THE MINING INDUSTRY.

Otago Witness, Issue 1994, 12 May 1892, Page 14

THE MINING INDUSTRY.

By M.E., in the Melbourne Herald. No. I.

At the, present time, when most thinking men and women are trying to sheet home the universal distress to its original causes, in the hope of guarding against them in the future ? and thereby assisting to bring back prosperity to the Australasian colonies, it may not be out of place to make a few remarks relative to mining, that great" industry that has brought Victoria to the fore, ,an<l without which we would still be but a second-rate colony. Although mining has assisted to build up our greatness, not only by providing us with the " root of all evil," but also by attracting the attention of Europe to our natural products ami enticing men of the proper stamp to found colonies worthy of the country, jet mining has also been credited with being the partial cause of the present prevailing depression. We_aro told that it costs more than a pound to extract a sovereign's wortlr of gold from its natural deposits ; all men connected with mining are looked afc with cii&picion, us much as to say, ''Can an honest man be found m connection with mining ? " And we are occasionally reminded by that class of individuals who say the three degrees of a lawyer are ou, honour, honest that the positive, comparative, aud superlative of liar are the common or ordinary liar, the liar, ' and tho mining expert. Such-like slurs cast upon a noble enterprise, and those who make a study of Nature's laws for the purpose of developing our modern civilisation, do not tend to raise mining or those connected with it in the eyes of the people. It is true that adding together the sums expended on mining properties and the value of gold extracted from them, that the former exceeds the latter ; but this, as I shall point out later on, is hardly a fair way of looking at it, for much of this money is not speut on legitimate mining, but if. psiUl to vciuloi s, spent on buyiug and erecting unnecessary or useless machinery, in prosecuting utterly woifulcFS bo-called prospecting work, in }:i\v huits, itc, that good and careful management, or v little foresight, might have

avoided. Besides, there are many blocks of land taken up un-lcr gold leases that nature

never intended should be mines ; and others that may pay ul a future date under more

favourable condition?, but which it would be premature to attempt to work now, ?ilonej r expended in this w«y fchould not be put down to the debit of mining. That gold mints do and have paid it is hardiy necessary for me to point out, aud seme have paid dividends on v few pennyweights to the ton.

So many of the Australian public are interested directly or indirectly in mining that it tiiay be looked upon as a national industry^ and anything affecting it is reflected on the ootlntry. There are many abuses sheltering themselves under the word mining, and the object of the follofrihg lihfes Is to call attention to the cause, «Sfe&t of, and euro for some of these.

Miners are generally classed under these categories, viz., "market miners/ '(practical miners," and " theoretical miners." Market miners arc bol miners properly speaking. Many of Ibein do not know what constitutes a mine, und could not tell the difference between a piece of new chum gold and the genuine metal, between pyrites and platinum, or tourmaline and tinstone. But then how are they to be expected to do so — they have never learnt P Still, these wiseacres do not hesitate to recommend others what to put their money into, and when the speculation turns out a failure, excuse themselves by saying that they relied on the opinion of some self-dubbed expert, whom he knew nothing whatever about, and that of course he did not pretend to understand anything about such matters. Some people have a vague idea that because gold was picked up in the okleu days, without any techuical knowledge, that no skill is required to work poorer and more difficult deposits nowadays. We occasionally hear poetical allusions to the streets of liendigo being paved with gold, and now and again after a rainy day old men and children may be seen, pin and matchbox in hand,- searching for an odd speck- of the precious metal. All this helps to keep up the illusion that success in mining is pure luck, and those ignorant of the merest principles of ore deposits look upon mining as a lottery and a speculation, rather than a legitimate investment. Those labouring under this delusion do not. exercise ordinary business care in attending to their interests. Consequently the same thing happens that would take place in any enterprise left to itself, and that is, in 99 cases out of 100 the speculator ioses. He then informs his friends and neighbours that he has lost his money in mining, and ho goes to swell the crowd who have boon bitten, and who are suffering from the effects of their stupid haphazard speculation. False logic is^ sometimes brought to benr. Some unfortunate widow is persuaded to draw her capital from a safe investment, returning a small rate of interest, and to put it in some gold mine. She is told stories of wealth made in no time by owners of mines, but is not informed of thousands who have lost. It is not necessary to tell her that gold is a standard metal All they have to do, so the sharks say, is to dig the gold out, and to employ a simple metallurgical process ; but they don't tell her the relative proportions of the gold to the

