Mt. Ida Chronicle NASEBY, FRIDAY, SEPT. 21, 1900. PROTECTION OF CLAIMS.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume 31, Issue 9234, 21 September 1900, Page 2

Mt. Ida Chronicle NASEBY, FRIDAY, SEPT. 21, 1900. PROTECTION OF CLAIMS.

Wk are not surpri.-ed that the Minister of Mines has flatly refused to coui.temince ■ the movement lately organised in Dunedin to provide extended protection for. dredging claims. This id not altogether because Mr M'Gowan is wholly out, of touch with progressive mining of every' kind, though that seems to he undoubtedly tho vase—the Lowbum Miners'' As-

sowution-goea so fin B 'as to. demand-!i'fa>' dismissal, by .wliioli- of course'thuy;'.''' ■ merely invite nu inevitable" smile-*" but because; also, there 'are really " vi V °i7'^ lc si(ILJS i() *''« question itself/'-. Air M'Gowiui's at.liiude.js not on this occasion altogether devoid of a certain plausibility. ■ ' When- ,: doing "*., (h» dredge country he indulged in sotno solemn, warnings about tlio evils of booming ; and when a man (wqjecjalj/ a Minister) Iws done that, it is not in human nature to discard the first opportunity of saying " I told you so." lhe Minister of Mines looks at tho matter m the way outsiders (lucky outsiders, many of them must now bo called) generally do. « \' o u have been noting down there," he say: in effect, •'ma wild and unholy boom for mi. couple of delirious years, you have packed yourselves tight with puffs and swindles of every kind, you have bulged out your lurches pocket with bales of miscellaneous scrip, you have incurred with'light hearts liabilities to the amount of ten, twenty, or to hundred times your annu«l earnings, —and now you couie winning to nW and say that unfeeling directors aro actually jr.mming you to pay "up, and please what is the Government goiti" to do about it 1 The Government/ let me tell you, is going to "do nothing about it.. You may.all go to the—- ; to the mischief." Well, we must frankly own that that fits a good many cases —probably most. If it were possible to discriminate, we should ourselves choose a large number of instances in which to return the same answer.. For instance, one of the mushroom brokers of Dunedin, who has reached for his commission on more wild cats (now clawing the air and gasping in the last agonies of strangulation) tbin half the other brokers put. together'is making himself more virtuously prominent than any of his contemporaries in begging for the benefits of "time" for his interesting collection of. untameable felidae. Tt is a sort of proposal to " try tracheotomy " —an expedient declared upon high medical authority to be successful to the, extent of about one per cent, in such desperate cases as these. But instances of this kind ought " not to blind common sense people, as they have evidently blinded Mr M'GoVfln," to the more serious facts of the case. The demand .for protection is only partially an outcome of the. boom* Many of the most promising claim's in Otago and Westland are, owing to the combined operation of laws and the absolute block "iiv the foundries, in actual jeopardy 'of, forfeiture. They can't be otherwise : the foundries are only a certain, size, 'and they are driven beyond all possibility |of overtaking their '. engagements* Plenty of claims urgently ■•;. wont dredges— not delay: the-delay, they ask for is not the alternative they prefer, and they ask for it only because the other alternative—tho obtaining of a dredge—is,''absolutely beyond their reach, ~- the . common-sense aspect which has- been found to be beyond the-somewhat foggy comprehension of the /Minister of Alines. Like all weak' 1 and inefficient men, he has .jiririped at the easy and obvious' 'aspects/.pf the question, and has utterly failed to see its deeper and much more important inner bearings. Tt is exactly!, what we should have expected of him.