The New zealand Herald AUCKLAND, THURSDAY, JAN. 30, 1868.

New Zealand Herald, Volume V, Issue 1312, 30 January 1868, Page 2

The New zealand Herald

AUCKLAND, THURSDAY, JAN. 30, 1868.

SPECTEMTTR AGENDO. " Ciivo every man thine ear, but few thy voice; Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgmen;. This above all,—To thine own self be true And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man."

The importance of working gold mines ,' in a systematic and businese-like way ie very forcibly put, and still more forcibly illustrated, iu an article which we reprint elsewhere, from the Mining Record of the 28th December last. I

We could wish to eee r something Ike the union of capital with labour thbre alluded to, introduced into the workjng i of _ the Thames gold-fields. It is the ip-! plication of capital, then, that is needed, and just as in Ballarat it has bien found advisable to introduce capital in exchange for shares, so the holder of a hundredth fart of a claim at the Thanes, properly worked, would find his profits far greater than they now are, as a shareholder to the extent of one-fourth or one-sixtl of the whole' claim. The wealth of the nines can only be fully extracted by a liberal'application of capital, and, as in yictoria.jthe miners at the Thames must come to 1 the public at large for assistance. f. There is in the minds of very many of the miners an aversion to the formation of Joint Stock companies. "Why, we cannot seq but nevertheless the fact still remains that (this aversion exists. There are, however! on the Thames gold-fields a very large number of business men, holders of claims, and from them we should expect a more liberal j and business-like view of the matter. Suchjmen should know well enough that it is better to work out a claim in ten than in twenty years—better, iu fact, to realise £15,O()O in

I j, single year at a cost of £5000 even, than. 61000 a-year over a period of fifteen years it half the cost. But they must know that pj the system now pursued—and which inust be more or les3 continued in, where there is not sufficient available capital properly to carry on the works —the cost of obtaining gold is not less, but greater than it would be were a sufficient capital introduced. They cannot fail to see that where in the one case they may for years continue to "knock out" a very comfortable living,in the other they could realise a fortune from the same undertaking, systematically and energetically carried on, and be in a position also to enter upon new and equally profitable undertakings on a gold-field which ie practically unlimited in extent.

In Victoria, as we Lave again and again pointed out, the joint stock system is resorted to in the case of hundreds of valuable ! claims ; and why should not the same system be carried out here for the benefit not merely of the community as a whole, hut even more so of the actual present claimholders I themselves ? "We will put the case of a fair j I average claim—one proved to be auriferous, I {not first-class, perhaps, such as that ofj I Hunt's and Company and others, but one I containing payable stone. Let the claim, whether six or eight men's ground, be formed into a company of say 1000 shares, •n-ith a capital of £5000, or £5 per share. Of these let the six original claimholders retain 50 shares each, the capital on these 300 shares of £5 per share to be counted as paid Qp —given to them, in fact, as the price of the original claim—and let the other 700 shares be floated on the market. There will then be available for the working of the claim calls to the extent of £5 per share on 700 shares, or a sum of £3,500, while each i of the original shareholders would have received scrip to the value of £250 as his share of the claim, in the future profits of which he would still hold a twentieth interest. Of course, the reserved interest of the original claimholders might be more or less according to the supposed value of the claim, but such a scheme would, we believe, be acceptable to the public, and highly beneficial to the present holders, even of really good claims, which may be fairly considered not as speculations at all, but as certainties of euccess. It is in some such way only as this that capital and labour, which latter term represents present proprietorship, wi ] l meet on equal and mutually beneficial terms. Were some such lona fide undertaking commenced, Auckland men would not be found wanting in their part of the bnrgain. The shares would be bought. We are quite certain, too, that the position of the present owners of many a first-rate claim would be improved by such a bargain. But, indeed, wo do not see why the same principle should not be carried out to a still wider extent, and the number of shares be increased, and the liability on each share be proportionately diminished. Nay, we believe that a company which, instead of forming with one thousand shares at five pounds each, would form with five thousand shares at one pound each would receive more general patronage. There are few but would invest a pound in ten or a dozen such undertakings, while those who desired to speculate more largely in any one or more of them could just as easily apply for one hundred shares at one pound each aa for twenty shares at five pounds. This, indeed, has been the system which has enabled many scores of claims to be worked in Victoria which would never otherwise have been efficiently worked at all, and which are now paying enormous dividends to their fortunate prgprietors. We have taken, it will be said, a low estimate of the necessary capital required, for a glance at the tables attached to the mining article, published elsewhere, shows that the average amount of subscribed capital is over £3,500. We do not, however, give our scheme as other than a mere skeleton plan to be amplified or altered according to circumstances. "We simply desire to furnish such a basis as a company might be legitimately formed upon. 'We believe, however, that at the Thames the return would be more immediate thau upon the generality of the Victorian reefs, and the capital required be therefore less; moreover, the twentyfour claims referred to in the tables published are after all not quartz but alluvial claims, many of them of enormous depth, and requiring powerful steam machinery to keep them dry. As yet, the Thames quartz is met with from the surface, and is approachable by the cheapest and easiest of all methods of working, namely, by driving adits into the side of the hills.

In conclusion, we would recommend the article from tho Mining Record to the careful attention of our readers, and especially to that of the proprietors of quartz claims upon the Thames gold-field. It is as much on their account as for the general development of the gold-field, and consequent prosperity of the Province, that we put the mat ter before them. The miners at the Thames have themselves a double interest in the prosperity of that gold-field. The majority of them are not only miners but propertyholders in this Province, and they are doubly interested in the advancement of the Thames.