matrix, the cost of mining and milling, about labour troubles, difficulties with water, &c. The good old soul swallows all she is told. She knows that King Solomon got gold from distant countries, and does not remember hearing that he was swindled, and so her visious of wealth increase in direct proportion to the distance. But, alas ! here we will draw the curtain. If people will not look after their own interests or take the trouble to investigate matters before putting their money into a venture, they must not be surprised if they are swindled, for by their carelessness they are offering a premium to rogues, aud this class of men will rush in wherever they see an opening. They do, in fact, what the ordinary market miner should do, but generally neglects, and that is btudy human nature. Rogues are not fools as a rule, they are clever scheming men, and lay their plans accordingly. They are well aware of the cupidity of mankind, so they start reports of fabulous finds that put genuine thiugs in the shade, and so accustomed are mining-men to hear exaggerated reports that they invariably knock off a heavy percentage from such accounts as a matter of course, and classify these statements with the fashionable "not at home." Then, again, the public follow their lender like a flock of sheep, and profiting by this the bulls and bears whisper here, and show a telegram there, in the furtherance of their individual interests, and quite regardless of the interests of the mine in question. The average man will not work more than he is obliged, and consequently those who put their money into minei have but a very vague idea as to how that money will be spent. A rogue who makes mining his basis of action picks up a little information, which, with the assistance of a glib tongue, he uses as his capital. His hearers, generally knowing less than himself, are unable to dispute his plausiblo arguments, and to them he poses as an expert. In time he really believes that he knows more thau he does, advises on vital points in connection with a mine, and then we have another illustration of a little knowledge working harm, in the form of shafts and adits put in the wrong place, unsuitable machinery erected, which eventually goes to augment the pile of old iron, &c.

Market miners go under various names. These arc vendors, brokers, jobbers, legal managers, directors and shareholders, none of which necessarily know anything about mines ; yet they write prospectuses, pointing out the advantages of their particular mines, in inauy cases mishandling figures, and going in for extensive word-painting. For a favour the public are allowed to subscribe towards a mine, but in return for thnt advantage they have to pay tiie vendors such a sum th:itlhe working of the mine is hampered for want of funds ; or, maybe, the vendors have such faith in the mine

that— seeing they cannot sqne'eSe any cash otit of the public— they are satisfied to take their interest in fully paid-up shares. The number claimed is generally sufficient to give them the advantage in voting power over the contributing shareholders, and they think nothing Of placing their fully paid-up shares, that cost them a mere trifle, on the market -at a reduced figure, so as to compete with the contributing shareholders. The advantages that the vendors get as a rule in consideration for the small risk they have been put to is something enormous. Some men, too, barter their name fora few shares ; they have nothing to lose except the name they value so lightly should things go wrong. They are used as decoys and are placed on the directorate. These professional guinea pigs cannot, and do not, have the mine's welfare BO^muoh at heart as those who have put their hard-carved money into it, and yet they are given control of matters. Is'it surprising if things go wrong sometimes ? Some persons who wish to float a mining company look out for a professional mine adviser to report on the property. This report is required to entice the public to put money into the venture, and should the report not turn out as the vendor wishes, another and another so-called expert is engaged, until one is found to fall in with his views. It does not matter a pin whether the individual is qualified to offer an opinion or not ; the report is furnished, and the mystic title "mining export" is subscribed after the writer's name. It has happened that vendors not wishing to risk a bad report say straight out to the expert that if the mine does not go off the item of his fee and expenses would be a dead loss, and therefore it is suggested that he goes for, say, half his usual fee, but that if it turned out right the full amount with a bonus and a share in the mine will be paid. If the expert replies that, on second thoughts, he would rather have nothing to do with the matter, he is informed that he has taken what was said in a ■wrong light, that the vendor meant it as a pUre gift — not as a bribe ; but it is a notable fact the expert never gets any more work from that client, although the client has the ad van ta go of knowing, when he sees a report signed by that expert that it can be relied upou. There are, however, other ways in which market miners pit their opinions tigainbt those of skilled men whom they employ. A man is selected, presumably after due inquiry into his qualifications, to act as manager of a mine ; most people might think that ho would be allowed to act Up to his name, but not a bit of it. The directors in town conclude that they know much more about mining than their mauager, and so dictate to him how it is to be worked. It 'is no use for the manager mildly suggesting that it would be better or cheaper

