Rimu Flat Destruction.

Evening Star, Issue 17925, 22 March 1922, Page 4

Rimu Flat Destruction.

The information concerning the operations of an American gold-

dredging syndicate at I’irau Flat, given by the

Minister of Minos yesterday, is likely to be received with mixed feelings. Mr Anderson gave Now Zealand mining enter-prise rather a rap over the knuckles, lie said that this particular ground was tested by Government borings some years ago, and the results were mad© available to anyone, but it remained for the Americans to put the matter to practical proof. This they have done, it is believed with results very gratifying to themselves. They are • working on a big scale and propose to enlarge it. Seeing that dredging for gold is a New Zealand invention, it is rather a blow to our amour propro that those who have imitated us in the process elsewhere now apply it on our own soil. If may bo that so many local people havo lost money over gold-dredging that they are extremely loth to threw good money after bad. Experience has taught more than once that promising results from bores are - 'no sure guarantee of success on the commercial scale. The upshot of the combination of American enterprise and our own excess of caution is that nothing of any benefit accrues to New Zealand out of a big and evidently profitable venture except wages. The equipment is American, and the gold won goes to America, though the retention in the Dominion of all that is won from the bowels of the earth is a matter of far greater economic consequence in these days than it has ever been before. There is, however, another aspect and a much more serious one. In a manner, of speaking this American syndicate may be despoiling us in a double sense. Rirau Flat lies close to Hokitika. It is well timbered. This forest growth is being cleared) in advance of dredging operations, and the surface-stripping overlying the gold-bearing wash consists of several feet depth of magnificent soil—virgin bush soil. This is the only land of this kind adjacent to Hokitika, and should bo doubly valuable on account of its limited area and its position. Yet it is being turned into waste' land for all time at a rate which is now to bo doubled. The dredge leaves in its wake a stretch of huge boulders. Leaving aside the destination of the gold won, is it worth the true economic vilue—not. the market value—of (this particular piece of Land for agricultural purposes to Hokitika, to the We-st Coast, to New Zealand? The South Island has provided in the past too many instances of the destruction of arable laud by dredging and sluicing. The occurrence of gold is such that it is usually the only arable land in a district which is thus marked out for destruction. The district represented by Mr Anderson in Parliament abounds in these cases. There havo been many protests against a penny wise and pound foolish policy, Sir Thomas Mackenzie, in particular, never failing to raise his voice against it. Before dredging languished as a home industry an

attempt was made to ameliorate the evil by the authorities insisting that tho surface alluvial soil should bo redistributed over the gravel and boulder tailings, instead of being washed down a sludge channel. Why has not a similar proviso been made in regard to Rimu Flat? Several questions in regard to this particular enterprise have been asked in Parliament, Mr SLatham having been pertinacious in the matter, but no amount of pertinacity has availed against Ministerial reticence. Now that Mr Anderson lias brought tho subject up ho might ns well go on with it and say all that there is to bo jay d. Ho will have some eager listeners.