Page 2 Advertisements Column 4

Hokitika Guardian, 21 May 1918, Page 2

Thu amount oF attention being devoted to the district of late in regard to gold-mining by those ready with capital to prosecute important developments, is certainly very gratifying. To those who have had faith in the mining future of the district the position is very pleasing, and it is hoped that all the good which promises from the enter, prise now being shown, will come to pass. At the present moment there arc representatives from beyond the Dominion, as well as those representing colonial capital, engaged in carrying out important tests affecting the alluvial Fortunes of this district. Tin* situation reveals how much we owe to private enterprise, and how little to the public policy. It is an old complaint of tliis journal that while we have a Mines Department conducted on the usual costly departmental lines, the country has no mining policy aiming at material development. We did hope when the Alines Department was dropped as an appendage of the Public Works Department, and the portfolio of Alines was given to a Minister who might have been expected to do things, that the Suoribund department would he galvanised into life, formulate a forward policy, and assist to maintain mining at that high level, where in the past it had done so great a service in the advancement of New Zealand. Those hopes have proved to be in vain, so far. But we do not give up hoping, and the fact that to-day capital is represented bf*re and doing its paTt to