The Unemployed and the Tribute System.

Thames Advertiser, Volume XXIX, Issue 9084, 6 July 1898, Page 4

The Unemployed and the Tribute System.

(To the Editor.) i Bir,~l read to-day •with much interest the letters of J. W. Walker and " Old Specimen " in your, issue of the 22nd June. They aro both evidently against the sliding scale, which I contend is the only fair syslom on which to let tributes, and I will take ," Old Specimen " first, as he is more explicitj than, J. W. W., He says: " What; we want, and what we will have, is that the companies man their ground |Or lot it on tribute at 10 per cent." Jin my letter published in your issue of the 18th inst.,' I was not as explicit 'as I was in my letter, in the N,Z. Herald of the 22nd inst,, as I thought the Thames miners knew enough'of tributing to be against any hard and fast rate of .tribute, and I quoted an instance. Suppose a miner takes a i tribute at 10 per • cent., and clears 25s per week after paying carting, crushing, and mine requisites; •he then has to pay tho company or mine owner 2s 6d per week, although he has not made wages. The Mining Aot absolves him from paying any tribute unless he is clearing 20a per j week. I But what is 20s per week for j a man': with , a family ? Not much. My Boheme is much fairer both for the tributer and the shareholders in companies, the latter of whom are, just as'poor and earn less wages than the miners.,. I oan assure my Thames'. friends that tho, shareholders! in our Thames call-paying companies are not the rich people of our city land province, but tho so-called poor man, : who pays his penny call in I the expectation that we will strike something good soon. My own past experience has shown that a tributer should riot.be compelled to pay tribute until he ihas earned wages. Neither has a tributer any right to make a pile unless he allows, the shareholder to participate and this can only be done by a sliding; scale, . Both your correspondents agree that surface blocks are exhausted; so that for any find a tributer may make now, he is entirely indebted to the aforesaid shareholders in opening iup the mines by shafts, adit levels, e(o., With all duo deference to my friend J. W. Walker, sliding scales are neither unfair nor unworkable, if no percentage is oharged, unless the tributer j is. making wages. It is certainly unfair to ask him to pay 2s 6d per week out of 255, If all the ground on the Thames was advertised to be let on tribute at 10 per cent I will venture to say that not one party in ten would But suppose thetenth party made a pile, that would not benefit the other mine, and would bo a grievous injustice to the poor shareholder, by whose expenditure in opening up. the mine, he was, enabled to get the gold,. I would have given you my opinion ,of what, I considered a sliding scale should be in my last'letter, but I thought it would have been trespassing too niuoh on your space, but I will give, it now:— ;i. Under loz per load, nothing unless tributer has made wages. Over loz under 2oz 10 per cent. „ 2oz j, 3oz 12£ ,» , y ,' 3oz „ 4oz 15 „ ■ „ 4oz „ ooz 17£ '» „ soz „ 6oz 20 „ ~ 6oz „ 7oz 22J- » „ 7oz „ Boz 25 ,'„ , . „ ' Boz „ 9oz 27J „ „ 9oz „ lOoz 30 „ „ 106z „ 15oz 40 ~ 15oz and over 50 „

So that suppose a tributer got 15oz | per load; worth, say £41 5b he would be a greedy tributer if he refused to give half to the people who had made it pos« sible for him to get on the gold, and the company, whowouldnot becontentwith 50 per cent of the gold won,'whether local or English would, be hard to please. I am absolutely certain that if the Hauraki and Kapanga tributes had. been ■ let on a sliding, soale, we would not have the present opposition to tribute letting. :As for buying a 1 tributer out when he had a good thing on, it is. pure bunkum, and such a proposition would never be made by practical Jmen. I do object to a tributer working for nothing and I also object tb,a ; tributer getting a big haul and the shareholders whose money had enabled him to get it, not participating fairly. But our friend J. W. Waker has something up his.sleeve, What did he see at.Montana?—l am, sir, r ■ S. COOIIRA^EMAOKY, AtiOKLAND, June 22,1898..