LURE OF GOLD

Hokitika Guardian, 26 March 1931, Page 7

LURE OF GOLD

3000 SEARCHERS IN NEW SOUTH WALES. RESULT OF UNEMPLOYMENT. SYDNEY, March 15. It is estimated that 3000 men are now engaged in the search for gold in New South Wales alone. This is one of the direct results of unemployment in the city. There have been minor rushes to all the reputed gold-bearing districts, but so far few of the prospectors have gained much success. To aj>proved prospectors the Government allows £1 a week for four weeks, and after that they collect the dole. They find living on the goldfields cheapei than in the city, and in many instances whole families have been transported from Sydney to the primitive home which the prospector has been able to prepare—a home of canvas and bark. At many of the camps a grain or so of gold is the sole reward for a week of back-breaking and heart-breaking work, but that grain is enough to keep the prospector at bis self-imposed task. Experts agree that there is as much gold in New South Wales as has been won from the State, and perhaps more. Practically all grades of society are represented oh the fields. They are not the riff-raff or the unemployable, but include men who not long ago occupied sound positions that gave them every reason to regard the life ahead of them as an easy, settled proposition. There are lawyers, accouncourse, most of them arc “new chums, tnnts, clerks and even doctors. Of and that might account for the fact that to date very little g°ld has been found. It takes an experienced miner, it is «aid, to find gold in areas that have already been prospected. Still, there is always the possibility that some day even the beginner will strike it rich.

The most favoured area is that vafit stretch of country hounded by the towns of Bathurst, Melons, Yeoval, Wellington, Gudgong, Mudgec, Capertree. This’area includes many famous fields. One prospector at El Dorado was very disgusted. “I always thought :iu El Dorado was a very rich place,” he said. “The chap who named this must have been thinking of rabbits. There are plenty of rabbits here, and that is about all we can find. And they don’t take any looking |or.” One man arrived at Ids claim two months ago in a Sedan car. He was formerly the manager of a big city business which bad been compelled to close its doors. H e is not getting enough gold to pay for bis food, and when be goes to the nearest town for his dole be walks, ns be has not enough money to pay for the petrol his car would use on the journey. Experts know that many of tlm "new chums” are blundering along without any hope of success. It i* suggested that the Government should provide , a mining engineer in each district so that advice could be given to those who need it.