THE VICTORIAN MINT AND NEW ZEALAND GOLD.

Evening Star, Issue 3460, 25 March 1874, Page 3

THE VICTORIAN MINT AND NEW ZEALAND GOLD.

[Argus.) Several paragraphs and telegrams have been going the round of the i\e«v Zealand and Victorian papers on the probable transmission of gold in large quantities from Utago and the West Coast to the Melbourne Mint for coinage. In reference to the matter we find, on inquiry that Mr Vogel wrote to Mr Francis in the month of January, wishing to know on behalf of the General Government of New Zealand, whether the Victorian Government would object to establish agents at Dunedin and U okitika to receive gold for that purpose. At the instance of Mr Langton, within whose department the supervision of the Mint lies, Mr Francis, we understand, wrote to Mr Vogel in reply to say, that as the Mint was an imperial establishment, and appointed its own officers, it was not in the power of the Victorian Government to do what was requested, but that he enclosed a copy of the new Mint charges, whereby Mr Vogel would see that the charges for coinage at the Melbourne Mint were now brought down to the Sydney Mint charges. That closed the correspondence of the two Governments on the subject. But on further inquiry we find that the secretary of the Otago Miners’ Association wrote to the deputy-master of the Melbourne Mint in December last, complaining of a combination among the Dunedin banks to reduce the price of gold from L 3 I6s 6d to L 3 16s per ounce, and making a request precisely similar to the one forwarded by Mr Vogel about one month later. Colonel Ward’s reply in substance was, that be did not see how the request of the Otago Miners' Association could be complied with, as the Victorian Government apparently objected to the establishment of such agencies on their own gold-fields, but he suggested that a trial sample of gold should be sent from Otago to the Melbourne Mint for coinage, and added that it would then be seen whether it would answer their pur-

pose or not to make further shipments. In reference to these consignments of gold in dust to the Mint, Colonel Ward observed : “You may have to pay the >ew Zealand gold duty on the given weight at 2s per ounce, but as you will receive from the Mint a statement of the gold and silver and dross which your parcel may be found to contain, you may be re ; funded by your Government the amount of duty paid on the silver and the dross.” With regard to Otago and West Coast gold, there would not be much chance of refund, if such an arrangement wer- ever entered into It is of first-rate quality, according to the secretary of the Otago Miners’ Association rome of it sent to Melbourne having fetched 81s per* ounce, Not so with the Thames or Auckland gold, however. That, contains, on an aveiage, nearly one-third silver. There has been no communication, we understand, either between any one of the Provincial Governments of New Zealand and t)ie Victorian Government on this subject, or between any of the Provincial Governments of New Zealand and the deputy-master of the Melbourne Mint; but it is not at all unlikely that one or more of the Provincial Governments have been set in motion by the General Government of New Zealand, and that we shall short y be in receipt of large quantities of gold thence for coinage. The late reduction in our Mint charges will be greatly in favor of the New Zealan diggers, and none of them will complain of the allowance of 5s per ounce for.all the fine silver in their gold over two per cent. Then, again, the facilities for communication between Melbourne and Otago aye so much greater than those between Sydney and I '^S 0 *. as to insure for us the preference. Next, in fact, to having a mint of their own. diggers on the Utago and West Coast goldfields have always been desirous of availing themselves of the advantages of ours. This they showed in the evidence taken before the Select Committee of the House of Representatives, which sat at Wellington the session before last.