ILLICIT GOLD.

Hokitika Guardian, 20 July 1926, Page 3

ILLICIT GOLD.

WEST AUSTRALIAN VIEW. (From the Kalgoorlie “Sun.”) Remarkable to relate; the impression in many quarters away from the fields seems to be that a tremendous amount of gold stealing is going on locally, mid that anyone with a little cash put by for a rainy day accumulated it hv dealing in illicit gold. While it cannot be denied that a considerable amount of gold must leak a wav from the Golden Mile through wrong channels', it is ridiculous to presume"' that every second man down n mine is seeing what he can find for himself, and is filling his tobacco tin with telluride on every available opportunity. Gold in the mines is not picked off the walls as some may think, but is very hard to get, and there are not a great many spots where it presents itself in stealable form. The companies are ever Teady to

bag up rich ore as soon as it is disclosed, Inn naturally there are always what are considered “pickings’ andthe avenues for disposing of illicit gold appear to have been so simple that men wild had the opportunity, together with the inclination, never considered it risky to indulge in a little gold stealing Buyers of the precious metal no doubt are able to show a big profit, for there are means by which the full price can be realised for the gold, and many a <* duck-shooting expedition” must have made the participants richer by bundreds of pounas In recent years detectives whose business it was to investigate gold stealing seemed to have concentrated on the” “ big men’’—those who had their plants in the hush, but for city people to imagine the hush around Kalgoorlie is dotted with illicit plants and"that gold galore is going through them instead of through the mines batteries is making the fields out worse than .they are.