680 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION H. 
extinct and people who are not managing mines, but who 
control them, learn that a manager has, or should have, far 
more intellectual and onerous duties than the directions 
of simple muscular effort. When it is recognised that a 
manager is the operating mining engineer, then there is 
some prospect of finding more mines laid out with well 
defined design; of finding more frequently proper and com- 
plete plans and records of all the workings, instead of an 
uncertain tradition only of the same; of finding proper 
means taken to secure ventilation; of economical means 
for handling the large amount of material that miners 
have to move daily, without everything being done, as 
is too often the case, by manual labour, often in the most 
‘awkward way; of finding the mine systematically worked, 
instead of each pocket being emptied as it is found—large 
dividends paid for six months, and then a long blank, 
whilst four or six men are painfully at work trying to find 
another patch, and as many more men, by no means fully 
employed, on the surface looking after them, and ail the 
expenses of the staff, such as it may be, still going on; all 
the capital sunk in machinery, and the previous mine 
operations standing idle and costing money. As to the men 
who ought to be kept steady at work, they are looking for 
jobs elsewhere, and waiting for luck to turn. Such is the 
state, too often, of the mine “paying calls’’—waiting for the 
work that the directorate and the management should have 
done in the days of prosperity, when it would not have cost 
a third as much to do. Fortunate#is such a mine if sheer 
grit and luck finally pull it through, and it gets at full work 
again; too often it shuts down, some one buys the plant, its 
pumps are drawn, and what might have been asource of profit 
to the whole district and its shareholders is lost practically 
for all time to the State. It is in marked contrast to some 
instances of mining that can beseenin Australia. And why? 
Simply the want of mining engineers on its directorate or 
management. To take another case, not so bad. How 
many mine engines would not be at once condemned as 
positive encumbrances of the ground if a few indicator cards 
were taken; or, rather, what a busy time there would be 
on valves and details in the machine and fitting shops of 
the district if a few good mechancial engineers | were 
really let loose in some of our settled mining districts. 
Whether the wood-carters or the coal merchants would be 
at first equally well pleased is quite another matter; but 
their energies would be soon absorbed in consequence, 
probably to supply the fuel for a greatly increased output. 
