SONS OF FREEDOM TUNNEL AND OBJECTIONS THERTO.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 217, 19 June 1872, Page 3

SONS OF FREEDOM TUNNEL AND OBJECTIONS THERTO.

The Sons of Freedom Goldming Company have made an application to construct a tunnel through portions of the Lincoln Castle ground, aud through a small corner of the Middle Star ground about 30 feet in extent. This tunnel is going in for a distance of 900 feet at a very great expense, and should the company be fortunate enough to get gold when they strike the reef it will naturally do the field a great deal of good, and at least indirectly benefit every claim in the neighbourhood ; yet, notwithstanding this, we find their next door neighbours laying an objectiou to the tunnel passing through their ground on the plea that the Sons of Freedom were unnecessarily encroaching on their property, as if the work could by any possible means do them any harm, being as it is at a very great depth below any working in their mine. The Warden very properly did not consider that their objection carried any weight with it, though, we understand, that in the event of a reef being struck in the ground referred to, and the Middle Star wishing to work, they can do so from the tunnel by paying their proper share of the cost of the work, the amouut of such payment to be decided by himself. Now, in our opinion, the objection was frivolous in the extreme, and shows anything hut a wish to further the interests of the field, or even of their own immediate neighbourhood, and as long as mining is carried on in this dog-in-the-manger style, there will be far less inducement for persons to invest their capital in the place. By co-operatiou

only can large prospecting works be carried out to advantage, and strangers who visit us from other goldfields will open their eyes in astonishment when they see either four or five different machines in a cluster, each erected at a great expense, to work a small area of ground where one. large machine would answer the purpose of the four. Or again, as in the instance of the Middle Star and Sons of Freedom, seeing two tunnels started within twenty-five feet of one another, both of them going in for the Bame reef, whereas one large tunnel for at least half the distance would have answered the purpose much better than the two now going in—they at once set down the mining management here as very poor indeed. The development of the low levels ought to be the great object of all interested in the field, arid the directors of any company who directly or indirectly seek to retard such development are deserving of the greatest censure from all.