WESTLAND

Lyttelton Times, Volume LI, Issue 5610, 17 February 1879, Page 7

WESTLAND

[fkom ora own cohuesbonxcent,] Feb. 9. Any practical miners among your readers will doubtless have easily detected after the perusal of my last letter, that not only am 1 not a practical miner, but. that I know very little about gold mining. Perhaps Jor this’ very reason they may flunk my description of the Lake Mamnapua rush the moratrustworthy. In truth, until a few months ago I was never on a goldfield, though living for several years in the Australasian.Qolohiea. Perhaps, also, this comparative freshness to the subject may be the reason why the immense waste of power involved in goldmining as at present carried on strikes me as so lamentable. No one can associate much with gold-miners in these Colonies without being impressed with the fact that they are men far above the average in every respect. Physically, it is needless to say that goldmining is the hardest work a man can do—it is work which tires the powers of even a healthy man to the very uttermost, and which, by a rough process of elimination, very quickly weeds out all the weakly or fieklv men who try it. So it is a matter of common observation that diggers who have to follow the occupation long enough to have adopted it as a permanent mode or living, are nearly all tall, fine-built, and very strong, tough men. Intellectually, they are men of mow than average men tal ability, whose mental Eowers have been sharpened and quickened y the nature of their employment, and by; association with other men of all ranks in society, all degrees of education and culture, and belonging to every nation under Heaven. Fertile in resource, ingenious in their plans and appliances, undismayed by difficulties and dangers that would appal and paralyse an ordinary mind, .capable of enduring immense fatigue and hardships in their pursuit of gold, and endowed with a dogged perseverance and a patient industry which no obstacles can conquer if they have once resolved on their course of procedure; they form pre-eminently a class of men who can only he compared with the veterans of Wellington’s Peninsular army, of whom he said—- “ They can go anywhere, and do anything.” If to this one adds moral qualities of »' very high order, a code of honour which enables them literally to trust each other with untold gold, generosity and kindness to “ mates ” and comrades which is almost unbounded, and certainly errs rather on the side of excess than of deficiency, a courtesy of demeanour to all women, unsurpassed for genuine gentlemanliness, and an equal courtesy to aU men who will treat them as equals, with a proud spirit of independence, and that calmness of demeanour under either fortune, which was looked upon by the ancient Greeks and Romans as the highest of all forms of courage —these qualities, if they had none others, would suffice to render them conspicuous in this selfish and mean-spirited generation. Of course, they have their faults, but they are not mean faults; though they seek for gold they are neither sordid nor avaricious nor grasping; what they get they spend freely—too freely, unfortunately, and rely too much on the chances of an occupation which, as one of them said to me only yesterday, is “ nothing hut gambling.” As regards its results, it may indeed he truly described as “ nothing but gambling,” but the gambling is preceded by such an amount of genuihe, honest, hard work that the means justify to soma extent the end. The evil of it lies in this, that no experience, no practical knowledge, seemed to have sufficed to deduce such laws as would show with any approach to certainty where the gold lies in payable quantities, and at payable depths. So men go on, old in years and experience, wasting their time and labour, and their little accumulated capital, if they have any, only to find at the close of months of labour, that they have not paid for “ tucker.” But does not the history of our goldfields show us that we have here the solution of one of the gravest problems of these modern days —namely, how to reconcile the relations between capital and labour ? We read in our paper of strikes and lock-outs, of war—for it is nothing less—between the employers and the employed; of the bitterest feelings of hatred engendered between men who are fellow-countrymen, and yet who are only restrained by physical force from flying at each other’s throats, and who, if they were not Englishmen, would be making revolutions, as they do in South America or France. Politicians ask almost in despair, how much longer this state of things can continue; the tension is almost greater than can be home; the capitalist is often ruined, and the employed are brought to misery, by strikes and lock-outs which are ended only by patching up a hollow truce between the combatants, during which they renew their strength for another fight at the first opportunity. Meanwhile, useful industries are paralysed. In these Colonies, where Nature aided by the ingenuity of civilised man, can {nroduce us every necessary, nay even every uxury of life, we are compelled to import at a vast cost to ourselves every tool we use, and even the bread we eat. Every metallic ore we require can be found in New Zealand, and not one is worked to a profit as yet. Coal abounds on this coast, as good for aU purposes as any that can be found, and we send to New South Wales for our coal There is no difficulty in reaching it; no deep shafts have to be sunk, no expensive methods of pumping or ventilation are required : there it lies on the tops of the hills, and it can be sent down straight to the port of embarkation. You have coal on the other side, I believe. Years ago I remember in a railway carriage between Lyttelton and Christchurch seeing an enthusiastic gentleman produce from Ms pocket some lumps of beautiful coal which he had brought, I think, from the Malvern Hills. This must be some six years ago, but I have .never heard that there has been any considerable diminution of the import from Newcastle, caused by the produce of the Malvern Hills, or the Grey and Boiler coal mines. Now would it not be possible to divert some at least of the industry and skill at present unprofitahly employed in hunting for gold, which costs more than it sells for, to getting . coal and copper and iron in our own Colony, instead of sending to Europe or Australia for them. Suppose that instead of men of large capital getting a lease of a coalfield and working it by hired labour, thereby engendering the inevitable conflict between labour and capital which is sure to occur, the capitalists were to say to the miners—“ Peg out your claims in a coalfield in much the same way that you do on a goldfield, and we will buy your coal at the pit mouth at so much per ton.” Let the capitalists make the tramways or in other manner provide for the > conveyance of the coal to its market, and let the miners manage the coalmines, as they do their claims, taking the loss as the gain on their own shoulders. I believe 5s a ton paid at the mine for screened coal would pay the working miner splendidly, and the capitalist would then have no risk or loss in connection with the mine. At Newcastle the lessee of the mine has to pay 5s a ton, for bearing all the costa of pumping, sinking ventilating shafts, engineers’ and labourers* wages above ground, the cost of haulage to the port, managers’ and clerks’ salaries, repairs to steam engines, and a host of other expenses, and he gets 14s a ton delivered on board. The attraction of gold-mining to a miner now-a-daya does not he in the hope of making a fortunethose days are past and gone, but in the hope of making something more than ordinary wages, and being at the same time his own master. The miners are not deterred by the fear of ill-luck; the very alternations of fortune have their charm for these men, and give an excitement and

