MINING COMPANY PROMOTING

West Coast Times, Issue 10537, 22 July 1897, Page 4

MINING COMPANY PROMOTING

(To the Editor.) Sir, — Your leading article of July 15th on the important subject of Company Promoting I fully agree with. It is a step in the right direction for the London speculators to give shares in their ventures instead of cash, for, as you justly remarked, the system generally in vogue is to pay the vendors part cash and part paid-up shares. It is more than often the case that the cash asked for is more than what pays for the whole interest of the vendors. There is another evil that should be guarded against by investors. In cases where claims and interests have been bought by company promoters, such claims and interest having good reput&,by the gold extracted from them in former years. But nothing is said about how long they have been non- paying and the continual draw on the shareholders, who for years have been prospecting with the hope of striking something payable, but without success, and yet some of these are sold to English company promoters at a fictitious price. Investors should make themselves acquainted with the history of these ventures before they invest. Unfortunately for the West Coast quartz ! mining areas the continuance of the quartz lodes are so unreliable, through, no doubt, the volcanic nature of the country. How many scores of instances in the Reef ton district have the hopes and expectations of sanguine shareholders been dashed to the ground by the lodes in their olaims pinching out, and having to resume prospecting again perhaps for an indefinite period.

My contention is then that elaborate and expensive preparation is a very speculative undertaking. I hope that those who are going to such great expenditure in preliminary work will end with eclat as they begun, for there is every likelihood of their start Jbeing very promising. It is a great pity that so much of the former confidence of our own Colony speculators has gone, so far as the majority of our tried mining ventures is concerned. There £is plenty o£ idle capital in the colony to develop 4 our mining resources but it won'tjventure aa of yore. Some people well affirm that the cause is that so much of it has been lost in former ventures of that sort, but my opinion is the inflating of recent values is the real cause. Since English and German Company promoters jhave taken the lead in mining ventures, these gentlemen do not expect to do business in the Colonial shire market. I am of Jopinion that i£ they did submit the shares in the above market the result would not be as profitable. There is one thing, however, that the, Govgru^At should, insist on a.u4 <M

is, that each of those English and Foreign mining syndicates should have a Board of Directors in the Colony and a share liSt. This would serve a good purpose as it would facilitate the transfer of shares amongst colonists, and show Home investors at what figure these particular shares are held locally, and vice vwsa, which tend to show their true value on both sides of the globe. Besides having a Board of Directors on the spot would help to regulate things, in matters of dispute with workmen which cost a good penny to the' country at present' by Boards of Conciliation, etc.

A share list that is only opened in London or Hamburg, what good is it to our local investors ? And who has more right to get every facility to invest if he chooses than the colonist? Aa things are shaping at present, we are giving over our gold mines to foreigners land getting in return a job at low wages. I am. etc., A" Miner of the Fifties.