Grey River Argus WEDNESDAY, May 4th, 1932. A TIMELY PROPOSAL.

Grey River Argus, 4 May 1932, Page 4

Grey River Argus WEDNESDAY, May 4th, 1932. A TIMELY PROPOSAL.

So seldom is any sign of initiative shown by the ’ Legislative Council, let alone the question of helping the country towards an economic recovery, that it is at least a welcome departure from its custom when it becomes responsible for a proposal that is undoubtedly calculated to relieve unemployment. It is, however, to the credit more particularly of a Labour Member of the Chamber that praise must go for this action. The Council yesterday carried unanimously a motion urging that there be immediately convened a conference of practical mining men from the various goldfields with the object of assisting towards a solution of the unemployment problem by bringing their practical knowledge to bear upon the vital question of absorbing a greater number of men in the goldmining industry. The mover was the Hon. Mark Fagan, a legislator whose own practical knowledge and experience are so wide and accurate as alone to render his proposition worthy of the most earnest consideration. Appropriately enough the seconder was another West Coast member, Hon. W. M’lntyre, and the motion gained the enthusiastic endorsement of such veteran legislators as the Hon. Jas. Allen and the Hon. D. Buddo. It will be remembered that as soon as he entered the Upper House, Hon. Mr Fagan raised the general question of a revival of gold production in the Dominion, giving a masterly survey of the past history and present situation of the industry and <an informative discussion of its developmental possibilities. There is room for doubt of the urgency of finding new avenues of employment, that will be productive <and permanent in place of the present aimless expedient in spending millions upon what is especially uneconomical activity at so critical a juncture. Likewise gold is obviously an ideal commodity for marketing to-day as it always will doubtless remain. It would indeed be to the good were the promise of the Minister of Unemployment to put needy people upon tiny farms only carried out, but the degrading camp system is a far more conspicuous form than farming of the scheme I so far as it has gone. There is ■ no comparison between the camp of the gold miner in his comparative freedom and independence and the camp of a crowd of youngmen paid 5s weekly with an outlook that is bound by no vision of a find of gold but only by a pall of gloom. That the suggestion of a conference at which the best mining- talent in the land would be focussed upon a plan to restore production is on sound lines the average parson would perceive, but the Government spokesman, Sir James Parr, admitted in his speech on the motion of Mr Fagan that the idea had been already acted upon to a certain extent, aL

though, it must be confessed only I to a very limited extent which has yet exhibited little more than pious hopes. In the Coromandel region and at Dunedin, he said, skilled men had conferred with the object of setting up a scheme, and one, he added, had been launched to employ men at goldmining upon proved m’uneralised areas. The Geological Survey staff, he said, might yet assist also, and the Minister of Mines, after the session, would visit mining areas. It would, however, have been a more impressive evidence of enterprise if Sir James Parr had been able to show that th action mentioned by him had yet, born any fruit as represented by the absorption of labour into mining. As for the geological survey, it is a pity that it has been so very conspicuous by its absence from the gold industry during the past generation. One of its first obligations would be to pick up the threads of the work done under Governments such as instituted the survey identified with the Canadian geologist. Dr. Bell. With ( the present almost entire absence of co-ordination in gold min■ing policy, the customary processes in the industry actually tend to disintegration, because there are unchecked rivalries and reticences among the interests actually concerned. On the other hand, the specific object of Mr Fagan’s motion, and the professed aim of the conferences in the Thames and Otago districts is the absorption of unemployed men, who are lacking capital, and that object obviously calls for candour in co-operation. Initiative locally on the part of unemployed men has been chiefly fossicking and prospecting for alluvial gold, whereas the Conference which the Legislative Council urges would comprehend not only sluicing, blit dredging and quartz mining, as it would naturally give attention to the location of claims suitable for any or all of those branches of the industry. To-day one of the West Coast goldfields is celebrating its Jubilee, at Riinu, where the need for new enterprise is well exemplified by the fact that the very many claims of fifty I and forty years ago are replaced by a dredge, whose returns compare in quantity with the best from the noted claims of the past. Such an example of outside enterprise ought alone to be a spur for New Zealand interests to adopt concerted action on modern lines, but the Jubilee also recalls the fact that some few at least of the celebrants will be pioneer miners whose knowledge, while not scientific in the sense of order and scope, is yet real and valuable because it is practical. In no sphere is practical knowledge more useful than in that of gold production, and the sooner the best informed men are assembled and co-ordinate the knowledge that otherwise must mostly pass away with them, the better for the country. It is very doubtful if the avenues of industry from which the unemployed tens of thousands have come upon the register will in the next decade be able to reabsorb them, so that known resources like gold production should be fully exploited as a profitable alternative.