MINING LEGISLATION. TO THE EDITOR.
Sir, — The paragraph of your Wellington Own Correspondent's Political Intelligence Notes in to-day's issue, dealing with a petition presented by me to the House of Representatives is somewhat inconsequent and misleading. From it anyone not knowing the facts would suppose the petition related to a private matter, and that the complaint is as to the rinding of the Compensation Court. It is not so. The petition ask* that the law bo amended to make the provisions for taking water-races through private lands upon "payment of compensation operative. Tht&.they now are not — no water race can be tak»n through private lands, unless the person taking gives the owner whatever he likes to ask. A Compensation Court, to find amount payable, is provided for by sub-section 5, section 99, of tha '" Mining Act, 1898," but the owner of private land need not aocept the finding of such a court unless it is unanimous, — and he himself appoints one of its members. How near an owner's estimate is to that of an impartial tribunal may be gathered from the fact that in my ca»e — the case that has called attention to the inadequacy of the provision for assessing compensation — the landowner asked £1700, and the court found for £112. This is not a private matter, and I am xioi asking Pa/'iament for compensation for )oss sustained tirough the faulty drafting of the pro^iaions referred to— for that is the cause of all the trouble, — but for the law to be made what, when the act was framed, it was intended it should be. The matter is one that affects the whole mining community, for until the lav/ is «,monded it is all the same as if no provision whatever existed for taking water-races through privnto lands; and in these times of gold mining expansion this is serious. My position in the matter is that of the first sufierer under tha defective law — the one at whosa instance and cost, and in the interests of the whole community, tho defect has been pointed out. — I am, etc., Johx EyriNG.
MINING LEGISLATION. TO THE EDITOR.
Otago Witness, Issue 2373, 24 August 1899, Page 22
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