to do tbis, that, or the other thing. He is informed that he is the servant of the company, and if he is not prepared to do as he is told he had better give way to one who will. In many cases the manager cannot afford to stand upon his rights; he is married, and has a family which must be kept, even if at the expense of his self-respect. But this is not the only trouble the poor man has to put up with. The reports he sends to the town office appear in a mutilated form in the daily papers under the heading of Mining Notes, and his signature is found under information which he never gave nor meant to convey. Ho writi s to the legal manager complaining, and receives a reply to the effect that the report was too long to be published in extenso, so he was obliged to make abstracts — which, of course, only consisted of remarks calculated (o encourage the shareholders to pay their next call— or, peihaps, he is told that his composition was so bad that he (the legal maimger) had to put it into readable form ; or that the technical terms employed had to be uttered to make the i>ublic understand it. Again the manager writes down for stores, say, a certain kind of fuse: the directors think tbty know more about explosives than their manager, possibly they bad done seme rabbit shooting during the week, so send him down some coils of cheap stuff that cause the charges to miss lire more often than not. By taking the onus of choosing fuse upen themselves, they lose ever so much more than the extra price of the better class fuse, in time, money, and possibly life, wasted in trying to work with it. Sometimes the manager is told to pick out the eyes of the mine so as to get a good crushing and enable the directors to pay a dividend. This is done, and then the manager gets blamed, because he c;muot get the Fame yield during the following mouth from the poor -stone he is bound to work out. The figures provided by market miners arc oftentimes very misleading. It is not my intention to enter into statistics, but to give an idea of what I mean. The cost of stoping ore is given as the cost of mining. Now, stoping is the cheapest part of winning ore. Unfortunately there is much preliminary work to be dune before the ore can be got at to be stoped, and this is not all done on the lode ; there are shafts to be sunk, adits and levels to be driven, rises, winzes, and various other underground work to be done ; machinery must bo bought aud erected, trucking management, office expenses, and all these sundries have tobe paid for by the ore stoped, and each ton ot ore extracted has to bear its proportional part of the expense. If these calculations were properly entered into, we would not see the wonderful interests on capital that are sometimes shown on paper. Then, again, we see

that a certain mine pays go much percent. ; for the original shareholders this may be a splendid interest, but when some [scripholders consider, the percentage is greatly diminished when applied to the inflated price at which they bought in, and the matter wears another aspect. Anyone reading the above will see that the al'uses mentioned are not necessarily peculiar to mining ; bulling, bearing, cornering, rigging, spec selling," false reports, mismanagement by ' directors, &o-, might apply just as well to land, banking, and other companies as to mining ; and for people who gamble and lose, or who put their money into a mining property without the .careful inquiries they would make before investing in any other business, to blame the mining industry is simply absurd. There is still' another body that might be classed under the heading of market miners, and that is the Mines department. Those who draft our mining laws play a most important part in this great industry, and they should remember that minerals and their deposits are not governed by human laws. Surely, in the Australian colonies, where we have practically the same sort of men throughout the civilised part, the main laws " relating to mines might be tho same, and so servo as a step towards federation. As it is, a miner stepping from one colony to another, over some artificial boundary, finds himself face to face with another set of rules and regulations, which, .not knowing thoroughly, may cause him .to lose a valuable property. The prospecting vote is one that should instantly be done away with ; it is hurtful to a man's self-reliance, and encourages him- to be dependent on others instead of manfully fighting his own way. Let the Government open up new tracks by all means, and help tho mining population as a whole, but don't let it give assitance to individual persons or companies. 111-feeling is caused by those who don't get any, or as much as they expected ; and those who have secured a grant frequently find it is not necessary to work so hard as before. Occasionally ono hears of something being found with the help oE the prospecting vote, but such instances are few and far between. If the Mines department has a surplus to spare, let it hasten to complete the geological survey of the colony. That would be a public benefit. The department should also insist on having all the old workings of a mine mapped out, and deposited with them on the abandonment of a property for future reference. The value of such plans in the future cannot be over-estimated. For want of such plans lives have been lost in other countries by unexpectedly tapping old" workings containing bad air or water. In Victoria, cci captains, doctors, lawyers, euginedrivers, &c, have to hold certi-

