EARLY DAYS AT HORAHORA.

Putaruru Press, Volume II, Issue 50, 2 October 1924, Page 2

EARLY DAYS AT HORAHORA.

ENGLISHMEN’S FARMING VENTURE.

Waihi Gold Mining Company,

Some interesting information bearing on a farming enterprise in the Horahora district is given by Mr. Andrew Kay, of Parawera. Mr. Kay says he jotted down the particulars from memory, but mentions that the facts are correct, though he is not quite so confident about other details, such as dates. However, the information is interesting.

Mr. Kay states that in the seventies of last century, half a hundred years ago, two brothers named Fergusson, nephews of the then Governor, Sir James Fergusson (and therefore cousins of the Gove racr-General elect, Major-General Sir Charles Fergusson) took up a block of virgin land on the left bank of the Waikato liver. The block included the site of the large hydro electric power station at Hcrahora, some sixteen miles upstream from Cambridge. Like many other land ventures at that time the enterprise was not a financial success, and after investing their savings and seeing little prospect cf being able to carry on, the two young Englishmen put the property on the market for sale. After some anxious moments the brothers had the satisfaction of seeing the estate sold, the Waihi Gold Mining Company being the purchasers. The company had the property subdivided and disposed of the sections on comparatively easy terms, the transactions yielding a handsome profit.

The company, in its wisdom, decided to retain the freehold title to that portion of the block that abuts on to the rapids that have since been harnessed to develop the electric power that has been reticulated throughout the southern part of the Auckland province. The object of the retention was so that the company could later develop power to work the gold mines in the vicinity of Waihi. When the time came to make a move with this work the company made application to the Government for an easement for the transmission line and for the necessary license of formal permission, but the Government of the day declined the application, and laid down the law that the natural resources of the country belonged to the community, i.e., the State. Thus no company or individual could use them. The Waihi Company invited the then Government to develop the wonderful resources of Horahora, or in the alternative, to permit the company to do so, with the condition that the company must, at any time when called upon, stand down. But the Government, at that time, adopted the dog-in-the-manger policy, and nothing was done for a number of years.

Indeed, it was not until about fifteen or sixteen years ago that the company was granted the needed permission. With an enterprise and enthusiasm that was worthy in the extreme, the company entered into the undertaking, Mr. H. Roche, now of Cambridge, and Mr. Gauvain, until recently senior engineer to the Thames Valley Power Board, were appointed to take charge of the gigantic scheme, and in a year or two the rapids had been harnessed and a transmission line between the site and the gold mines at Waikino and Waihi was erected. The Government, in its license to the Waihi Company, had a clause enabling it to resume the plant and reticulation at a valuation, and about six years ago this clause was put into operation, with the result that the Government took over complete charge of the undertaking, supplying the company with a stated amount of power at a fixed sum, and having an abundance of power available for supply to the communities throughout the Waikato and Thames Valley.

Most of our readers are familiar with the development and scope of the enterprise nowadays, for power is supplied from Kio Kio in the southwest to Thames and Waitakaruru in the north-east, operating hundreds of milking machines, scores of industrial plants and also providing light and heat in probably thousands of homes in towns, hamlets and on farms far removed from centres. If all this had been done in the five years or so that the State enterprise has been operative, how much more would have been done, and how much more development of gold mining areas in the Hauraki would have been accomplished, had the Government of the day seen fit two or three decades ago to allow the Waihi Gold Mining Co., which was a very wealthy concern, to develop the unused resources of tlie Waikato river at Horahora.—Waipa Post.