It’s up to us to convince the Greens that we’re not for large scale mining.
Fossicking areas will be easy. Miners right would likley be vehemently opposed.
Therefore we must focus on one battle at a time.
The criminals turn to knives, as they have done in the UK, then acid attacks when knife crimes carry harsher sentences.
I’m all for each firearm having to be registered and a sale requiring processing at a police station.
I know of somone with a large cache of weapons, the police confiscated them, however he was able to hide half of them with his mate. That is not a good situation.
BEFORE ANYONE LOOKS for gold he must have a certificate called
a Miner’s Right. This now costs five shillings and lasts for one
year. It gives the right to mine for gold anywhere without having
to apply to the Warden’s Court. This Court deals with all mining
questions, and there is one in each of the Mining Districts.
The certificate permits the holder to peg out a claim over an
area up to 10,000 square feet. For a greater area a licence is
needed, when the claim may be increased to 300 acres. The first
miners, or diggers, as they were called, did not need Miner’s
Rights. There were no special laws for goldfields then, and some
diggers robbed others of their claims. This was called claim-
jumping. A Miner’s Code, the first in New Zealand, and later made
law in all parts of the country, was drawn up by the miners at
Collingwood in 1857, Under this Code, if diggers placed pegs at
the four corners of their claims, other diggers could not work there
without breaking the law. Ever since then, prospectors have had
to drive pegs into their claims. If the ground is too hard for pegs,
heaps of stones must be used.
