MALAYAN MINING

Southland Times, Issue 23181, 23 April 1937, Page 6

MALAYAN MINING

MR H. W. PARSONS’S EXPERIENCES CHINESE LABOUR USED Knowledge of the construction of mining dredges and metal mining took Mr H. W. Parsons from his home in Otago nearly 40 years ago to Australia ana then to the Malay States. Now, after several years in tne Malay States, he is in Invercargill—his first visit in 4J years—to see relatives before taking charge of a gold mine at Uunback in Otago. I Vvnen The Southland Times sought an interview with Mr Parsons yesterday he was found in the acetone and electric welding plant of his brotner, Mr Richard Parsons. The clanging ot hammers and the rattle of macnmery made an appropriate background to Mi Parsons’s reminiscences ot a long and varied engineering career. Ten years of boiler-making with the firm of Joseph Sparrow in Dunedin gave Mr Parsons his introduction to one branch of the career he was to follow. After this he went to Roxburgh to make up one and a-half miles of hydraulic pipes, and from there to the Old Man Range, where he spent 12 months gold mining. While gold mining, he received a telegram asking him to go to Cromwell and help in the construction of the Cromwell bridge. From Cromwell Mr Parsons went to Nevis to take charge of a hydraulic mine and from Nevis he went to a gold dredge in the Waikaka district. Called To Australia This provided plenty of experience and Mr Parsons had received some training when a cable came from Australia asking him to take charge of a gold dredge in the Araiuen Valley. Mr Parsons worked on that dredge for two years. Another company then went into liquidation, a new one was formed and he was appointed its manager. “We made several alterations in the dredges,” he said, “and worked themsuccessfully for 15 years, paying regular dividends. With the old company, the dredges had never paid dividends.” Then came a call to the Malay States. Mr Parsons was asked to go there and build a dredge He went, built the dredge, and was placed in charge of it. Several more offers to construct dredges came his way and he fulfilled them all, a task which took him all over the States At one stage he was appointed to take charge of two big tin dredges. Electrically driven, these dredges were capable of digging to a depth of 90 feet below water level, and produced 15 bucket loads to the minute.

Chinese Labour “Chinese labour was used in the construction of these dredges,” said Mr Parsons, ‘and I found the Chinese boiler makers and engineers very competent workmen. They have, however, one peculiarity. A Chinaman will work all day in a river or a waterhole without a whimper, but let a shower of rain begin and he will cry out: ‘lts going to rain Tuan (European boss) and I’m going to leave. No matter how important the work may be. you can’t keep him when it starts to rain. He has the idea that getting wet with rain—as distinct from getting wet while working in a river—brings on malaria. Maybe he’s right. I spent nine years in the Malay States and, during that time, I had two bad attacks of malaria. But for my own wisdom in leaving a hospital where I was not receiving proper attention, and the kindness of my employer in sending me to a doctor at Sumatra, I might not have recovered from one of those attacks. “Believers in daylight saving would be well satisfied in the Malay States,” said Mr Parsons. “There one gets twelve and a-half hours daylight for six months of the year and 12 hours for the other six months,” he said. “From June to December the rainy season sets in and rain falls every dayYou may wake to find bright sunshine in the morning, but presently you see a white cloud rise on the horizon. Then comes a crash of thunder, another crash follows and down comes the rain—just like the first swift rush of a shower bath.” , . Singapore and Malaya would have a very fair climate were it not for the close, muggy heat, he said. “Work is begun at 7 a.m., and from 11 o clock until 2 p.m. there is a siesta,” said Mr Parsons. “Work is then resumed for the remainder of the afternoon. Between 14,000 and 15,000 Chinese are employed in tin mining and I found them both efficient and industrious.” Mr Parsons has noticed great improvements in the main centres of the South Island, but he said that Wellington had not made the progress he expected it would since he left the Dominion. . Family reunions are engaging much of Mr Parsons’s attention—he has not seen some of his brothers and sisters for nearly 40 years—but he is also finding relaxation in Mr Richard Parsons’s engineering work shops. “I cant get out of the work habit,” he said.