MINERALS.
South Australia is a copper colony. Victoria, New South Wales, and
Queensland are pre-eminently golden. Tasmania is doing a little
business in gold, but by no means enough to give her importance.
Western Australia has lead-mines, though as yet she has derived but
little wealth from them; she also is waiting for gold, hoping that
it may yet turn up. South Australia is undoubtedly auriferous. Not
only have specks of gold been found as in Western Australia, but
diggers have worked at the trade, and have lived upon it, and the
industry is still continued. At a publican’s house I saw bottles of
gold, which he made it a part of his trade to buy from diggers. At a
certain bank in Adelaide I saw a cabinet with drawers half full of
gold, which it was a part of the business of the bankers to buy from
publicans or other intermediate agents. But this was all digger’s gold,
not miner’s gold,--gold got by little men in little quantities from
surface-washing. Of gold mines proper there are none as yet in the
colony. That there will be such found and worked up in the northern
territory, within the tropics, is now an opinion prevalent in Adelaide.
Whether there be ground for such hope I have no evidence on which to
form an opinion; but should this be the case, the northern territory
will probably become a separate colony. Of this, however, I shall
have to speak again in another chapter. Up to the time of my visit to
Adelaide gold to the value of three-quarters of a million sterling had
as yet been found in South Australia. This, of course, is as nothing
to the produce of the three eastern colonies, and therefore South
Australia is not hitherto entitled to consider herself as a golden land.
But what she has wanted in gold she has made up in copper. And in some
respects the copper has, I think, been better than gold, as affording
a more wholesome class of labour. There is less of gambling in the
business,--less of gambling even among the shareholders and managing
people, and infinitely less temptation to gamble among the workmen. The
fact that the metal must be dealt with in large quantities, that vast
weights must be moved, and that heavy machinery must be employed, that
no man can find enough to support himself for six months by a stroke
of luck and carry it away in his waistcoat pocket, gives a sobriety to
the employment which the search after gold often lacks. It is quite
true that latterly the great discoveries of Australia have needed works
as ponderous, shafts as deep, and machinery as costly, as any other
description of mining enterprise; but, nevertheless, the enormous
wealth which may be represented by a small quantity has a direct
tendency to create a speculative spirit in the minds of all employed.
The miner who earns his £2 10_s._ a week by blasting a quartz reef may
work as steadily, and certainly does work as hard, as he who is picking
up coal or copper-bearing dirt, but he is conscious all through that it
is gold upon which he is working, and his imagination, aroused by the
richness of the metal he is seeking, is ever pushing him on to personal
speculation;--till the goal before his eyes is not the few hundred
pounds which he certainly could save by industry as a miner, but the
fortune which he might possibly make by some happy circumstance in his
favour as a speculator. The circumstance now and again does occur; but
the result is not always happy. There is much less of such incentive to
gambling among copper mines;--though it is not altogether absent, for
copper mines are also worked upon tribute.
The Kapunda copper-mine is the oldest in the colony, having been
discovered in 1843, by two gentlemen engaged in squatting operations.
It was considered to be a great day in the colony when the first ore
was raised from this mine on January 8, 1844. The Kapunda mines are
still worked; but their celebrity was soon eclipsed by the famous Burra
Burra mine, and has now been altogether cast into the shade by the
mines at Wallaroo and Moonta. I did not visit Kapunda, but I was told
that the town itself is prosperous and well ordered.
The Burra Burra copper-mines, if not the next discovered in South
Australia, were the next of any magnitude, and were for some years the
great source of South Australian mining wealth. They have had a much
wider fame than those of Kapunda. They are about ninety miles nearly
due north from Adelaide, and they have the advantage of a railway for
the whole distance. The one great railway of the colony runs from
Adelaide to Kooringa, the name of the town close to which the Burra
Burra mines are situated, with a branch to Kapunda, of which place I
have already spoken. Copper therefore may be said to have made the
existing railways of the colony. The copper at Burra Burra was first
found by a shepherd, named Pickitt, in 1845. What became of Pickitt I
never heard; but two companies were at once formed for the purchase
from the government of 20,000 acres under special survey. This was the
land in which the copper was known to lie, but its exact whereabouts
was still a mining mystery. Of these two companies one was called the
Nobs, as being specially aristocratic; the other, which was plebeian,
were the Snobs. They combined, as neither could raise sufficient money
alone, and the government could not or would not grant a special survey
under a fixed amount which either separately was unable to pay. The
land was then divided, and the two companies drew lots. The Snobs got
the northern portion and all the copper, and the Nobs were driven to
resell their moiety for pastoral purposes. Where the copper did lie, it
lay absolutely on the surface. There was as it were a rock of copper,
so that deep sinking was not necessary. During the first six years of
the mine’s history 80,000 tons of ore were shipped to England, giving a
profit of nearly half a million sterling. The company had begun with a
capital of only £1,500 over and above the sum expended on the purchase
of the land. Those were the palmy days of the Burra Burra mines, of
which we used to hear much in England.
