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New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4268, 24 November 1874, Page 2

It is admitted that the establishment of a branch of the Royal Mint at Melbourne has had the effect of securing to the miner a sum varying from 9d. to Is. per ounce on the value of his gold, greater than it was possible for him to obtain before from the storekeepers or gold-buyers for the banking institutions. His gross gain, since tho Melbourne Mint commenced operations, has been some ,£115,000, or at the rate of £60,000 per annum, while the squatters have gained to the extent of some £20,000 per annum from the increased value which has been given to their drafts, from the inability of the banks to remit gold, as before, against exchanges. This last was an unexpected result of the local coinage of gold, but none the less welcome on that account. It appears, however, that in putting this extra amount of money in the pockets of the producers of gold and wool, a deficit has arisen of £IO,OOO in the expenses of working the Mint; and of an amount assumed to be as much, in an indirect manner, which is reckoned as accruing from loss of interest on the cost of tho buildings. and plant of the Mint, the increased cost of remitting to England the interest on the debt of Victoria, and of interest on the value of the land on which the buildings are erected. Those items may enter into such a calculation legitimately enough ; but it is carrying the matter considerably too far, we aredisposed to think, when it is gravely proposed by the Chamber of Commerce that tlie machinery of the Mint should bo reshipped to England, the employes discharged, and the building transformed into a gigantic safe for deeds, because tho building was constructed with a special care to its fire-proof character! The ground of this proposition is equally curious, and indicates rather a narrowcloth view of things, since it is nothing more nor less than that this £60,000 pier annum is given to the miners and woolgrowers by being taken from the pockets of the importers ; tho fact being that before the establishment of the Mint that amount was taken from those two classes to enable remittances to be made to England and elsewhere, and other financial transactions arranged, at less than legitimate rates. Tho miners and the squatters were rebbed to place in the pockets of the merchants and capitalists of Melbourne that £60,000 which now passes to those to whom it legitimately belongs. In place of destroying the Mint, the use of which is so great, the object should be to make it selfsupporting. That is to be best attained, argues Colonel Ward, the able Master of the Mint, by reducing the charges for mintage, and so attracting more gold for conversion into coin. But this could not be done, the sub-committee of the Chamber of Commerce argues, because the quantity of Imperial and Sydney sovereigns in circulation is so great that Melbourne coins are no longer needed. Yet the strange fact, is that though in two years and a quarter nearly 2,500,000 sovereigns have been issued from the Mint at Melbourne, and the coinage goes on at a rate exceeding a million per annum, George and the Dragon coins—and very pretty pieces of work they are—have not superseded the London or Sydney sovereign oven in Melbourne ; and that the exportation of sovereigns from Victoria to London, Calcutta, Hongkong, Shanghai, Rangoon, Manilla, Mauritius, &c., in exchange for goods or produce, has superseded to a large extent the use of bankers’ paper, and those bars of gold—melted from dust purchased from the diggers at leas than its real value—which were formerly so much in favor for export to India and the East. That the miners and wool-growers should still be robbed for the benefit of the importers, financial agents, and capitalists, is.a singular, argument-to come from a body which has persistently exposed the inequality of the existing system of taxation in Victoria, by Which the consumer and notably the miner—is plundered, under a system of protection to encourage native industries which cannot compete in production with the English or foreign manufacturer, who is represented in these questions by this very Chamber of Commerce. Tho fact that a slight derangement or change in the financial channels in which the merchants and financiers of Melbourne have hitherto worked has occurred through the operations of an establishment which has proved itself so useful to at least two great producing interests, is no argument whatever for the abolition of an institution which is an credit to Melbourne, a benefit to Victoria, and one of the best evidences she could offer to Principalities and Powers of her natural wealth, high commercial standing, and prospects for the future. A still more flimsy argument is found in the opinion hazarded by those “experienced “ financiers ” who appear to have been consulted by tho Chamber, and whose opinions are wonderfully unanimous, but not always as wondrously sound, when any question arises which can possibly affect the profits of the monetary institutions of Victoria. We are gravely told that the miners lose, in the withdrawal of the help of the banks to mining industries which is tho consequence of the operations of tho Mint, more than they gain by tho enhanced price of their gold. Wo are inclined to say, with a very old authority, “Pudge.” Speculators who traded on the credulity of those who felt disposed to invest nowand then in mines, and did so too often on the strength of bogus prospectuses, may have felt the want of that encouragement which it is said the profits of the banks on goldbuying enabled them to give ; but the true miner has suffered no such loss. Ho seldom found it easy to win an “advano- “ ing ” confidence in a bank parlor. Victoria is proud of, and will retain her Mint, wo havo'no doubt, even if its retention, should cost her double what it does. Wo should be glad to see New Zealand possess a, similar institution on tho same terms ; and the time will probably come when wo shall have to ask tho privilege of coining our own gold. The whole case of the Chamber of Commerce of Melbourne would be knocked on the head if it were borne in mind that tho Imperial Mint is not carried on at a profit. Since the English Mint became a national institution tho annual loss occasioned to Britain by its maintenance has been £OO,OOO. There have

been years in which it has not turned out a single gold coin, and yet the mint is maintained, gold being always bought there at the fixed rate, as it is in Melbourne and Sydney, of £3 17s. 9d. per ounce of standard gold, the sovereign being minted of precisely so much of that gold as is worth 20s. If another system existed in London, it would be easier to render the Victorian mint more profitable. As it is, Victoria’s loss is really her gain, in the splendid advertisement her resources receive from those shining bits of metal which bear the impress of St. George and the Dragon, and the believers in the value of her mini may very assuredly rest satisfied that the best purpose it serves is not to furnish refined gold to Melbourne-jewellers for making Racing Cups.