NEW ZEALAND MINES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11873, 27 January 1902, Page 6

NEW ZEALAND MINES.

LATEST LONDON . NEWS. [FEOH 01711 OWN* correspondent. , London, December 20. MAY QUEEN (HAURAKI). MEETING OP SHAREHOLDERS. THAMES DEEP LEVELS. Ok Monday afternoon last, at Winchester House, Old Broad-street, the fifth annual meeting of the May Queen (Hauraki) Gold Mining Company was iield, Mr. S. Green presiding. . In their- report for the year ending September 30 last, the directors stated that in their last annual report, dated December 14, 1900, they had informed the shareholders that owing to the Thames Hauraki Goldfields Company having ceased sinking in their shaft, and allowed the water to rise, work on the May Queen property had'been entirely suspended. The. crushings between the date of the last accounts, September 30, 1900, and the suspension of mining operations, were: October, ISOO, 213 tons, value £431 ss; November, 1900, 199 tons, value £406 9s lOd; these crushings showed an average yield of about £2 0s Bd. With the object of complying with the labour conditions and keeping down ; expenses as far as possible, certain portions of the property had been let on tribute; the ore won by the tributers and crushed at the company's battery during the year to September 30, 1901, showed an Average yield of £7 8s 3d per ton. The royalty received'by the company in respect of these. crushings amounted to £1314 9s 6d. At the end of last year a new Drainage Board was elected, and the assessments for the year 1901 were made, the amount payable by this company being fixed at £1245, as against £1891 4s for the year 1900. In view of the fact that this compauy was deriving no advantage whatever from the pumping, the assessment was resisted, but without success. In these circumstances the » directors, acting in conjunction with other companies operating in the Thames goldfield, drew up a memorial to the Minister for Mines for New Zealand, and a deputation waited on the Agent-General for that colony and presented it in the month of March last, but no reply has yet been received. The protection that had been granted 'to the Thames Hauraki Goldfields Company expired on June 30 last, and, notwithstanding vigorous opposition on the part of the companies interested, a further > six months' protection was granted by the Minister for Mines, , expiring on December 31. Mr. James Park having accepted the, position of Professor of Mining at the Otago School of Mines, arrangements were made with Messrs. Bewick, Moreing and Co., whereby their representative in. New Zealand, Mr. A. H. Curtis, took over the management of the property at the end of March last. Annexed to the report was the text, of the petition to the New Zealand Government in March last, in reference to the drainage of the deep levels at the Thames. In moving the adoption of the report and balance-sheet, the Chairman said the stoppage of the drainage was crushing the companies which had spent a large amount of capital, and had done a valuable amount of work at the Thames. He could not help thinking that the Government must insist on the work being done. The Standard: Exploration ; Company, which had absorbed the Thames Hauraki, was now in compulsory liquidation, and there was no hope of their going on with the work. The Government had, however, given them six months' consideration; he hoped the same consideration would be shown the May. Queen. Passing on to deal with-the accounts, he said the directors had taken no fees since June last, while office expenses had ? been reduced to the nominal sum of £50 a year. The directors did not intend to take anything except . nominal fees' to - cover expenses , until . matters ' assumed .a . more favourable turn. As to ; the 'j prospects 'of the May Queen, those who professed to know combined in saying that while the properties round were of more or less, value, vet the May Queen. was the pick.. And Mr. Gordon had solemnly assured them that ; if there was any certainty ,in mining, it was that in the May Queen they had one of the most valuable mining properties they could have. He then moved the adoption of the report and accounts. The motion was seconded by Mr. Hetherington White. In reply to questions, the Chairman said the tributers had only made about half miners' wages. The company had . about £500 in hand. Mr. Hetherington White said the AgentGeneral had expressed the greatest sympathy with them, but said the Government had done their very best. Mr. W. F. Turner suggested that a supplementary petition to the Government should be prepared. They could quite appreciate the New Zealand Government would be anxious not to deal too quickly with the matter. The order for the compulsory winding up of the Standard Exploration has been suspended for six months. That order had now, however, become operative, and therefore the circumstances were changed. - The Chairman said the' suggestion would be carefully considered. The report having. been agreed to, Mr. Hetherington White was re-elected as director, and the proceedings then closed.