In 1851 the miners, attracted by the new gold of the next colony,
rushed away to the Victorian gold-diggings, and the Burra Burra were
almost deserted. But after a time the men returned, and English miners
were got over from Cornwall, and the success was continued. In 1859,
1,170 persons were employed there. But gradually the surface copper was
worked out, and the great attraction of other and still richer mines at
Wallaroo and Moonta paled the ineffectual fire of Burra Burra. For a
time the works were almost ceased. When I visited the place in 1872 new
operations under a new management had commenced, and many in the colony
believed that a complete resuscitation would take place. There were,
however, not a great number of hands employed, and the works going
on,--which were on a large scale,--seemed to be preparatory to copper
production rather than themselves productive. There are three towns
adjacent to these mines, Kooringa, which I have already named, Redruth,
and Aberdeen. Thrown together they make one broken, meandering,
unfinished street, which is by no means tempting to the ordinary
traveller. It is hard to say how these things arrange themselves; but
the wealth of the great Burra Burra mine certainly has not succeeded in
making a great Burra Burra city.
But Wallaroo is now the greatest name in South Australian copper-mines,
and Moonta is second to it. Between Gulf St. Vincent and Spencer’s Gulf
there lies a large outstretching territory, bearing nearly as close a
semblance to a man’s leg as does Italy, called Yorke’s Peninsula. At
the top of this, at the part of the leg farthest from the foot, close
on the shore of Spencer’s Gulf, and therefore on the outside of the
leg, is Wallaroo. Here, previous to 1860, a squatter held a station
for sheep, which even for that purpose was by no means encouraging. As
a spot to be inhabited by men and women nothing could be more dreary
or unfortunate. There was no water, and even the wells when dug gave
forth water so brackish that it could not be used. The vegetation was
stunted and miserable. The ground was sandy and barren. Here, on 17th
December, 1859, a shepherd, named Boor, found a piece of copper, and
brought the tidings to his master. Within a few months £80,000 had been
advanced for working copper-mines by a mercantile firm in Adelaide. The
squatter was in the way to become a very rich man, and the shepherd had
become a mining hero. In the very next year another shepherd, named
Ryan, found another piece of copper at a place called Moonta, about ten
miles from Wallaroo, on the same sheep station,--and this was at once
worked by the same persons. This other shepherd was also enriched, and
the squatter became a millionaire. Perhaps few mines were ever opened
in which there has been a quicker, and at the same time a steadier,
mercantile progress than in those of Wallaroo and Moonta.
There are five distinct towns, all created by these mines, standing
within ten miles of each other, containing together about 17,000
inhabitants; and previous to 1860 there was no house in the district
but a wretched cottage, hardly better than a hut. The two townships
laid out by government are Kadina, near to the Wallaroo mines, and
Moonta, close to those bearing that name. But these mines had the
inestimable benefit of being near the sea;--and now there is a third
town, called Port Wallaroo, from which the copper is shipped, joined
both to Kadina and to Moonta by railway. Port Wallaroo is a thriving
harbour, and is perhaps the largest of the five, as here are built the
smelting works at which the ore is turned into copper. For a time the
ore was sent over to Swansea and was smelted there,--but as the two
companies became rich and powerful, smelting works were opened, and
the copper is now sent to England in bars. But the miners do not live
either at Kadina, at Moonta Town, or at Port Wallaroo. They have built
habitations for themselves round the very mouths of the shafts, and
in this way two other vast villages have sprung up, called Wallaroo
Mines and Moonta Mines. Very singular places they are,--consisting of
groups of low cottages, clustering together in streets, one street
being added on to another as the need for them arises, not built with
any design such as is usual in the towns of new countries, but created
by the private enterprise of the inhabitants,--and in fact put up
in opposition to the law. The surface is government land leased out
specially for mining purposes, and not for building purposes. No one
is entitled to build on it. There are the townships, duly laid out
in accordance with the law, close by, on which any one may build who
desires to live there, purchasing his lot for the purpose in the proper
way. But the workman’s need to be near his work has been too strong for
the law, and these towns, much bigger than the towns of the townships
proper, have established themselves.
