The Mining Industry.

Mataura Ensign, Volume 17, Issue 17, 12 October 1894, Page 6

The Mining Industry.

«•> 1 WABDBN HAWKINS' REPORT. i We extract the following from the annual report of Mr Warden Hawkins : WAIKAIA. At Waikaia about seventy Europeans and eighty Chinese are engaged in ' mining. There are about sixty alluvial 1 claims being worked, and of these only two employ more than two men. There is no noticeable improvement in mining prospects here, although the amount oi [ gold obtained is still, considering the population, far from insignificant. It is said tbat the bank bought during the year gold to the value of L 6758. • None of the special claims taken up • a few years ago are being worked. Two ■ special claims were recently granted— to Sew Hoy and Kutu lok. In con- ** nection «with these claim;?, work is being ! actively prosecuted, as about forty meo 1 are : engaged making a water-race at Nokomai, whicb, when completed, will • be used for the purpose of working J claimsWit h respect to Nokomai, where ' formerly a considerable number of men 1 were employed, with cho exception of ' the forty men spoken of above tbere are 1 only four men new at work at mining, 1 There are no quartz workings in this part of the district. . TAPANUI. ■ At Tapanui there are about twenty • European aud twenty Chinese miners i employed, but there is nothing to record ■ concerning them. A rabbit-tinning i factory in the vicinity affords means of employment to between twenty and i thirty men. ( Very little mining is now going on j at Waikaka. There is considerable difficulty in getting timber, and the gold is in deep workings, which require . more capital than the miners in that district possess. The old miners, how- . evei*, assert that tbere ia payable gold to be got in considerable quanties. A \ great deal of gold was at one time obtained by Chinamen and others on land j which Logan obtained from tbe > Government. This estate bas been r. ceotly cut up and sold. It is excellent b agricultural aud pastoral land, and ) found, aB good land always will, ready sale at reasonable prices. There are i still, however, several sections of 3 Government land which are stated to i be payably auriferous. The farmere H and settlers, however, in the district are r constantly applying to the Crown Lands f C ramis^ioner in Invereargill for c leases of one and another of these , sectioiiP, and for conversion of tbe lease- ,' | hold into freehold. The provision. P reserving mioi»g rights soon become c worthless in these eaces. Tbe lf*ase< : holdflp fence in these sectjuns-, at; 4 -ther

if a miner attempts to prospect: or mi § he is soon worried or harassed off the land ; and in one instance it was stated to me that a Chinaman who began work, and had carried his box down to the creek to wash, had it aU pitched into the creek. Naturally, the settler, once having fenced the laud in, comes to regard it as his owu, and resents all intrusion. The settlers at Waikaka indulge in the hope that owing to the cutting up of Logan's land and large increase in settlement the railway formerly contemplated will be carried there. A considerable field of employment exists in this and other districts if there could be such an organisation of labor and capital as would enable the work to be carried on profitably at a lower depth. I have been much struck, in more than one instance, at Waikaia and elsewhere, at the st eady and profitable mining done by the single miner and his mate at a small outlay. It is, as in most cases, tbe steady, sober man with good experience and practical knowledge and skill who thus succeeds —making a good wage, equal to L4 loa a week.