MINING CLAIMS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4440, 14 July 1922, Page 1

MINING CLAIMS.

RENT REDUCTION REFUSED. A reduction of rent for a mining claim was refused by the Thames County Council at its meeting on Wednesday. A letter from a woman asked to have a claim ton rent remitted. The land in question, it was stated, was originally held by a syndicate. The chairman (Mr. H. Lowe) said that mining lands were often held purely for speculative purposes and ultimately abandoned. He considered that before anyone was given permission to take land they should have to give a guarantee or make a deposit. Cr. ’McCormick said they should be made to pay the rents or abandon the claims. The chairman said a syndicate would often peg out a claim with the full intention of doing work. A person’s Xame was used for the purpose of getting the land, and. the sooner that was stopped the better. A man 'holding these claims got all: the possible protection he could from the Warden’s Court until he abandoned the land. Cr. McCormick said it seemed unjust that people with claims should have to pay 2s 6d for the first year, 5s for the second, and 7s 6d for che third though they often look nothing out of it.. It was ridiculous that a piece of land from which nothing was being obtained should have to pay more than a mine that was producing a payable proposition. The chairman said that if they were prospecting he would have no objection to making a reduction. It. was eventually decided not to make the remission requested.