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Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 24, 29 January 1924, Page 4

"We have an awful lot of bother in regard to these desertions. We have to sign men on at New Zealand rates to get the ship away, and in every case of desertion from our ships I am instructed to press for the heaviest penalty," remarked Mr. Prince, appearing for the Shaw, Savill, and Albion Company at the Magistrate's Court this morning, when a seaman named James Morton was charged with unlawfully deserting from the steamer Karamea. The Magistrate (Mr. E. Page, S.M.) sentenced Morton to twenty-one days' -imprisonment. The Kawarau Mining Syndicate is pushing on as fast as it can. The most important work that Mr. E. J. lies, the engineer, has in hand just now is to arrange for an exact survey of the river for the purpose of subdividing its bed and banks into claims of defined measurement. That is a surveyor's job. In • the old days disputes, and sometimes quarrels, arose about boundaries, the main sources of the trouble being inexact delineation and the easiness of shifting pegs. Such crudities cannot be permitted on the Kawarau, where a narrow crevice may be worth a king's ransom (states the Dunedin "Star"). The lines of each claim will be shown to the inch, and every peg will be tied to a "trig." The Warden is to sit at Cromwell on 6th February to grant licenses for claims, or rather to recommend the Minister 'to grant. them. This has already been done in respect to the eight miles of the Kawarau above the Shotover—that is to say, the Warden has for that area made his recommendations, and if they are returned as approved he will sign the licenses. The sitting on 6th February is to commence the same procedure with regard to the river below the Shotover. Meanwhile the promoters have held one or two meetings; but until the titles are signed the promoters cannot go any further in the formntimi of the company, as-at the prsaeut they have nothing to sell.