MINES DEPARTMENT

Grey River Argus, 3 October 1934, Page 8

MINES DEPARTMENT

Gold Prospecting WELLINGTON, October 1. Mr. Webb referring in Parliament, to the item of £8,712 for prospecting for gold and other minerals pointed out that last year £6,185 was voted and only £3,212 expended. lie thought the Minister of Mines should be al; lowed more like £lOO,OOO for this purpose, and suggested that the revenue from the 12/6 per oz. gold duty should be sei, aside for mining development. Unfortunately gold was a commodity in great demand, and possibly it was a reflex of the intelligence of civilization that we should be digging in the bowels of the earth for the yellow metal to melt into bars and he left there, blit as we had to face facts as they were then the gold mining industry was one that should bo vigorously developed. He therefore offered the suggestion that the amount derived from the 12/6 duty should be earmarked for the purpose. Mr. Forbes: The Unemployment Board is spending thousands in that wav.

Mr. Webb said that was the case, but the Alines Department was the best for dealing with mining matters. He must say that every legitimate request he had made to the Minister had not only been listened to but had been acted upon so far as the Minister’s powers would allow. If a man exported beef, he got the whole of the benefit of the 25 per cent, exchange. But, if a man exported gold, he got half and the Government got half; and he suggested that that money should be earmarked to assist, the mining industry. There -was auriferous country from the Karamea right to the Lyell, almost completely undeveloped, and it was farcical that being the case, to have men prospecting over country already completely dug over, not only by white miners, but by Chinamen. He suggested that if the Minister would send out parties of men at the average rate of pay to mine under the control of a practical prospector working in conjunction with the scientific officers of the Department, they might find new mining areas similar to the Waihi and the Blackwater Alines. ITe thought the Government had done a very fine thing when it agreed the other night not to take that 10 per cent, from the miners. The £955 set apart for drilling would not go far, and drilling was very important work indeed. If the Government could justify allowing the whole of the 25 per cent, exchange to go to the primary producers, there was no reason why the Government should not allow the whole of the 25 per cent, to go back also to the mining industry, which was in great need at the present time and, if properly- encouraged, could absorb the whole of the unemployed. Only recently the Alinister had agreed to subsidise a mine which would otherwise probably have been closed, and within a week that mine discovered quite a rich reef.