QUARTZ MINING.

Cromwell Argus, Volume IV, Issue 196, 12 August 1873, Page 6

QUARTZ MINING.

A correspondent of the Mount Ida Chronicle, signing himself “Quartz Miner,” contributes to that journal a few remarks on the above subject, more especially respecting the manner in which it is proposed to be dealt with by the new Gold Mining Bill. As he shows a thorough practical acquaintance with his subject, and makes some good suggestions, we purpose extracting a portion of his letter. He commences ; “ It has frequently been remarked in your columns that the country is not ripe for mining in that phase, and that until wages are lower, and various other fortuitous circumstances have taken place, quartz mining can scarcely be expected to pay. Wonder has often too been expressed that reefing in Victoria meets with so much more support from the public than the same class of gold mining does here, and, evidently from the vast number of companies in active operation, justifying such support. To one who has had a little experience in. mining in both countries the reasons are obvious, pin Victoria the Government have long seen the necessity and advantage of encouraging and fostering that great industry, until it has become one of the greatest sources of wealth and prosperity in the State. Our New Zealand magnates evidently look upon it as one of the doubtful things that it behoves them to watch suspiciously, and to restrain within proper limits Quartz mining in Otago has hitherto been conducted in the most extravagant style possible, arising, in my opinion, from a want of liberality in the Goldfields Act and Regulations, involving ten times the expenditure and outlay, both of labour and capital, the circumstances justified. . . . . Whether the Government have been so fully occupied with the magnitude of the Public Works scheme as to be unable to afford so trivial a matter as the mining industry a thought, or whether they have failed to discover its importance and recognise its bearing on the welfare of the Province, I am not prepared to say. I see, however, that the Bill now before the Assembly makes no better provisions than did the Act of 1806. The framers of the Act have copied the Victorian Statutes to a considerable extent, and no doubt wisely, but they stopped short where they ought to have gone ahead—and it is therefore calculated to do less than half the good we have been anticipating from it.” Instancing the Lucknow mine at Bendigo as one in which a great amount of capital has been invested, in driving a level 400 yards long, at a total cost of £6OOO, —he asks : “ What will be left of the proceeds from the utmost limits of reef the Act allows a party to hold, down to the depth said level will drain ] ... .

“ Reefing in Otago lias so far been, excepting some two or three instances, merely surface work, followed by abandonment—resulting in effectually staying the employment of capital in the development of the undoubted resources of our Gold-fields. Everybody agrees that our reefs contain as much gold as should make their working remunerative, that they are numerous, and, with the exception of timber, facilities for successful development exist within the reach of ordinary effort on almost every Gold-field. The question naturally arises, where is the cure I where is the remedy to be sought ! Are our reefs, which are of sufficient scope and richness, with proper working, to afford remunerative employment to thousands of men, to await the intervention of some genii, to bring their contents to the surface ! or to be allowed to lie undisturbed until the country is so inundated with unemployed labour, that wages will be reduced to half their present rate I As we cannot hope for assistance from the spirit world, and as any great reduction in wages is both undesirable, and in the state of the labour market in the old country exceedingly unlikely, we must of necessity seek in some other direction for a remedy, and that remedy I believe to be a much more liberal provision as to size and cost of claims. The greatest extent the law allows to be occupied

in one lease is twelve hundred feet along the course of the reef. So that for every section of such extent, the indispensable preliminary dead works have to be increased ; whereas the shaft once sunk, or the level once driven, six or ton times the amount of ground may be as easily worked through them as the present very limited area to which the law confines operations. I need not, lam sure, point out to you what a waste of energy, of labour, of capital, both to individuals and to the community is involved in this state of followed, as these preliminary works are, by (if the prospects are encouraging) separate costs of crushing plant, pumping and winding gear for each twelve hundred feet, and consequent large increase in current working expenditure—for each battery means four to six hands, and waste of fuel in maintaining six fires, where one of somewhat larger dimensions would do the work of the six. ,

. . . . A word as to charges for mining leases : What need of the excessive cost of obtaining and holding a lease ? Any miner of ordinary ability could survey a lease area as well for all practical pusposes as the Government surveyor ; and, if his services be indispensable, why should the miner be charged with it all ? Next, the rent is no less than £2 10s. per acre—a most preposterous rate It appears to me that leases on quarts reefs should be granted at even a lower rent than on alluvial workings, for whilst the reefer only disturbs a very insignificant portion of the surface, for which this heavy rent is paid, the alluvial miner disturbs the whole, indeed destroys, the land wrought for all future uses. I think that justice would be amply met by a mere nominal rental, especially in the face of (without exception) the heavy outlay involved to simply prove the likelihood of a reef proving remunerative, before any possible return can be obtained. Another matter, and I have done, viz.: the manner in which quartz x’eefs are marked out. The Regulations allow of provision being made in the marking, to include the lode to a depth of say from three to six hundred feet, according to its underlay. After this depth, the reef, which may have cost thousands of pounds to prove to such a depth, may become the property of another without a shilling outlay, and the promoter cannot, according to the existing law, follow it beyond the boundary of his lease—he having no further use for his shaft or shafts—his neighbour may reap the benefit both of the work and the information gained bv the reef being proved to that depth, literally without cost. Many other arguments may be advanced in support of my position but as my letter is already too long, I wi.l conclude, hoping our legislators will recognise the necessity of effecting some greater improvements than the rough draft of the Bill proposes.”