THE NEW ZEALAND QUARTZCRUSHING AND GOLD-MINING COMPANY (LIMITED).

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXV, Issue 3732, 5 July 1869, Page 5

T HE NEW ZEALAND QUARTZCRUSHING AND GOLD-MINING COMPANY (LIMITED).

The; prospectus of this Company, now in •course of formation, or, it may be, fully formed, in London, is suggestive of several things^ and not in all cases of satisfactory considerations. The progress of our remarkable goldfields haa, as was natural, excited much attention in London amongst persons interested in mining speculations. That it should do so was not only natural, but highly desirable also, so long as due care is taken not to take hasty steps of a kind not easily retraced. The prospectus before us suggests *hat m tins, the first English enterprise connected with our goldfields, due care has not been taken. The extracts from our newspapers on which the enterprise is based are not indeed fallacious in their statements, nor, to any considerable extent, have the expectations hazarded in them been disappointed. The held is as extensive as,and we believe more rich than, was stated in these, the yield of gold irom the claims is quite as good, and the supply 01 Imst-vate jnacliiueiy for having the piecious fct - is hardl F now ij i advance of What it then was compared with our needs. Yet all this does not prevent us entertaining considerable doubts of the success of the new company, at all events of its success to anything like the extent anticipated by its promoters. Those who know anything of the thousand difficulties that the path of the individual or company that attempts to put up one large machine on a good site, will fully appreciate the ground of our fears. They will know that it is not enough to have £20,000 or £50,000 to spend in machinery ; that it is not enough to have the machinery on the ground, even if it be of the best quality The fact is, that a machine .site well adapted for work, and well situated ■with respect to claims, is most difficult to obtain, and the first work of the promoters should have been not to send machinery to be put up in an unknown position on an unknown goldfield, in charge of a person totally unacquainted witli the peculiarities of the field and its requirements, but to have sent a suitable person here to examine what was required, and to secure a site or sites for machinery of a kind which actual observation convinced him would be .suitable. The absence of all such precautions on the part of the promoters of the New Zealand Quartz-crushing and Gold-mining Company, Limited, seems to us to augur badly for the future of the com pany instead of the rapid realisation of something like 100 per cent, to the shareholders, we fear there may be long delays and wearisome disappointment awaiting the shareholders before this error at starting can be amended. The mistake is not one which can be viewed with indifference by any one who vdahea well to this colony. It might, of course, be said that, as we are not responsible for the fclunders made by speculators in London, we need trouble ourselves little or nothing about the matter. The fact of the expenditure would be some advantage to the field if it should prove none to the company ; and, even if no returns found their way to London, we might hope that some quartz would be crushed on the field, and some claims better and more quickly developed than they would otherwise have been. The true position of the matter, however, seems to us to be that the Thames goldfield offers to English capitalists the very best field for their enterprise, if only that enterprise is rightly and well directed. Nothing but experience learnt on the spot can suffice to do this, however ; and we confess to experiencing a feeling of fear when we see a large company depending entirely upon a few extracts from newspapers for the basis of great and costly operations involving profit or loss to hundreds. To this province and its goldfield it is no trifling matter whether the enterprise proves a success or a failure. The field will prove, as it has already proved, agieat success, without foreign aid, we may be sure, but it will do so less quickly and less satisfactorily than it might do with the timely aid of well-directed capital. This aid we feel that we shall do do well to invoke and welcome, and we believe that we best do both when we warn capitalists in England not hastily to believe that there are no new circumstances to be learnt, no new difficulties to be overcome, by the aid of personal acquaintance with the facts, and personal experience of the field, not to be gained even on the goldfields of Australia.