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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 23

Gold

Gold.

There are two great causes tending to make the gold product of New Zealand a peculiarity in itself, and to distinguish it from all other products. The first is that, in the early history of all goldfields—at all events, all goldfields in these colonies—individuals are able to profitably engage in it, and that the cream of the field is gathered by men working almost alone, and with the rudest appliances, having no hope or desire to remain permanently in the country or occupation; and who seek to gather as much as possible in order to convey it to other lands. The second great cause is, that the spirit of speculation is more easily excited in this than in any other occupation; and the market price of scrip and the chances of selling at a profit are the objects of attention, rather than the actual returns from the mines themselves. The first relates almost exclusively to alluvial mining, the second to quartz mining.

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What has gold-mining done for New Zealand? It has ruined .thousands of people, and wasted thousands of lives in profitless toil; it has promoted a spirit of restlessness and haste to get rich—so say many. Put the evil it has done first, and then the good. It has brought to our shores the flower of the working population of Australasia and California, if not of the whole world; it has produced a wealth of currency, which has assisted our producers of kind to obtain a better market; it has peopled waste and desolate coasts, which, but for the gold, would have been judged to have been totally uninhabitable, but which will probably be the richest parts of the colony long after the gold has been practically exhausted. From Okarito to Karamea, on the west coast of the Middle Island, there is a bleak, inhospitable coast, without a decent harbour, with hardly a hundred acres in a block of cultivatable land—a tract of country which was almost untrodden by white men twenty years ago, and which, but for the amazing richness of its gold deposits, would be still a terra incognita. There are thirty thousand people settled there now—less, it is true, than formerly, but a people who are now again increasing in numbers and importance—harbours have been made and are being made, coal is being worked out of these harbours, other minerals are being discovered; and, aided by the impetus acquired by gold, the whole district is acquiring an importance second to none in the colony. True it is that coal is taking the foremost place now, which gold formerly occupied; but the coal would not have been developed in this generation but for the population brought by gold. Yet there are towns in New Zealand in which people speak deprecatingly of goldfields, who declare, with the innocence of ignorance, that the colony would be better without them, who lament over the supposed wickedness and disorder which reign there, and who have never heard of "boiling down" being a godsend to sheepowners, because "boiling down" has not had to be resorted to while a goldfield was within driving or carrying distance. Otago can show the same results, and Auckland is now opening up country which would possess no attractiveness were it not for the gold.

Reference has been made to the rude appliances with which the gold-miner works at first, and to his simple mode of extracting the precious metal. The different kinds of mining may be page 45 classified in an order showing pretty well how they succeed each other in the history of each goldfield: 1. Simple stripping and washing with a cradle or small sluice-box, either on alluvial or beach. 2. Ground-sluicing with extended tail-race and water-power. 3. Cement-crushing with pulverizing mill and amalgamating tables and appliances. 4. Deep alluvial workings, employing heavy outlay for pumping gear and raising. 5. River claims. Next quartz-mining, with its expensive crushing batteries, saving and amalgamating appliances, its innumerable inventions for dividing the gold from dross and grosser metals, its high-raised hopes, and its frequent failures. It must be on a virgin field that much success can be realized by the "hatter"—the cream is soon skimmed, and the residue must be systematically worked, without waste, to insure a profit. The best-off "hatters" now are the "fly-catchers," who place as many tables or boxes as they can get registered sites for in the bed of a stream into which the tailings of miners working above have been poured, and these tailings are washed over and over again on the tables of the "fly-catchers," each washing or passing over the tables leaving some small quantity of gold in the process, and demonstrating how futile have been the attempts on the part of the previous workers to extract all the gold from them. Ground-sluicing is still carried on extensively, and will continue for many years, because only a certain quantity can be worked each year, according to the supply of water; and those who own the water command the ground: it lies idle until the man with the water-supply is ready for it.

