OVER A GUINEA A MINUTE

Te Aroha News, Volume XXII, Issue 42746, 11 July 1905, Page 3

OVER A GUINEA A MINUTE

Working wish a merely preliminary plant, and hampered by inadequate water supplies-—a contingency unlikely hereafter to arise—the Premier Diamond Mine notifies a profit of over a guinea a minute throughout the see* <»nd fiscal year of its extraordinary career. There have been mines from which a momentary yield has equalled that of Prinsloo’s meteoric portion. Romance has played its part from Virginia City to Ballarat. The resnlts, however, have been transitory, as compared with the diamond producer par excellence of the Pretoria district frem which the Government’s share for the year underview represents a profit of 12s 11 Id per minute, 8s 7’4d being the increment per minute to the Company. Experts estimate that every foot vertical of this Premier propery’s claim area will yield a profit of £250,000. Development work now in progress at the 60 foot level bears this out. From the first sixty feet therefore £15,000,000 will be divided be - tween the Government and Premier shareholders. A piece of veld for which a Rand Corporation a short time prior to the war peremptorily declined, after investigation, to pay £40,008, posseses an approximately ascertained value exceeding all previous conceptions of individual mines. If working costs are brought down to lOd or a shilling, as Mr McHardy expects, and the world's fancy is continuously directed toward precious stones, every minute of 1905 should bo worth at least 25s 10’2d to the Government and 17s 28d to shareholders. The minor fractions under these circumstances will never appear “ vulgar.”