RAISING THE WIND.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1190, 21 December 1894, Page 36

RAISING THE WIND.

A BRILLIANT SCHEME.

FLOATING ' A COMPANY BY MEANS OF A LOTTERY.

The Thames people appear to be fertile in expedients for raising the wind. They have just developed a scheme that argues considerable ingenuity on their part. For years they have been agitating for Government assistance towards thq prospecting of the deep levels, which were believed to contain sufficient auriferous wealth to ensure the permanency of the goldfield,. and to renew its days of prosperity. Last session the Government obtained a vote of <£43,000 under the heading “ Development of the Goldfields,” and J 310,000 pf this amount was earmarked for deep-level prospecting. The Minister of Mines in drawing up the regulations under which it was to be disbursed made it a condition that the money was to be spent in the form of a subsidy on the pound for pound principle. Mr R. McDonald Scott, whose name has been closely identified for many years with mining operations on the Thames, has just written to the Minister, unfolding a novel scheme for working the Thames deep levels. It proposes the formation of a company with a capital of <£120,000, in ■hares, to acquire some of. the leading mines, and carry on the necessary operations, the Government, of course, contributing pound for pound. But the capital is not to be subscribed in the usual way. That is too prosaic" and commonplace an ». idea altogether. Mr Scott proposes that it shall be raised by means of a gigantic lottery of jGI tickets for 120 prizes of 1000' shares each, the shareholders to have no liability. Only one difficulty stands in the way of this brilliant project. Parliament would have to pass an enabling Act before the lottery could be started, and this little service it is not at all likely to perform, nor are the Government at all likely to ask them to do so. The Thames people will have to try some other means of raising the wind.