WAITEKAURI GOLD MINING" , company; This afternoon, just before the mail closed the adjourned annual meeting of the Waitekauri Gold Mining Company was held at the Cannon-street Hotel, E.G. Mr. Thomas Russell, C. M.G.j was in the chair. The report and balance-sheet, forwarded to the colony by me as far back as October last, were agreed to.

In the course of his remarks, the Chairman referred to the proposed amalgamation with the (New) Waitekauri Extended, with an area of 280 acres. This would mean the introduction of a moderate, but sufficient, amount of capital to the Waitekauri Company, the Extended Company having assets equal to about £22,000 cash. A special meeting of the company was then held, at which the following resolutions were passed: —1. "That the provisional agreement, dated the 11th day of December, 1901, between the (New) Waitekauri Extended Mines, Limited, of the one part, and this company of the other part, now submitted to this meeting, be, and the same is hereby approved and confirmed, and that the directors be, and they are hereby authorised, to carry the same into effect." 2. " That the capital of the company be, and the same is hereby increased to £295,000 by the issue of 65,000 new shares of £1 each", and that 66,668 shares are to be allotted and issued by the directors in accordance with the provisions of the said agreement." The agreement above referred to provides for the purchase by the Waitekauri Company of the property and undertaking of the (New) Waitekauri Extended Company in consideration (inter alia) of the allotment and issue by the Waitekauri Company to the Extended Company or its nominees of 66,668 fully-paid shares of the Waitekauri Company. • The resolutions were agreed to, and negotiations to hand over the Komata section of the Waitekauri to the Komata Reefs Company in exchange for 400,000 shares, the lvoinata Reefs also to hfive 400,000 shares, were unanimously endorsed. THE TALISMAN. A cable message, dated, the 14th inst., having been received from Auckland, giving the result from the Talisman Consolidated clean-up for November as follows : —2496 tons crushed yielded bullion of the value of £3435, the secretary has informed the shareholders that: " The directors are investigating the discrepancy shown by the above return as compared with the average , assay value of the ore reserves, and with the declared value of the ore sent to the battery, as stated in the cable message of November 13, viz., £2 2s 6d per ton. Before allowing their opinion of the value of the property to be affected by. the low returns , reported, the Board advise shareholders to await the result of the change of management which is taking place." " '

UNION WAIHI. Tliis week the . secretary' of the Union Waiki Gold Mining Company issued the following circular to the shareholders: — You will have seen from the report of.the proceedings at ■ the extraordinary general meeting held on the 4th inst., that a committee of the shareholder's was appointed to uter with the directors >as to the best

means of dealing with the present difficulties of the company. The committee con- j sidered several methods of dealing with this difficult -position, but none appeared possible of offering a satisfactory solution of the -whole question. The committee then approached ; the ' directors of the Waihi Company -with a proposal that the Waihi Company should purchase the fully-paid shares of those Union Waihi sharehollers who had contributed tho working capital. After full consideration it" has been arranged, subject to the approval of the Waihi shareholders, as hereafter explained, that 20 Union Waihi shares, fully-paid, shall be exchanged for one fullv-paid Waihi share. 7 There> are 48,233 of such shares, and about 2412 Waihi shares will be required to extinguish these shares The result of the arrangement, when" completed, will be that the whole of the Union Waihi property will be absorbed by the Waihi Company, and all outside interests Will be extinguished. The directors of the Waihi Company will convene a meeting of the Waihi shareholders early in January next. > and submit the proposal for their favourable consideration and .approval. In reference to the above announcement, one who signs himself a " Waihi Shareholder" writes as follows to the Financial Times:—''The secretary of the Union Waihi Gold Mining Company has informed his shareholders that- the committee lately appointed to . confer with the directors of the Waihi Gold Mining Company had arranged (subject to the after approval of the two companies) that- the Waihi Company should buy up all Union Waihi shares " {except those held by the waihi Company), giving one Waihi share for 20 * Union Wailii shares. Now, how does this work out? Union Waihi shareholders can only (at any rate could only the other day) get 3d each for their shares.* Twenty times 3d is ss, and for this the committee have agreed that they are to receive one Waihi share, now selling at about £5. He will thus get from the Waihi Company fully 20 times the value of his share. Surely the Waihi shareholders will never agree to such a one-sided arrangement.' Far. better for the Waihi directors to pay in the market 3d each for Union Waihi shares, as in this way they would acquire for their shareholders the whole 48,000 shares for about £1000, instead of handing over to the Union Waihi shareholders shares of the value of above £13,000. The directors of the .Union Wailii Company on whom it is proposed to confer such a boon are Messrs. Russell, Boustead, Bristow, Mitchison, and Akera, and the directors of the Waihi Company who are to confer the boon are practically the same, viz.: — Messrs. Russell, Boustead, Bristow, Mifcchison, Stafford, and secretary H. Akers. It is the old story over again. One cannot serve two masters, and neither can one be properly a director of two companies having conflicting interests." MINING REVIEWED.

