SEARCH FOR GOLD

Taranaki Daily News, 9 June 1932, Page 5

SEARCH FOR GOLD

ACTIVITY IN CANADA. ' REWARD FOR DISCOVERY. The search for radium, most valuable of minerals, will continue in British Columbia this year as a result of new mineral legislation passed at the last session of the Legislature. Under the terms of this legislation a syndicate which started to explore radio active or© on Vancouver Island and Quadra Island and then stopped its operations will resume work. The Canadian Government still , oilers a reward of £lOOO to any person discovering radium, as an extra inducement to prospecting. At the sgme time the Hon. VV. a. McKenzie, Minister of Mines, explained that the Government’s new . radium policy, widely misrepresented in some quarters, as too favourable to mining corporations, was designed to conserve for the public the fullest possible share of any profits arising from ,a radium, discovery and also to make certain that radium was used for curative purposes in as largo a way as possible. He said that the old Radium Act, under which the Government could take 50 per cent, of any radium discovery and also collect a royalty on it, had definitely discouraged the search for radium and stopped the operations then under way. The chief desire of the Government in the interest of general activity and also of public health, was to encourage _ a I radium discovery. The new Act, he said, ! would do so and at the same time give the Government the most sweeping ■ powers to conserve radium for the public > i use. It had power to pass any regula- ■ ■ tions governing radium mining and to ■ declare a blanket reserve’on radium- ■: bearing lands should they be discovered J to conserve them for the public. In this way complete public protection ■ was provided and prospecting would he • stimulated by the removal of tbo pro- ■ vision by which the Crown could take - a 50 per cent, interest of all discoveries. , It was entitled to only a 10 per cent, i interest under tha new law, bat it would collect the ordinary mineral tax and m- . come taxes on radium profits.