From Papua

Lakekamu Field

Guinea Gold, N.L. Withdraws From Papua

THE attempt made by Guinea Gold N.L. to find payable gold in the Lakekamu district, Central Papua, has been aban doned.

The chairman of the company reported to a meeting of shareholders in Adelaide in March that the final verdict of Mr. G.

S. Dyer (an American engineer who had been engaged to report on the Papuan leases) was that the leases were too low in value to be worth development, and the leases accordingly had been surrendered.

Mr. Dyer disposed of the company’s test ing plant, and he left Papua in April to take up an engagement with a gold-mining company in Australia.

One sometimes hears it said that the rich gold companies are not sufficiently taxed by Governments —that they escape too easily with their easily-won profits.

The case of Guinea Gold N.L. in Papua is a good answer to such criticism.

The Adelaide company (which success fully pioneered the Bulolo goldfield) was assured by experts that the Lakekamu area was worthy of investigation; and,' after very careful consideration of all available data, it ear-marked a portion of its reserve funds for the work. The survey and testing were carried out in the most efficient manner, and the company satisfied itself thoroughly before it abandoned its enterprise that there was no country in this district carrying payable gold.

Having reached that decision, Guinea Gold N.L. withdrew its staff, sold or stored its valuable plant, and left Papua—and without a complaint. It had taken the

usual risk of a mining company, and in this case it lost.

It has received no vote of thanks —yet thanks are due to it because it has definitely proved that the Lakekamu area is valueless for big-scale operations. If it had not shown enterprise and courage in spending its money in this way the Papuan Government and scores of prospectors in the future might have been involved in further losses in seeking gold there.

Yet if Guinea Gold N.L. had found pay able gold in the Lakekamu, and reaped its due reward, various half-baked econo mists and politicians in Australia and else where would have sat around and cried aloud for heavy taxation “for those monopolistic capitalists.”