private enterprise. So do we. So far as the men are concerned, their labor is their oiui, and so long as they do not seek to live upon the earnings of other people, either by robbing or begging, we do not see that anybody has anything to do with it. But it “is another question altogether, when they are dealing with gold workings. Those are really public property, and when they undertake to work the ground, if they do not obtain all the gold that can be abstracted from it, they arc guilty of public waste. They take so much of it as renders the ground too poor to pay others to work for the remainder, and what they get affords them a bare living. We believe the remedy to be that, when it is proposed by any number of miners to form a company to work a claim, and to throw shares upon the market, before a mining lease is granted, the ground should lie subjected to a prospect, the result of which should bo certified by a competent agent of the Government. It would then go to the world under authority that would inspire confidence, instead of, as now, being the statements of interested parties. A. still more reliable plan would be that, on application being made, the whole of the prospect should be conducted by the Government, the applicants repaying the cost. By this means a degree of confidence would be given to mining investment that, in the end, would bo advantageous to every interest in the country.