In no instance is the centralizing tendency of the government in young
countries and amidst scanty populations more visible than in their
management of new towns; and it never struck me more forcibly than
at Wallaroo and Moonta. It is either necessary, or the government
thinks that it is necessary, that everything should be arranged for
the new-coming inhabitants, and that they should be called upon to
manage nothing for themselves. Roads and bridges are made from the
taxes. The land is divided out into its sections by the government.
Any comer may buy his section at a certain price, and may build his
house,--but he must deal with the government officers, and must build
his house according to specification. The idea, no doubt, is not only
compatible with freedom of action, but is intended to encourage it, and
springs from a theory of democratic equality. It is the duty of the
government to see that one man does not ride over another, that the
smallest and the poorest may have their share of the public wealth of
the community,--that as far as possible there shall be no very small
men and no very big men. The Utopian politician travels as far as he
can away from the despotism of patriarchal rule, but he travels in a
circle and comes back to it. The minister, though he be chosen by the
people, becomes a despot; and, like other despots, he is forced to rule
so that he may please his favourites. The favourites of the minister
in a democratic community are they who can support him in parliament;
and on their behalf he finds himself too often forced to read the law
either this way or that. In these mining townships the land sold for
building had been sold with certain protective privileges. They who
bought were not only entitled to keep shops, but were encouraged to buy
land by the assurance that no shops should be kept by others within a
certain distance outside the township. Consequently no miner’s wife
can buy an ounce of tea, or a yard of ribbon, or a delf cup, without
going out of the bigger concourse of people to the lesser to make her
purchase; nor can the miner, if he fancies that the prices at Kadina
or at Moonta are too high for him, try the question by opening a rival
shop for himself in his own immediate locality. In these large mining
villages nothing can be bought and nothing sold. In reality the man
when he has constructed a house has not even a house to sell. He should
have built it in the official town if he desired to avail himself of
his property.
The matter is mentioned here chiefly because I thus get an opportunity
of alluding to general interference of government in matters which
with us are altogether beyond its scope. No doubt such interference
is necessary in new communities. Government must do more when nothing
has already been done, than it can do with an old-established nation.
It must make roads. It must apportion the land. It must take upon its
shoulders for a while the duties which fall afterwards upon local
officers. But the tendency is to centralize power, and to put a
privilege of interfering into the hands of individuals, which privilege
can be and is improperly used for political purposes, and which to an
observer from an old country seems to be antagonistic to liberty. I do
not know that the miners at Wallaroo and Moonta suffer very much from
their restricted rights. I do not think that they know that they suffer
at all. But I groaned for them in spirit when I found that not one
among them could put up a penn’orth of barley-sugar for sale in his own
cottage windows. Such restriction would very quickly create a rebellion
in England.
I went down a mine at Wallaroo, finding it always to be a duty to go
down a shaft on visiting any mining locality,--and I came up again.
But I cannot say that I saw anything when I was down there. The
descent was 450 feet, and I felt relieved when I was once more on the
surface. I walked below among various levels, and had the whole thing
explained to me;--but for no useful purpose whatever. It was very hard
work, and I think I should have begged for mercy had any additional
level been proposed to me; as it was, I went through it like a man,
without complaint,--and was simply very much fatigued. As I rose to
the air I swore I would never go down another mine, and hitherto I
have kept my vow. I found that miners working for simple wages could
earn about £1 18_s._ a week, and that men on tribute would realise
something more,--perhaps about £2 5_s._ The “tribute” men undoubtedly
worked harder, as they were toiling on their own behalf, reaping the
advantage of their increased labour. In speaking of the Victorian
gold mines, I have endeavoured to explain the system of tribute,--by
which the miner is enabled to share both in the profit and in the
risk of the speculation. No doubt the result in the raising of copper
is the same as in the finding of gold; but the transaction is by no
means equally speculative. The man who works for gold on tribute may
find none, and be called upon not only to work on, but also to defray
expenses. Whereas the miner on tribute in a copper-mine does not go
into the affair till it is known that the copper is there. According to
the percentage of ore which is extracted, his earnings will be higher
or lower;--but his earnings are assured, and, as the result of the
arrangement, by working harder than he would otherwise work he simply
earns more than he would otherwise earn.