"New Zealand, we are glad to see," says : the Financier, "is steadily living down the ill odour into which it was brought by the boom of a few years ago. If the colony is not exactly the El Dorado of which we used to be told, it, nevertheless, possesses auriferous possibilities which, justify the investment of capital in its enterprises when these are chosen with discretion , and with an eye to something beyond promotion profits, and in the pro duction of gold it has certainly made considerable . strides. . . . Some irregularity there may be, without such pessimistic forecasts as we have been treated to, and on a series of recent years the net gain is more than respectable. We have on previous occasions expressed our belief that it is hard on the colony that it should be blamed for the exaggerations of self-seeking company promoters, and it is but the merest justice to the . country's many good friends to point out that they deprecated the excesses of anticipation at one time indulged in. The men who embarked their money, however, in New Zealand mining ventures are not likely to remember that they were warnednot likely to remember anything further than the loss of their capital. Nor are they, by that same token, likely to entertain anything but , a grudge against everything from the same quarter which may be submitted for their consideration in. the near future. But these excesses are part. of the history of every gold-mining locality of any consequence," and it is , only by arriving at a flourishing condition in spite of them that the evil can be really lived down. New Zealand cannot be said to have done this, as yet, but it is making good progress—if it be given a fair period 01 trial we have little . doubt that it will eventually justify all reasonable expectations.

"It is rather unfortunate for New Zealand's industrial _ future," savs the Financier in conclusion, "that a commission which has been investigating the coal measures. of the colony does not bear out the sanguine estimates of which we used to be told concerning the wealth of fuel in the country. The present' output is now rather, over 1,000,000 tons annually, and the commissioners are concerned lest a generation or two more should see the denudation of all the coal which is worth mining. The hundreds of millions of tons in Sir James Hector's estimate are dependent on conditions which experience shows do not exist in the colony. We feel it our duty to state in the plainest way that there is no unlimited coal supply in New Zealand, but that, so far as is known at present, tne supply is comparatively small, and will be all wanted for the colonvs requirements. Of course there is a possibility that further research may find large deposits, but it would be absurd to rely unon such a shadowy chance."

THE MARKET. Yesterday slight falls occurred in Talisman and Waihi Grand Junction shares, while Union Waihi shares and those of the Consolidated Goldfields of New Zealand each improved slightly. The quotations this afternoon before the mail closes are as follows:—Consolidated Goldfields of New Zealand, 1 13-16 to 1 15-16; Glenrock, Is ad to 2s 3d: Hauraki. 6d to Is; Kauri Freehold, 2s 6d to os 6d; Komata Reefs, 9d to Is 3d; London and New Zealand Exploration, 5-16 to 7-16; Taitapu Gold Estates, 3s to ss; Talisman Consolidated, ---16 to 15-16; Union, Waihi. 3-16 to i • Waihi, 5 9-16 to 5 11-16; Waihi Grand Junction, 1 11-16 to 1 13-16; Waitekauri 6s to 7s. '