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N.B.-If mineral rights and surface rights are severed (often the case with MDC minerals) both steps (i) and (ii) will be necessary, Paunless freehold of the surface is subject to preservation of rights for mineral working or agreement can be reached with the surface owner; if no severance, the right to work could be secured by (ii). (d) Negotiations have to be opened with the Central Land Board to fix

a development charge.

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363. It is clear that as a consequence of the Act, both parties concerned in mineral development, that is the mineral owner and the prospective operator, have a reduced incentive to reach agreement as to the basis on which work could be started. Alternatively, where a prospective mineral operator is anxious to work minerals and wants to avoid the process of attempting to secure his rights compulsorily, he may even be tempted to enter into private arrangements with the mineral owner which must, in effect, add to the cost of the mineral undertaking.

364. Obviously it is premature to attempt to draw safe conclusions, but it does seem that the effect may well be virtually to stop exploration. It will certainly discourage it. Prospective mineral operators would be deterred from initiating action for compulsory acquisition or the grant of working rights against an unwilling mineral owner when the first objective was to explore and not to work. Previously, the risk was worth taking when it was comparatively easy to get prospecting licences from willing owners, often on favourable terms for the first two or three years. Section 103 (9) of the Act gives power to "search and bore for the purpose of ascertaining the nature of the subsoil or the presence of minerals therein". While this may help in the case of some surface mineral deposits, it does not seem to be designed to cater for exploration which for most MDC minerals involves extensive and prolonged mining operations as well as boring.

Nationalisation of Mineral Rights.

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365. There are strong technical arguments in favour of nationalising the MDC mineral rights and dealing with them by way of new administrative powers which will act more directly to ensure adequate exploration, develop- ment and efficient working. The Town and Country Planning Act does not aim at removing the present complexities of mineral ownership and tenure which must be simplified if development is to be encouraged on a sound technical basis. On the contrary, as we have already indicated, it introduces both financial and other complications which may tend to restrict develop- ment and production.

366. At the present time mineral ownership is defined by long-established surface boundaries which have no relation except by accident to the shape and distribution of the mineral deposits underneath. The way in which some deposits can be worked, therefore, is determined by an artificial surface line and not by the shape and conditions of occurrence of the mineral. A mineral deposit, or an area containing several mineral deposits, which ought on technical grounds to be worked as a unit is often split up between several mineral owners. There are innumerable examples covering many different minerals throughout the country where a number of small mines have been opened on a deposit or on a group of deposits where one under- taking would have been more economic and would undoubtedly have sur- vived longer than any one of the smaller mines. It is not unreasonable to suppose that had mineral rights been unified a century ago, when metalfagasl onog662this country was approaching Cifs dheyday, and had larger leases then been granted, certain areas of the country where mining is extinct, or practically extinct today, would have been still operating.

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The premature closing of small mines which have not had the resources to carry exploration further than a certain limited distance from their shafts, either lateraly or in depth, has almost certainly meant anal new deposits of minerals have remained undiscovered which it will be far more costly to search for today.

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n367. In our account of mineral resources, we have indicated that in certain mineral areas of the country the installation of central treatment plants should be considered which might serve several small mines within reasonable access which could not support a plant of their own.

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368. The treatment of large areas as units for exploratory purposes has already been mentioned as a necessity in future on technical grounds if new resources of certain minerals are to be discovered. There is no doubt that at the present time one of the difficulties in encouraging private firms to embark on schemes of this kind is that negotiations with several different mineral' owners are often involved, and that complex legal questions arise which are not necessarily resolved by co-operative and collective action on the part of mineral owners, however willing, and negotiations are inevitably tedious and costly. On the whole we believe that up to the time of the passing of the Town and Country Planning Acts, a large majority of mineral owners would have been anxious to co-operate, and difficuties due to those few who might have proved to be recalcitrant could have been overcome by applying to the High Court under the Mines (Working Facilities) Acts.An alternative method is now available through the machinery of compulsory acquisition of land under the Town and Country Planning Acts, 1947, and the scope of the Mines (Working Facilities) Acts has been extended. The real point to be made, however, is that even assuming full co-operation by mineral owners and the use, where necessary, of such compulsory powers that exist, the complexity of the procedure involved, its cost, and the delay to which it must inevitably give rise, are substantial deterrents to the prospective mineral operator, and mineral prospecting will have little attraction in future unless something more simple can be substituted. GO

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369. Mention might be made in this connection of the results which followed the Petroleum (Production) Act, 1934, when the State acquired ownership of the rights in petroleum in the United Kingdom. The Act empowered the Minister to grant prospecting licences and to fix the con- ditions as to the size and shape of the areas in respect of which licences could be granted, and large-scale exploratory schemes based on the modern scientific investigation of large areas were immediately started which, it is safe to assume, would not otherwise have been considered.

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370. Perhaps the most illustrative example of a problem arising from the present system of mineral ownership is provided by the china clay industry in the St. Austell district of Cornwall. Reference was made in the recently published Report of the Board of Trade Working Party on china clay* to the need for the unification of mineral rights in that area. Two main reasons are given with which we are in full agreement. The first is that owing to the limited size of existing mineral leases and the large superficial area occupied by a china-clay pit, there is often insufficient room within the boundary of the lease on which to deposit waste material without using ground under which china clay may have to be worked at some future date. Secondly, the Report points to the need for integration of undertakings as a matter of long-term policy in order that larger productive units can be established which will ensure that the remaining deposits of china clay can be worked more efficiently and to a greater depth.

* Board of Trade Working Party Reports China Clay. Office, Londage-1906 fi62 6d.

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Published by H.M. Stationery