IMPORTANT CHANGES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 256, 26 September 1935, Page 8

IMPORTANT CHANGES.

IN MINING ACT. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Sept. 25. Some important amendments to the Mining Act are contained in the Bill introduced in the House of Reproseutatives to-day by Governor-General’s message. One of these ensures that the privilege of cutting timber without the payment of royalty, which is conferred on the holder of a •miner’s right, should not be available to corporate bodies, and another will bring the maximum area of a dredging claim on a river course into line with the maximißii area for other dredging claims. “The Bill fixes the time within which notices of appeals from decisions of the Warden’s Court must be given at seven days, and consequential clauses are designed to clarity the position in regard to appeals. In explaining the section relating to forest cutting, the Minister of Mines (Hon. C. E. Macmillan) said that the Forestry Department had recently taken action against Blackwater Mines, Ltd., to recover a large sum in respect to royalties on timber used by the company. The department won the case in the Warden’s Court, but the Court of Appeal reversed the decision. The main basis for the verdict was the right vested in the holder of a miner s right under section 66 of the Mining Act, 1926. A review of milling policy over the last 70 years disclosed that at no time was it intended that powerful companies should be able to avail themselves of miners’ privileges to the extent of using many thousands of feet of timber without payment. The Commissioner of State Forests had made very strong representations that the existing law should be amended to ensure that the privilege of cutting timber without royalty payment should not be available to corporate bodies. There was no intention in the Bill, however, to affect the existing rights of individual miners, partnerships or syndicates. Section 88 of the Mining Act provides that no claim shall extend along or comprise more than one mile of the course of a stream, except that in a dredging claim this limit mav be extended up to 16 miles, provided the total area does not exceed 600 acres. It was almost impossible, said the Minister, for any dredging claim of an area from 600 to 1000 acres to be pegged out, particularly on the West Coast, without including courses of small streams of over one mile in length. The Bill therefore would bring the maximum area of a dredging claim on a river course into line with the maximum area for other dredging claims, providing a limit of 1000 acres instead of 600-