GOLD PRODUCTION

Taranaki Daily News, 10 November 1932, Page 7

GOLD PRODUCTION

AUSTRALIAN REVIVAL.

RECENT LARGE INCREASE.

Australian gold production to the end of 1031 was valued at nearly £640,000,000, states the Age, Melbourne. That, amount had been won since 1851, in which year the value produced was £1,348,000. In the following 12 months over £12,000,000 worth of gold was mined, but the best year was .1903, when, owing principally to the activity on the Western Australian fields, the gold yield of the Commonwealth was valued at £10,302,000. From that year, however, the yield steadily diminished in quantity and in value. The £10,000,000 mark was last touched in 1910, and in recent years the industry reached a very. low ebb. Interest in gold mining has been restimulated because of the premium on gold and of the unemployment problem. In the last two years companies have been formed to work old leases or to exploit new ones, and with the assistance of unemployment relief funds many have taken up prospecting. The result has been that the drift in the gold mining industry has been checked, as revealed by the following figures: — Australian Production

,*Six months only. J- Approximate. Owing to the fluctuating price of gold —the Mint price is now about £7 7s a fine ounce —the best basis of comparison is in regard to the quantity of gold produced. It will be Been from the foregoing table that in 1931 there vas a substantial increase in output, and for the first six months of the present year the total was considerably more than half that for the whole of 1931. The quantity produced last year was the highest since 1924, when the yield was 675,937 fine ounces. The search for gold had proved useful and profitable in relieving unemployment. In Victoria since 1930 grants aggregating 126,041 have been made from the unemployment relief funds to .1799 parties, comprising 4544 miners. Some of the parties, however, received several grants. From the same source sustenance amounting to £45,700 has been paid to prospectors, who have been provided with tools valued at £BOOO and wiflh railwav tickets estimated at £2OOO. Perhaps the best idea of the increased activity in the mining sphere may be gathered from Treasury figures, which showed that during the financial year 1931-32 about 25,000 miners’ rights were issued in Victoria, compared with about 16,000 in 1925-27.

Value Fino oz. £ 1925 559,188 2,375,280 1926 .i.... 521,315 2,214,401. ■1027 ..... 508,291 2,159,076 1928 457,669 1,944,054 1929 427.159 1,814,457 1930 466,579 2.099,605 1931 ■ 591,742 4,137,000f 1932* ... 331,921 2,400,000f