MINING ENTERPRISE V. PUBLIC LOANS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 241, 2 October 1876, Page 4

MINING ENTERPRISE V. PUBLIC LOANS.

The Monefary Gazette, admitted by the London Times to be a most trustworthy authority upon financial matters, speaking of Colonial and Foreign Loans and Colonial and English Mining, has the following:— "Another mode of investment has, in the last few years, been contracted within the narrowest limits. We mean the conversion of floating into fixed capital by the construction of public works. A favorite investment is this, and one— -when it can be conducted on sound principles — which consolidates and expands national wealth and transmits to succeeding generations a noble bequest of instrumentalities and factors of increasing wealth. These remarks do not, however, point either to the methods or the motives of worka of this kind, as {hey are known to us to-day. They point rather to what ought to be, than to what is. Railways and other public works are weighted with debenture stock and other debts, and no motive and no power is left for new coastruefcion. Investment in securities such as these, means little more at present than playing the idle game of battledore and shuttlecock, id which men indulge in the Stock Markets, to the loss or their money, to the demoralisation of the whole community, and to the scandal of the world at large. Meanwhile tbeir lies beneath our teet (in England and southern colonies) wealth enough to cause the dullest cy to to sparkle, and the most sluggish souls to siir with restless ambition. The undeveloped mineral wealth of England (and the Australias), we do not hesitate to say is almost incalculable. It was the attraction to the ancient Phoenicians that first brought our primitive forefathers into contact and intercourse with the civilised world. It was the motive of the Casaara when they passed over from Gaul, for those eminently practised people, the Romans, braved not the daugers of the channel, nor the perils of a struggle .with a wnrlike race merely that they might learn the usages, the morals, and religious rites of these wild children of nature. They bad heard of the Cornish minerals, and judged that Britain was a fino field for conquest and colonisation. Thus was tbe mineral wealth of these isies the primal cause of Britain's introduction into the comity of nations. Our mineral resources may to-day become her salvation in a supreme crisis, if only the attention of the country could be diverted from idle gambling and properly directed to the unfoldment of the profuse riches which nature holds in her lap and invitee us to take. Of the enormous amount of these resources few have «ny conception. There is scarcely anything beyond the sphere of miniog that gives such magnificent results. We are well aware of the prejudice in many quarters against this form of investment, but it is a prejudice, and is not by any means a well grounded objection. Mining enterprise has been outside of (he circle of high finance, outside its delicate organisations and its einster influences It has been supported by an inner world of adventurers— we use the terra in the sense in which miners use it who have chosen this field of operation on account of i (s intrinsic merits, while (he bold and dashing operators of the general stock markets hava been apt to look ctown upon it, with an indifference which it does not merit. Under these conditions— unfavorable to the growth of investors-Colonial and British mines have been literally starved for want of capita!. Here is the true secret. Investors have been misled, and have widely 60U ght after their securities. They hnve left this grand old industry to struggle on without their support, which would certainly have been rewarded with profit— fifty, and in many cases a hundred-told. Two things are certaiu (1) that Colonial mining enterprise, when well-directed, is almost the only remunerative enterprise now left to British capitalists; (2) that in the present condition of the market a better opportunity of investment could not be desired. In this respect, agriculture and mining are alike, that they both draw their profits directly from the bountiful store of nature, and he who honestly ploughs and bows— or uses his money for that purpose— and he who honestly delves and digs in the bowels of the earth for metallic ore, puts to eternal shame the "reciprocal pilferers" who spond their precious lives in " speculating " on the chances of a rising or a falling markat, und think thereby they approve themselves good citizens and useful members of society. But bt-stdea the useJulueaa and dignity of these two callings, they are alwuya more or less ' productive and proii:able. Seasons may vary, and crops may sometimes partially or emirely fail, but the law of averages prevails, the husbandman ia as a rule rewarded for his toil, and the golden grain over waves in theautumn breezes —a glorious picture aud evidence of the manner iv which this primitive industry supplies with load the whole race of mao. So in miuiua; there may no* aud then he .lis^po.ntm.nt, but where aiming industry is directed with intelligence there is seldom absolute