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Hokitika Guardian, 4 August 1927, Page 2

An indirect benefit from the stringency arising from unemployment is the fact that many of those qualified are entering on prospecting ventures. The search for gold received a. serious check following the period when increased wages came into force with respect to other avenues of employment. That fact, combined with the statutory value of gold and the high price for working tools and plant, quickly cheeked the enterprise of the gold prospector. It may be accepted that the pendulum is swinging back to normal, and conditions arriving at that state, with the outlook for ready employment in other walks of life, the prospector has the opportunity of again coming into his own. /Westland, as we all know, is highly mineralised, and though the pioneer miner and his immediate successor combed the distinct remarkably well, it is too nidi to believe that the day of the gold miner is gone forever. The amount of gold being won from Rimu Flat is proof of the quantity remaining and awaiting discovery. There are many similar flats up and down the Coast, while there is the hack country where there i.s hope always of finding gold in the matrix. And -besides {joUlj there are other minerals up and down the Coast awaiting discovery and treatment. Seeing that there is a willingness on the part of competent men to go out prospecting, the time appears opiHjrtune to push the matter. The Government i.s spending a large sum of money about the centres on relief works, flic value of which is purely local, and in some cases quite transitory. If something extra were done just now to assist prospecting, the country might easily reap a great return in the results which are always possible. Expenditure of this nature would be very helpful at this juncture and serve a double purposecreating useful employment and putting men in the way of making a rich discovery, the benefit, of which would be felt- far and wide, and have an instantaneous effect on employment generally. Something might well he clone to turn the attention of the Government to an effort of this nature to do something specially valuable towards relieving the general situation as well as the employment problem itself.