A CRITICISM GOLD DREDGES AND QUARTZ MINES

Grey River Argus, 18 February 1949, Page 7

A CRITICISM GOLD DREDGES AND QUARTZ MINES

(To the Editor) Sir—l would like a space to refer to the above industries. I fully agree with a Koiterangi farmer that instead of subsidising gold dredges to keep going, it would be better .to subsidise the men who work on them to work on farms. I am sure they would be doing the country and themselves a better service. We want to stress the point that before these dredges started it was known that they only had a certain time to go. We also know that these companies are not keeping their dredges going just to keep the working man in a job. I venture to say that of the reported 700 men engaged on these dredges only about 300 are active workingmen, and that the rest are “collar-and-tie” men. I think that, of those active working men, there are not two dozen that would not welcome a change from their jobs. Now, we see where those wonderful organisations, the Greymouth and Hokitika Progress League’s are awfully concerned about the closing down of dredges or quartz mines. Well, sir, I would suggest that those two bodies be conscripted to work in the quartz mines, and when I say conscripted, I consider it all they can mean to ask the Government to keep miserable death traps going. It is all very well for gentlemen, who seem to me by their action to be mostly interested in anything that is opposed to the Labour Government; to tell the other fellow to go down these mines just to make a profit for some London financiers. Let any of them take a trip up to the Reefton cemeteries and see for themselves the toll of men who have succumbed to the fatal disease of miners’ phithisis. I say to Progress League members who back the quartz mines up: Go there read the ages of these men; I am sure when they came back they would hang their heads. I think the vast majority will agree with me when I say that the Government should try to put an end to such death-traps. Why should men be asked to make a profit for overseascapitalists by going to work in these places—and to death in the pume of life? n , Dredges have come and dredges have gone. As they have been all started on the one principle of making money for the shareholders and big mining companies, at the expense of destruction of the country, I think every broadminded person will agree with me in saying that if the dredges want subsidising let them close down. With regard to the quartz mines, 1 say close them down as soon as houses can be found for those people that work at these mines. When they are closed, flood them, so that no one will go back to them again. All the gold in the world will not repay for the toll of human life taken. By closing these mines the Government would be doing only a most humane act. I am sure it would meet with the highest commendation of anyone who has a feeling towards his fellowraen I am etc.. MINER; , Hokitika. .