THE LAURIM MINES.

Southland Times, Issue 1692, 21 January 1873, Page 3

THE LAURIM MINES.

(from the londox times.) The whole affair, as we understand it, reduces itself to the old dog-in the-inanger quarrel between semi-savage life , and superior civilization. An indolent, ignorant race^is set down by Providence in the rriidsfc of every imaginable blessing of soil and climate ; it, pines in want and wretchedness in districts which to assiduous labor yielded once, and would yield again, inexhaustible wealth ; it dies of \ wasting fevers amid dismal swamps which were two thousand years ago Elysian | fields ; it perishes from drought at the j foot of mountain ridges the snows of , which could eupply perennial moisture ; finally, it treads on ground pregnant with riches, blind to the actual heaps of glit- J I tering ore already dug up by their predei cessors, and which are mere samples of , the treasures that industry and enterprise l would bring to light. But let only an [ intelligent and active stranger appear on the spot, and attempt on his own behalf and in that of the natives that which these latter could never have achieved for themselves, and no sooner has the field or the forest, the viueyard, the canal, orthe mine, been turned to the purposes for which a bountiful Nature intended it, than the unreasoning indigenous race is lashed into a fury of envy and covetousness ; it declares itself defrauded to the full extent tn which the stranger, and itself with bim, has been benefited, and it gives itself no rest till, either by sheer violence, or by fraud and chicane and arrant breach of faith, it tears from its benefactor's hands the reward to which his industry is entitled. The parallel is, according to the French and Italian version of the story, tolerably complete between the typical case we have supposed and the Laurium Mines question, except, indeed, that in the case of Greece, ignorance could scarcely be pleaded in extenuation of illiberal jealousy. The Greek looks upon himself as the successor of the Hellene — keir to al the splendid results attained by the genius and valor of that nation whose noble aims were so wonderfully out of proportion to its limited means ; and the French and Italians — whom the exaggerated Greek official estimates compute to have accu mulated a capital of from £20,000,003 to £40,000 000 out of a mining establish rnenfc in which tbev originally invested sums not exceeding £4:32 — onlvpurchased mines which were by no meansunsuspected or unknown. They had, however, been forsaken as exhausted and unproductive for centuries, and the native would in all probability have ti-'odden for ever over the scoria and debris without even dreaming that he had what ini^ht amount to his King and his Kingdom's ransom undrr his feet. The foreign speculators, MM. Roux and Serpieri, who bought the old mines as mere waste ground, had to satisfy, first, the demands of the local authorities; fien, the clai us of the Central Government ; and, lastly, had again and again to compound with the brigand, chiefs who constitute a State within the State. But, when, at length they were allowed to work in peace, they used their advantages to sach good purpose that in less than the nine years corresponding with King George's reign, they had given employmnr to thousmds ot native aud foreign workmen, attracted an extensive trade to. what was once an uninhabited spot, constructed roads, tramways, aud even a railway, and, in short, brought that solitary and barren district to a degree of prosperity with whicu the othi-r provinces of the kingdom were hardly familiar. The people aud Government of Greece could not. however, resign themselves to the fact that where they had thought that " nothing couhi be made out of nothing" strangers should have been able to accumulate a capital large euough, as they thought, to cover the whole public debt of the more than half bankrupt kingdom. The thin^ was not to be borne, though it was not easy to see how it could be mended. No fi.iw could be found in the strangers' contract, nor could it be denied that what enriched them had turned equally to the benefit, of a large number of the native population and of the Government itself. As the lamb could easily disprove the charge which the wolf brougnt against himself, he was easily convicted of the offence imputed to his father before he was born. As the strangers were amenable to no existing law, a new law was voted, to which a retroactive force was given. By this enactment, all the scoria and debris of old mines were claimed as State property, and on that pretext, the Laurium Mines Company were taxed to the amouut of £80,000, as arrears <iue for the eight years siuce they began work — that is, eight years before the law was made. The Company, unable to resist the extortion, offered to sell their property to the Government for £560,000 Th"^ offer was accepted, but whtm the contract had to be brought before the Chamber tbr'approval, it was found that the Greek Representatives would never buy, eveo. at so low a price, what they valued so very highly, out what they apparently fancied they could seize without payment; and the matter was thus left in abeyance, the Company protesting against the £80,000 tax, and ihe Government equally refusiug either to release the, Company or to redeem the property on the Germs agreed Uj.on. The above is undeniably a very, probable, though, it is fair to say, merely an ex parie statement — the Franco-Italian versiou of the affdir. In a report published by M. Delige rgis, the President ot the Council of Ministers and Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Greek Governmeut, for its part, pleads that the original contract with MM." Roux aud Serpieri was made under reserve ; that these foreigners were never entitled to the scoria and debris of the old mines ; and that the law by which it is attempted to bind the Company is not a new enactment, but simply the declaration of a right \ested in the State by ail the laws of the land — a right considered inalienable in all civilized States. It is not, of course, for

us to enter into the merits of the ease. It is a matter, which, in our opinion, any Court of Law or Equity ought to be able easily to settle. But the two States which stand up -for the interests of the Company — France and Italy — are unwilling to allow the matter to be brought before the Greek tribunals, urging, very reasonably, that, after the wild agitation to which the difference has given riscin. the country — repeatedly even leading to Ministerial crises — the affair must be considered to have assumed a political character. On the other hand, the Government of Kmg George, for their part, will r.ot consent to international arbitra- ; tiou in a case so decidedly, in tVit-'ir opinion, ; King within the exclusive competence of j their own Courts of Law. I =============