GRANTS TO LOCAL BODIES, AND THE PARAPARA IRON LEASES.

Golden Bay Argus, Volume IX, Issue 26, 26 November 1903, Page 4

GRANTS TO LOCAL BODIES, AND THE PARAPARA IRON LEASES.

On the above subjects in th? .House a-week or two ago, Mr R. M.H.H. for Motueka, made some very ppugent remarks on the conduct of some of the Government Departments. After dealing at some length with the-delays in providing for expenditure of grfcnts made to local bodies, and the many obstacles which always appeared to be placed in the way of local authorities in their attempts to expend votes, jvf r McKenzie went on to refer to a matter which has not been unnoticed bv many in this district, and spoke with a straightforwardness which must have been very refreshing to the Minister of Mines, and other officials whose actions in the matter have not exactly met with universal approbation. We quote from Hansard

“ He also wished to tell the Minister of Mines that there was a considerable grievance in ms on the subject of the Government's dealing with the Parapara mining lease; probably no member of the House outside the Ministrv was aware of it. After the Act wits passed dealing with the lease the Warden granted two leases. Tlie members of tne Goldfields Committee would remember that under that Act there could only bd one lease of a thousand granted. But the Warden granted two leases of a thousand acres each, with the result that afterwards he (Mr McKenzie) had occasion to write .to the Minister of Mines calling his. attention to the question. There was another phase of the matter : The ground has bo in heldunder application ever since the law was placed oil the book, and yet not a sixpence of rent had been paid on this lease. As a matter of fact, there had. not been a lease the ,hel4

under -a system well known in the' mining districts. There were a thousand acres of these valuable deposits held under application, and nothing else. He was going to place on record a letter he wrote to the Minister of Mines in connection with this subject on the 22nd December last. He also wrote to the Premier at the same time, and he would give the House the benefit of both letters, as this was a very important matter not only to his electorate, but to the colony as a whole. He protested against these leases being any longer under application, because there was certainly an impression abroard that no stranger who wished to apply for, say, a thousand acres would be allowed to hold the area under application for the long period this has been held under application. He saw by the local papers that this matter was going to be postponed again to allow of a survey of the creeks there. But the creeks were already protected under the mining laws, and this was just putting the thing off from month to month and from year to year; and, so long as the Minister did not sign the lease there was no rent whatever paid to the Crown or the local authority. This was the letter he wrote to the Minister of Mines on 22nd December last: —

“ Foxhill, 22nd December,^.!9o2

“ Dear Sir,— l am informed that the Warden, at the last sitting of the Court at Collingwood, granted (subject to the approval of the Minister of Mines) two leases, covering practcially the whole of the Parapara iron-deposit, to two different persons, but presumably to one and the same company. “ NoW I want to call your attention to the fact that the Warden, in doing so, exceeded his legal authority as defined in clause 2, subsections (l) and (2), of ‘ The Mining Act Amendment Act, 1902. This Act only gives the Warden power to grant and the Minister of Mines only power to consent to the granting of one lease, 1 of not more than one thousand acres, of the land described in the schedule to the Act. That area was all Mr. Cadman asked in his letter, submitted by yourself to the Goldfields and Mines Com-, mittee last session ; and surely such an area of the most valuable mineral deposit in the Southern Hemisphere should, in all reason, be sufficient for any one company, unless the whole area is required for monopoly or locking up, which I now respectfully request you to prevent by refusing your consent to the granting of one of the leases. Ido not wish to put any obstacles in Mr Cad man’s way in promoting or financing his company—in fact, I an particularly anxious that he should have every reasonable facility from the Government; but, in the best interests of the colony and the districts I represent, I .most ephatically protest against more than the area allowed by law —namely, one thousand acres—of the iron-deposit being at present granted to any one, and I look to the Government to prevent it. “As you will doubtless remember, the unmistakable intention of - Parliament last session was to grant only one thousand acres of this .area, and to reserve the remainder for State purposes, it being the only known iron-deposit of any consequence in the colony. “ I have also communicated with the Premier on this important matter, and trust Government will prevent the issue of two leases. —I remain, &c.,

“ Roderick McKenzie. The Hoa. the Minister of Mines, Wellington.”

