GOLD MINING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23364, 2 December 1937, Page 10

GOLD MINING

A DANGEROUS OCCUPATION HEALTH OF THE WORKERS TERRIBLE DEATH ROLL (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, Dec. 1. “ There is no occupation mors dangerous to the health of men than the gold-mining industry,” said the Minister of Public Works (Mr R. Semple) during the debate on the Mining Amendment Bill in the House of Representatives to-day. That industry, he said, had built up a terrible death roll in all countries. At Broken Hill, Mr Semple said, there was the largest industrial cemetery of its kind in the world. The average age of the victims in the Waihi Cemetery was under 32 years. Waihi was one of the unhealthiest mines in the world. The least that could be done was to provide the maximum degree of safety for thbse who were driven underground by economic reasons to win from the bowels of the earth a metal the world required. The incidence of miners’ phthisis. Mr Semple continued, was not so bad in New Zealand as it was in other countries, due largely to the fact that the use of a water-lime borer was compulsory. New Zealand was the only country in the world that insisted upon the use of this modern machine whereby water was sprayed through the machine, killing the dust at the point of creation.

Referring to the clause in the Bill making the “ salting ” of an area an offence, Mr Semple said that in the gold rush days in Australia he had seen some of the greatest swindles in the history of mankind.. An oldfashioned muzzle-loader gun had been used to fire a lump of metal into an alluvial kind of lead. Th* Minister of Mines was to be commended for the steps he was taking to protect the investing public and also for what he was doing to protect the lives of the workers in quartz mines.