THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1874.j

Grey River Argus, Volume XV, Issue 1952, 7 November 1874, Page 2

THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1874. j

Dosing the last session, of the General Assembly a short Act was passed at the instance of Mr Tribe, enabling the Governor in Council to grant leases for twenty-one years to the occupiers of land held under business licenses in the township of Ross, so as to give them some tenure more satisfactory than the present one under the Gold-fields Act. This Act was, after a careful consideration of the whole question of the Ross sectionholders, thought to be the only method by which a more secure title could be given to them than that under a business license, the conditions of which were unsuitable to a settled township. The town sections could not be sold without without withdrawing the land from the Goldfields, and they could not be withdrawn because they were on the surface of underground mines worked under lease. The Act proposes only to deal with such surface, but by some oversight no provision has been made for extinguishing the title ,of the mining leaseholders to such of the surface as is intended to be dealt with. A difficulty in bringing the Act into operation has, it is said, already arisen through the action taken on behalf of Mr Cassius, who holds most of the lease 3on the flat, and considerable disappointment is naturally felt. But the remedy appears to be a very easy one — cancel the leases for neglect of the Regulations. None of the claims held by Mr Cassius have beci worked for a long period, the machinuiy in most instances has been sold' an"? r moved, and the ground is practically abandoned. Although Mr Cassius may contemplate a recom- v mencement of work at a future period, either by himself or some public company which he may be able to promote, it is manifestly unfair that to assist him in his speculations the inhabitants of a town like Ross should suffer. Under other circumstances we should be the last to counsel any course likely to jeopardise any further attempts to revive the mining industry of the district, and so long as the mining claims at Ross are not applied for by any other person, we should be content to allow Mr Cassius to retain his leases for any reasonable period, but in this present instance the area of ground required for occupation by residents is not needed by the mining leaseholder, and his objections are illiberal and out of place. Should Mr Cassius or his agents peraist in opposing the operation of the Act referred to, the Government are bound to solve the difficulty by cancelling the leases for non-fulfilment of conditions. i Whilst on the subject of mining leases, we fiud that the Melbourne "Argus" ascribes a great deal of the depression in mining now prevailing in Victoria to such a system of shepherding leases as that which haa perforce to be done at Ross, although in the latter case there are i special circumstances which remove it 1 from complaints such as our Melbourne i contemporaty makeß with regard to mining leases in Victoria. The " Argus" 1 argues that a vast area of auriferous land in Victoria is insufficiently worked, and in many instances leaseholds are held for purely speculative objects, and mentions a case in which one leasehold had been held for six years without any work whatever being done until the lessee was able to float a company to his satisfaction, whereupon he transferred his title for a consideration to the shareholders. Our contemporary goes on to Bay : — " However, if we accept the figures of the department and admit that 10,405 men were employed upon 27,685 acres, we get rather a curious picture of the state of one branch of our mining industry. It will be seen that less than one man to two acres was actually at work, and that a very large area of the goldfields is monopolised in this fashion. Indeed, we can gueßs readily enough that many of the leaseholds are not worked at all, as the low average sufficiently indicates. When work is properly carried on, a mining leasehold of a few acres will keep a hundred or more men employed, so that if we deduct those actually at full work, the balance will be very small to be distributed amongst the other claims, which is a proof that they are not being developed in the interests of the public. But, as we have said, the returns are frequently quite untrustworthy, and the phase ' actually employed ' is made to include a great variety of meanings, the employment, in many cases, being at quite other work than the opening-up of the claim. Thus even the figures supplied by the Mining Department itself go to prove the accuracy of the impression amongst the mining community at large, that the leasing system, aa at present carried out, is often the means of fostering monopoly, and bringing about that state of affairs against which the miners have always fought bo determinedly." The " Argus " points out that in addi-

fcion to the large quantity nf auriferous land unprofitably held under lease the system of selling or leasing land in the vicinity of the gold-fields for other occupations than mining helps to restrict the area open to miners, as such land says our contemporary "is practically lost to the miners," and that the theory that it can be resumed, " is found to be altogether a delusion." •' For this," it adds "of course, the Mining Department is only remotely responsible, as it has done and is doing its best to prevent alienation of auriferous land, without, however, up to a very recent period, any marked success. But it can and should deal with mining leaseholds. It has the power jto enforce the covenants, and should insist upon work or forfeiture. As the guardian of one portion of the public estate it ia in duty bound to see that the estate is used or given back at once to the public. We advocate, of course, nothing harsh, ani would not forfeit the lease of a company which has met with difficulties and is compelled to suspend operations for a time ; we aim at quite other game. We merely affirm that no one can have a right to hold the public estate for speculative purposes."