THE Inangahua Times. PUBLISHED TRI-WEEKLY. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 1877.

Inangahua Times, Volume III, Issue 95, 28 March 1877, Page 2

THE Inangahua Times. PUBLISHED TRI-WEEKLY. WEDNESDAY, MA RCH 28, 1877.

None better than those who have risked their capital know the fall measure of the dangers wbich lurk in the path of mining undertaking?. The history of quartz mining both in tbis and the neigh boring colonies is pregnant with tbe disasters following in tbe wake of tbis class of investment — of the millions of money squandered in chimerical ventures, in faulty management, and in bubble speculations ; of men who have grown rich in a day upon cunning and chicanery, and oi those with a too confiding faith in measures and men, who have been dragged down from opulence to penury. And yet inexplicable and all as it seerca the protection ;which is to-day afforded to investors in this class of enterprise is hardly one whit better thao it was when tbe, " Limited Liability Act" of FrasenKrst cast its protecting wings over tbefapitalists of Victoria. Since that time t||e Victorian law baa undergone some Amendment. Its salient features hay been hammered out into something like conformity to tbe provisions of the English Joint Stock Act,imt no well directed efforts have been afade of late years, or if made have not bee.a successful in giving it a specUtadaptation to the peculiar requirem#|l of gold mining. Tbe quartzmin^M industry sprang up too suddenly unhis colony to allow time for considering either the effect or defect of the Victorian Act, or indeed for any direct form of legislation upon the subject, and therefore in order to meet the exigencies which so suddenly ar o ße that Act was adopted in its entirety with all tta itnpeffections, and so it remains to tbe present day, without perceujjbje ' variation. That the Act falls yfrj f«jf, short of efficiency has come to be gMrally. admitted, and the only maryerra that no attempt has been made to improve it, and this astooiament becomes still further heightened when we come to consider the enormous interests sheltered—and so slenderly sheltered— I under its provision?. Of pitet years wef have had amendment upon amendment to almost every Act upon the Statute Book of tbe Colony. "Witness the

* Iterations session after session — affnost from the time when the Act first saw* the light — which the Bankruptcy law has undergone , so with ths " Stamp Act," and a multitude of other measures, all of which fall into comparative insignificance beside the momentous importance of tbe law affecting mines, And ye| the " Limited Liability Act " stands untouched. Nor does it appear that the problem is one of such difficulty as to render hopeless all attempts to solve it. The major defects of the Act have long been known and recognised, and yet year after year are suffered to go unaltered, to the great detriment of investors and the drawback of the goldflelds. Whatever may be tbe fate of alluvial .mining in this Colony during the course of the next few years, tiwe can be no apprehension with regard to the stability of quartz-reefing. Here, as in the adjacent colonies, with the decadence of the one form of industry the other will expand, and though possibly we may not look exactly for the stupendous results which have followed from quartz mining in the neighboring colony, still it will be conceded that upon it' must in a great way rest the future well being of a very large mass of the population, if indeed not of tbe colony as f a whole. Of late years an Act has been iv force in Victoria termed the " JNoLiability Act," and we observe that quite recently a Bill of the same name and em bodying somewhat similar principles was introduced into the Parliament of New South Wales. We have not seen a copy of the Act, but clause 7 of its prorisions will serve to indicate its general tenor : It enacts that the acceptance of a share in any mining company registered under the Act " shall not be deemed a contract to pay any calls in respect thereof or any contribution to the debts and liabilities of the company, and sueb person shall not be sued for any such calls or contribu* tions, but he shall not be entitled to a dividend upon any share upon which a call shall be due and unpaid." It was under an Act of a similar character that the Magdala Company, Stawell, Pleasant Creek, Victoria, was carried on, and that company, as our readers are aware, was worked for nearly eight years, and expended an enormous sum of money in prosecuting works before ihe reef was struck. A shaft was sunk to a depth of considerably over 1000 feet, and other expensive works were undertaken, the whole of the capital necessary being subscribed under the circumstances we have named. Under this law when calls remained unpaid for fourteen days the shares were forfeited to tbe company and sold by public auction, but it would be possible to conceive a case of all the shareholders in a company similarly consfci toted forfeiting their shares, in which case the creditors of the concern would fare rather badly ; but possibly there are other provisions in the Act to guard against such a contingency. At all events tbe Act must have something additional to recommend it, otherwise it would not be sought to introduce its provisions into tbe New South Wales Goldfields. Whether such a limitation could be introduced into tbo Act of this Colony, or indeed the Act itself, or some modification or union of both, is perhaps worth whi'e considering. That we are fast drifting into a condition ot things which calk for some immediate remedy is beyond question, for unless men of means can be secured against more than their fair share- of re' sponsibility they will abstain from investment, and tbe gold mining industry will gradually shrink and languish ultimately into nothingness. Towards bringing about this much needed reform a good deal can be done by popular agitation, and so lons as those directly interested are content to stand by listlessly there is not much chance of anything being done. In the course of a few days a conference of goldfields Wardens will assemble at Wellington for tho purpose of framing a set of mining rules applicable to- all conditions of alluvial gold mining in the colony. Why then should not an effort be made to secure some kind of intervention on behalf of the law relating to quartz mining ventures ?