NEW ZEALAND'S GOLDFIELDS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21325, 28 October 1932, Page 15

NEW ZEALAND'S GOLDFIELDS

Sir, —There are some signs of increasing interest in goldrnining in this Dominion. If a pencil line is drawn on the map of the South Island of New Zealand- from Nelson in the north to Orepuki, in the extreme south of Southland, a distance of 440 miles, it practically divides the island into two. The width from this line to the west coast averages about 54 miles, which gives ari area of 23,760 square miles, and nearly all this country is gold bearing. Also run a pencil lino from Cape Oolvillc, in the North Island, to To Puke, 100 miles by 20 miles wide, including the Great Barrier; this gives 2000 square miles of gold-bearing country. The two islands together contain over 25,000 square miles, in which gold fn.ii be found, nearly a quarter of the total area of New Zealand, and out of this millions of pounds in value has been taken in gold. There arc few areas in I he world that can equal this as a goldficld, and I write with the knowledge of tive years' prospecting and mining in Western Australia. It may be said that Now Zealand possesses the largest compact area ot goldcontaining country in the whole world. This enormous area of potential wealth has lain idle during the last 30 years, with the exception of the Waihi mine in the north, and several dredges and a few quartz mines in the South Island. The present generation know not goldrnining, and cannot be induced to take any interest in it, although the very existence of Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Bunedm depended in their early days almost entirely on the production of the New Zealand goldfields. If Australia or Canada possessed our gold areas they would be actively developing them in a large way, but the present generation of New Zcialanders, and in particular Aucklanders, have lost the interest in gold that the past generation possessed with such active and productive results. An address on company law was a few days ago given in Auckland by an active enemy of all adventure in business. If his ideas were adopted and company law altered to his views, then no goldrnining companies would be floated, as the incontive to work the unknown mineral wealth that lies in the earth would cease to exist. In England adventure in business and seeking wealth in new localities in any part of the world is being advocated and advised to university students, by thoso in authority. The nineteenth century, the most prolific century in the history of the world, was mado |jossiblo only by unrestricted adventurous men going out into the great unknown and doing things, and was not made by accountants sitting at desks, who are only recorders on paper of other men's work, Aztec.