MINES STATEMENT.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4481, 18 October 1922, Page 4

MINES STATEMENT.

BONA FIDE PROSPECTING. MR. POLAND URGES GRANTS. When the Mines Statement was before Parliament recently the Member for Ohinemuri, Mr H. Poland, said he wished to take this opportunity 1 of asking the Minister who is ip cfy&rge of the Mines Department, and who, he presumed, was in sympathy with mining, a question on the subject of mining on freehold land in. mining districts, It refers to a case under his consideration' for investigation, where land occupied as a mining property has been converted into freehold. It was a Hauraki leasehold pastoral property, and the law allows conversion of such leases into freehold title. Usually it has been the custom when these applications for freehold titles in mining districts are sent to the Lands Office that that office obtains a report of the warden for the district and fr ( om the mining inspector. But such was not done in this case. The Minister is probably aware of the title that he is now investigating, where the gentleman in question obtained the freehold of property that has been in occupation' as a. mining area for years, and nothing was apparently done to safeguard the rights of, the mine-owners. Those miners were now called upon tp pay 7s 6d per acre per year to the private owner of the ifreehold. Not only that, but they have been served with a notice, very recently, to fill in all potholes, surface diggings, and shafts that have been constructed on that property during the last twenty-five or thirty years. He wanted tlhie Minister to look into the general question and prevent such an occurrence again. It was never intended when the right of the freehold: was granted in those districts that it should have taken away the mining rights. Mining in the -hill country of the Hauraki Peninsula was the dominant industry, and he was quite satisfied that it would become much more permanent in the future than it was today, In future no such freeholds should be granted unless they were submitted ,to the warden of the district, with the view of ascertaining whether mining was likely to be prejudiced. When the freehold was granted it should be ' subject to reasonable safeguards to bona fide mining. In regard to the question of prospecting, he would reserve his remarks for another occasion; but he would like to point put that during

the last year the enormous sum of £56 17s 4d was expended by the Mines Department in prospecting in the Ohinemuri district, while the district produced in gold and silver £400,711, which was a little upder one-half cf tihat produced by the whole of New Zealand ; and the possibilities of that field wer.e enormous. As the honourable member for Thames had stated that day, the report of Mr Morgan, the head of the Geological and Survey Department, on the Waihi field goes in the direction pf proving that that field was not a hack number—that there were probabilities pf a very largely increased output from the Wai.hi Mine within the near future at depths down to, and perhaps exceeding, 2000 ft, and that there was the possibility of very riiqh gold being discovered at about 2000 ft down. However, he did not wfeh ,to go into that question ; but in view of the fa,ct that over £13,000,000 had been taken out of Waihi in gold. that the Waifri Company had paid between £5,000,000 and £6.000,000 to the shareholders, and that other companies, like the Talisman and the Grand Junction, had also extracted millions of pounds worth of gold, that was a strong argument why the Government should give ver£ sympathetic attention to any application for legitimate and bona fide prospecting of the fields. There would be no question of waste about it if tihat was done, and none on proper lines under. Government, supervision and under the direction of the Geological and Survey Department, but it was certain that in the near, future other valuable mines would bo opened up in that district. He commended 'those matters to the consideration of the Minister in charge of the Mines Department.. ,