The Ownership and Valuation of Mineral Property. By Sir R.
A. S. Redmayne and Gilbert Stone. (Longmans. 12s. 6d. net.)—This is a technical treatise on the interests connected with mines and minerals, and the valuation, rating and taxation of mineral property. The chapters on rents and royalties give a commendably lucid account of that complex subject. In view of the clamour against royalties, readers will note with surprise the smallness of these charges, which vary from threepence to tenpence a ton and average less than sixpence. The authors estimate the annual sum paid in royalties, less mineral rights duty, as £5,584,219, and the present capital value of royalties, apart from wayleaves, as £70,000,000. They quote two other valuations by experts who estimate the lessors' interests at £80,000,000 or £90,000,000. The authors point out that the royalty rents constitute a differential advantage in favour of the inferior collieries to the extent of sevenpence a ton, or a little more, which just enables them to be worked without loss. If royalties were abolished, at the cost of the State, these poorer mines would ultimately be closed.
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