QUEST FOR GOLD.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 14 May 1925, Page 12

QUEST FOR GOLD.

WEST AUSTRALIAN FIELDS

SUGGESTED FEDERAL BONUS

The acting-Minister for Mines in West Australia, Mr J. W. Hickey, stated recently that the Cabinet had given consideration to a request made on behalf of the combined goldniining industry for the Federal Government’s payment of a bonns of £1 per ounce on standard gold produced in Australia for a specified term of years. The gold deposits in the State, he said, were by no means exhausted or fully explored, and on known fields much latent wealth had been forced into idleness by greatly increased working costs. Jt was desirable to bring ore of lower grade than was now payable into tlve reach of the enterprising prospector, miner and investor. The Commonwealth Parliament had granted substantial assistance to other industries by bonus, said the Minister, and the State Government thought that the bonus form of assistance, direct to the goldmining industry, and indire tly through it to the whole of the Commonwealth, was not only advisable, hut eminently equitable and just, and best calculated to revive the industry.