MINING PRIVILEGES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 29 July 1941, Page 6

MINING PRIVILEGES

WOULD THEY HAVE BEEN FORFEITED ? POSITION OF OXEKAKA, PARAPARA AND TUKURUA CASE IN WARDEN’S COURT The Iron and Steel Industry Act, 1937, provides for payment of compensation for certain mining privileges taken over by the Government, but with a condition that no compensation i., to be paid for any privileges if the V. arden, in appropriate proceedings, w ould have made a decree of forfeiture of those privileges in March .1938. An action to settle the question whether the privileges would have been forfeited was commenced in the Warden’s Court at Nelson, before the Warden. Mr T. E. Maunsell. this morning. Mr H. H. Cornish. K.C.. Solicitorf’cne a!, with Mr C. R. Fell, appeared :or the Crown. Messrs P. B. Cooke, K.C.. and M. C. Cheek for the Onekaka Iron and Steel Company Limited fin liquidation), Mr C/H. Weston. K.C., with Mr F. P. Kelly for the Golden Bay Proprietary L'mited 'and in the estates of the late Mrs Sproule and the late Mr Turnbull>, and Mr W. J. Sim. K.C., and Mr A. L. Hudson for Pacific Steel Limited. Mr Cornish explained this was a proceeding brought under section 13 of the Iron and Steel Industry Act. 1937. The argument revolved around three properties. Onekaka. Tukurua and Parapara. He proceeded to quote the relevant portions of the Act. The Warden's task was not to decide whether or not a prima facie case had been made out by the holders of privileges for compensation. It was not the Warden’s task t.» decide whether a case for compensation to be heard later by the Compensation Court had been made c-ut by the parties seeking to retain mining privileges. In an ordinary forfeiture. suit the Warden did concern himself with the questions, had default been established for the period set out i» the statute, and if so should forfeiture go, or should there be. in view of special circumstances a fine inflicted on parties in default. Once liability for forfeiture was established, was it to be forfeiture or a fine? As in an ordinary forfeiture suit the Warden was not concerned with the possibility of compensation to the parties in default, he was not concerned with it here. Mr Cornish submitted that this was a case where possibly the onus might shift. The onus was on the Crown to establish default. That was admitted. Having established liability for forfeiture the Crown need do no more. Unless evidence was called by the parses in default then forfeiture must go. I ' the parties desired to adduce before the Court matters being special circumstances, then the burden was on them to provide evidence on that fact. In that case he submitted that the Crown had the right to cross-examine and bring evidence in answer to such evidence. The Golden Bay Proprietary had the lease from Mr Turnbull of the Onekaka asset. He was the original lessee. The Onekaka Company had a sub-lease from Mr Turnbull and also two mineral licenses. No other party was registered. The receivers were not on the title, nor, he thought, were Pacific Steel. This latter was a company v.hich was established to endeavour to bring about the sale of the assets of the Onekaka Company to outside capital with a view to reviving the industry in the district. A debenture issue took place in September, 1927, of £IIO.OOO. The Onekaka Company went into liquidation in 1931 because it could not pay its debts This was no discredit on a highly creditable undertaking. That it expired was a matter of regret. It had received substantial help from the Government, and at liquidation the Crown had paid out over £65.000, not all of which was owing. There was an agreement in September, 1931, between the Crown and debenture-holders to put the lattei on a footing of equality in so far as sharing the proceeds of the assets were concerned. The company then ceased to carry on business. The debenture holders stepped in and took over the assets desiring to get back at least some of the £IIO.OOO advanced, and carried on till May, 1935, when they then stopped. With the exception of a little work done in 1937 there had been a complete suspension of mining activity on the lease until March, 1938. By reason of that suspension the Crown claimed that the lease and license must be forfeited. The company had found itself unable tc- work the privileges. The debenture holders had the same experience. No discredit to either was suggested.

