NEW ZEALAND MINING ENGINEER.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20289, 23 December 1927, Page 10

NEW ZEALAND MINING ENGINEER.

ms WORK IN THE EAST. (From Our Own. Correspondent.) LONDON, November 19. For the last 15 years Mr G. Aubrey Gow (mining tngineer and an associate of the Otago School of Mines, Dunedin) was engaged in metallurgical work in gold mills, Sumatra, Dutch East Indies. Part of that time was spent as mill superintendent of the Radjang Lebong mine', which, as one of the leading gold mines of the world, played a part in gold-silver min ing in Sumatra as important as that of the Waihi mines in relation to the mining industry of New Zealand. Leavng Sumatra earlv in 1926, Mr Gow spent six months as mill superintendent at the Taio gold mine, Kilpushu, the leading gold producer of Japan. A feature of this property was the number (about 6) of Japanese women employed, both in underground ns well as in surface and milling operations. They were mostly of the peasant class, and. it would probably be impossible, remarked Mr Gow, to find workers more able, obedient, and cheerful than they. Their pay ranged from lid to Is 6d per day of nine hours, the corres ponding men’s wages being about double this. They were equally at home, whether using a sewing machine or a shovel, while the carrying of heavy loads, one of their chief duties, was invariably undertaken with a happy nonchalance that dispelled all sense of hardship. Towards the end of 1926, in view of much improved returns from the mine, a Japanese company secured control, retiring the staff of five Europeans and replacing them with Japanese. After spending the next nine months in important metallurgical investigations at a gold mine in north-west Korea, Mr Gow left' for Canada and attended the second (triennial) Mining and metallurgical Congress, involving a five weeks’ tour of the Dominion from east to west, during which the chief mines and points of interest were visited. It is notable that Canada is one of the few countries of the world whose gold production is steadily increasing. “As regards scenery,” remarks Mr Gow, ‘‘ New Zealand has nothing comparable with that of the valleys and canyons of the Columbia. Fraser, and Thomson rivers in British Columbia, but it is possible that mountain lovers wll consider the Mount Cook group superior to the best of the Canadian Rockies round Mount Robson, while Milford Sound and its peaks possess attractions that the big Dominion cannot rival.” After visiting New York ho crossed the Atlantic aboard one of the American Merchant Line’s boats, and he is now seeking a new professional en gagement. Mr Gow first visited London, 20 years ago, when the motor omnibus was challenging the supremacy of the hnrso-dra wn omnibus.