MINING LANDS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 85, 9 March 1934, Page 8

MINING LANDS.

QUESTION OF RIGHTS. Per Press Association. DUNEDIN, March 9. A case the result of which will affect mining interests everywhere was heard by Mr Justice Kennedy to-day. It was a special case, it was stated by the Warden, in the matter of an application by Richard J. BelJ for a special alluvial claim on Cromwell Flat, which application was objected to by eight persons seeking prospecting licenses, whose applications had been recommended for the Minister’s consent. The Court was asked to decide several issues, one being whether the fact that the objectors had applied to the Minister for the resumption of lands for mining constituted ground for refusing Air Bell’s application. Mr Parcell, who appeared for Air Bell, stated that substantial questions at law were involved, so that he had filed a motion to remove the case to the Appeal Court. There was going to be a clash between the freeholders and holders of miners’ rights, a possible result being that valuable land held by the freeholders might he turned over to mining for nominal compensation. It was also possible that large sums ,spent by the owners in acquiring and mining the lands had l>een spent under a false sense of their own security.. The first point to be decided was whether the mining law considered freehold rights superior to those of application under the Alining Act.

The Judge reserved his decision