MINING PRIVILEGES.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 5038, 11 October 1926, Page 2

MINING PRIVILEGES.

AN OWNER’S RIGHTS. RECEIVING RENTS. Whether the plaintiff was entitled to receive the rents payable by holders of mining privileges over land occupied by him was the question submitted to Mr Justice Herdman in an originating summons heard at Auckland recently. Reserved judgment in th.at respect was delivered in the Supreme Court on Monday morning last. The plaintiff was Frank Cockburn Sloan, farmer, Waitekauri (Mr A. H. Johnstone) and the defendants H.M. the King (Mr V. R. Meredith) and the Ohinemuri County Council (Mr Tuck). “Section 28 of The Land Laws Amendment Act, 1913,” said His Honour, “is the legislation which gives the licensee of pastoral lands in the Hauraki district the right to acquire the fee-simple of the land held by him, and section 29 of the same statute expressly provides, that the fee-simple acquired by a Crown tenant is not to include metals, precious stones, minerals, coal, Or oil on and under the land. These are to remain the property of the Crown, notwithstanding the grant, of the fee-simple to the owner.

“Sub-section 2of Secti ol !! 29 prpvidies that any land the fee-simple of which is acquired under sub-sectidn 1 of section 39, may be resumed by His Majesty for mininc purposes-, and a subsequent paragraph provides that when compensation is payable for land resumed it is to be paid in respect of the surface value of the land and of the improvements thereon. No sum is to be awarded on account of minerals- which the land may contain. SPECIAL CLAIM LICENSES. “It will be observed that in framing this legislation the Crown has with studious care provided that land situated within a mining district and held in the manner in which the plaintiff holds his property’ shall be open for mininc for metals in all respects as if it were Crown land within a mining district, and all metals and and minerals are to remain the property elf the Crown. The rents which plaintiff claims are rents payable under special claim licenses granted by the Warden’s Court oyer the lands which plaintiff owns, and his claim to receive these rents is founded upon the fact .that by virtue of the legislation which has been enacted he occupies the position of a freeholder.

“He claims under no lease or tenancy to which he and the owners of the special claims are parties. HiX contention is that he is entitled to the fee-simple of the land comprised in his license, and as the owner of the land that he bought from Hollis he is free to insist upon all the usual rights and privileges of a freeholder, including the right to the rents payable by special claim holders under licenses which cover part of his land. “No express prowisiion of any kind is made that the rents payable in respect of mining privileges are to be paid to the owners of the fee-simple of th e lands which were held under pastoral license, and non provision of k such a nature can in my opinion be inferred from sections 28 and '29 of the statute or from any other enactment. The statute under which a special claim may be obtained, under which the licensee’s liability for rent is fixed and which settles his rights and prescribes his liabilities, states what shall be done with the rent which the special claim holder is obliged to pay, and I can finnd nothing in the land legislation relied upon by counsel far plaintiff which expressly or impliedly alters the provision in the Mining Act which settles its ultimate destination. To the question asked in the originate ing summons I will return the answer ‘No.’ ”