LANKEY'S CREEK COMPANY.

Inangahua Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1310, 15 October 1883, Page 2

LANKEY'S CREEK COMPANY.

(From the Otago Daily Times).

j The revelations made at the meeting • of the unhappy shareholders in the i Lankey Creek Cement Mining Cora- ! pany should suffice to prevent the most reckless of mortals from putting good money into distant gold-mining speculations. The West Coast with the aid of Dunedin speculators, has of late achieved special and unsavoury eminence for floating bubble companies of this s^rt, as only too many of our citizengfcan sadly testify. And the extraordinary part of the business is that shares have been taken up in Dunedin largely upon the faith of representations made here by gentlemen who never saw the mines in queS' ion, and knew nothing ot the localities in which they existed. If they come out of the tire with clean hands it is because they have themselves been grievously bitten. Possibly this renders them douiily sore. They have not only oeen the cause of folly in others, but have heen guilty of folly themselves. On the faith of information derived from interested parties they invested their own hard cash in these delusive concerns, and induced i heir friends to go and do likewise. Mr Bastings, speaking out of the fullness of his heart, hesitated not to declare that "anything more monstrous than the Lankey Creek proceedings had never taken place on the face of the earth in connection with mining speculations." This broad assertion must of course, be taken with several grains of salt. No doubt the affair is a very bad one. Yet probatily ii is not worse, nor any better, than a score of others. But the Dunedin shareholders have themselves to blame in some measure for their losses. No doubt there are on the West Coast, as in all other mining communities, unscrupulous promoters of mining ventures who care not what suffering is entailed on their victims ; but from all , we can learn in the particular case under notice, the speakers at the late meeting of Lankey Creek shareholders were somewhat unjust in their denunciations of the West Coast people who were instrumental in floating the venture. Cement-mining was an almost unknown thing on the Coast, and the Reefton promoters and their friends who invested in Lankey Creek shares are as great losers, and as bitterly disappointed, as their unfortunate coshareholders in Dunedin. Wherein the directors of the Company erred was the placing of extensive machinery on the claim without having previously satisfied themselves by a trial crushing of the cement that gold in payable quantities existed in it. But the Dunedin shareholders — or at any rate j some of them who were large holders of i stock in the Company — seem to have j been equally careless, indeed reckless ; ! for, several months before the ma- j chincry was completed, they sent a ■ well known Bluu Spur miner up to Beefion for the special purpose of examining into and reporting upon the prospects of the claim, and, it is to be presumed, received his report; and notwithsi anding this precaution shares were still largely held and trafficked in until the disastrous denouement when the plates were cleaned after the first crushing. The presumption is that, if the Reefton peop'e were foisting upon the Dunedin people shares in a mine which they knew 10 be worthless, the

same knowledge of the nature of the venture was available to the Dunedin shareholders, who sent up an admittedly qualified man to report upon it. After they had, to all appearances, lost their money, they sent another expert (Mr Trayi s) to Eeefton, and he reports that the cement is very thin, " varying from four feet down to a few inches, and very hard, and slow to get.' Surely this could have been ascertained before going to the expense of erecting a battery — " With a dish," in fact, as Mr Teayes put it "to find out if there was any gold in it." The warning to be more (uref ul in the future comes rather late ; but better late than never, if it has the effect which such lessons should have. But will it ? Thn fable of die dog and the shadow is not new ; yet how constant ly do we see it re-enacted over again. It is absolutely depressing, and not a little calculated to lessen one's faith in human intelligence, to be told tha men, presumedly sane, mortgaged their properties to invest in the Laukey Creek and kindred illusory ventures. No doubt " distance lends enchantment to the view." If men could only be porsuaded not to invest in any mines except those over which they could in some measure exercise per sonal supervision, how much better would it be for themselves and for the community at large % E> en if they lose their money — a circumstance always to be deplored by the losers — they would have the consolation of knowing that it was not entirely lost to the community. The money sunk by Dunedin shareholders in t'Ogus mines on the West Coast is irrecoverably gone, and the community is thereby so much the poorer. If it had been utilised in developing the <ro!dfields of Otago it would at least have been distributed amongst our own people, and so would in some sort have found its way back into our own pockets through the ordinary channels of trade. It is, however, useless to cry over spilt milk ; all that the shareholders can now do is to pay their calls and look as pleasant as they can under the circumstances ; and when next they have any surplus cash to invest, let them remember that there t»re vast mining resources yet uudeveloped in their own Province, and \ keep clear of illusory West Coast speculations.