CALEDONIAN GOLD MINE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 30, 19 August 1871, Page 15

CALEDONIAN GOLD MINE.

[N. Z. Herald, August 7.]

The announcement of a dividend of £ls per scrip in the Caledonian Gold Mining Company will be received not only in Auckland, but throughout the colony, with feelings of satisfaction. The temporary cessation in the yield of gold caused by the prosecution of works necessary to the systematic working of the claim had, as might have been expected, a depressing effect on the value of the company's stock .so sensitive is the share market: but, nevertheless, when a return to the former yield obtained, was arrived at, prices quickly went up towards the old rates, and have for some days past, under expectation of a fair dividend, never fluctuated more than five per cent on the value of this stock, ranging, as it has done, from £l9O to £2OO. The facts that on Saturday a dividend of 15Z per share was declared, that there still remained to the credit of the company a sum of about 13,000 Z in reserve, that a large quantity of specimens remain nilcrushed, and that the show of gold in the mine is equal to what it was at any previous time, afford convincing evidence that there has been no sufficient foundation for the idle rumors and reports which have been so industriously circulated during the past week. The prospects of the mine were never fairer, and we see no reason to doubt that the dividend for the next fortnight will be even still larger than the present one, and that it will be followed by others equally good, for the quantity of stone on the lower level is as large, if not larger, than that on the upper one, which has yielded little short of half a million sterling up to the payment of the last dividend a fortnight ago, and is yet far from being exhausted. The claim is truly a wonderful one, and we can almost understand the feeling which might cause anyone unacquainted with the actual condition of the mine to hesitate to believe that it was possible that a similar amount of gold could yet be expected from so comparatively small an area. The total amount of dividends declared in the Caledonian since the commencement of the year amounts now to the sum of £l5O per share, and when we compare this return with the present selling price, and take the usual rule that shares in a claim are really worth

a year's yield upon them, we shall find that the Wnt value of Caledonian scrip is below what it should be. It is little more than six months since he yield commenced, and allowing that the prospects of the mine are as good now as then, and we believe they may be said to be the move assured as its yielding power has been proved by actual demonstration, stock in this company is but at two-thirds its fair market value. We are all the more readily disposed , to rejoice at the good fortune of the shareholders in this company* inasmuch as on the prosperity and permanent yield of the Caledonian lode depends the fortune of so many other claims. That there are very many other claims whose future yields are quite likely even to eclipse that of the Caledonian itself no one for a moment doubts but meantime, till these are developed a claim such as the Caledonian keeps the field alive, and causes the general advancement of mining progress—nay, indeed, finds to a very large extent the necessary sinews of war. It will be well for Auckland, and for mining interests generally at the Thames, when we shall count our Caledonians, not by ones orvtwos, but by larger numbers. We shall then be saved those unaccountable fluctuations, not only in the value of a particular stock, but in that of the field generally, which have made many declare during the past month that the Thames share market was the most difficult one to understand they had ever met with., By way of conclusion, we would warn holders in this claim, and more especially the smaller holders, who are easily acted upon by a feeling of panic, to hesitate in placing faith in the selfinterested efforts of a certain clique on the Exchange, who have made it a business to depress the value of stock to enable them to operate upon the market for their own gain.