MINING INVESTMENT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21456, 1 April 1933, Page 10

MINING INVESTMENT

I The director of the Waihi School of Mines has performed a public service in drawing attention to the danger of official assays of ore of unknown origin being used to aid the flotation of goldmining companies whose samples may have little relation to the average gold content of the ore bodies. It is important to the industry that such institutions should make assays, but it is more important still that precautions should be taken to prevent the investing public being misled by results obtained from small quantities of picked stone. A revival of the goldmining industry would work wonders in the economic life of the Dominion. With gold at a premium and costs lower than they have been for many years, with wago subsidies available to approved concerns to aid development work, there is exceptional incentive for a renewal of activity on a large scale. Unfortunately, however, tho risk is as great as ever it was of "wildcat" flotations destroying the confidence that is required. It may bo impossible to devise an official form of protection that would forestall the ingenuity of all those who are more concorned with exploiting the public pocket than the gold deposits of Nature. Yet an effort should be made to safeguard the investor to a greater dngree than exists to-day. Tho publicity given by the Waihi School of Mines to the possible misuse of assay figures is one step in the right direction, and it is to be hoped that the Mines Department will institute other checks which will not discourage enterprise, but, on the other hand, guarantee more permanence to ventures. The need for these checks applies to alluvial fields just as much as to quartz deposits. In parts of New Zealand there are signs of a new dredging boom developing. The Rimu Company at liokitika, aiming at a long period of activity on what is perhaps a comparatively low-grade area, has made such exhaustive boring tests of its ground that it is able to calculate almost exactly the yield of each section. With such information beyond question tho success of tho enterprise then depends upon the cost of handling the wash. Should a large crop of dredging or sluicing projects appear much may be heard of the values secured by boring tests, but what the public should know is the extent of these tests and th'e integrity of thoso responsible for them. Again, there ought to be means of obtaining official opinions as to the efficiency of machinery secured or the methods proposed. Obviously under the most protective plan the old hazards of goldmining will remain. This tho ordinary investor recognises. But every effort should be made by the Mines Department to see that a shareholders' failure is not written on a venture before it begins.