The Evening Star TUESDAY, MAY 8, 1934. CENTRAL OTAGO WANTS.

Evening Star, Issue 21714, 8 May 1934, Page 6

The Evening Star TUESDAY, MAY 8, 1934. CENTRAL OTAGO WANTS.

Mu Hamilton. Minister of Employment, stated yesterday at Roxburgh that there were between three and four thousand men working under the Unemployment Board’s scheme to assist gold mining. This is typical of what is going on in all countries of the world in which auriferous areas have in any way been proved to exist. “ In the wilds of New Guinea and in the basin of the Amazon, in Central Asia, and in the Sudan, in the frozen regions of Canada, and the tropical interior of Australia, the search is being diligently prosecuted,” says the latest circular of. a Christchurch investment counsellor. Yet, according to the same authority, the world’s gold production fell from 24,011,1710 z in 1932 to 23,519,2190 z in 1933. Despite the intensified search, stimulated by the high premium on gold in nearly every country’s currency, this falling off need create no surprise, since the world’s most productive goldfield, the South African Rand, showed a decreased production of 436,0690 z in 1933 as compared with 1932. The reason was that lower grade ore was treated by the mills last year, and an increased ore treatment of two million tons produced nearly half a million ounces less. If, as some economists say, commodity prices have crashed because the world’s monetary stocks of gold are insufficient to supply the world’s price structure, and if, further, a yearly expansion of gold production of 3 per cent, is needed to keep up with the monetary requirements of an expanding world population, then it would seem that the dispersal of world depression rests between the gold miners and the birth controllers. Even then prosperity would not necessarily follow. The groat obstacle to a return of world prosperity is the unequal distribution of wealth. And by wealth

not only gold is meant. There would bo far less talk of overproduction of goods and the need for quotas if the populations of, say, nearly all the countries of Europe were in a position to buy, not luxuries, but many of the necessaries of life. If Germany, for example, were to admit the Danish butter for which her people are hungering Britain would welcome each shipment of New Zealand and Australian butter. The British people might have to pay more than 9d per pound retail; but, on the other hand, the Germans would bo able to get butter at under Is per pound instead of the prohibitive price resultant from the exploitation the German producer and distributor are able to practise because of a closed market.

There is a tradition that the world's gold output as a whole has been won at a loss; that is that, averaged out, gold has always cost the raining industry more per ounce than its selling price. Whether that is true to-day with the high premium on gold.we cannot say. Nor can any definite information be furnished by us as to the present production costs of the gold being won in Now Zealand. As to the particular scheme in Otago in which the Unemployment Board is interested, some statement of the financial aspect is due to those who pay unemployment tax. Possibly, however, the representatives of the Unemployment Board, the Public Works Department, and'the Mines Department, who are accompanying the Minister on his tour, arc being kept too busy investigating details of the manifold and diverse requests of the Central Otago people to make out a rough balance-sheet, on the cost of winning gold in the district so far as the activities of unemployed miners arc concerned. What practically all of them want is a low river. If and when the new dam materialises on the Eawarau, below its confluence with the Arrow, a low river as far down as Cromwell would be ensured, particularly when the winter frosts set in, and make the watershed ice-bound." At present word is being anxiously awaited from London as to the flotation there (also in Paris) of the venture from which those Eawarau G.M. shareholders who have remained staunch under much past discouragement hope yet to retrieve at least some of their capital. But there is a big stretch of the Molyneux below Cromwell which can only be satisfactorily dewatered if the Upper Clutha River is curbed. The permanence of some of the mining camps'at Fourteen Mile Beach is attested by the rural post delivery boxes at Gorge Creek, as passengers by the Pembroke bus may have observed. It is understood that the brief periods of low river that have been experienced have created a feeling of great confidence in the contents of the as yet inaccessible river bed, and naturally one of the inquiries made from the Unemployment Board was as to the prospects of the Hawea River and the Clutha River being dammed at or near their exits from Lakes Hawea and. Wauaka respectively. It cannot be “ said that the Ministerial answer was encouraging. The Unemployment Board, says Mr Hamilton, cannot afford to gamble on a largo scale.

In respect of one of the two projects mentioned there is no need for any expenditure by eithor the Unemployment Board or the Public Works Department. The first requisite is that tho Government should alter an attitude which it is not uncharitable to call obstructive. It is now several months since the warden heard tho latest application to erect a weir at the outlet of Lake Hawca, and construct a canal on the right-hand bank of the river to a power-station site some little distance down. The warden sent on a favourable recommendation to the Minister of Mines in connection with this application. Since then nothing more has been heard of the matter. No prospectus can be put before the public from whom it is hoped to obtain the necessary capital, for until tho application is granted there is nothing to warrant any invitation to investors to consider the project. This stripping the warden of executive power is an innovation, and is an example of centralisation of administration at its worst. Something far more permanent and less speculative than mining is involved—viz., agriculture, though the provision of power and of a high-level water supply would bo of inestimable advantage also to mining in the Upper Clutha watershed. Individual Ministers have visited tho site recently' and expressed themselves greatly impressed with the possibilities attaching to the scheme. But Mr Macmillan’s inertia seems colossal.