Gold in the Solomons: New Mining Laws Open Way for New Industry
p. 32 · Read in the full issue
San Francisco.
Gold In The
SOLOMONS New Mining Laws Open Way For New Industry NEW mining regulations for the British Solomon Islands were published at the end of November, and it is now expected that there will be fairly rapid developments in the gold mining industry there.
Gold has been found in various localities in the Solomons for many years, but special interest has been centred during the past three years in the gold-bearing region around Berande, on the northern coast of Guadalcanal.
A local syndicate, which included most of the leading traders in the group, carried out prospecting operations in the Berande district some two or three years ago. Then the syndicate merged its interests in the Pioneer Expedition N.L., which has its headquarters in Sydney.
An engineer, Mr. A. J. Ault, of the Pioneer Company, has been at work in the Berande district for a considerable time, and he appears to have great confidence in the field. A good deal of developmental work has been done —a road for motor trucks has been constructed from Berande for some miles inland.
The absence of necessary mining laws has held up the operations of the Pioneer Company; but the recent gazettal of the new regulations paves the way for greater activity. It is understood that a good deal of machinery is already on the way, or ordered.
If the gold industry is to be established in the Solomons it should mean a good deal to this Cinderella among the Pacific territories. Hitherto the Solomons have been merely a copra-producing group— and, seemingly, a place where pessimistic planters sat and called down maledictions upon the heads of omnipotent officials who, they point out, never had their salaries reduced even during the depths of the depression. As a matter of fact, the depression wiped out a large number of independent planters, their plantations being surrendered to the big trading firms which had advanced money on them.
The establishment of a mining field at Berande would offer a unique opportunity to some enterprising person to provide a hotel at Tulagi. There has been no hotel there since the old hostelry was destroyed by fire a couple of years ago. Tulagi is 21 miles by sea from Berande. It is suggested in some quarters that the hotel should be built at Berande.