MINING NEWS. Gold Duty on Exported Ore.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 237, 14 January 1888, Page 1

MINING NEWS. Gold Duty on Exported Ore.

The imposition by the Customs of the export gold duty on the assay value of the thirty tons of ore recently, sent from Ohinemuri for treatment at Frieburg appears to us to be a monstrous one, and if the law permits the charge to be made, that law should be removed from the Statute Books of the Colony ab once. The export duty on gold as a direct tax on industry is bad enough in all conscience, and would not be endured were it not that the revenue raised is expended on goldfieldi works ; and w© feel certain -that the effort of the Customs to extract revenue assessed on the problematical value of the ore will be strongly re- , sented by the whole mining community in the colony. We take a borb of paternal interest in the export of quartz to Germany and elsewhere, because it was in our columns that the idea was first suggested ; and we now call on the Mining Committee of the Chamber of Commerce to at once meet and protest against the impost. Supposing that the assay value of the quartz is thirty ounces I per ton— and much of the Ohinemuri gives even a higher result—the consignors have to pay 30a, per ton in gold duty before the ore leaves the colony. This, with shipping and other charges, will probably raise the expenses on the ore at its journey's end to £7 or £8 per ton. The exporters cannot stand this burthen, and we prophesy that unless the impost is removed so far as it affects the quartz, a promising means of trade will be seriously jeopardised, if not strangled completely. Nothing is so likelytto immediately assist, us through the depression as the development ,of our mining resources, and it is surely suicidal to handicap ,in any way an industry possessing such enormous possibilities of great advantage to the whole community. — " Star."