Prospecting & Government Assistance

Thames Advertiser, Volume XXIX, Issue 9061, 9 June 1898, Page 4

Prospecting & Government Assistance

In the course of an excellent article referring to the recent interview between a Herald.represent, tive and the Hon. A, J. Cadman, the Coromandel News remarks: *' That portion of the interview which more uearly concerns Coromandel was Mr Cadman's reference to tho offer of the Government to assist prospectors. In the North Island the offers were not considered, and assistance was never invoked. In the South Island it was different; there they, gladly availed themselves of assistance in the pro» specting of properties, and in many cases had done good work with the money voted by Government for that purpose,. Every application for such assistance, provided it was of a hna the Minister had always recommended, to the .favorable consideration, of the Government, and in ' ajmost every deserving .case the application had been.granted. ,So far as the North Island was concerned, he , hud ; had to write Me amounts off the looh, as there mat no application for assistance for prospecting, At the present time there was Idas assistance given to prospecting on the Hauraki Peninsula (due to the factthat no applications had been made for assistance) than in some individual mining centres in the Middle Island. The reason was that people didn't trouble about it. In his recent speech atPaeroa, Mr Cadman complained of the same thing, stating that the only sum applied for and granted to the Hauraki Peninsula last year was £80 to Coromandel. This is really a nice impeachment. Here is a goldfields population lazily railing, through their newspapers,, at tbe Government for its neglect of the industry, whilst the same Government is only too anxious to assist anybody (by prospecting grants) who is not too tired to ask for assistance. It is consoling to think that Coromandel has not been altogether dead to the advantages of prospecting grants, but, 1 apparently, even Coromandel has not grasped the fact that a sum consider, ably in excess cf £80 is available

; auuuaily. In a recent issue we published the amended regulations controlling the granting of sums for prospecting. Seotion 160 states that the Government will subsidise £ for£ sums up to. £500, applied for by.j County Councils, whilst amounts expended by local bodies in the purchase ; , of' boring plants for prospecting will i also be subsidised £ for £. Parties I of two or three men will bo subsidised :| £ for £. Parties of two or three men . 'i will be subsidised at the rate of 10s " per week per man for prospecting on II new and unprospected ground, A >■ subsidy is also available for operations ' consisting in trenching for lodes; 1 whilst parties of two or three men will • be subsidised so much per foot in ■ sinking down to 1000 ft, Evidently, • to tho mind of Mr Cadman, too, much • apathy has been shown in this matter; • and after the way he has been badl gered in certain quarters, it is not i surprising if he is indignant thereat. 3 In Coromandel throe or four parties p are assisted through the Council, but 5 at a recent meeting there were several

fresh applications for giants (principally from Kuaotunu), and we trust that the sums spent in the district in this way within the next twelve months will have exhausted all that is available. It is'surprising that the Council has not received more applications for assistance from prospectors than the Government car legally satisfy; but doubtless it is due to the ignorance of those who would otherwise apply that subsidies can be had for the asking. We think it is the duty of the County Council to draw annually every penny available for prospecting purposes. They will find no difficulty in expending the amount legitimately; and certainly it would be better to do this than that the Ooromandel portion should be labelled " not wanted," and carried forward to the Consolidated l) l und, It is most humilating that a Minister of the Crown should have to teach us our own wants."