THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, JANUARY 16, 1888.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 8951, 16 January 1888, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, JANUARY 16, 1888.

The discovery of rich silver ore at various places at great distances apart in Australia, seems to point to these colonies becoming as famous for the production of silver as they have already become for the more valuable metal. The cluster of silver mines bearing the general name of the Broken Hills, in New South Wales, close to the border of South Australia, had begun to startle mining circles by their valuable returns, when the excitement is suddenly intensified by the report of very valuable finds of silver at Fairfield, many hundreds of miles away on the Queensland border, said to contain bullion to the value of eleven millions sterling ; and the excitement in the Australian capitals has suddenly i reached a fever-heat that reminds one of the scenes that were witnessed in \ the earlier periods of the golden era. Shares oa which only a few shillings have been paid have bounded up to £200, and even to £232, in one of the capitals ; and we are told that in Sydney the brokers have not been so 1 busy for years, and that on the Melbourne Stock .Exchange the business was the largest ever effected in one day. This certainly indicates that our neighbours are badly seized with silver I fever, and as in the body politic, like the human body itself, one raging ; malady seems to kill every other, the " yellow agony" is for the time at least in abeyance. As more millionaires have been made by silver mining in America than by ' gold mining there or elsewhere, excitement over silver finds is hardly to be wondered at, even though the value of the product is so greatly inferior ; but making allowance for its being the first serious attack of silver fever, we can hardly avoid looking on this great boom as being largely one of speculators and brokers. For the highest assay value yet attained, appears to be 2930z of silver to the ton at the Broken Hill mines, and 185oz to the ton at the latest scene of excitement, Fairfield. O£ course facility and economy in extraotion may give special value to such returns, but we are inclined to wonder at this sudden access of excitement when we compare with them the extraordinary richness of some of our own lodes of silver, over which, as yet, there has been comparatively no excitement at all. As already published in our columns, the new find at Hikutaia has yielded, in one test at the School of Mines, no less than from 1600 to 1800oz ot silver per ton, to say nothing of its further yield of from 60 to 90oz of gold ; and another test of the same ore yielded to assay at the battery of Waiorongamai 2000oz of silver to the ton, in addition to 90oz of gold. Placing these returns by the side of the assay yields of the Broken Hills and Fairfieid, in Australia, we can hardly refrain from thinking that they must be rather overdoing their jubilation in Australia, and that except for the speculative gains to be won in the excitement of the sharernarket there is nothing m the development of their silver fields so far to warrant this excessive excitement. At least if there is, then assuredly we must have within our own district, and not in one area but in many, the materials for the production of an extraordinary attack of silver fever. That the excitement now prevailing in Australia is one mainly of brokers and speculators is evident on the face of it, and this is a circumstance that should be borne in mind by those who are contemplating a rush to the sister colonies, attracted by the knowledge of there being a boom in silver mining in Australia. At the same time we are face to face with the fact that these colonies are clearly destined to shortly rank among the great silver-producing countries of the world. The almost simultaneous discovery of rich lodes at points so remote from one another, indicates at once the wide diffusion of this precious metal, and the increased attention that is given to prospecting for it. This latter may arise from the falling off in the profitableness of searching for gold, and one of the results of the present excitement over silver—whether justified or not—will be that thousands of prospectors who have hitherto confined their attention to looking for indications of gold, will betake themselves to the search for the hitherto neglected metal; and as knowledge comes of experience, we may calculate on a rapid succession of discoveries of silver fields as the direct result of the increased number of silver seekers. That such a result will tend to increase the prosperity of all these colonies goes without saying, but it must necessarily add to the monetary confusion which is alleged to have arisen from the wide and ever-growing divergence between the values of gold and silver. Wβ know that already silver has fallen in value about a third during the modern era of extensive silver mining, while I the value of gold has been steadily J appreciating. The addition of these ! colonies to the great silver-producing I areas of the world, which is so clearly i indicated in the present discoveries, ! .nust add to the confusion, and tend to I make more remote the prospect of bimetallism in the standard currency; but we apprehend that neither the fear of that, nor the possibilities involved in any other doctrinaire theories, will deter colonists from very cordially wishing that these colonies may rival Nevada, Mexico, or any other country, in the output of a product that cannot be otherwise than a source of enormous wealth.