But great work has been done by the large races constructed by Government, and by private enterprise; and ground that otherwise could not have been tested for years is being profitably worked. To the alluvial miner the best practical aid that can be given is in the form of water and roads; if he has these given him in return for the gold duty, it is not an unjust tax; but, unless it is expended on the particular industry it is raised from, it is as unjust as if sheep-farmers had a poll-tax levied on them, and no others were so inflicted. With the quartz-mining branch roads are the chief aid that can be given. So tardy, sometimes, has been the recognition of the value of a field that ten times the cost of a good road has been spent in packing on horses and parbuckling up river-beds before a chain of dray-road has been constructed; but next to this practical aid, which page 46 has been so much ignored, is the regular instruction in scientific modes of extracting gold from quartz, sand, tailings, and blanketings. Practically, the method is as rough as it was a score of years or more ago. In his recent tour Professor Black did some good work in establishing schools of mines; but it has not been followed up, and requires vigorous development, and the professors themselves want practical experience to aid their theoretical knowledge.

The monetary value of the gold exported annually is startling, though it does not come up to that of wool. In 1884 246,392oz., worth £988,953 were exported. The highest yield in any one year was in 1866, just after the Hokitika rush, when gold worth £2,844,517 was exported. What this money has done for the colony can be better imagined than described; but up to March, 1885, gold worth £41,634,507 has been sent out of New Zealand. No doubt a very high percentage of the advantage such a production might have done the colony has been lost; but still, an enormous benefit has remained: as much, probably, in the stimulus and credit it has given as in the direct form of capital stored in the colony.

It is impossible to give a practical treatise on gold-mining or on any other industry, but the practical suggestion is contained in the recommendation—roads and water for miners, and instruction and invention in order to prevent loss of gold and waste of labour; rewards for the discovery of new goldfields are now offered; and bonuses for really valuable gold-saving inventions would be of practical value, as the quantity of gold lost by the present imperfect process often represents the difference between success and failure; a thorough revision of the mining laws, which, combined with official lethargy, constantly impede the miner, harass the mining prospector, and involve all in occasional but expensive law-suits; a regular code of mining laws framed on established decisions would be a godsend. As it is, no one knows the view a Warden will take; and, when they have found out the Warden's idea of the law, the District Court too frequently finds the exact contrary, or that some different mode of proceeding should have been instituted. There need be no hurry to exhaust the goldfields: they are not limitless, and will not replenish when once depleted; but the anxiety should be to avoid useless labour and provide against loss of gold. What the people can do to legitimately aid page 47 developing gold-mining is to abstain from wild speculation, to look for their returns from the mine itself and not from market "spurts"; to refuse steadily to take up outside "shows"; to remember that none of the famous mines were ever worth the highest price their shares have reached, that only a small percentage of money invested has been spent on the mine itself, that with ordinary prudence gold-mining will pay, and that losses need be comparatively small; but that, with an army of scrip-dealers with "quartz on the brain," and revelling in a short "burst" of paper prosperity, the soberest may be misled; that small South Sea bubbles are raised over every mine that has a hundred tons of quartz to crush; and, lastly, that it is the business of speculators to blow these bubbles, and the business of intelligent persons to avoid being led away by the beauty of the prismatic vision.

For the last year the statistics show that there were 12,120 men employed in the colony as miners, at an average wage per man of £76 10s. 5d., reckoned on the gold produced for the same period. Of this number there were 3,443 Chinamen. This appears a very low rate, but it must be remembered that the gold-miners' earnings include cost of machinery, tools, and water for sluicing, and are accordingly considerably reduced. In Great Britain the average earnings of artisans, reckoned in the same way, is only £41 14s. During the year ending the 31st March, 1885, £34,797 was authorized by Government to be spent on works to develop the goldfields. This, with the authorities for expenditure of the two previous years, gives a total of £127,549, of which two-thirds are for roads and tracks, and one-third for water-supply, prospecting, and sludge and drainage channels. The estimated value of the plant employed in alluvial and quartz mining was £452,465.

The gold duty for 1884 is shown as under: Auckland, £3,608 15s. 3d.; Wellington, £10 1s. 7d.; Nelson, £4,254 14s. 6d.; Marlborough, £107 19s. 5d.; Canterbury, £2 8s. 2d.; Westland, £7,036 0s. 10d.; Otago, £7,880 6s. 6d.: total, £22,900 6s. 3d.

The dividends paid in 1884-85 by five mines in the Thames District was £16,882 10s.; Coromandel, one mine, £450; and Te Aroha, two mines, £3,500. In Reefton £35,000 was paid in dividends from five mines. In the Invincible Mine, Rees Valley, Otago, £2,915 was paid in dividends.