Now, since he sent this letter to the Minister the two applications had been withdrawn altogether. The Hon. Mr McGOWAN.—Why not give my reply. Mr R. McKENZIE said he had not got it by him. In fact, his impression was that he had never received a reply from the Minister of Mines, although he did get one from the Premier, to whom he had written on the snbject. The position was this : these two applications had been withdrawn altogether, and another lease of a thousand acres had .bpen applied for since, and the whole of the Parapara iron-ore outcrop, which was jn the form of a lode about six miles long and varying from 2$ to 30 chains wide, was again manipulated or exploited, and he was informed that the. under application at

Rbe present time and had been so for several months back. The thousand acres was surveyed in such a way that it included the whole of the Parapara iron-deposits. He was aware that it was not the intention of the House when dealing with the subject last year to allow any person at all to include the whole deposit in one lease of a thousand acres, and he objected to the name of the colony being bandied about in London as having allowed this company to get hold of one of these enormous concessions, whereas, as a matter of fact—and the honourable member for Taranaki should have been candid enough to admit it—so far as Parapara was concernen they did not hold anything worth the bit of paper he held in his hand. They held no lease whatever there at present. If the Minister did his duty he would simply throw the whole land open to anybody who liked to take it up, and would not allow anybody to hold it under application for a year or more. Other parties had applied before the Cadman Company for the lease of the ground, and had been refused time and again. He repeated, the Minister of Mines ought to leave the ground open to the whole world, or to anybody who liked to invest money in it. The Hon. Mr Hall-Jones said he wished to make a personal explanation. The honourable member for Motueka (Continued on outside page,)

(Continued from insicbe page. had questioned the statement he made about a vote having been on the estimates for several years and never having been applied for. He held in his hand the estimates for last year, and there was an item, “ Deviation, Moutere River in the estimates of the year before, the same item and same amount, in the previous estimates, the same item and same amount ; the estimates of the previous year, the same amount. In regard to the account referred to by the honourable member, he was not aware that the accounts had ever been sent on to the Department. Mr K. McKenzie wished to say, in reply to Minister of Public Works, that there was a vote on the estimates for •three or four year for the Lower Moutere Channel, and the plans for the workwere in office of the Chief Engineer of Roads and Bridges waiting approval. They had been in that office for the last three or four jears and had not yet been approved, consequently the Government was treating that vote in the same way as the other items on the list he referred to. He could in two minutes produce a letter from the Waimea County County begging him to interview the Chief Engineer of Roads to get these plans approved. He had already done so, but so far nothing Was done.

The Hon. Mr Hall-Jones said the item on the estimates he referred to had nothing whatever to do with the Chief Engineer of the Roads Department, and it had certainly appeared on the estimates for four years. The Hon. McGowan (Minister of Mines), wished to make a personal explanation. The honourable member for Motueka had inadvertently misrepresented him, inasmnch as the honorable gentleman said, when he asked the honoqrable gentleman to read his reply to the letter he had read to the House, 'that he (Mr McKenzie) had never received any ' reply from. him. If the House would allow himjie would read his reply, to prove that the honorable gentleman’s statement was incorrect.’ It read as follows : ' “ I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 22nd instant, directing attention to the aption of the Warden at Collingwood in respect to the granting of applications for leases under ‘ The Mining Act Amendment Act, 1902,' for working the Irondeposits at Parapara. “In reply, I have to state that before consent is given to any leases care is taken to insure compliance with the terms of the Act, and every means will ho taken to satisfy the Government that the lessee is possesssd of sufficient capital to : properly open-and work the iron-deposits.—l have, &c., “Jas. McGowan, Minister of Mines.” R. McKenzie, Eiq., M.H.R., Foxhill.