EVIDENCE CALLED | Mr Fell then called evidence. ! Percy George Hawkins, miner, living at Rockville, said he had a good idea of the locality of what was known os the Onekaka block, the Tukurua and the Parapara blocks. During 1935, 1936 and to the end of 1937 he was engaged in supervising subsidised gold-mining and that took him from the Collingwood area to Takaka at intervals of sometimes once a fortnight, sometimes two or three times, for the purpose of j getting and taking to the Employment ; Office the men’s time sheets and getting ! their fortnightly pay. There were one j or two men working in Ironstone Creek ; searching for gold. There were also i men working near the paint works. During all that time, to his knowledge, there was not any work being done on , Parapara and Tukurua mineral j leases. Up till the middle of 1935 ' Onekaka and they were getting iron i from the head of the aerial tramway. ; Mr Cooke objected to evidence of i alleged acts of forfeiture occurring more '! than 6 months before March 1938. The objection was noted, j A s far as quarrying and smelting were concerned they practically ceased operations after that date, went on witness. They shifted pig iron out of the store they already had. Apart from these men to his knowledge there were three or four engaged in maintenance work and crushing ironstone. In 1936 the electrician was still there and there u as a little crushing of stone for gasworks, this continuing at different periods right through. There was some shifting of pig iron in 1936. As far as he remembered in 1937 the stocks were exhausted. A man named Cooper got out some stone from the quarry at Onekaka in 1937, in conjunction with other men. They were about a fortnight doing that work. All the stone j for gasworks that 'he referred to came from Onekaka. Witness ceased going to the subsidised miners at Christmas 1937. Cross-examined by Mr Cheek witness said that the stocks of iron were exhausted by the beginning of 1937. He would not contradict any statement that [ large quantities of pig-iron were sent away in 1937. He admitted that he was not in a position to say when the stocks of pig-iron were exhausted. lie did not know what time in 1937 Cooper's party were working. When he said that Cooper’s men were working in the quarry he meant he saw the aerial rope working and inquired the meaning of it. That was all he knew personally about Cooper’s party. He was unable to say as to the disposal of pig-iron and working by Cooper's party whether these were in periods before or after the middle of September 1937. To Mr Sim, witness said that in his 70 years in the district he had only worked on gold claims. John Alexander Dyer, miner, of Collingwood, said that in December, 1937, he took over the work Mr Hawkins had been doing. He supervised till about the end of March 1938, and his work took him up Ironstone Creek, Onekaka, and about the paint works on the Parapara block. During that time no work was being done on the Onekaka block, as far as he knew. He did not go up to the quarry. If there had been work going on at the quarry he would have seen it. There was no work going on on the Parapara block. There was some stone crushing on the road towards the beach, but he did not know for certain that that was on the block. To Mr Cheek, witness said that there were huts at the quarry and if men were living in the huts and working the quarry he would not have seen them. He would have seen the aerial working if it had been producing stone. The aerial would only have been working if they had been getting stone down. He was travelling there during January, February and March. During that time it would not have been possible to have taken considerable quantities off the Parapara block without his knowledge. He visited the paintworks every week and spent half a day there. If stone had been shifted he could have seen where it would have been taken away from. He would have missed surface boulders. Robert Faulke Landreth, mining engineer, employed by the Government, said that he first inspected Onekaka on 3rd April, 1938. It was a pretty thorough inspection, and he saw the quarry, the aerial tram and the smelter works. There was no indication of their having been recently worked. The whole plant was derelict. He would not be prepared to say whether there had been any work in the quarry in the previous six months, though there could not have been any appreciable work. The huts had not been occupied during the ' previous six months, because they were ! dilapidated. There was no indication j of men having been working the lease in the previous six months. There were no indications of work in six months on the Tukurua block nor of recent work on the Parapara block. He ex- ! amined the road where some iron stone |

had been taken recently, about threequarters of a mile from the block. When he said that there was no evidence of recent working on Parapara, there were four old tunnels, certain stacks of ore and certain tracks. Both the ore piles and tracks were overgrown indicating that no work had been done for several years. To Mr Cheek, witness said that the removal of the stone from the road was j more of a prospecting removal. It was a small quantity The Parapara block was fairly thickly covered with blocks or boulders of iron ore. There was no indication of any substantial recent removal of surface iron ore from ; the Parapara block. (Proceeding)