THE Inangahua Times, PUBLISHED TRI-WEEKLY WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 1882.

Inangahua Times, Volume VII, Issue 1070, 5 April 1882, Page 2

THE Inangahua Times, PUBLISHED TRI-WEEKLY WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 1882.

In exceedingly bad taste and with still -worse judgment, a Canterbury contemporary has maintained a series of warnings to its readers against investment in Inangahua mining ven tures, and if people were to be debarred from speculation by its utterances, there would indeed be few holders of Beefton scrip in the district in which the Lyttelton Times has so large a circulation. Why this journal has thought fit to adopt the hostile course it has done we are at a loss to discover, and why, before sitting in judgment, it did not take the trouble to enquire into facts is one of the things that, in a usually high-class paper, we further fail to understand. According to the Times, Beefton, or rather its district, hag been the voracious swalkwpt. of^ turned dividends, or given any yield worth mentioning for the money expended, ' In contradiction to such an idea, though very rough and imperfectly! we submit a few facts that are worth bushels of arguments relative to the gold yield of the district that will prove the fallacy of the statements made. From a very Valuable paper containing statistics up to March, 1878, prepared by Mr H, G. Hankin when the railway agitation was on, we extract the following particulars. Up to that time at the Lyell aud Inangahua there were exactly sixty-four companies in operation, and even then the dividend paying mines were as follows: The Anderson's Creek and Golden Hill, the Wealth of Nations, the Phoenix, the Caledonian, the Energetic, the Ajax, the Invincible, the Golden Fleece the Vulcan, the Just-in-Time, the Fiery Cross, the Keep-it-Dark, the Hercules,* the Hopeful, the Italian Gully, the Welcome, the Golden Fleece Extended, the Venus, the Pactolus, tb.e Anderson's Extended, the Little Wonder, the Monte Christo, the Break-of-Day, the Maruia, and Maloney's. Here are no less than twenty-six mines returning dividends three years ago, some of them to very large amounts, as take for example the Wealth of Nations £34,125, the Energetic £19,200, the Golden Fleece £14,000, the Just in Time £7,400, the Fiery Cross £8,100, the Keep-it-Dark £8,083, the Hopeful £40,425, the Welcome L24,000, the Golden Fleece Extended L30,000, the Break of Day L8,883, the Little Wonder Ll 0,000, and the \ aruia L6,64& Up to that time even the Lyell reefs had paid L27,897 in dividends, and the Beefton district reefs no less than Ll 99,336, altogether no less than L227,233, and yet we are told that no dividends have ever been received on the capital invested. These are not fancy figures but absolute facts from a return eompiled with the greatest care and strictest accuracy. Since then we have no such careful compilation but may say that mines that were then not dividend paying have become so now, and many of the old profitable mines have increased in wealth. The machinery now on the ground is worth a liuge sum of money, and may be fairly credited as capital, the district mines almost without exception are atpresent fully opened up, and the labor having been gone to and the capital expended, returns may, with confidence, be looked for. Many of the mines are now dividend paying, and the .number will very shortly be increased as far as human calculations can tell, and, indeed, though speculation is dormant just now, the district was never in a sounder or better condition than it is at the present time. The seed has been sown and the harvest is near at hand, despite the croakings of the Lyttelton Times or other papers. The gold yield for 1879-80 was 4530005, alluvial, and 18,0890z5, from quarjbz. The report of the Warden for the Inangahua field for 1880rr81 ending in March of the latter year, «haw« that amongst other dividend-paying mines, the Welcome declared £3750, the Golden Fleece Extended £10,800, the Energetic £1800, and the Keep-it-Dark £2000, for the year. The Warden's estimate of all the mining plant, including w&terrraces, tail-races, dams, and machinery, lasjb year was £104,724, of which £78.0T0, was for the latter. The total yield of gold was 23,6150z5. This will be very greatly exceeded this year, but the returns are not yet; in. An approximate estimate, however, can be formed of the yield through the fact of the County Council haying repeiyed, Jn round numbers, £3000 for go)4 duty, which at 2s. per oz. wiU give spme 30 r 000o?s. as the outcome of the field within the County, not counting the Lyell at all in the calculation, and yet in the face of these incontestable facts, a leading paper tries ajl in its power po quench speculation, and prevent capitalists from investing in mines of this district i There are, of course, mines and mines, some valuable, some possibly valuelass, at least not payable. This condition of things always exists in mining, whether coal, copper, tin, or other mineral or metal is sought for, but it is obviously both unjusfc aud ill-timed to depreciate or disparage the resources of a district because every shaft sunk, or tunnel driven, does not bring to li^ht golden stone, The few facts now

loosely strung together are quite sufficient to convince any impartial person that the Inang&hua has a grand future before it, and all that it wants is ample capital to develop its metals. As yet not a fiftieth part of its wealth has been ascertained, but in years to come Reefton will be a second Sandhurst or Ballarat, and capital will be readily obtained to prove the district's treasures, Every week almost some new discovery is made, and if, instead 6f dissuading its readers from investment, the paper in question was to urge them to lay out their capital, the result would be individually better for them, and by pushing a splendid district ahead, would confer a benefit on the Colony at large.