ficates, but a- mine manager, who may have thousands of "pounds' worth of property and hundreds of lives under his charge, including the certificated enginedriver, is not obliged to hold any authorised qualification to prove his capability, an.d which can be taken from him for misconduct or incapability. A Royal Commission JJbas f,Bat upon this matter, various meetings of mine managers have been held in connection with it, but things have been allowed to remain as they were. At present any Tom, Dick, or 'Arry may accept a position .•is mine manager so long as ho has the necessary influence to get it tor him. A man may be a first ; class worker himself, and still be incapable of managing a mine. To do this several qualities aro necessary. Ifc docs not do to put a man in charge of a mine who has been a failure at everything cbo, if it is desired that tho mine shall be a success. Besides technical knowledge and an ordinary English education, a manager should be a man of firm character, who will insist on the work being carried out as he orders, and who commands the respect of the men. He should be imbued with common sense and originality, and be possessed of tact. Above all, he should be a good organiser, and a man who can be trusted. These qualities are not often combined in one man, and therefore it is not everybody who is suitable to superintend a mine ; but the least the Government could do would be to guarantee that candidates for mine managers had a certain amount of technical knowledge.

The Government subsidise certain technical schools, or, in other words, assists to train men in gaining a living by mining and ore treating, and then suggest now and again to compote with the. very men they have trained by erecting ore-trcatij)g works. To do such a thing as this would be unwarrantable interference with private enterprise, and while depriving others of work, would be a dead lo=s to the State. Men who would otherwise develope and improve processos would be driven out of the field, and in many cases out of the colony, finding no scope for their genius. It is competition on equal terms that eucourages men to bring skill and thought to bear on a subject ; but unfair competition of works backed up by the country is disheartening. If the Government charged the same as other works they would get most of the ore to treat. Even if they charged a little more than usual a large quantity of ore would still be diverted their way for the sake of a Government certificate ; and if they charged sufficient to handicap themselves the post of metallurgist to the Government would be a sinecure, and the expense of retaining a staff of trained men would be a waste of money. As it is, the Mines department undertakes to do free, assays.. So long as these are done for the genuine prospector, who

cannot afford to pay, there can be objection ; but when moneyed men utilise this channel, it is time for assayors to look to their interests, for their training is their capital. Tho Mines department should confine its energies to the necessary clerical work, and to such scientific investigations, e.y., tho geological survey of the colony, and the . study of nature's law 3 relating to mineral deposits, &c, that those who have to work for their living cannot afford to do. There are many classes of oro in Australia said to be refractory ; the term refractory is an arbitrary term. That which i 9 refeactory to one man is not necessarily so to one with greater skill. Give, a metallurgist sufficient money, and he will extract the metal out of any of its ore. But this is not the way to work commercially or economically. Socalled refractory ores are frequently sent homo to Europe, and people get the idea that in Europe they use superior methods to what we do in Australia. The facts of the matter are these : Processes that are used in Europe- are known by men out here, who have been brought up in European technical schools and works, and could be attended to as well here as at Home, but circumstances are different. European countries are more thickly populated than Australia, and are better opened up by railways, canals, and roads, so that ores can be easily and cheaply concentrated to one or more centres. Here they are blended in such away that ores which would be difficult to treat by themselves are made to flux one another, thus avoiding the expense of dead fluxes, which we generally have to incur here. Not being hampered for want of water, as at Broken Hill, or for want of fuel, as at Cobar, there is nothing to prevent the works keeping on from one year's end to another, and the expense of constant stoppages is avoided. Skilled labour is cheap and plentiful, and there is a market for bye products which are saved. In Australia there is but a limited market for the most common bye products, such as arsenic and sulphuric acid, arid, owing to the expense of saving them with dear labour, together with the freight Home, it is generally found " cheaper to let these substances go Jo waste, so they are allowed to escape into the atmosphero — a nuisance to neighbours, and a dead loss to tho country. This sort of thing cannot well bo remedied un« til there is a larger manufacturing population. In the meauwhile we must be contented to work the richer class of ores, and keep others for a future date when circumstances aro altered.