THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, MAY 7, 1888.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9047, 7 May 1888, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, MAY 7, 1888.

WniLE the hopes of this district hang largely on the development of mining enterprise on the Thames Goldlield, there is only too much reason to think that influences are at work that are likely to do the gold field irreparable injury. We shall givo one illustration of a class, and it is unnecessary for us to say that if such things are habitual the result must lie calamitous. The owner of a small property on which he resided with a business license, seeing the whole country being pegged out, and converted into prospective miningproperty, pegged out his residence site, and in due form making application had it turned into a mining claim, after the fashion for such things made and provided. The next stage was the sale of this mining property for a sum of £300, to a party who immediately thereafter sold it in Australia for £6000 to a syndicate there, who in due course floated it into a company with a capital of some £85,000, whereof £80,000 go to the promoters and £5000 will remain for working the gold mine. Now that this piece of land has afforded no definite proof of being auriferous to

a paying extent may be nothing against its value. It may prove a very Calodonian for anything known to the contrary. But when we consider that from this sum of £5000, which is all that remains for the working of it, there must be paid the expenses of floating, the brokerage and other incidentals, the tunnelling, the making of tracks, and even tramways necessary to properly prove the character of the country, the erection of machinery, the experimenting to discover the special treatment requisite for that particular refractory ore, if there is ore at all, it requires very little knowledge of the difficulties of mining to conclude that the prospects of profitable return are small indeed, and that the enterprise will add another to the kindred enterprises that have made so many say with a shudder that they have lost money at the Thames and will venture there no more. In the case in question and it is illustrative of a class— is obvious that the money will not be lost at the Thames, for it will not have been sent there; but having been lost in Sydney and Melbourne by the simple transfer of it from the pockets of dupes to those who are alive to their opportunities, the loss will be placed to tho discredit of our goldiields. It is quite unnecessary to say that this is not characteristic of some mining properties that we know, and that when sufficient margin of capital is left for the erection of machinery and otherwise efficiently working, the promoters of an enterprise are fully warranted in taking their reward; but we do not hesitate to say the conduct of speculative enterprise on tho lines indicated in the case which we

have cited, is calculated to prove very disastrous to the character of the goldfield, and cannot fail to have the c; fleet of frightening away capital in disgust. Some time since the proposal was submitted to our local Chamber of Commerce, that a species of distinguishing guarantee should be given under the authority of the Chamber, to any bona fide venture —and only such —about to be submitted to foreign investors. Such a scheme, dealing with a thing so subtle as the lay of gold, would be surrounded by so many dangers, have to encounter , so many difficulties with enterprising promoters, and entail such responsibilities on the Chamber of Commerce or its representatives, as to be simply impracticable \ but the evil to which the proposal points is a very real one, and it is to the interest of every one concerned for the future of our gold fields to have that evil restrained. There are inthelimitsof the Coromandelpeninsulafields fortheprofitable investment of millions of capital; and there is every indication afforded that both British and Australian capital will flow in freely for the development of the goldfield ; but unhappily there are those who see in this but the opportunity of fleecing the speculator ; and great numbers of so-called mining properties are being pegged oft' with the express purpose of catching unwary investors when labouring under the mining mania now raging in Australia. As one informant puts it, "the whole country is going that way," and it is apparent that there is a state of things approaching, in which large amounts of money will change hands in Australia over bogus claims at the Thames, while but a very small proportion of it will find its way to the goldfield for the purpose of testing its metalliferous character. If none but the dupes who throw their money away in the sister colonies in speculating on our goldfields without ever seeing them, were injured, we might be content in leaving them to bear the consequences of their folly. But in their anger on awakening to the deception, they will denounce the Thames goldfield itself as a swindle ; and legitimate enterprise, which there presents a prospect second to that of no other goldfield in the world, will be discredited and barred. Even if these speculative enterprises had a substantial basis, which so many of them will not have, they could not possibly prove successful with the very small amount of capital which is supposed to be enough to leave them for working, after the promoters' appetite has been sated. But when the affair is wholly unsubstantial, and merely got up to sell, the expenditure of this small amount set aside for working purposes at the Thames had better bo left undone, so that tho swindle from its inception to its ending might remain with the Australians, and bo credited to their greed and credulity instead of to any ' failure in golden prospects at the Thames. We cannot, indeed, give the discriminating official certificate which Mr. Aitken Connell suggested, so that the bogus ventures might bo separated from the real ; but we hold that public attention should be very keenly directed to this matter, and that it is the duty of every honest man to do his best to burst the bubbles which are about to form with the manifest object of catching and cheating foreign investors.