£400,000 CAPITAL.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20223, 6 February 1934, Page 8

£400,000 CAPITAL.

New West Coast Mining Company. BLACK SAND DREDGING. - J'R (Special to the “ Star.”) GREYMOUTH, February 6. An important development in goldminmg in New Zealand will take place shortly at Barrytown, on the West Coast, where a company with a capital of £400,000 intends to build three dredges to work black sand dredging on a large scale. It is understood that the whole of the capital of the company has been arranged. *• Information regarding the intentions of the company was given at a sitting of the Warden’s Court, when Charles George M’Kechnie, hotelkeeper, of Greymouth, made an application for the cancellation of certain mining privileges at Barrytown held by Cedric Harkinson Knight, of Auckland. Walter James Watkins, organising broker for Investigations, Ltd., of Dunedin, said in evidence that his firm had an option over M’Kechnie’s holdings at Barrytown. The company he represented proposed to spend £400,000 on three dredges, each handling 400 yards an hour. Already £3OOO had been spent in prospecting and it was proposed to spend a further £BOOO in the next six months.

The area to be worked by the first dredge, he said, was 30,000,000 cubic yards, and it had already been proved that if the area could be worked as proposed it should mean £IOO,OOO in taxation to the New Zealand Government.

Unquestionably the land was suitable for mining and every yard that showed a value of 4d would be worked. If the defendant Knight retained the privileges of which cancellation -was asked it would mean that the plans would be considerably modified. Only one dredge would then be put on. Arthur Percy Penman, of Sydney, a director of Alluvial Gold, Limited, said that his company had taken over M’Kechnie’s licenses from Investigations, Limited. His company had extensive mining interests in various parts of the world. A staff had been brought from Sydney and was now at work on the area. If his company found the bores as good as those found by Investigations, Limited, the work would definitely go on. His firm was not a speculator and controlled about twenty dredges. Decision was reserved.