intereat to their toil, which is wanting when they wort for - wages paid by- an employer, Some capital would no doubt be required for working coal mines, even where the .coal crops up on the surface, but not more than is required for even alluvial goldmining as it is carried on upon this Coast. The other day I visited part of a water race, five miles long, which aas cost about ten thousand pounds, and has been constructed by twelve men, all, excepting two, working miners, who have paid their own wages and the cost of the race out of the proceeds of the claim. For six years these men have gone patiently on, persevering in spite of every obstacle'and misfortune. They have at length paid off all the Bank had advanced to thorn, both interest and principal, and their next washing up will give them their first dividend.

Now, why cannot the same energy, enterprise, and perseverance, displayed by tbese men and thousands of others, be directed into more profitable channels ? Large 'fortunes have been, and may yet be made out of coal and copper. In many parts of this Colony rich copper ores exist, which might be worked to advantage, if, instead of- starting companies - with ■ large capital, whose employees_ have none of them any interest in economising the. company’s funds, miners were encouraged to take up comparatively Small portions of ground and work them on their own account.

The process of emigration from the West Coast still continues.' The cry here is not “They come, they come!” but “They go, they go!” Your contemporary, the West ■ Coast Times, had a lugubrious article the other day on the subject. To my mind it appears one of the best things that can happen to the Coast, that so many storekeepers and publicans are leavitfg it; There are far too many bouches inutiles, as the French coll them, here yet. Too many people who are consumers and not, either directly or indirectly, producers. The yield of gold is still decreasing. In 1877 the gold exported from Hokitika, Greymouth, and Westport amounted to 152,600 ozs; last year it only reached 143,01$ ozs, the decrease in value being more than £38,000. Yet even this yield of gold, divided by the population at last census, gives a sum of £36 7s for each individual resident on the West Coast. This is not so bad after all, and shows that though there may he much commercial depression we are far enough from wanting food or clothing. But the public bodies are for the most part in a woeful condition of insolvency. The banks will not give them credit, and they are adopting the policy of retrenchment in a ruthless manner. A man who has nothing to look for but his salary from any public body in Westland, has a very bad look out. Paid irregularly, he is always liable to dismissal when a fit of economy seizes the Board. The other day, one of our County Councils passed a resolution dismissing the Clerk of the Board, and the members seemed to think that the Chairman was to do all the clerical work himself. We want a little English stability and firmness of purpose on this side the ranges. Our population, and notably our Councils and Boards, contain too many foreigners and Irishmen, and too few Englishmen. The consequence is that local self-government, which no people in the word carry on so well as the English, with whom it has been an institution through all their national history, is placed in the hands of men who have not been bom arid brought up to the use of it, but who belong to nationalities which are accustomed to look to the central Government in every emergency, and are wanting in that element of self-dependence which is so remarkable in purely English communities. The whining for Government to help is in this] part of the world perfectly sickening. It is a pity the old fable of Hercules and the waggoner is not better known here, and that people do not learn to Eut their own shoulders to the wheel, and elp themselves, instead of pestering “ Government " with telegrams and letters. If a generation born on the West Coast grows up to manhood, they will expect “ Government ” to find pap for their babies, and put it into their mouths.