The Premier Mine , which is situated four miles from the township of Macetown in a very wild and rugged part of the range, is at present owned by the Premier Sunrise Gold Mining Company, Limited, with a capital of £5,000. The mine is now being worked by means of a low level adit, and incline of 1 in 4. The hauling is effected by means of an electric hauling machine placed at the top of the incline, the power for generation being obtained from the counter-shaft page 1036 in the 20-stamp battery. The mine has natural ventilation, assisted by a water blast placed at the entrance of the low level adit, and at times this is supplemented by a fan worked from the electric motor in the mine. The air course is from the surface, by way of the low level adit incline, up the lower passes, and back on top of the old workings, and thence by a rise into the high level, and out to the surface. The lengths of the main working tunnels are as follows: Low level adit, 1,600 feet to top of incline, and 1,668 feet on to the incline face, making a total of 3,268 feet from the surface. The airway has a total length of about 6,600 feet. The ore being mined still yields a small profit above working expenses. Mr William Patton is manager and attorney for the company, which employs twenty-eight men and boys.

Mr. Walter J. Stanford , B.A., B.E., formerly General Manager, Superintendent, and Attorney in charge of the Premier mine, was born at Monkstown, County Dublin, Ireland, in 1864. He is the third son of Mr. I. W. Stanford, C.E., and was educated at Uppingham School, Rutland, England, afterwards entering Trinity College, Dublin, where he took his degrees of B.A. and B.E. in 1886. Mr. Stanford was employed by his father on the Rathmines waterworks, near Dublin, and subsequently by the Irish Government on the surveys for improving the drainage of the Barrow and Shannon rivers. He studied assaying in London and qualified as a practical assayer. In 1890, he was appointed Assistant Manager and Assayer to the Silate River Gold Mining Company in the Transvaal, where he remained until November, 1892; and was appointed general manager of the Premier mine at Macetown in 1893. He is an Associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and of the Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, London, and is member of the New Zealand Institute of Mining Engineers. He took an active interest in the Arrow Hospital, of which he was chairman, and was also president of the Arrow Cricket Club. Mr. Stanford was married in 1805 to Ruby, daughter of the late Mr. Charles Belaney, of County Westmeath, Ireland, and has one daughter. He is now (1905) in Rhodesia, in the employment of an exploration company, and left Macetown in 1899.