At the Wallaroo mines I found a set of black natives employed on the
surface work, at regular wages of 4_s._ 4_d._ a day, or 26_s._ a week.
There were about ten of them, and I was told that they had been there
for three months, and had been as regular in their attendance as white
men. This was the only instance I found in Australia in which I myself
came upon any number of these aborigines in regular and voluntary
employment. I have seen a man at one station and a woman at another as
to whom I have been told that they were regarded as part of the regular
establishment,--but it always seemed that their work was of a fitful
kind. I learned also that in one or two of the colonies, in Western
Australia and in Queensland, they are drilled and used as policemen for
the control of their own countrymen;--but such service as this I can
hardly regard as steady, regular work. Here the experiment was said
to have answered for the period that I have named. I came across one
of these men, who was supposed to be a little ill, and therefore not
on duty at the moment. He was dressed in a very genteel manner,--with
clothes softer and finer than a white miner would wear even when on a
holiday. He was very gentle and civil, but not very communicative. He
bought clothes with his money, he said, and food,--and the rest he put
away. He did not resent the impertinence of my inquiries, but was not
quite willing to gratify my curiosity. My desire was to learn whether
he had realised the advantage of laying up and permanently possessing
property. I doubt whether he had, although he did mutter something as
to putting away his wages. He seemed much more willing to talk about
the cold in the head under which he had been suffering than of his
general condition in life.
At the smelting works of Wallaroo men were earning higher wages than in
the mines;--something like an average of £2 10_s._ a week;--but their
hours of labour were longer. The miners work day and night, by shifts
of eight hours each. The smelters work also throughout the twenty-four
hours,--but they work only in two sets. I should think that twelve
hours by a furnace must be worse than eight below ground. The smelters,
however, probably do not keep at it during the whole time. The smelters
I found had, almost to a man, come from Wales, whereas so many of the
miners were Cornish men as to give to Moonta and Wallaroo the air of
Cornish towns.
Coal for the smelting is brought from Newcastle, in New South Wales;
but the inferior ore is sent to other smelting works at Newcastle,--so
that the ships which bring the coal may go back with freights. The
copper therefore is sent to the European markets, not only from Port
Wallaroo, but also from Newcastle.
When I was in the colony in April, 1872, copper, which in April, 1871,
had been worth only £74 per ton, rose to £105,--so that the happy
owners of mines in a working condition were revelling in a success not
inferior to that of the squatters. Copper and wool were both so high
that the fortune of the colony was supposed to be made. I found that
there were no less than 70 “reputed” mines in the colony at the close
of the year 1870, of which 38 were reported to have been then at work.
But sundry even of these 38 were not supposed to be remunerative. Many
of the 70 so-called “reputed” mines are mere mining claims, which are
held under government as possible future speculations. Those which are
distant from the sea and distant also from railways cannot be worked
with a profit, let the ore be ever so rich. The cost of the carriage
destroys the wealth of the copper. At present when men talk of the
mining wealth of South Australia they allude to Wallaroo and Moonta.
I have said that these places are joined together by a railway,--but
they are not joined to any other place by rail. The traveller to
Wallaroo is forced to go from Adelaide either by coach or by steamer
round the Gulfs. I was taken there by one of the great copper-mining
authorities of the colony, and we elected to go by coach, in order
that I might see something of the country. The coach was a mail-coach,
with four horses, running regularly on the road every day;--but on our
return journey we were absolutely lost in the bush,--coach, coachman,
horses, mails, passengers, and all. The man was trying a new track,
and took us so far away from the old track that no one knew where we
were. At last we found ourselves on the seashore. Of course it will be
understood that there was no vestige of a road or pathway. Travellers
are often “bushed” in Australia. They wander off their paths and are
lost amidst the forests. In this instance the whole mail-coach was
“bushed.” When we came upon the sea, and no one could say what sea it
was, I felt that the adventure was almost more than interesting.