The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 23
Return of Receipts, Expenditure, and Collateral Advantages derived by the working of Water-races constructed and maintained by Government during the Year ending the 31st March, 1885
Return of Receipts, Expenditure, and Collateral Advantages derived by the working of Water-races constructed and maintained by Government during the Year ending the 31st March, 1885.
page 49In the Inangahua the calls made by mining companies amounted to £29,333 6s. 8d., and the dividends to £34,100. The quantity of quartz crushed was 34,349 tons, yielding 23,997oz. of gold, valued at £93,842 7s. 1d. The difference in the figures as to dividends is in the Wardens' and Secretary for Goldfields' reports. These figures, it is supposed, will be sufficient to show the nature of the gold-mining industry as a revenue-and population-supporting one; but for more detailed returns recourse must be had to statistical tables. It will be noticed that the number of Chinese engaged in gold-mining amounts to one-fourth the number of Europeans; and this is a very serious matter, which sooner or later will breed trouble, as ground which was formerly contemptuously left for "a Chinaman to work" is now covetously longed for by the European. Small as the average wages of the gold-miner appear to be, the life has many charms to a working-man; and bare wages earned in one's own claim is infinitely preferable to those earned for an employer.
On the 1st September, 1885, a new code of regulations for apportionment of rewards for the discovery of new goldfields was recommended by the Goldfields and Mines Committee to the House of Representatives, the chief feature of which is; that for the discovery of a new goldfield three miles from any workings there shall be paid, at the expiration of six months from the date of discovery, a reward of £100 per one hundred miners, up to £500 for five hundred or more miners so employed; and for the recovery of a lead in proximity to the place where a lead has been lost, and has not been worked for a period of six months, a reward equal to one-Half of the above rates; and for the discovery of a payable diamond-field, lode of silver, or lode of tin, for every one hundred miners profitably employed thereon at the expiration of six months from the date of discovery, there shall be paid a reward of £100, up to £500 for five hundred or more miners so employed.