Manganese 'Rush'
p. 25 · Read in the full issue
In Jubilee
Year
N. Hebrides Has Manganese 'Rush'
rpHE prospect of manganese mining, which has been successfully carried out in Fiji for a number of years, is currently exciting interest in the New Hebrides where a private
Anglo-French syndicate is finding
some opposition to its aspirations in the claims of a large mining company.
Precise details are sketchy but it appears that the syndicate of local residents (Syndicate Minier Jubilee) has found interesting deposits of manganese on Efate. The Societe des Phosphates de I’Oceanie, which works the phosphate on Makatea, has certain mining rights in the New Hebrides, however, and it is believed that the interests of the syndicate and the company may clash.
It is understood that the man ganese is on native land and that the natives support the claim of the syndicate.
Why the phosphate company should have rights in the Hebrides is not clear —except that much of the formation is upthrust coral and it may have been considered that phosphate was likely to be present.
Probably the company’s “rights” go back some distance into history.
New mining regulations are expec ted to be issued soon by the Con dominium government.
The helicopter of the New Caledonia Nickel Company has been shipped to Vila to be used in aerial prospecting for manganese.
Whether or not this company re presents a third interested party, or whether they are operating for the phosphate company, is not clear. , A mining industry would be of considerable benefit to the New Hebrides, whether it concerned manganese, phosphate or any other mineral.