APPEAL SUCCEEDS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 201, 26 August 1935, Page 9

APPEAL SUCCEEDS.

MINING LICENSE. MARLBOROUGH PROPERTY. claim: by solicitor. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) BLENHEIM, this day. A decision in favour of the appellent is contained in the reserved judgment of Mr. Justice Reed in the mining appeal ease which was heard last month in which Ernest Herbert Brooker, of Wellington, solicitor, sought to have the adverse decision of the warden, Mr. T. E. Maunsell, S.M., reversed in respect of his application for a prospecting license over 99 acres of land owned by one Pask at Mahakipawa, Marlborough. In the Warden's Court the granting of a license was objected to by Mahakipawa Goldfields, Ltd., and the warden, after a protracted hearing, refused the application. Brooker appealed successfully against the decision. His Honor summarises the reasons given by the warden for refusing the license as follows:—(1) The applicant has no practical experience of mining nor technical knowledge; (2) his idea of mining the land by the process of dredging is impracticable; (3) the applicant has not the necessary capital to mine the land; (4) prospecting by boring is (a) useless and (b) potentially harmful to the workings of the objector company. Prospecting Essential. "The first three reasons are, in my opinion, irrelevant to the consideration of the application for a prospecting license," his Honor proceeds. "They are based on the asumption that the applicant will necessarily take up the mining claim, but it does not follow that such will be the case. The area in question is virgin country and until it is prospected and its gold-bearing capabilities ascertained it cannot be presaged that it will be mined. A prospecting license does not tie up the land. It is for one year only, and prospecting operations must be vigorously and continuously prosecuted to the satisfaction of the warden. "The scheme of the Mining Act is to encourage mining and that cannot be done without encouraging prospecting. Even if the applicant is purely a speculator that is not a ground, providing he fulfils the conditions, why a license should be refused. All mining for gold is speculative and the iutention of the Legislature may be said to be to encourage such enterprise and speculation. No Interference with Rights. "As to the fourth reason, if boring is a useless method of prospecting the area, the applicant is not confined to adopting that method and it is certainly no reason for refusing the application to be allowed to prospect in such manner as applicant may consider fit." His Honor also found that the application did not interfere with any existing rights of Mahakipawa Goldfields.